Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality, and AIDs in the Dominican Republic, by Mark Padilla, explores the social and economic effects of the Dominican Republic’s dependency on the tourism industry, particularly as they relate to male sex workers. The abundance of opportunity in the tourism industry—as opposed to the lack thereof in, per se, agriculture—all but forces migration of the middle class and the poor to urban areas, where they can easily access popular tourist destinations, such as Santo Domingo and Boca Chica. While it is somewhat easier to make a living working in the formal-sector occupations offered in these locations, like a guía (tour guide) or waitress, the fact remains that economic mobility is best achieved through
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Padilla displays this skill most expertly in chapter three, “Orgullo Gay Dominicano,” wherein he inserts a graph of prices for sex acts, as reported by male sex workers; the prices appear to be exaggerated, and Padilla points out as much, supplying the reader with various facts and figures that prove that the prices were most likely inflated by the men, either subconsciously or consciously (98-99). Also, Padilla’s statistical research on sex workers’ travel experience and the conclusions he draws from said research is yet another strong example of his balanced evidence (73-74). Whenever Padilla makes a statement or reference that is not ingrained in concrete, factual evidence, he makes it a point to qualify the implied or explicit argument behind it. While I was reading Caribbean Pleasure Industry, I often found myself waiting for Padilla to slip up and indirectly declare an opinion as fact, or present facts that supported one plausible argument and not the other. Of course, I seldom detected such a breach of ethnographic responsibility. Rarely in the book is Padilla’s own opinion on various topics he addresses blatantly evident. For every argument, he has a rebuttal, and he probably has a rebuttal to that rebuttal. Likewise, if he has any inkling that the sex workers he interview give him misleading information, he presents the information but alerts his reader of probable fallaciousness directly thereafter. This ultimately gives the reader a chance to form their own opinions based on research, without the overbearing influence of what Padilla, as the author, views as
Padilla displays this skill most expertly in chapter three, “Orgullo Gay Dominicano,” wherein he inserts a graph of prices for sex acts, as reported by male sex workers; the prices appear to be exaggerated, and Padilla points out as much, supplying the reader with various facts and figures that prove that the prices were most likely inflated by the men, either subconsciously or consciously (98-99). Also, Padilla’s statistical research on sex workers’ travel experience and the conclusions he draws from said research is yet another strong example of his balanced evidence (73-74). Whenever Padilla makes a statement or reference that is not ingrained in concrete, factual evidence, he makes it a point to qualify the implied or explicit argument behind it. While I was reading Caribbean Pleasure Industry, I often found myself waiting for Padilla to slip up and indirectly declare an opinion as fact, or present facts that supported one plausible argument and not the other. Of course, I seldom detected such a breach of ethnographic responsibility. Rarely in the book is Padilla’s own opinion on various topics he addresses blatantly evident. For every argument, he has a rebuttal, and he probably has a rebuttal to that rebuttal. Likewise, if he has any inkling that the sex workers he interview give him misleading information, he presents the information but alerts his reader of probable fallaciousness directly thereafter. This ultimately gives the reader a chance to form their own opinions based on research, without the overbearing influence of what Padilla, as the author, views as