Review

Reviewed Work(s): Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo by
Rhacel Salazar Parreñas
Review by: Felicity Schaeffer-Grabiel
Source: Contemporary Sociology, Vol. 42, No. 3 (May 2013), pp. 411-413
Published by: American Sociological Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23524492
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government agencies and community and
advocacy groups. (Amid an otherwise solid
discussion, the authors make the peculiar
claim that "Americans have never been will
ing to view people as commodities, like pork
bellies" [p. 72], a statement the tragic counter
example of slavery patently belies.) Subse
quent chapters describe channels for
employee voices such as unions and com
munity groups, and offer roadmaps for pro
viding career ladders and training programs
to low-wage workers. The penultimate
chapter compares residential weatheriza
tion work (one of many "green jobs" cur
rently garnering attention, and subsidies)
across three cities to assess how campaigns
around job quality fare against potentially
competing interests such as private enter
prise, labor unions, environmental move
ments, and community groups. The authors
conclude that such campaigns' effectiveness
depends on the presence of strong political
leadership committed to creating and pro
tecting good jobs.
The book's conclusion nicely summarizes
the authors' central argument, "that there
are choices when it comes to job quality and
that low-wage work need not be low-quality"
(p. 116). They call for a combination of carrot
and stick in urging firms to improve job qual
ity, sanctioning those who do not and sup
porting and rewarding those who do. Ulti
mately, I found their argument compelling,
and after reading the book felt well-equipped
to make the case that creating good jobs
makes both moral and economic sense. Yet
therein lies a potential problem. I was com
mitted to that point of view before I read the
book. Good Jobs America did not change my
mind; it provided useful fodder for making
a case I already wanted to make. A more
skeptical reader might dismiss the limited
statistics and case studies presented as
having been cherry-picked to support the
authors' cause, while contradictory evi
dence was excluded. One could question,
for instance, whether a single study on
intergenerational mobility is enough to dis
prove the Horatio Alger myth. Similarly, it
is worth asking whether the percentage of
low-wage jobs remained steady during oth
er boom-and-bust cycles in American histo
ry (not just the 1990s), or if a case study oth
er than minimum wage laws might reveal
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Reviews 411
more deleterious effects of policy interven
tion. Such questions do not invalidate the
authors' arguments, but they do undermine
the book's usefulness as a tool for shaping
public opinion. That said, readers who sup
port the campaign for improving low-wage
work will undoubtedly find the book a use
ful and informative guide to the opportuni
ties and obstacles that lie ahead.
Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration, and Sex
Trafficking in Tokyo, by Rhacel Salazar
Parreñas. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 2011. 325pp. $21.95 paper.
ISBN: 9780804777124.
Felicity Schaeffer-Grabiel
University of California, Santa Cruz
fsg@ucsc.edu
Rhacel Parreñas' timely book, Illicit Flirta
tions, takes to task U.S. policies that attempt
to curb and eradicate the sexual trafficking of
women. Based on an in-depth ethnography
of Filipina hostesses who migrate to Japan,
Parreñas draws her readers into the all-night
work shifts of Filipina entertainers to refute
their classification as trafficked victims, and
more insidiously, to prove that the laws set
out to "help" these women generate the
very vulnerable labor conditions they set
out to eradicate. While various feminists
have made this argument, this is the first
book-length study to do so from the perspec
tive of how states laws across the United
States, the Philippines, and Japan affect
women's labor conditions. Rather than dis
mantle highly-coveted gendered migration
streams for poor and transgender enter
tainers, what is needed, she concludes, is bet
ter protection of these women who face con
ditions of indentured servitude. For this
reason, the author redefines women's labor
migration from trafficking to what she labels,
"indentured mobility," to highlight the con
straints caused by middlemen (authorized
by state laws) who facilitate women's travel
and employment and secure high profits by
holding onto migrants' passports and wages
until the completion of six-month term con
tracts in hostess clubs in Japan. That middle
men force women to remain in sometimes
exploitative labor conditions in clubs that
Contemporary Sociology 42, 3
412 Reviews

cater to Japanese male clients across a range to the industry from migrant women's per
of sexualized activities—including flirtation, spectives, rather than as an outsider who
erotic performance, fellatio, hand jobs, and might morally condemn the sexualized
sex—situates her argument in murky terrain labor performed by women. The eight
that may discomfort some readers. Especial- chapters of the book skillfully unravel mul
ly frustrating to read are occasions where tiple dimensions of hostess work, helping
some women have little recourse to deny cli- the author identify how varied forms of
ents' sexual overtures if they want to hold exploitation demand a more nuanced
onto coveted contracts with Japanese clubs, approach to improving women's conditions
and if they hope to earn enough of a wage rather than a unified moral campaign
to pay off debts and arrive home with a little against sex trafficking that treats all women
extra. Yet, it is precisely within the grey zones as victims of sexual exploitation,
that the book gains its strength, unabashedly In order to address the underlying con
escorting readers into a contentious zone that flicts over sex trafficking and labor exploita
unsettles Western liberal expectations defin- tion, the author boldly opens up discussions
ing exploitation, choice, freedom, and that are eclipsed by the either/or framework
authentic love. of exploitation versus freedom and choice.
There is much to learn here about the For example, she expands the conditions of
diversity of Filipina entertainers whose servitude in Japan as both exploitative and
"moral compasses" vary across gender, as opening up material and pleasurable
class, and religion. Rather than assume all opportunities unavailable for many in the
poor Filipina entertainers make the same Philippines. While she continues to argue
desperate choices, or that all have equitable that migrants make the "autonomous" deci
access to agency, her analysis gains traction sion to swap a life of poverty for labor condi
through the structural and personal condi- tionsof servitude, lurking behind these argu
tions that contribute to, and diminish, labor ments is an insistence on the need for better
exploitation. It is Parreñas' attention to the labor conditions in Japan (and I would add
role of various state laws, middlemen, and in the Philippines) to expand the range of
the creative maneuvering of migrants that choices facing women. She redefines free
offers the most complex critical perspective, dom as more complicated than "the absence
There are no hard-and-fast rules here, nor of restraints" (p. 42) and questions for whom
morally easy places to reside. Some women, one defines freedom. For example, that
especially transgender migrants, enjoy the women are expected to perform femininity
opportunities to be treated as "real women" and provide a highly-charged erotic atmo
working in the bars and sometimes marrying sphere for Japanese men hoping to enhance
Japanese clients in Japan, while others return their sense of masculinity has the effect of
home after disastrous marriages or until their causing some women strong sentiments of
cash runs out only to have to return to humil- disgust, while others form deep bonds with
iating sexualized labor with some Japanese clients. And for some transgender male-to
clients who grope them in dehumanizing female hostesses who migrate to Japan spe
ways that confirm a global hierarchy of gen- cifically to be made to feel like a "real wom
dered labor between the Philippines and an," these fantasies, as well as their desires
Japan. to be entertainers with financial stability,
Highly commendable in Illicit Flirtations is are also sometimes fulfilled. While the
the author's breadth of interviews with author's lack of Japanese language pre
female and transgender migrant enter- vented her from interviewing Japanese
tainers. It is clear by the quality and range men, the amount of money male clients
of intimate stories that the author gained spend, many married, to feel like men opens
the trust and admiration of her subjects up questions about the effects of women's
who confide a great deal about the pleas- "freely" chosen labor which appears to sim
ures and hardships of the stigmatized ilarly cascade into a range of humiliating
work they engage. Parreñas worked herself and dehumanizing roles,
as a hostess for a week to gain hands-on The next several chapters document in
experience as a hostess and to better relate great detail the kinds of exploitation faced

Contemporary Sociology 42, 3

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by women working in Japanese bars that
bind them to strict monthly sales quotas. Cli
ent demands result in an array of price differ
entiation over the varied "entertainment"
provided by women off-stage. Rather than
define women's labor as prostitution, or the
exchange of erotic acts for money, we find inti
macy, love, repulsion, and humor. Women cre
atively use their bodies and flirtation skills to
keep clients returning, especially when many
entertainers discover that giving in to a client's
request for a night of passionate sex may actu
ally financially hurt them and the club as cli
ents often do not return after fantasies are
fulfilled. Flirtation and conversation skills
prove more advantageous—although even
the bounds of flirtation—kissing, talking, grop
ing, or rubbing—are constantly negotiated
depending on women's language and person
al skills.
Chapters Six to Eight support the argu
ment that sex shapes how migrant enter
tainers access labor, money, and especially
visas and citizenship. In solidarity with other
feminist scholars who argue that love cannot
be disentangled from economic concerns,
Parreñas provides a stimulating depiction
of love that intensifies with the Japanese cli
ent's increasingly handsome gifts of cash
and luxury items. The dance of romance for
transgender hostesses seeking biological
men or female-to-male partners is accentuat
ed by both the desire to feel "like real wom
en" (p. 209), as well as financial gain. The
state never falls from view, even influencing
how subjects enact intimacy and perform
gender roles. Given that same sex biological
couples cannot marry, they turn to creative
recourse—such as marrying a male partner's
mother—to be with their ideal partners, gar
nering visas along the way. Thus the desire
for heteronormative structures is part of their
creative engagement with the state rather
than a conservative desire for conventional
gender roles, complicating how we imagine
and theorize the subversion and perfor
mance of gender. The book tempers happy
endings, as each avenue that migrant host
esses choose, leaves them in precarious situa
tions along a range of access to "sexual
citizenship"—wives are vulnerable to
domestic violence, undocumented workers
to employer and coethnic abuse, and contract
workers to labor peonage (p. 23). It is here
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Reviews 413
that the book offers engaging insight into
the need for a nuanced approach to amelio
rating sexualized labor conditions for all
migrants.
Motivational Dimensions in Social Movements
and Contentious Collective Action, by
Maurice Pinard. Montreal, CAN: McGill
Queen's University Press, 2011.173pp.
$29.95 paper. ISBN: 9780773538665.
Robert W. White
Indiana University - Purdue University,
Indianapolis
spike@iupui.edu
Reading Maurice Pinard's Motivational
Dimensions in Social Movements and Conten
tious Collective Action is in many ways
like enjoying a class reunion—many "old
friends" are re-introduced and shown to
retain value and insight that was forgotten
as the deprivation/grievance literature
gave way to the structural approaches asso
ciated with the resource mobilization, politi
cal process, and contentious politics per
spectives. In this relatively short
monograph, Pinard offers a comprehensive
review and extension of four-plus decades'
worth of theory and research on social
movements and collective action. What
Pinard has done is remind his more senior
audience and bring to the attention of youn
ger scholars the fact that grievances and dep
rivations remain important for understand
ing why people engage in protest and
collective action.
The book is organized into six chapters.
Chapter One, "Approaches to Motivation in
the Social Movement Literature," offers a con
vincing argument that deprivations and
grievances are important motives for involve
ment in collective action. In reviewing the
transition to the structural approaches, Pinard
demonstrates that the initial dismissal of
grievances and deprivation has been slowly,
but surely, modified. Scholars today largely
agree that structure and motive are both
important. But they also agree that "internal
motive" is more complex than was often pre
sented in the early literature. Deprivations,
grievances, emotions, moral obligations, aspi
rations, expectations of success, and so on
Contemporary Sociology 42, 3