Body, Work and (gay) Desire: Unpacking Taiwanese Male Gay Masseurs' Labor Practices in Intimate and Sexualized High-Touch Services

This study examines Taiwanese gay male masseurs and their labor practices in (sexualized) service industry. Specifically, it unpacks the intersection between body, work and un-controllable (male gay) desire embedded in the labor practice. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 15 gay male masseurs, this paper focuses on the following three facets. First, it explores variation in the performance of intimate labor caused by the intersection of the sexualized service work with the racialized and classed specific service expectations of diverse customers. Through clients/masseurs interactions, we identify how social inequalities intersect with each other and how their intersection changes what they are. Second, the body/work relationship in massage parlors will be examined, paying particular attention to the “shadow-work” of employees and forms of aesthetic labor they embodied. By understanding how aesthetic labors are differently performed, we examine the extent to which gay male masseurs’ constructions of work identities are (not) regulated by homo/heteronormativity. Third, this paper examines how labor practice in erotic service is complicated by the production of desiring labor, exploring how gay male masseurs construct and/or distanciate their sexualities from servicing the bodies of others. Through desire/work relationship experienced by masseurs we sketch out how the boundaries between intimacy and the commerce of sex and between public and private life are redrawn. This study hopes to provide insight into not only the importance of embodiment for current understandings of work but also the centrality of (gay) desire for the study of intimate and sexualized high–touch serving work.