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Global Sex is the first major work to take on the globalization of sexuality, examining the ways in which desire and pleasure—as well as ideas about gender, political power, and public health—are framed, shaped, or commodified by a global economy in which more and more cultures move into ever-closer contact.
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G l o b a l S e x G l o b a l d e n n i s t h e u n i v e r s i t y o f S a l t m a n c h i c a g o c h i c a g o e x a n d p r e s s l o n d o n d e n n i s a l t m a n is professor in the School of Sociology, Politics, and Anthropology at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is the author of numerous books, including Defying Gravity: A Political Life (1997) and Power and Community: Organizational and Cultural Responses to AIDS (1994), and journal articles. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London 䉷 2001 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2001 Printed in the United States of America 10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 1 2 3 4 5 ISBN 9780226016061 ISBN 9780226016054 HQ16.A38 2001 306.7—dc21 00-036884 o The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992. or Anthony Smith again—and our nephews and nieces: F Daniella, Eleanor, Francesca, Kate, Meredith, Peter, Raul, and Thomas C o n t e n t s Preface: Sex and Politics ix one Introduction: Thinking about Sex and Politics 1 two The Many Faces of Globalization 10 th r ee Sex and Political Economy 34 four The (Re)Discovery of Sex 52 five Imagining AIDS: And the New Surveillance 68 six The Globalization of Sexual Identities 86 seven The New Commercialization of Sex: From Forced Prostitution to Cybersex 106 eight Sexual Politics and International Relations 122 nine te n Squaring the Circle: The Battle for “Traditional” Morality 138 Conclusion: A Global Sexual Politics? 157 Acknowledgments 165 Notes 167 Index 205 Preface: Sex and Politics While I was writing this book sexual scandals shook two very different governments, those of the United States and Malaysia. Of course the nature and gravity of the scandals were very different; while President Clinton’s sex life was exposed to ridicule and humiliation, former deputy prime minister Anwar Ibrahim was arrested and beaten after allegations of various “sex crimes,” including sodomy. In April 1999 he was convicted of attempts to corrupt justice by seeking to cover up the allegations, and sentenced to six years in prison. In the case of attacks on Clinton, hypocrisy was, as Russell Baker put it, “at its most hilarious when it comes from employees of vast media empires which thrive on exploitation of sex and violence.”1 Nonetheless the attacks were serious enough to lead to his impeachment by the House of Representatives and a protracted trial in the Senate. While his opponents claimed that the issue was Clinton’s lying, it was only in an atmosphere where the media felt able to expose any aspect of sexual behavior that lying was required. The attacks on Clinton might well be seen as the logical extension of a growing media interest in celebrity sleaze; after Prince Charles’s widely reported comment that he wished he were Camilla Parker-Bowles’s tampon, a semenstained dress seemed almost anticlimactic. The attacks on Anwar were more serious, a stark reminder that in many parts of the world sexual “