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Male clients of Thai transgender sex workers in Europe
Author(s) -
PRAVATTIYAGUL JUTATHORN
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
anthropology today
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.419
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1467-8322
pISSN - 0268-540X
DOI - 10.1111/1467-8322.12435
Subject(s) - transgender , sex workers , sociocultural evolution , sex work , gender studies , fetishism , transgender people , sociology , power (physics) , demography , medicine , population , anthropology , research methodology , family medicine , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , physics , quantum mechanics
Academic approaches to the topic of Thai transgender women ( kathoey ) working in the sex industry have hitherto typically focused on their sociocultural background and economic motivations. These have relied heavily on feminist theories. Meanwhile, such studies have typically also treated their clients as products of heteropatriarchy or as deviants. This article presents fresh insights into Thai kathoey sex workers' European clients in the UK, the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium. This is a neglected field in sexual behaviour that involves fetishism and the reality of European men who prefer to buy sex from Thai transgender sex workers. With an anthropological understanding of power relations, the article questions the notion, common in studies of prostitution, that the entire story is one of vile human degradation and violence against transgender sex workers.