Humanizing Prostitution Through Asian Fiction

Over time in all cultures, prostitutes have played a huge role in the development of history, especially during wartime. Unfortunately, with an increase in their importance, there has been a simultaneous growth in stigmas, stereotypes, and disgust towards these women. Their portrayal throughout history has been shown through a derogatory lens–steeped in shame and disgust. Fortunately, through a fictional lens, Asian-Francophone authors such as Shan Sa and Kim Thúy are able to elicit sympathetic emotions towards prostitutes and geishas. By humanizing these figures through fiction, the authors are providing the readers with an ability to learn and grow as individuals, as well as to release harmful stereotypes that are misinformed through stigmas. Their literary devices and insight into important historical social groups who are overlooked provide a varied, nuanced, empathetic perspective that is educational as
well as socially informative.
Throughout history, sexual representation during wartime has grown jaded and biased in alliance with the patriarchal society that we live in, resulting in the men who indulge in the sexual pleasures of a prostitute are not morally incorrect in comparison to the prostitutes themselves. This bias is unpacked in Robert Cottrell’s essay, “Sex and Saigon: Gendered Perspectives on the Vietnam War.” In his historical breakdown, he explains that in wars such as the Vietnam war, “Vietnamese women appeared to stand as ‘doubly ‘other’ for American soldiers, leading to ‘omnipresent’ sexual violence and exploitation,” (Cottrell 183). This ‘otherness’ is unfortunately the sad reality for most sex workers, as well as women of Asian descent to Western societies with orientalist mindsets. Vietnamese women were brutally raped, sexually assaulted, and killed by American soldiers during the Vietnamese war, leaving little room for rebellion or choice in their endeavors. Prostitution was a way for women to survive if they had no additional prospects of freedom. Pleasing the ‘enemy’ or invader was one of the few limited choices that women had to choose from in order to survive. The conversation surrounding prostitution, as well as a woman’s usage or exploitation of her sexuality, was layered with “sexist and misogynistic references,” (Cottrell 183). This is not only proof of how history and the way it’s recited is extremely patriarchal, but also of how women’s voices and actions have never been prioritized, even if what men did and had to say was
concentrated in misogyny and hate.
Bringing awareness to this injustice is what validates these women’s stories in history, but through fiction, we are able to humanize these women and their voices in society. When sticking to the specific example of the Vietnam War, Vietnamese women, and how they have carried the heavy weight of history on their backs, Kim Thúy brings a sympathetic lens to these monumental, unrecognized figures by making them a primary topic in her 2009 novel, Ru. The plot follows protagonist Nguyën An Tįnh and her transformative migration from Saigon as a boat person, all the way to Québec and America where she takes control of her narrative and her dreams as an immigrant woman. Womanhood is a constant theme in this novel. Examples of older women, children, motherhood, sexuality, and more are provided to aid this theme, making it profound and unignorable. A deeply nuanced example would be in an excerpt about the narrator witnessing the abuse of Vietnamese prostitutes.
“One night, as I followed into a restaurant a man with a slashed earlobe like that of one of the Communist soldiers who’d lived in my family home in Saigon, I saw through a slit between two panels of a private room six girls lined up against the wall, teetering in their high heels, faces heavily made up, bodies frail, skin shivering, totally naked in the flickering light from the fluorescent tubes. Together, six men took aim at the girls, each with tightly rolled American hundred-dollar bills, folded in half around a taut rubber band. The bills crossed the smoky room at the crazy speed of projectiles, finally landing on the girls’ translucent skin,” (Thúy 124).
The details in this scene provide the raw, jarring, disgusting reality of the way that prostitutes were treated during and after the Vietnam war. The symbolism behind “American hundred-dollar bill[s]” being what is thrown at these young women shows how American men, their culture, and money were viewed as something more powerful, important, and dominant over Eastern cultures, particularly Vietnamese culture, and especially women (Thúy 124). In addition to these details, the portrayal of the young prostitutes having “translucent skin” is not just in accordance with their physical attributes, but also symbolic representation of how prostitutes are seen as shallow and not as worthy as
an ordinary citizen (Thúy 124).
In Deborah Altgilbers’ book, Tell Me Who I Am: Representations of Prostitution and the Construction of Masculinity in Five Contemporary Asian-American Novels, the chapter titled, “What is a Prostitute?” analyzes the dehumanization of prostitution in general, as well as through the specific lens of Asian culture. She quotes William Acton’s “scientific study of prostitution,” showing how men typically viewed these women (Altgilbers 22). He believed that “the prostitute was a woman with ‘half the woman gone, and that half containing all that elevates her nature’ (Acton qtd. in Bell 55)” (Altgilbers 22). This depiction of prostitution maintained itself and was projected onto Vietnamese prostitutes and women. With Thúy’s portrayal of this ideology, alongside the mentioning of their fragility and “translucent skin,” she adds a layer of sensitivity and sympathy to the prostitutes. She illuminates their pain, as well as their lack of societal withstanding through only one vignette, showing the power of fictional writing, as well as
Thúy’s deliberate, effective usage of
sympathetic prose.
By reclaiming the representation of Vietnamese prostitutes through fictional representation, Thúy is simultaneously going against previous political science ideologies that say, “cinematic and novelistic treatments of the subject […] point to boredom and a desire to have ‘a little fun,’ which blurred the line separating sex and violence” (Cottrell 184). Her portrayal of these women does not–at any moment–elicit hate, violence, or arousal, but instead brings forth the feeling of empathy, respect, and concern for their condition. The narrator in Ru contextualizes the prostitutes’ influence on history by explaining how she used to be “very flattered when people thought [she] was [her] boss’s escort […] because it meant that [she] was still young, slim, fragile” (Thúy 125). This shows how her idea of prostitution fell into alignment with beauty and fantasy, but that perspective was quickly shifted after she witnessed the abuse they endured firsthand. She states that “after witnessing the scene” that took place in the restaurant, she “stopped feeling flattered out of respect for them, because behind their dreamy bodies and their youth, they carried all the invisible weight of Vietnam’s history,” (Thúy 125). This depiction actively goes against the historical perceptions of prostitution, that paints them as shallow, worthless, and extremely low in societal importance. Without Thúy’s sensitive approach that is layered in respect and adoration for these women, there would have been just another heartless, dehumanizing example added to the mass historical pile of stories about these deeply,
socially-pivotal women.

Another fictional, Asian, cultural lens that shows important representation of prostitution with the intent for sympathy and education, would be in Shan Sa’s novel, The Girl Who Played Go, which was written in 2001. It received its fair share of criticism when it was released due to the major role that sexuality plays in it, despite how young the female protagonist is. The novel follows two protagonists: one is a young local girl in Manchuria, China who loves to play the game Go, and the other is a Japanese soldier who finds himself acting as a spy in Manchuria. Although the girl has her fair share of her sexual experiences, for the purpose of this essay, the soldier will be the primary
focus from this novel.
Sa’s literary choices when depicting prostitutes in this work of fiction is solely focused on the narrator who is witnessing said prostitutes being a man. It gives the alternate perception, in comparison to Thúy’s work, where it properly illuminates the patriarchal ideologies that were and still are embedded so deeply into our understandings of prostitutes. In one scene, the soldier speaks of dehumanizing a prostitute by using them as a form of release and mental abandonment from the army and life in general:
The appeal of a prostitute has the transient, furtive freshness of the morning dew. Prostitutes have no illusions and this makes them a soldier’s natural soulmate. They respond with a blandness that is reassuring; as the daughters of poverty and misery, they have an abiding mistrust of happiness. Already damned, they dare not dream of eternity, and they cling to us like shipwrecked mariners clinging to flotsam. There is a religious purity in our embraces, (Sa 72-73).
In this depiction from a male soldier’s perspective, there is the prominent inclusion of misogyny, as well as the dehumanization of prostitute women. By seeing them as “already damned” yet in possession of “transient, furtive freshness of the morning dew,” (72) Sa deliberately shows how they aren’t respected or seen as human without having to include depictions of abuse or assault. Sa also doesn’t feel that it is necessary to outright mention their historical importance, but instead shows it in the soldier’s reliance on prostitution and sexual activity through brothels. It also shows the hypocrisy of soldiers in this time, who could arguably be just as “damned” and simultaneously praised for their job, which is their means for survival. This is the same case for prostitutes, who are simply finding a means for survival with what they have. What differentiates the two people utilizing their sexuality is that one is a man, and one is a woman, which brings attention to the deep-rooted misogyny in the perception of prostitution, as well as the more localized misogyny and patriarchal ideology that is deeply embedded in military
relationships with prostitutes.
Cottrell agrees with this idea and gives disturbing examples of how soldiers were given free will and no punishment for sexual indulgence and harassment. Some even “considered them the proper ‘spoils of war’” (Cottrell 179). The commodification of humans throughout history during wartime is something that is not unfamiliar, but to sexualize them as well is something that only women and prostitutes can sadly, confidently speak on. To contextualize the historical events of the Sino-Japanese War–which is the backdrop of The Girl Who Played Go–Cottrell also offers information regarding Japanese culture and wars. He states that, “worried about mass rapes, Japanese officials effectively forced tens of thousands of poor girls to work in brothels or ‘comfort stations,’” (Cottrell 182). In comparison, ‘poor’ boys were drafted into wars, which shows the dynamic between class as well as gender; a dynamic that is extremely prevalent in Sa’s novel as well.
In Leslie La Croix, Colleen K. Vesely, and Bweikia F. Steen’s educational essay titled, “Humanizing History: Using Historical Fiction Texts to Develop Disciplinary and Racial Literacies,” they bring light to the importance of humanized stories from those who are overlooked throughout history, and how, through pedagogical practices, as well as the inclusion of historical fiction in classrooms, there will be more of a diverse literacy in these subjects. Sa and Thúy’s works could be considered historical fiction work, making them equally as informative as enjoyable. They prioritize the stories as much as the artform, making sure to “humanize history and compel readers to feel and want to know more about a particular [social group’s] experience” during pivotal moments throughout
history (La Croix, et al. 632).
By focusing on the particular humanization of prostitutes, Sa and Thúy have opened the informational door to readers of fiction, as well as those who are interested in history. Literary devices elicit sympathy, respect, and concern for prostitutes, as well as disgust towards soldiers and men who see women as commodities to be bought more than they see them as people. These pieces of fiction serve as informational, digestible representations of prostitution, and how they were pivotal means of survival throughout history. By bringing light to these injustices and breaking the stigma around prostitutes, Sa and Thúy are opening up educational conversation towards the topic–helping modern-day society grow and develop maturely and with empathy–proving the effectiveness of fiction with historical context.