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Chapter Seven Moral Panics Sex Tourism, Trafficking, and the Limits of Transnational Mobility Pérola, a black sex worker whom I met at Aprosba, once told me a story that made me think about the possibilities of transnational mobility for Brazilian women who sell sex. Pérola showed me a picture of Ivete, a brown-skinned sex worker in her late thirties or early forties who had just come back from a month in Germany.1 Ivete had gone to visit a gringo whom she met in Salvador, returning to share news, pictures, and stories about her positive experiences abroad. Experiences such as Ivete’s story offer a significant contrast to sensationalist news media accounts that depict any scenario where a foreign tourist facilitates a Brazilian woman’s trip to his country as a case of “trafficking,” with the underlying connotation that the woman will be “forced” into prostitution. Conversely, Fabiana, cofounder and lead organizer of Aprosba, shared with me a completely different perspective on the risks and possibilities of transnational mobility and migration for sex workers. She had had a foreign boyfriend who had started out as a client. For her, the defining factor that marked the man’s transition from client to boyfriend was that he no longer paid her for sex. He wanted to marry her and take her to Europe. However, Fabiana did not see this as an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She had significant reservations about traveling abroad with a client turned boyfriend: “I’m afraid to leave Brazil. I’m afraid of the cold, of language difficulties, of not having money to return.” Another sex worker, Lydia, shared a story of how a cafetina (madam) invited her to go to Spain. She was excited at the opportunity and got a passport. However, at the last minute, she refused to go, because she believed that Spanish men only liked to have sex without condoms, and she was not willing to subject herself to that kind of risk 142 chapter seven overseas. In other words, traveling abroad involved heightened vulnerability , a potential inability to negotiate, and less autonomy than remaining in one’s home country. Lydia did point out, however, that a lot of travestis go to Spain, implying perhaps that they are more willing to accept those circumstances. In these women’s stories, the specter of trafficking threatens what is often seen as the ultimate fantasy of women who engage in sex work with foreign tourists—transnational migration (Brennan 2004, 13–14). Instead of eagerly taking advantage of the opportunity to travel abroad, Fabiana was much more cautious about putting herself in a situation in which she might lose autonomy. A friend of hers had gone to Germany and been miserable because of the cold weather and because she was forced to drink a lot. Stories from acquaintances as well as information from the Humanitarian Center for the Support of Women (CHAME) about the specter of trafficking informed Fabiana ’s opinions about what might happen if she were to travel abroad with a client/boyfriend. Fabiana said, “The work of CHAME is very important for us, sex workers, because through CHAME we can inform ourselves about things that we previously didn’t know. Knowing how the traffic in women happens, we can prevent it and pass the information along to other women in our group.” Fabiana fearlessly defended sex workers’ right to migrate or travel abroad if they chose to do so: “If you want to go [abroad], go, but don’t go with money from an agent”—that is, someone who advances the travel money with the expectation that he or she will be repaid and receive exorbitant interest. These scenarios raise interesting questions about the possibilities of transnational mobility for socioeconomically disadvantaged Brazilian women. Intimate encounters with foreigners often provide the context and opportunity for travel or migration. As Suzane Maia points out in Transnational Desires: Brazilian Erotic Dancers in New York, “transnational mobility does not take place in a vacuum”; rather, it is “constrained by state and cultural institutions that both delineate and are delineated by everyday practices of particular individuals” (2012, 169). My point in juxtaposing Fabiana’s and Lydia’s fears with Ivete’s positive experiences is not necessarily to ask to what extent the sensationalized horror stories of trafficking are true. Serious cases of trafficking happen all over the world. Rather, my critique is that campaigns against sex tourism and trafficking often fall into the trap of problematically...

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