Skip to main content

Advanced Topics in Sexuality, Gender, and Race (360-0-1)

Topic

Sex Work in Asian America

Instructors

Raymond Andrew San Diego
Crowe 1-125

Meeting Info

University Hall 118: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM

Overview of class

From karaoke bars to military bases, from local dungeons to worldwide webcams, from sites of grassroots organization to spaces of neoliberal legislation, between international borders and across electronically mediated networks, how are these institutions, spaces, subjects, and normalized practices interconnected through a web of power, control, and profit and how have Asian Americans navigated and negotiated these terrains?

Students will read an array of texts written by and/or relating to Asian/American sex workers, including: historical and contemporary legislation, selections from ethnographic studies of sex work in Asia and the United States, as well as first- hand accounts of Asian/American sex workers who make a living by teaching/ practicing BDSM, shooting mainstream and internet pornography, supplying consensual sexual services, organizing for sex worker rights and the decriminalization of sex work, and more. Students should be prepared to engage with texts, films, and speakers covering a spectrum of experiences/intensities emerging from this course's capacious approach to the concept of "sex work."

Class Attributes

Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area