Feeling sexual transgression: subjectivity, bodily experience, and non-normative hetero-erotic practices in women's cross-border sex in Costa Rica

Abstract

Participating in sexual tourism and cross-border sex, heterosexual Euro-North American women are a targeted social group whereby accusations, such as ‘fucking gringa’, label them as sexual transgressors for violating multiple boundaries of heteronormativity. The complex power dynamics of women's cross-border sex are due to negotiations of race, gender, and class that are played out in specific locales and political economies of desire. Within these dynamics, women are agentive social actors and exert considerable sexual agency in their desires for local men who are positioned unevenly vis-à-vis tourist women's mobilities within erotic markets. Yet women's hetero-erotic sexual practices, which are experienced at the level of the body, cannot be assumed; looking at the lived experiences of women as sexual trangressors in these spaces promises to complicate non-normative heterosexuality and the gendered dynamics of (straight) transnational sex. Using critical ethnography and a performance approach to writing that places subjectivity at the center of the ethnographic record and analysis, this article conveys an ‘insider’ or emic account of women's transnational sex taking place in a Caribbean region of Costa Rica renown for women's sexual and romance tourism. In taking this approach, I aim to show how heterosexuality, hetero-erotic practices, and cross-border sex are not always what they seem and a glimpse into ‘the subjects’ worlds in their words' (Madison, Soyini. 2005. Critical Ethnography: Method, Ethics, and Performance. London: Sage, 174) has implications for theory concerned with the body and performance as fundamental to the social production of sexual transgression.

Sentir la transgresión sexual: subjetividad, experiencia corporal, y prácticas hetero-eróticas no-normativas en el sexo de mujeres a través de las fronteras

Participando en el turismo sexual y en el sexo a través de las fronteras, las mujeres euro-norteamericanas heterosexuales son un grupo social buscado por lo cual las acusaciones, tales como “maldita gringa”, las etiquetan como transgresoras por violar múltiples límites de la heteronormatividad. La compleja dinámica de poder del sexo de las mujeres a través de las fronteras se debe a las negociaciones de raza, género, y clase que se juegan en lugares específicos y economías políticas del deseo. Dentro de estas dinámicas, las mujeres son actoras sociales con agencia y ejercen una agencia sexual considerable en sus deseos hacia hombres locales que están posicionados en forma desigual con respecto a las movilidades de las mujeres turistas dentro de los mercados eróticos. Sin embargo las prácticas sexuales hetero-eróticas de las mujeres, que son experimentadas al nivel del cuerpo, no pueden ser asumidas; observar las experiencias vividas de las mujeres como transgresoras sexuales en estos espacios promete complicar la heterosexualidad no-normativa y la dinámica generizada del sexo (heterosexual) transnacional. Utilizando etnografía crítica y un abordaje de performatividad hacia la escritura que coloca la subjetividad en el centro de la del registro y análisis etnográfico, este artículo transmite un relato “desde adentro” o émico del sexo transnacional de las mujeres que tiene lugar en la región caribeña de Costa Rica famosa por el turismo sexual y romántico de mujeres. Al tomar este abordaje, apunto a mostrar cómo la heterosexualidad, las prácticas hetero-eróticas, y el sexo transfronterizo no son siempre lo que parecen y una mirada hacia “los mundos de los sujetos en sus palabras” (Madison 2005:174) tiene implicancias para la teoría relacionada con el cuerpo y la performatividad como fundamental para la producción social de la transgresión sexual.

感受性的僭越：女性跨越国界的性中的主体性、身体化经验，以及非常规的异性情慾实践

欧洲—北美异性恋女性参与性观光和跨越国界的性爱，是一群被锁定的社会群体，并被诸如“白种性爱女人”等控诉，贴上违反多重异性恋常规边界的性僭越者之标籤。女性的跨国界性爱所涉及的复杂权力动态，是由在特定地点和慾望的政治经济中上演的种族、性别和阶级协商所导致。在这些动态关係中，女性是具有能动性的社会行动者，并在其对在地男性的慾望中，大幅发挥性的能动性；而在地的男性，则在情慾市场中，被不公平地置放于女性观光客的能动性的对立面。但女性在身体层级所经验的异性恋情慾性爱实践，却无法被假定之；检视这些身为该空间中的性僭越者的女性的生活经验，允诺了复杂化非常规异性恋与（异性恋）跨国性爱的性别化动态。本文运用批判民族志，以及在民族志纪录与分析的核心书写该地方主体性的展演取径，对发生在哥斯大黎加的加勒比区域这个以女性性爱及罗曼史观光闻名之地的女性跨国性爱，传达“内部人士”或圈内人的解释。我旨在透过此一方法，揭露异性恋、异性恋实践以及跨国界性爱，并不总是如同其表面所展现的一般，并显示其语言中的“主体”世界（Madison 2005:174）之瞥见，对于考量身体和展演做为性僭越的社会生产根本之理论具有意涵。

Keywords:

• heterosexualities
• transnational sex
• sexual transgression
• non-normative heterosexuality
• tourist women

Palabras claves:

• Palabras claves: heterosexualidades
• sexo transnacional
• transgresión sexual
• heterosexualidad no-normativa
• turismo de mujeres

关键词::

• 关键词：异性恋；跨国性爱；性的僭越；非常规异性恋；女性观光客

Acknowledgements

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the University of Manitoba Research Grant Program funded this research, for which I am grateful. I am also grateful for invaluable input on this paper from several colleagues – especially Adriana Piscitelli, Ana Dragojvolic, Sam Wild Chick, Carolina Meneses, and two anonymous reviewers – as well as the editorial guidance of Pamela Moss and editorial assistance of Jenny Lloyd. For their patience and generous contributions of time and knowledge, I appreciatively acknowledge the men and women who participated in my research and the community of Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. Last but never least, I am thankful to Alex and Breck for keeping the house lively and walking the dogs while I write.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

^1. I use pseudonyms in this article.

^2. She was picking up on representations of Caribbean sexuality in reggae and dancehall music where oral sex, along with homosexuality, is regarded with deviancy (Sharpe and Pinto 2006). However, as much as women commonly claimed their Caribbean boyfriends would not engage in oral sex with them, other women's experiences were to the contrary.

^3. I have since interviewed local women who have corroborated this notion of foreign women who ‘will do anything when it comes to sex’. But rather than truisms these stories of what ‘other’ women do sexually must be seen as contesting discourses that speak to wider antagonisms between cultural groups of heterosexual women who compete for the attention and resources of local men as well as changing sexual practices due to globalization (such as tourism and Internet pornography).

^4. ‘Mujer’ (‘woman’) was a cultural term unfamiliar to many tourist women struggling to understand the implications of this relational category signifying a stronger commitment than they wanted.

^5. I acknowledge here the words of Adriana Piscitelli.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Susan Frohlick

Susan Frohlick is a cultural anthropologist and Associate Professor with a cross-appointment in Women's and Gender Studies and Anthropology at the University of Manitoba. Her areas of interest are contemporary mobilities, tourism, and migration; gender and sexuality; subjectivity; transnational intimacies; and, ethnography. Her research has been published in Tourist Studies, Gender, Place and Culture, Mobilities, and a recent book, based on several years of fieldwork in Costa Rica, Sexuality, Women, and Tourism: Cross Border Desires through Contemporary Tourism, in Routledge's Contemporary Geographies of Leisure, Tourism, and Mobility Series.