Beyond Dichotomies of Victimization versus Agency: Bringing in Gendered Spatial Subject Positions Related to Intimacy

A new growing literature that merges from the scholarly fields of migration and sex work questions the concepts of ‘sex work’ and ‘prostitution’. Instead, this literature (Cabezas 2006, Fair 2007, Casas 2010, Spanger 2012 and 2013, Mai 2013, Groes-Gren 2013 etc.) argues in different ways that the sale of sexual services cannot just be perceived as an isolated activity. Instead, this new literature questions the way in which former studies have compartmentalized sexual services from other social and intimate relations and activities. In order to open up for this entanglement of money, sex and love concepts like ‘transactional relationships’, ‘intimate migrations´, ‘flexible intimacy’ etc. are introduced.

Anchored in a case study of Thai migrants married or having intimate relationship to Danish white men as well as selling sexual services in Denmark full time or occasionally this contribution argues that the gendered subject positions of sex worker, wife and migrant intersects in different ways. The intersection of the gendered subject positions depends on how the migrants perform gender in different places and environments where heteronormativity and discourses of heterosexuality are predominant. Thus, this case study is an example of how flexible intimacies are established. The case study is based on fieldwork consisting of interviews with and participant observations of female Thai migrants living in Denmark both female born subjects, transgendered subjects (m-t-f) and cross-dressers.