Intimacy in the Shadow of Bases: Heroic Love and Exploitative Sex Myths

• In Event: 1169 - Sexual Racism

Abstract

Whether called cultural wealth, global imaginaries, or metroimperial fantasies, our cultural understandings of sex, love, desire, race, nationhood and relationships shape the who, when, why, and how of cross-national and interracial intimacies. When these encounters occur in the shadow of overseas military bases, they are often framed as illicit encounters based on sex work. Yet, intimate relations take a wide array of forms—from spouse, girlfriend, encounters with sex workers, to children, and how we think about sex, desire, and love is not self-evident. Rather, they are rooted in particular cultural frameworks, and entwined with our notions about race and nationhood. This paper examines how we understand the sexual relationships between Filipinas and U.S. servicemen through two prevalent myths: the exploitative sex myth and heroic love myth, and the ways in which these myths contribute to the sustained presence of overseas military bases and their accompanying inequality.

Author

• Victoria Reyes, University of California-Riverside