Tourism in Transnational Places: Dominican Sex Workers and German Sex Tourists Imagine One Another

This paper considers how Dominican sex workers and German sex tourists imagine each other across national borders. They meet in a transnational space, Sosúa, a tourist town on the north coast of the Dominican Republic. Sex tourism has redirected migration patterns within the Dominican Republic to Sosúa, as well as off the island by building new transnational connections to Germany. I examine why Dominican women migrate to Sosúa's sex trade, how they see German men, and what happens when they actually establish ongoing relationships with them—both in Sosúa and in Germany. I also look at how German men find out about Sosúa, its sex trade, and Dominican women. I focus on forms of communication through which they find out about one another, communication that ranges from word of mouth to newspapers, magazines, and the Internet (in the case of the men only). In Sosúa we see the relationship among capitalism's disruptive, restructuring activities; powerful images, fantasies, and desires (produced both locally and globally) that are inextricably tied up with race and gender; the emergence of young, poor, black, single mothers who are willing to engage in the sex trade; and a strong demand for these women's services on the part of white, working‐class, lower‐middle, and middle‐class, foreign male tourists.

Key words:

• Gender
• Transnational Processes
• Tourism
• Sex Tourism
• Internet