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When sex work isn't `work'

Hospitality, gay life, and the production of desiring labor

California State University, Fullerton, USA, dcollins{at}fullerton.edu

This interview-based research explores the lived experiences of gay hosts who `work' in a gentrifying urban tourist district in the City of Manila, the Philippines. My analysis complicates research on sex work by highlighting the changing forms of sexual labor in a transnational and `gay' urban neighborhood, which is shaped by state initiatives on sustainable tourism and international gay travel. In place of treating hospitality as `work', I draw on the concept of emotional labor to understand hospitality as an expression of `gay' and local identities and as a celebration of desire and place. I propose that studies of sexual labor in urban spaces struggling with development must contend with expressions of desire rather than treating sexuality as a commodity exchanged in global tourism.

Key Words: gay men • gay tourism • sex work • the Philippines • transnational sexualities • urban communities

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