Global imbrications between sex and marriage markets: Brazilian women in Southern Europe

Globalization has had effects in the transnationalization of sex markets and has also facilitated opportunities for the formation of transnational couples and marriages.  In this paper I explore the connections between both processes taking as reference the migratory trajectories of Brazilian women in Italy and Spain. Though Brazilians are not the largest immigrant group in these countries, Brazilian women are overrepresented in the sex industries there, and are also one of the main foreign groups that  marry  Spanish and Italian men. Drawing on ethnographic research carried out in transnational locations, since 2000 in Fortaleza, considered to be a center of sex tourism in the Northeast of Brazil and since 2004 with Brazilian women that migrated from different sectors of the sex markets to Italy and Spain, or who engaged in sex work in the migratory contexts I analyze the love and marriage relationships that arise from these encounters.  Considering the effects of the imbrications of sex and marriage markets in the styles of intimacy, marriage and family dynamics of those couples I explore how a particular notion of “difference” that involves nationality, class, race and sexualization is a source of tension for the couples and, at the same time, an arena for the women’s agency.