Is a native-born tour guide who has sex with touristsOCoin exchange for dinner or gifts or cashOComerely a prostitute or gigolo? What if the tourist continues to send gifts or money to the tour guide after returning home? As this original and provocative book demonstrates, when it comes to sexOCoand the effects of capitalism and globalizationOConothing is as simple as it might seem.

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Based on ten years of research, "Economies of Desire" is the first ethnographic study to examine the erotic underpinnings of transnational tourism. It offers startling insights into the commingling of sex, intimacy, and market forces in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, two nations where tourism has had widespread effects. In her multi-layered analyses, Amalia Cabezas reconceptualizes our understandings of informal economies (particularly OC affective economiesOCO), OC sex workers, OCO and OC sexual tourism, OCO and she helps us appreciate how money, sex and love are intertwined within the structure of globalizing capitalism.