Who's Got Jungle Fever: The Politics of Racialized Temporary Intimacy in a Black Massage Parlor

• In Event: Employing an Ethics of Love in the Classroom, Prison, and Massage Parlor

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at a Black massage parlor in California, this paper explores the ways the sex industry functions as a key cultural space for examining Black women’s labor and resistance, contemporary race relations, and the politics of racialized temporary intimacy. It focuses on how categories of difference are lived and negotiated by Black sex workers and their mostly White clients. Experiences are viewed through a black feminist performance studies lens and contextualized by an analysis of macro-sociopolitical forces to assess how modern-day late capitalist industry contributes to contemporary race relations/relationships both inside and outside the sex industry.

Presenter

• Jasmine Salters, University of Pennsylvania