Touching intimacy: Bodywork, affect and the caring ethic in erotic gay massage in Taiwan

Abstract

This paper explores the relatively unexamined topic of interactions between corporeal and affective dimensions in male sexual labour, focusing on the role of intimacy in the bodywork of erotic gay massage in Taiwan. Feminist perspectives on bodywork and affective embodiment are used to analyse how intimacy is lived out during commodified same‐sex engagements. Drawing upon in‐depth interviews with 34 self‐identified gay masseurs, I examine two prominent servicing features of male‐for‐male massage: crafted intimacy and unscripted care. Whereas the former refers to the ‘boyfriend experience’ built up through tactile encounters, the latter regards erotic services as caring practices for the socially vulnerable, adding a moral dimension to the cultural significance of gay sexual commerce in Taiwan. This paper concludes that corporeal and affective dimensions are inseparable in understanding gay massage. Further research can benefit from more attention to somatic affection in the interplay between bodywork and intimacy in male sexual labour.

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“…This labour ‘integrates processes of capital accumulation with practices of self-determination by further blurring the line between paid and unpaid work’ (Lukács, 2013: 48). Scholars use emotional/affective labour to explain the work of nursing, air stewardesses, nannies and sex workers (Chen, 2018; Hochschild, 1983, 2003) and to frame studies of human relations with plants (Archambault, 2016), empathy (Bubandt and Willerslev, 2015), maid cafés (Galbraith, 2013) and moral neoliberalism (Muehlebach, 2012).…”

Touch and contact during COVID‐19: Insights from queer digital spaces

“…As Miles (2017Miles ( , p. 1607) notes, the "hybridization of virtual and embodied domains expedites new encounters" which bring about a series of tensions which lie between "the generative potential of ubiquitous technology and ambivalence toward the implications of being so plugged-in" online and call for a more critical understanding of "how technology mediates real-life social and sexual encounters in embodied space." As part of this research project, our "lurking" within queer digital spaces led us to revise any pre-conceived notions of the corporeal and material aspects of bodywork (Chen, 2018) and question conventional forms of haptic encounters.…”

“…Another strand of research explored the commodification of touch in the context of sex work. For example, Chen (2018) studied the role of intimacy in body work of erotic gay massage in Taiwan. His work provides insights for the intertwinement between corporeal and affective dimensions in sex work and highlights the importance of touch in sex work in constituting not only a commodified form of intimacy but also a caring practice.…”

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“…Thus, for those participating in prostitution as a means of alleviating their poverty, the role of Buddhism in changing the mental states required for sex workers to deliver affective labor through their bodies should not be elided. In his work on homosexual masseurs in Taiwan who service men, Chen (2017) explained that the highly popularized Buddhist rhetoric of merit accumulation provided gay masseurs a way to reinterpret their stigmatized services as righteous practices of caring. In the case of sex workers, however, Buddhism helped them modify their mind-sets, and eventually accept discomfort in rendering their bodies to the pleasure of male clients they did not desire.…”