Post-fordist desires: The commodity aesthetics of bangkok sex shows
Abstract
This essay investigates the political economy of sexuality through an interpretation
of sex shows for foreigners in Bangkok, Thailand. Reading these performances as both
symptoms of, and analytical commentaries on, Western consumer desire, the essay suggests
the 'pussy shows' parody the mass production that was a hallmark of Western masculine
identity under Fordism. This reading makes a case for the erotic generativity of capitalism,
illuminating how Western, post-Fordist political economy of the post-1970s generated
demand for these erotic services in Asia and how Western, heterosexual masculine desire
is integrated into global capitalist circuits. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media
B.V.
Type
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https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6761Published Version (Please cite this version)
10.1007/s10691-010-9145-2Publication Info
Wilson, A (2010). Post-fordist desires: The commodity aesthetics of bangkok sex shows. Feminist Legal Studies, 18(1). pp. 53-67. 10.1007/s10691-010-9145-2. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/6761.This is constructed from limited available data and may be imprecise. To cite this
article, please review & use the official citation provided by the journal.
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Show full item recordScholars@Duke
Ara Wilson
Associate Professor of Gender, Sexuality & Feminist Studies
My work makes analytical and empirical contributions to the feminist study of globalization
and to what I call queer political economy (QPE). Combining Science & Technology Studies
(STS) approaches with materialist theories, I remain invested in empirical esearch,
particularly ethnographically informed depictions of life under global capitalism.
This direction also involved reflection on analytical categories and frameworks, such
as intimacy, infrastructure, or gender. I have conducted long-

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