Debt, sex, and money: Imperialist discourses of transactional sex across three geographic and cultural contexts

2024/02/14 by Rachel E. Davis · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Sex work and related issues #Gender, Feminism, and Media #Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology

paper · pdf · doi:10.1177/17488958241231879

openalex publication_date 2024/02/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/15

Abstract

Discourses surrounding similar forms of transactional sex in the United States and Europe, Africa, and East Asia exemplify the ways that sexual transactions serve as affectively charged inflection points at which gendered, racialized, and classed forms of power collide. Deconstructing academic discourses and affective strategies surrounding sugar arrangements in the United States and Europe, blessed relationships in Africa, and compensated dating in East Asia uncovers the ways that cultural norms surrounding sex, gender, and money serve to uphold imperialist, patriarchal, racist hierarchies. Outlying examples of intersectional discourses provide a roadmap for challenging these dominant power structures in the academic literature.

Discussions

• My article about the need for intersectionality in research on transactional sex is now published in Criminology & Criminal Justice! I argue that much of the existing research on transactional sex rep [bsky, 4 points, 1 comments]

Related

• Sex instead of money: Conceptualizing sexual corruption
• Money and Sexuality, A Study of Martin Amis’ Money A Suicide Note
• Understanding Economic Abuse Through an Intersectional Lens: Financial Abuse, Control, and Exploitation of Women’s Productive and Reproductive Labor
• Inextricable Aspects of Sex and Race
• The Allure of Transactional Intimacy in Sugar Dating