Love, Finance, and Authenticity in Gay Sex Tourism.

Martín Baca

07/10/2016

Love, Finance, and Authenticity in Gay Sex Tourism

The reading begins talking about a business dedicated to the prostitution that involves gay prostitution, women prostitution, and men prostitution. It talks about the history of a business in Dominican Republic talking about the “bugarrones”, and other employees of this place, such as the bartender Hector, who manages to get really generous tips from the drunk costumers. Another kind of business under the table is the how the police get payments from “bugarrones”. Then they talk to Simon who began to describe most of the attitudes of “bugarrones” and customers. He describes what customers ask when they first enter, and getting really clear what they want. In the attitudes of the sexual workers he talks about what is the minimum salary, and he explains that as a sexual worker you can make the same amount in only a week, and sometimes even in a night. The female sexual workers explained that they way prefer older men to work for because they in almost every time have more money, and when they create a bond with them they usually send money or even visas to travel. They also explained that they prefer tourist because they have more money, and they are more respectful than the Dominican men. Dominican men are rough with women, mistreat them, and call them names; in other words, the abuse them sexually and verbally. They even believe that it could be really convenient to get pregnant of a tourist so they could take better care of their kids. The next topic the reading talks about is how sexual workers create connections with their regular tourist customers. When they responded to a survey about if a “bugarron” could fall in love with a gay customer, the 70% declared that it could be possible, but when they were asked personally only the 30% said that it was possible. The reading explains this with examples from both customers and sexual workers. The history that impacted me the most was the one from Jeffrey. Jeffrey was a costumer who at first just went there for anonymous sex, but he would have a relationship with two “bugarrones” Fernando and Leonardo. He began saying that he does not believe that is love, and even if that is he will live in denial as both Fernando and Leonardo al prostitutes. He then says that he compromised to send them 50$ on his payday. He tells that Fernando never ask for anything, while Leonardo tells him he has to visit his family and he needs 500 pesos, but he first tell Jeffrey he considers him a friend so Jeffrey feels touched. Jeffery actually admitted that he has thought about if they only liked him for the money, but he preferred not to ask. He tells that Leonardo even took Jeffrey to meet his family, and make Jeffrey see how they live in Dominican Republic. After a time, Jeffrey began to felt more in love with Fernando so he would pay more attention to Fernando than he did to Leonardo, but his relationship went really deep so he in New York have lost everything: friends, interest in job, money because he felt needy and depressed as he needed to go back to Dominican Republic. Finally, the reading talks about what customers want in sexual workers, talking about submission and other sexual acts.

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