Illicit Flirtations: Labor, Migration and Sex Trafficking in Tokyo, by Rhacel Salazar Parrenas. Stanford University Press, 2011, 336 pp. $21.95 (paperback)
Rhacel Parrenas, a University of Southern California sociologist, argues that current government efforts to "rescue" Filipina hostesses from sex trafficking are misguided and do more harm than good.
Drawing on nine months of fieldwork in 2006-07 when she worked as a hostess in the outskirts of Tokyo, Parrenas shares insider insights and interviews with many of the hostesses she met while working at her club and patronizing others. While acknowledging that many hostesses endure miserable conditions, and a few are subject to severe coercion, she asserts that anti-sex trafficking campaigners exaggerate the dangers and stoke moral panic to advance their misguided policy agenda.