Entangled Crossroads: Inter-Relationality,Masculinity,and Sex-Trafficked Boys

Abstract

In this article, I highlight systemic oppression related to identity construction and ontological performativity. I introduce the concept of inter-relationality as a discursive tool that builds upon intersectionality, feminist theology, and quantum entanglement theory. For a case study, I recount my experience observing sex-trafficked boys in Thailand in order to demonstrate the analytical model I present. My chief analytical guiding principle in the treatment of the case study is the way masculinity operates to re-enforce oppression. I propose queering masculinity using an inter-relational perspective for the purpose of de-constructing oppressive systems and replacing them with liberative ones.

Keywords

Identity intersectionality inter-relationality theology quantum entanglement fourth-wave feminism queer masculinity child sex-trafficking

Introduction

It is with careful thought and trepidation that I attempt to de-construct and re-construct masculinity within a post-modern, feminist, theological framework. Throughout the history of Western civilization, masculinity has been extensively implicated in (and, indeed, has been discursively constructed so as to seem “natural” through its “regime of truth”; Foucault, 1991: 30) the maintenance and reification of power within systems that are hierarchical, hegemonic, exclusionary, and dominating; that is, sexism, heterosexism, racism, classism, able-ism, and so on. Within patriarchal society, power and privilege are accessible, capitalized on, and re-distributed by, those “on top.” Because of the extensive and insidious violence that hegemonic masculinity has perpetuated toward women, queer folk, people of color, the disenfranchised, and the poor, it is no surprise (and, in fact, just) that feminists have, in large part, focused their work on “dismantling the master’s house” (Lorde, 1984: 112), seeking to reclaim power for women and other socially subordinated and marginalized identities before “worrying about men.” In other words, men have always “come first,” it’s about time we recognize the equality of women and all persons who have not fit the privileged models of “masculinity”!

Although it is true that men also suffer from the negative effects and expectations of hegemonic masculinity, there are urgent and critical reasons for putting re-claimed masculinity on the theoretical backburner. Men, especially those who fit certain expectations of masculinity, already experience the positive effects of masculinity to some degree and at least partially embody a system where they have access to power. A fundamental critique of second-wave feminism must be kept in mind, however. Discursive symbols of “masculinity” and “men” generally apply primarily to a confluence of White, heterosexual, middle/upper class, Christian, able-bodied persons with a (large and functioning) penis. As a result, those who do not conform to this exclusive ideal of masculinity are other-ed, feminized, and denied full access to societal privilege and power. For example, a man who fits the above paradigm for masculinity, but is gay, may experience many of the privileges of being “male” from which women, persons of color, and those of lower income do not benefit, but will suffer the loss of some (or all) privilege when he acts or identifies as “gay” or “effeminate” (identified as a sissy, pansy, or faggot). Then again, imagine how masculine privilege is diminished when marginalized identities are compounded. For example, a gay, Black man suffers greater loss of privilege, and a poor, gay, Black man loses even more still. These combinations of other-ed identities interact together to produce varying degrees and types of oppression, more often than not connected to systemic hegemonic masculinity.

Kimberlé Crenshaw (1989) responded to second-wave [White, middle-class] feminism by developing a Black feminist approach that called out the “tendency to treat race and gender as mutually exclusive categories of experience analysis . . . [which] imports its own theoretical limitations that undermine efforts to broaden feminist and antiracist analyses” (pp. 139−140). Crenshaw’s intersectional approach has been further developed and utilized extensively, especially within social theory, psychology, theology, critical race theory, third-wave feminism, Marxist feminism, and queer theory. Intersectionality has provided a fundamental theoretical tool for acknowledging the various intersections where oppressions meet and act together to create and exacerbate social inequality through an unjust distribution of power (Foucault, 1991).

In the advent of fourth-wave feminism, a contemporary development that is concerned with taking up technology, social solidarity, intersectionality, “politics, psychology and spirituality in an overarching vision of change” (Diamond, 2009: 223), there may also be a need for further development of more currently relevant feminist theoretical tools. Crenshaw’s¹ intersectionality was cutting-edge, critically needed, and game-changing for her time, and will always be a relevant and essential landmark in the history of feminism. I am not sure, however, that “intersectionality” is any longer the most useful term for feminism today. Like all theoretical tools, intersectionality must develop and contribute to other new and pertinent discursive methods, applicable to the times and people.

Fourth-wave feminism has arisen to meet consciousness of the acute relationality embedded in our connectedness to each other in technology, social media, globalization, ecology, social responsibility, pluralism, postmodernism (the fragility of truth, ideologies, ontology, existence, and progress), post-colonialism, and post-religious theology (Tanner, 1997). Arguably, in conjunction with a more public and accessible discourse on undoing hegemonic masculinity through feminist, gender, and sexual equality, more and more men are experiencing an increased awareness, anxiety, and genuine desire to engage with feminism and to be involved in questioning and undoing systemic injustice that also oppresses men (who identify as Black, Asian, Latinx, Native American, LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning), immigrants, children, low socio-economic status (SES), other-abled, etc.).

As a theoretical lens to examine, de-construct, and re-construct masculinity within the feminist discourse, I am proposing an inter-relational approach to examine the systemic interdependencies, relational ontology, and intra-active becomings entangled in masculinity and the performativity of identities. In this article, I will first explicate my theory of inter-relationality, building off contemporary feminist theory, metaphysics, and theology, and then I will apply it to the way masculinity operates for the oppression and liberation of sex-trafficked boys in Thailand.

Inter-Relationality

I first heard the word “inter-relationality” utilized by womanist ethicist Dr. Emily Townes (2015). I was immediately inspired to expand on it. I have found this to be a term that is more applicable to contemporary feminism than intersectionality for analyzing the relations between (1) sectionality versus relationality (identity as dynamic not static), (2) micro- and macro-systems (identity as consonance and dissonance), (3) diversity versus multiplicity (identity as one and many), and (4) oppression and liberation (identity as dependence and independence).

Sectionality versus Relationality (Identity as Dynamic, Not Static)

Intersectionality is often perceived and utilized as a theoretical tool that presents the person as a layered or aggregate sum of various systems of oppression that converge at one point to produce a social identity.

For example: Not just: Michelle = woman, and

Not just: Michelle = Black, but

Michelle = woman + Black (+ lesbian + Baptist + low socio-economic status (SES) + etc.)

Intersectional methodology used in this way has been an essential tool for women and other marginalized persons who have been left out or excluded from participation in social identity groups. For instance, gay Black men are often marginalized by both gay communities (because they are Black) as well African American communities (because they are gay). While this is a helpful de-construction of systemic influences, an intersectional approach to social identity can easily become reduced to a depiction of the person as an aggregate of layers or parts, while often neglecting to acknowledge the “wholeness” of the person as defined in relation to (and deviating from) such social systems [macro-level] as well as the inter-defining quality particular of interactions with other individuals² (interacting themselves within various systems) [micro-level]. Please note: I do believe the intention of most intersectional theorists is, in fact, to present a more “holistic” view of how oppression works on people’s identities. That said, I also believe it can happen that an intersectional approach can facilitate the caricature construction of layered or “sectional” identities and lose sight of the existential paradigm of relationality and inter-dependence in identity construction and performativity (Butler, 1990). An inter-relational perspective looks at a person’s identity not as the intersecting point of various systems, but as defined and performed ontologically (and not essentially) in relation to those systems.

For instance, with an intersectional lens, an individual might be described through an analysis of the various system—sectionalities that combine for (and sometimes create dissonance from) the sum of their³ social identity.

For example: Intersectional lens:

Lee = Lee (American name) + 李伟 [Li Wei] (Chinese name) + Taiwanese (domestic ethnicity) + Asian (international/American ethnicity) + immigrant (national/American status) + teacher (career/ social position) + cisgender male (sex/gender) + heterosexual (sexual orientation) + single/son/brother (family status) + lower income (economics and class) + Taoist (spirituality/religion) + etc.

Inter-relational lens:

Lee = one and many; a multiplicity of identities (constructed and performed) in relation to systems and individuals.

Note that the construction of Lee’s identity is impossible to dis-entangle from the performativity of his identity in relation to other subjects/observers (who are also constructing his identity). His identity is performed (Please note: “performativity” does not imply “inauthenticity” of identity) and observed and therefore defined in relation to both; it is relational. Judith Butler (1990) refers to the performativity of gender by saying,

Such acts, gestures, enactments, generally construed, are performative in the sense that the essence or identity that they otherwise purport to express are fabrications manufactured and sustained through corporeal signs and other discursive means. That the gendered body is performative suggests that it has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality. (p. 136)

In other words, Lee constructs his gender (and every other aspect of his identity) and is co-constructed in a multiplicity of ways in relation to and by different observers (society, religion, family, friends, etc.); therefore, it is impossible to “di-sect” the inter-sections of his identity. His identity is defined in dynamic relation.

By dynamic, I mean to define identity as flexible, moldable, always changing, re-defined, or defined again (through rehearsal), in relation to the systems and individual “audiences” of our existential performance. Lee’s identity is not static in the sense that “it has no ontological status apart from the various acts which constitute its reality” (Butler, 1990: 136). Because no act is static (an act is defined in space and time, even if it does not move), all acts (including the construction and performativity of identity) are dynamic. In the following example, I will demonstrate the holistic dynamism of Lee’s identity performance in relation to the construction of his Taiwanese ethnicity in just four (of many more) instances.

For example,

Growing up in his homeland of Taiwan, 李伟 [Li Wei] (Lee) was identified by his fellow citizens as Taiwanese.

In America, however, Lee (李伟 [Li Wei]) is more frequently identified in relation to Americans as Asian and is often accompanied with the stigma that comes with the “perceived threat of immigration.”

李伟 [Li Wei] / Lee is identified in relation to and by other Taiwanese American immigrants as “authentically” Taiwanese first, before being American, asserting that he must never forget his ethnic origin.

When Lee / 李伟 [Li Wei] returns to Taiwan to visit, many of his friends no longer consider him fully or authentically Taiwanese because he has become “Americanized.”

The multiplicity of Lee’s identity in the above example reflects the “queerness” or dynamism of his ethnicity. He is performing both being “Taiwanese” and “American” to some, neither to others, and a mixture of both to still others. I use “queer” to denote that aspect of dynamism that resists boundaries, categorization, and assimilation to the oppressive systemic structuring of identity, in the sense that for Butler (1993), “The term ‘queer’ emerges as an interpellation that raises the question of the status of force and opposition, of stability and variability, within performativity” (p. 18).

The dynamic quality of identity construction and performativity in relation to systems as well as individuals can create a consonant and/or dissonant relationship between and within identities that an inter-relational perspective would help to draw out.

Micro- and Macro-Systems (Identity as Consonance and Dissonance)

An inter-relational methodology helps to analyze the micro- and macro-levels of systemic and individual inter-dependence which exacerbate or assuage consonance and dissonance in identity. Whereas intersectionality has provided language for the discourse on how societal systems create compounded, oppressed identities in individuals and social groups, inter-relationality allows for an explication of the ways (1) systems relate to each other (inter-systemic), (2) systems relate to individuals (intra-systemic), (3) individuals relate to individuals (inter-subjective), and (4) individuals define themselves in relation to self (intra-subjective). Each of these interactions can involve a positively related (a consonant relationship) and/or negatively related (a dissonant relationship) experience of identity. The systemic influence of homosexuality and Christianity provides one example of consonance and/or dissonance within the relational construct of identities.

For example,

a. Through an inter-systemic relational lens, one can analyze how systems, such as homosexuality and Christianity relate to each other in the construction and definition (or observation) of the systems themselves. Homosexuality and Christianity are two systems that in many instances are mutually exclusive and dissonant with one another and in some instances consonant with each other. At an inter-systemic level, one can see Christian influences in the formation of “gay culture,” in a subversive way and/or in a re-claimed and liberating sense, such as the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. One can also see homosexual influences on Christianity, such as queer theology, homoerotic spirituality, or the Pope “adorned in drag” to perform the “prince-ship of Peter.”

b. Through an intra-systemic relational lens, one can look at the ways systems relate to individuals, and in turn, how individuals reify or deviate from systemic norms. Within Christian theology, a gay individual may be defined as sinful in relation to the system of Christianity and considered incompatible with the system, that is, not truly Christian. Also, within some gay cultures, Christian individuals may be considered incompatible with the system of “homosexuality,” for example, when homosexuality is identified with queer deviation from religion as another form patriarchal control. Take for instance, atheist feminism or Dianic Wicca.

c. Through an inter-subjective relational lens, one can note the ways individuals relate to other individuals in constructing identity. For example, if an individual believes that Christianity and homosexuality are incompatible systems to be incorporated in an individual identity, that person may exclude, discriminate against, or commit violence against other individuals who identify as both Christian and gay in order to assuage their relational anxiety. However, if an individual believes their homosexuality is a gift from God, they may participate in a gay-affirming, Christian, church group in order to build identity in relation to community and solidarity with other LGBTQ+ individuals who also define themselves (and are defined by others) in relation to a Christian system.

d. Through an intra-subjective relational lens, one can observe how individuals identify in relation to themselves. For example, if an individual performs systemic homosexuality and Christianity, but in a way that is mutually exclusive, there will exist an identity conflict or dissonance because of the negative relation they have internalized (internalized homophobia). However, if the individual can find a way to reconcile and integrate both systems, they will experience a more integrated, albeit multiplicitous, relation with one’s own identity as a whole person (a gay Christian/Christian gay).

These systematic and subjective relational models highlight the complexity of identity as co-constructed and performed in various ways with a multitude of meanings, meaning-givers, and meaning-observers. Because of this dynamism of the consonance and dissonance that comes with relationality, an individual will experience their identity as both “one” and “many.”

Diversity versus Multiplicity (The One and the Many)

Not only do individuals experience subjectivity as the unitive “I” (one person), they also experience identity as multiple “I”s (multiple relations). Rather than using the intersectional language of “diversity,” I believe the term “multiplicity” allows for more complexity in analyzing identity construction from an inter-relational perspective. I build off Laurel Schneider’s (2007: x) use of the term “multiplicity,” not as synonymous with “many,” but in the way “multiplicity turns out the story of the One, in the paradoxical sense of rejecting the One’s totality and in the sense of producing it.” The idea of multiplicity resists the one/many divide. Multiplicity accounts not only for what is and what is not, but also “the simultaneity and presence of unique becoming(s) and passing(s) away” (Schneider, 2007: 149). Because identity is formed in an inter-relational way, identity will be experienced in multiple ways depending on the systemic relations involved. Rather than characterize the multiplicity of identities through the rhetoric of “diversity,” in relation to perceived systemic “norms,” multiplicity allows for a de-centralization of identity relations.

For example,

Andrew was raised on a Navajo reservation until he left for college in New York City. He experiences himself as both Navajo and American. At school, he feels the pressure of assimilating to American culture yet wants to remain connected to his Navajo roots. He tries to assuage the dissonance of his cultural identities by joining a diversity club for Native Americans on campus. This only exacerbates the dissonance however by re-enforcing his “diversity” from the college White, middle-class, “norm.”

With an inter-relational approach, we can analyze the multiplicity of Andrew’s identity performance within multiple systems. For instance, to many of his college peers, some of his physical features give him away as uniquely “Native-American,” and he is tokenized as such. Yet, to some of his family back on the reservation, he has forsaken his Navajo roots and become Americanized with his new haircut, style of dress, and way of speaking.

Also, Andrew identifies as a transgender male. He was assigned female at birth and has only recently begun to come out. He is not out to everybody. To his co-worker in the gay night club, he is out as Andrew. But, to his family at home, he is still Andrea.

As he moves in and out of different social groups (relations), Andrew experiences and performs his identity in multiple ways. He sometimes feels like he is a “different person” in each social sphere, and this might feel fragmented, but deep down, he also experiences himself consistently as Andrew. His core identity as Andrew allows him to feel that he is neither “diverse,” nor has to acquiesce to the status quo, no matter how he performs the multiplicity of his identity. He is ontologically one and many; there is no divide.

These are but only a few of the many ways Andrew performs his identity as one and many in relation to various systems and individuals. (Please note: Multiplicity does not imply that Andrew is not “truly” Navajo or American or female or male or trans, and so on. Rather, the lens of multiplicity points out the fragility (Connolly, 2013) of identities, constructed and authentically performed in a variety of entangled ways in relation to one’s sense of self as well as other systems and individuals.)

Intersectionality has come to be associated with “diversity.” Again, this has been helpful in a world where it is just and necessary that oppressed communities demand and receive acknowledgment, solidarity, and social space to defend and celebrate identity, for example, Gay Pride, the Black Student Association, or the National Organization for Women (NOW). However, the idea of “diversity” and pulling apart the strands of intersectionality (1) re-enforces the center or “norm” in relation to the “diverse,” (2) emphasizes “difference” over unity across identities, and (3) prioritizes “unity” over “diversity” within identities. Rather than speaking about “diversity,” I propose that we use the term “multiplicity” (Schneider, 2007) in order to preserve the depth and complexity of both the differences and the unity embedded and aspired toward in social identities, while dispensing from any center, norm, or margin.

For example,

What unites a “diversity group” of Latinas may be their shared Latin American roots. This provides solidarity and community for Latinas in America. However, not all Latinas construct their identity (or have “Latina” constructed for them) in the same way. In fact, many individuals are left out of Latin American communities because they are second or third generation, they don’t speak Spanish, they embody darker skin, they are LGBTQ+, they disclaimed Christianity, and so on. Also, setting up such “diversity” groups, especially in an institutionalized way, keeps White, male, middle/upper class patriarchy at the center and “diversity” groups at the margin. They are accommodated as “diverse,” because they are “different,” marginal to the norm. Speaking to institutionalizing diversity, Sarah Ahmed (2012: 33) points out the paradox succinctly:

Diversity is often used as shorthand for inclusion, as the “happy point” of intersectionality, a point where lines meet. When intersectionality becomes a “happy point” the feminist of color critique is obscured (Ahmed, 2012: 14) . . . The diversity worker has a job because diversity and equality are not already given (Ahmed, 2012: 23) . . . If diversity becomes something that is added to organizations, like color, then it confirms the whiteness of what is already in place. To diversify an institution becomes an institutional action insofar as the necessity of the action reveals the absence or failure of diversity.

We must create spaces for shared identities, while keeping a focus on de-institutionalizing Whiteness, patriarchy, and hegemonic systemic oppression and individual violence. Intersectionality and diversity cannot become simply the “happy point.” We must continue to push for a multiplicity of identities that allows for both difference and unity without ontological hierarchy.

Several theorists have used multiplicity as a methodology for de-constructing marginalizing norms. Barbara Holmes (2002: 110) speaks about difference by referring to de-centered relationality as omnicentricity. She asks,

How can we continue to talk about cultural center and margins when the new cosmology teaches that the universe is expanding in a very odd way? Rather than a universe that expands from one point, the universe contains multiple centers that are expanding at the same time.

For Holmes (2002), omnicentricity “means that all centers act as focal points for the activity of expansion and energy” (p. 110) and according to Schneider (2007) “so move, creating new margins that themselves become centers of becoming” (p. 176). Schneider also takes up Holme’s definition of omnicentricity into her theology of multiplicity; God is neither one nor many, rather God is one and many (multiplicitous). For Schneider, this queers divine/human relationality because God is de-centered from hierarchical, patriarchal, status and defined as inter-dependently related to humanity and the cosmos.

Rather than defining our selves in comparison to other identities, a multiplicitous inter-relational approach allows us to define our selves in relation to other identities, both in ways that perpetuate oppression and ways that empower liberation.

Oppression and Liberation (Identity as Dependence and Independence)

While Intersectionality has historically been used to make visible the way oppression works in people, a new term, like inter-relationality, can preserve the significance of how oppression works while also calling attention to systemic ways that liberation can also actualize itself through the relational construction of identities⁴ (Townes, 2015). I take quantum entanglement theory as a model for how oppression and liberation are exercised through the dependence/independence of identities in relation to systems (and individuals).

In physics, quantum entanglement, also referred to as nonlocality or nonseparability, refers to the relations between quantum systems. According to Erwin Schrödinger (2007),

When two systems, of which we know the states by their respective representatives, enter into temporary physical interaction due to known forces between them, and when after a time of mutual influence the systems separate again then they can no longer be described in the same way as before, viz. by endowing each of them with a representative of its own. . . . By the interaction the two representatives [the quantum states] have become entangled. (p. 555)

Systems and their representatives (in this case, identities) are non-separable, inter-twined, inter-defined, and dependent on each other. Werner Heisenberg indicated that “the common division of the world into subject and object, inner world and outer world, body and soul is no longer adequate” (Davies, 1983: 112). Thus, when analyzing the relationality of inter-active systems in individual identity, systems leave a defining “impression” on the individual, and the individual, in turn, also leaves a defining “impression” on the systems. They are inter-defining and co-constructing; entangled.

Catherine Keller (2015: 128) incorporates the application of quantum entanglement into a theology of non-separability that describes the inter-relationality of the universe, divinity, and non-divinity, as “each in each and all in all.” Influenced by Alfred North Whitehead,⁵ Keller combines process theology and ontological metaphysics. In her book, On the Mystery, Keller elucidates a panentheistic perspective on “God” (whatever metaphor (McFague, 1987) we choose to use). God is in all and all is in God. From this theological standpoint, God is immanently transcendent and transcendently immanent in the universe. Thus, because we are inter-twined ontologically, God’s very being and existence is just as dependent on us as ours is on God. She argues, in fact, that our very ontological definition is always dynamic and constructed in relation. In ethical application, Keller (2015) says,

If the separateness of our lives is a sham, then the work of our civilization to produce us as discrete subjects vying to emulate, master, know and consume external objects succeeds only through its systemic repression of that site of active relationship. (p. 129, emphasis mine)

By connecting quantum theory to applicable theology, Keller highlights our ontological entanglement in order (1) to shed light on the insidious ways that oppression masquerades as truth in identity and (2) to establish a foundation on which to access and actualize liberation through recognizing our inter-connected relationships, identities, and welfare. If the inter-relationality of systems and identities is repressed, then oppression reigns in ignorance. Social power masks systemic oppression as “truth” or “essential.” This “epistemology of the oppressed” is used to justify and reify violence such as racism, sexism, able-ism, homophobia, misogyny (Freire, 2000). A theoretical tool for liberation, therefore, would involve an unveiling of the dependent and inter-relational nature of system entanglement. Consider the oppression and liberation of African Americans in the United States.

For example,

After being captured (or captured and then purchased) in Africa, and then put on ships sent to America, the identity status of these oppressed went from being “Yoruba” or “Asante” to being “African” and then “slave.” They came to be defined in relation to American economics (slaves) and affixed a color identity (Black, Negro, etc.) as part of their “performance” of existential lack, or denial of their personhood, in relation an the artificial construction of purity attached to “White” folk as ontologically “more human.” Up to present day, African Americans (and other persons of color) are defined, inferiorly, in relation to White people. In other words, “Black” is “Black” because “White” individuals and systems have constructed a color-relationship that is hierarchical and oppressive. Persons of color are not essentially inferior in any regard (gender, economics, social status, ability, etc.) because no such essential ontology pre-exists the inter-relationality of systems that construct, define, and then oppress. They are, however, presented as “essential,” as a hegemonic tool (weapon).

Because of the ontological dependence of inter-active identity construction, liberation must also work in relation to systems and individuals. Liberation starts with the realization that our identities are inter-twined and entangled from the smallest (micro-) level to the largest (macro-) level. Paulo Freire (Davis and Freire, 1991: 62) describes the unveiling of essentialisms used by an oppressive epistemology and invokes the “dialecticity” between conscientização (“consciousness”) and the world (what I would refer to as consciousness of our inter-relationality) as a liberating tool:

Only when we understand the “dialecticity” between consciousness and the world—that is, when we know that we don’t have a consciousness here and the world there but, on the contrary, when both of them, the objectivity and the subjectivity, are incarnating dialectically, is it possible to understand what conscientização is, and to understand the role of consciousness in the liberation of humanity.

When we realize the entanglement, inter-dependence, and fragility of our identities (systemic and individual) in relation to one another, we can’t help but see ourselves in the other and the other in ourselves. Individually, “I am” who “I am” in relation to “you,” and “you are” who “you are” in relation to “me.” Systems of oppression and liberation come into existence in relation to each other and the individuals that embody their systemic identities. Individuals come to be defined in relation, not just to each other, but to the systems we also construct and perform. A truly liberating ethic of care realizes that “difference” does not mean “different from,” but rather “different (and actually not so different) with” because I cannot be the unique “one” that I am without the “multiplicity” of every system and individual that is entangled with my existence.

Masculinity and the Sex-Trafficking of Boys in Thailand

One summer I worked in Thailand with an anti-trafficking organization whose purpose was to stop child sex-slavery through prevention. We provided children’s homes, education, food, and emotional support for kids who were at high risk of being sold into the sex trade. Walking through the red-light districts in Bangkok and Chiang Mai, I was disgusted at the number of bars and brothels with young boys, of various ages from about 6 to 22 years old. I was even more surprised and disheartened that there were hardly any homes or services for rescuing or caring for boys. I asked myself, “Why are the boys left out?” A few thoughts occurred to me:

1. It seems that some people and societies don’t consider that boys or men would even be vulnerable to sexual abuse, coerced prostitution, or trafficking because of gender biases. Men are not perceived as potential sexual victims; only women are thought of as being at danger for victimization. The Human Trafficking Center (Greve, 2014) says,

It may be easier to believe that only the “weaker sex” is victimized. This notion is wrong and it is harmful. While women and girls obviously deserve protection, correcting false perceptions is the first step toward ensuring that boys—and yes, men—are also safe. (p. 2)

Masculinity is often constructed to be “strong, in control, active, not passive, aggressive, etc.” Women, however, are expected to be “weaker, subordinate, passive, protected, etc.” As I saw up close in Thailand, these trite constructs of masculinity and femininity perpetuate violence done to both men and women. As important as women’s studies and feminism have been to my desire for equality and justice, I discovered that, indeed, some men have little or no privilege at all because of oppressive masculinity. I looked those young Thai boys in the eyes and realized that their relation to every system of power left them helpless. They were slaves to masculinity. Sold by their parents into sex-slavery, these boys had lost all autonomy and privilege in (and for the sake of) society, culture, family, religious morale, unbridled capitalism, globalization, national status, and even masculinity. In fact, because they were male, they had been forgotten, ignored, and discarded by society. “Men do not do sex work, and they certainly are not sexual victims.”

2. Male sex workers are often conflated with being gay. Many people think that because you are a male sex worker, you must also be gay because (1) only gay men have sex with men, (2) only gay men would present their body as a passive commodity for money, and (3) male sex brothels are often found in gay districts.

My experience in Thailand showed me that this conflation is not at all the case. (1) Many male sex workers did offer their services to both men and women, but for the most part, they considered this aspect of their work irrelevant to their own personal orientation and intimate relationships at home. (Please note: There does seem to be a higher rate of LGBTQ+ youth who become involved in sex work, but this is arguably correlated to the fact that they are disenfranchised from their homes at a young age because of their sexual orientation or gender identity and are vulnerable to sexual exploitation for work (Chin, 2014: 2)). (2) Most of the older sex workers considered themselves to be in charge/in control of the transaction, what services they would or would not perform, and how much to charge the client. (3) Even though the brothels that trafficked boys were in or next to the gay districts, they were not at all the same. The gay bars almost exclusively had older boys and young men, whereas the bars that sold young boys were almost exclusively for the pedophile market and did not have older male sex workers. (Please note: This was not always the case, and there were many bars that offered a range of age, skin color, gender, weight, height, and so on, but in general I found at least the public division of sex labor to be more or less clearly distinguished in regard to age.)

3. Another reason boys and male sex work victims are overlooked is because “men raping boys is still a taboo topic” (Conaway, 2012: 2). Pedophilia is a topic that makes many people uncomfortable. Discussion of men having sex with boys makes men especially uncomfortable because men are not supposed to be raped and it causes anxiety over men’s own sense of the ability to protect masculinity. The very notion is inconceivable and immediately pushed out of consciousness. Mary Durant, of Prax(us), an anti-trafficking agency in Denver, says, “There’s a big demand for boys. We just don’t talk about it as a community. We just don’t want to talk about it” (Paul, 2015: 2).

Inter-Relationality Applied to Masculinity in the Sex-Trafficking of Boys in Thailand

Sitting in the Thai brothels and watching the sexual exploitation of the young boys compelled me to ask myself another question: “Where is ‘God’ in this?” From my studies in Thai Buddhism and my visits to Thai villages, many of the boys in Thai culture submit to being sold into slavery out of obedience and respect for their elders and family. Religious constructs of shame and honor pervade the cultural system to such a degree that when a family or village decides to sell you for their greater good (and often survival), a pious child should bow his head and obey. When I asked myself this question, this was not what I had in mind. Rather, I wanted to know where the light was in this seemingly existential darkness; where the seeds of liberation were buried in this arid soil of oppression. If any connectedness, transcendence, light, or love was to be found for these boys, where was it?

Then, I saw it. Twenty young boys were lined up naked on the stage of a pedophile brothel. As their numbers were called out, each boy found his respective john for the night. Some of the johns were surrounded by five or six boys, giving the boys beers, receiving massages, and stroking their bodies. I watched as the boys dispersed. The boys looked at each other across the room with deep, knowing glances, like they were sharing some insider knowledge or intimate connection. One of the boys threw a toy lizard at another boy to get his attention and gave him a smile. Another boy playfully slapped one of the other kids on the head as he made his way to his john. In that moment, I realized that was where “God” was; in the entanglement of their being. The “body of Christ” took on a new symbolism for me as I watched these boys “perform” slavishly for their johns but also share in the liberative performance of their friendship, solidarity, and play with one another. They “knew” each other (identity), and this epistemology of liberation was communicated through their eyes, their smiles, their touch, and their play. For a micro-second, the boys could be boys.

Inter-relationality is how I would describe the influence of oppression and liberation in the construction of the Thai boys’ identities. Looking at how entangled masculinity is in the sex-trafficking of boys, I am applying my inter-relational approach in order to de-construct the harmful effects of hegemonic masculinity on this vulnerable population and propose a constructive paradigm for their liberation. My methodology consists of analyzing oppression through the lens of each of the four areas of my framework for inter-relationality here:

Sectionality versus Relationality (Identity as Dynamic, Not Static)

When I consider the relationality of the boys in the brothels, it is easy to see that intersectionality fails to adequately highlight their multiple identities. For example, whereas skin color might have cultural significance outside the brothel, inside the brothel its significance is mainly in relation to the sexual desires of the john. Some prefer light-skinned boys and others prefer darker-skinned boys. In the brothel, the boys are not intersecting points of multiple systems of oppression, they are dynamic identities whose performances vary in relation to the defining eyes of the observer.

The boys did not relate to each other based on class, race, economics, and so on because they were too young to have been acculturated with the systemic stigma and they were all mostly in the same social predicament. From observing the boys’ interactions with one another, I would guess that their identities were constructed in their relations to one another, in relation to their owner, and in relation to the johns, and that these systems influenced each aspect of identity. Identity must have been constructed based on the relations of the boys to the johns, to the brothel owners, to the other boys, to themselves, and to society to a minute degree (Please note: Boys who are trafficked are granted little or no access to public society).

Peer interaction (sexually, socially, psychologically, etc.) is different for sex-trafficked boys than for other boys their age who are not locked up in a brothel. The unique dynamism of such vastly different identity constructions (sexual commodity (to the john), slave (to the owner), friend/foe (to the other boys), sense of self(ves) (to self), and invisible or non-existent (to society)) queers the relationality of masculinity itself. For example,

Masculinity no longer means having sex only with girls (because there are no girls).

Masculinity no longer means control of the self, sexual or otherwise (because they are slaves).

Masculinity no longer means the opposite of “effeminacy” (because effeminacy is so often desired by pedophiles).

For Thai boys who are sex-trafficked, masculinity is no longer simply an intersecting point of oppressions, but rather a complex and dynamic performance of relationality to systems and individual. Their identity is intensely dynamic, always in flux.

Micro- and Macro-Systems (Identity as Consonance and Dissonance)

Multiple systems collide to construct the identities of the brothel boys. “Masculine” systems, in fact, undo the boys’ masculinity in the eyes of society and create a dissonance that distances society from helping these boys. In an aggressively hegemonic, capitalist economy, “masculinity” commodifies, it is not commodified. Boys and men are not sold, they sell. The macro-systems of religion, family expectations, economics, sexuality, and community all inter-tangle to create a space that is perceived by society as essentially “masculine” (the sexual entertainment industry, community survival, honor to the family through obedience, higher ontological status in the next life, etc.) through the maintenance of structures that facilitate child sex-trafficking and push the unwanted out of discursive view. Societal consonance is attempted through “ignorance/ignoring,” but the dissonance remains strong and masculine anxiety is exacerbated.

These macro-systems create a dissonant sense of identity in those who participate “unconsciously,” as Freire would say, to a greater degree in the oppressiveness of those systems. Thus, masculinity is maintained among systems by ignoring and denying those same standards of masculinity to boys who are trafficked. The boys in the brothels are left to suffer the hegemony of oppressive relationality (enslavement) to systems and individuals who embody those systems (johns, owners, unconscious society, etc.). This negative relationality at the systemic level must then queerly affect their performance of masculinity in identity construction as slaves to their owners, gendered relations with their peers, and internalized ambivalence and identity dissociation.

Diversity versus Multiplicity (The One and the Many)

The internalized ambivalence that results as the consequence of ambivalent structures, for example, incongruous masculinities, surely creates an exaggerated sense of fragmentation and dissociation. The victims of sex-trafficking experience a higher than average rate of dissociative disorders, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), substance abuse, denial, and depression (Lindeland, 2010: 132). They are forced to be so many identities (sexually and otherwise) on demand, that maintaining a core identity can be challenging. This is compounded by the trauma and loss of autonomy due to being a sex slave (and not the owner of one’s self).

Masculinity for the boys in the brothel is experienced as one and many, though the “one” (unitive aspect) is harder to maintain cohesively. Because of the inter-relationality of limitless sexual possibilities that the boys are expected to perform, there is a wide scale of gender variation and identity. “Masculinity,” for the boys, is a site of great ambivalence, ambiguity, and violence.

Oppression and Liberation (Identity as Dependence and Independence)

As we have seen, several systems (religion, family, economics, society, etc.) are dependently entangled to create the oppressed circumstances to which the lives of sex-trafficked boys are confined. The systemic dismissal, allowance, and support of sex-slavery create an almost impervious web from which these boys cannot escape or receive help. For liberation to take place in freeing these young ones, we must raise conscientização (“consciousness”) and break down the oppressive epistemology of hegemonic masculinity that bleeds throughout our systems. For these boys, freedom and independence is an unattainable dream on their own. They need us and we need them. We are all implicated (some more so than others) in systems that maintain oppression and construct identity by discriminating. Therefore, we are all also existentially entangled and enabled to reach out, to dis-entangle the webs of oppression, and to build bridges of liberation. The systems we live in are not linear. To help these forsaken boys, men must first begin de-constructing our own toxic notions of masculinity and then use our relational tools, inherited with privilege, to construct bridges within ourselves, within our communities, and within society.

Conclusion

Some theorists believe that there is evidence for the butterfly effect within quantum systems, where a small individual change can have large effects on a whole system. Within chaos theory, this system sensitivity is referred to as the quantum butterfly effect (Laflamme et al., 2004). Using an inter-relational discursive methodology and a quantum entanglement approach to relationality, we can incite small changes with large systemic effects to undo oppression and precipitate liberation.

I propose that we do in fact “use the master’s tools to dismantle the master’s house!” (Lorde, 1984). Society has “queered” masculinity so that it insidiously applies one way to some (those with power and privilege) and another way to others (those without access to power or privilege). Society has created a meta-structure of oppressive systems where the same expectations are applied to all but the privileges are impossible for all to achieve. Surely, it is an ambivalently “queered” masculinity that says a man is masculine if he has a penis, but then says an African American man is not fully a man because he is Black. Undoubtedly, it is an ambivalently queered masculinity that says that boys should not be sexual commodities and then ignores the ones that so helplessly are. Society claims to have a norm for “masculinity” and anything that deviates from that is “queer.” It is obvious however, that society does not in fact have a “norm” for “masculinity” for all people, but rather a set of discriminations for guarding hegemonic relations and preserving undue power. Those who seek liberation can also “queer” masculinity as a discursive tool to de-construct oppressive systems!

Masculinity is a discursive vehicle for the maintenance of power, not just for the enslavement of sex-trafficked boys, but for the majority of identities in our world. It is a minority of exclusive elites that receive and capitalize off systemic privilege. With the growing connectedness of our world, economy, globalization, and technology, our inter-connectedness is in some ways more immediate than ever, yet in other ways we continue to turn a distant eye toward those other-ed who co-construct our lives. I propose an inter-relational methodology that queers masculinity in order to help highlight and speak discursively to the unique (and perennial) voices of fourth-wave feminism and the voices of oppressed men and masculinities that are slowly growing louder and louder.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

1.

As well as other intersectional feminists, womanists, and theologians, including Patricia Hill Collins, Leslie McCall, W.E.B. DuBois, Gloria Anzaldúa, Alice Walker, Delores Williams, Katie Geneva Cannon, and so on.

2.

By “individuals,” I also mean to include “communities,” insofar as they are shared micro-identities.

3.

I use the pronoun “their” intentionally to make grammatical-rhetorical space for various gender/sexual identity pronouns. Unless a specific gender pronoun is important to the case, I will use “they-them-theirs” pronouns.

4.

Lecture. 20 October 2015. Emily Townes inspired me in a lecture one day when she said, “I resist the term intersectional on most days. I prefer the term ‘inter-relational’ to preserve the way liberation and oppression works in people.” In fact, this statement has inspired my whole article.

5.

A theorist in theology of science.

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