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Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline, and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work by Kimberly Kay Hoang (review)

Few books weave so many important sociological questions into one compelling and readable narrative. Dealing in Desire: Asian Ascendancy, Western Decline and the Hidden Currencies of Global Sex Work is one of those that successfully pulls together insights on the political economy of globalization, sex, gender, race, and the body into a fascinating ethnography on the sex industry in Vietnam. The book is a groundbreaking look at the culture of East Asian ascendancy, the decline of Western masculine hegemony, and the role of the intimate economy in global development. Set during the Asian economy’s recent rise, Kimberly Kay Hoang gained access to a world few have seen, working for months at a time in Saigon’s high-, middle-, and lower-end hostess bars. Hoang tells a series of enthralling stories that operate at a number of different levels. We glimpse the everyday lives of sex workers and their clients. We glimpse the world of high finance in developing countries and the forging of personal trust that makes multi-billion-dollar deals possible in an uncertain legal climate. We see urban clients’ benevolent cash donations to sex workers’ families in the villages. We glimpse expatriates’ search for Asian authenticity. And we see how the sex workers in each layer facilitate the capital flows that make Vietnam’s rise possible. Hoang begins the book by painting a picture of the three niche markets in which she lived and worked: the elite Khong Sao Bar, catering to very wealthy Asian and Vietnamese businessmen; the fairly high-end Lavender Bar, catering to ex-Vietnamese visiting from overseas; and Secrets and Naughty Girls, two bars catering to Western expatriates and businessmen. She then details the sex workers’ roles in building gender hierarchies, from the subtle glass-clinking and eye contact that signaled pecking order among businessmen, to facilitating demonstrations of wealth signaling Vietnamese ascendency and Western male decline. In one memorable story, a wealthy Vietnamese businessman at the Khong Sao Bar feigned splitting a substantial bill with Taiwanese businessmen whom he knew Book Review 1