US Professor Examines the Idea of ‘Professional Girlfriends’ in Cambodia

[geovalin]

Ten Soksreinith, VOA Khmer

12 November 2015

WASHINGTON DC—

[Editor’s note: A new book from a US professor looks at the world of “professional girlfriends,” Cambodian women who have commercial relationships with foreign men. In her book “Sex, Love, and Money in Cambodia: Professional Girlfriends and Transactional Relationships,” professor Heidi Hoefinger, who teaches in the science department of Berkeley College, in New York, looks at the social morals of Cambodian women and the idea of “transactional relationships.” Women are often praised for these relationships, which bring in money to support their families. In an interview with VOA Khmer Hoefinger said the women are often seeking respect and recognition for their choices, something they don’t always get.]

What motivated you to write this book?

The first time I went to Cambodia was back in 2003. I was just a backpacker who just finished teaching in India and just wanted to tour Southeast Asia among many peers around my age during that time. It was at that point that I first entered one of the hostess bars in Cambodia and became friends with a lot of female bar workers there. We could identify with a lot of things there like music, dance, pop culture, and boyfriends and things like that. I was drawn to the stories of their lives, the frenetic energy of Phnom Penh. At that time I decided that I wanted to come back and research and spend time talking to women that were basically at the heart of all of it. I have been going back and forth to Cambodia from 2003 until 2015.

How was your experience talking to female bar workers in Western-oriented restaurants and bars in Phnom Penh?

The book is ultimately about the strength and resiliency and challenges of female bar workers in Cambodia, who are employed in the Western-oriented hosted bar sector, which is one sector within the larger entertainment industry in Cambodia. I write about how in the myth of gender constraints, which include strict moral and social codes, sexual violence, corruption, domestic abuse, how young women are using the tools surrounding them, which in this case are sex and intimacy, to form relationships with foreign men as a means to improve their lives, and make socioeconomic gains from these advantages, and ultimately find enjoyment in their life. The book also sheds light on the relationships themselves that develop between Cambodian women and foreign men, which is multi-layer and complex, but often stigmatized only as commercial or only as exploitive. Spending 10 years to talk to people, I found that often that is not the case, and that people are genuinely seeking true love and intimacy, and that intimacy and economics mingle in complex ways, as it does in any relationship, in Cambodia and beyond. Ultimately, I am trying to humanize and destigmatize the women themselves and the relationship that develops with their Western partners.

How do female bar workers you talked to justify their actions in seeking intimacy with Westerners, either for love or socioeconomic gain?

Most of the women I spoke to at the bars migrate to the cities from the countryside, where their options are very limited, especially in gender disparity in education and society in general. Not many of these women have an education beyond the sixth grade. But they do feel a tremendous obligation to support and contribute to their family, as well. So a lot of them make the decision, a brave decision, to leave the countryside and leave the security of living with their family to move to the cities to seek out labor. So there is a feminization of labor in Cambodia.

The problem is when they get to the city, their options are very limited, as well. They can either work in a garment factory for low wages and with very long hours and poor working conditions. They can work in a home, doing domestic work, cleaning and caring for large families. Or they can do street trade, trading food or selling fruit, or have small size businesses that are street-based.

Full story : http://www.voacambodia.com/content/us-professor-examines-the-idea-of-professional-girlfriends-in-cambodia/3054958.html

[NanLaew]

So it really IS just like Thailand but with a more appealing visa requirement.

...and no sin sodt AFAIK.

[ggt]

Once she got a taste of hanging out with bar girls...she kept coming back to Cambodia for more...sounds familiar doesn't it?

Without changing the narrative she could have included the women of Thailand and the PI...

One must wonder...how much of her research happened in the bedroom...

[khwaibah]

So it really IS just like Thailand but with a more appealing visa requirement.

...and no sin sodt AFAIK.

No sin sodt ?? Bull shyt.

[FangFerang]

The whole Western idea that prostitution is "exploitation" and "evil" is insane. Most of the women that do this go on to have productive lives afterwards. The whole idea that freaks us is that sex is just.....sex. Hookers in the East actually enjoy their jobs--sex is pleasurable and they get to pick their partners.

Idiots in the West, with psuedo-Christian outlooks...

Are laughable to Asians.

These cultures are older than ours. They might, they just might, know some things we do not. Get over it.....

Edited November 13, 2015 by FangFerang

[mcfish]

Yawn.. Earth shattering news, not

Sent from my SC-01D using Tapatalk

[thailanddogerator]

But with dirty ugly places everywhere...

So it really IS just like Thailand but with a more appealing visa requirement.

...and no sin sodt AFAIK.

[Expat1]

"Professor Heidi Hoefinger, who teaches in the science department of Berkeley College, in New York, looks at the social morals of Cambodian women and the idea of transactional relationships." Considering she teaches at Berkley in New York, I must admit that if what was said in the article is accurate of the book then it sounds like fairly well balanced account of the reality that most of us here (well, most of us longer term guys) are very familiar with and accept without judgement of the girls (well mostly) and know to be a fairly good situation for all concerned. Somehow though I have the nagging notion that this will be perverted back there somehow and be twisted into some new type perversion by the media set.

Edited November 14, 2015 by Expat1

[Sheryl]

A post with profanity and derogatory remarks about women has been removed along with replies to it.

[bangkapi]

Considering the name of the lady who did the research, I don't believe one word of it.