Liminal Spaces

Abstract

Based on ethnographic fieldwork on female prostitution in the border areas between Portugal and Spain, this article focuses on the analysis of physical space as a dimension of substantial influence over the organization and social dynamics of the cross-border demand for sexual services. The basic aim is to understand the strategies underpinning the localization of “clubs,” and to interpret the processes whereby their clients incorporate specific geographies of desire/eroticism and cartographies of male (in)fidelity into their everyday lives. In order to do this, special analytical attention was paid to the diacritical markers that men use to delineate the specific social spheres in which they are permanent or temporary actors, and that indicate the changes taking place in the frames that guide their definition of the distinct situations in which they find themselves. By constructing a multidimensional concept of the border/frontier, the article also explores and interprets men’s experiences in the “ecology” of commercial sex, and their subjective perceptions and attempts to legitimate extramarital sexual pursuits in the context of their most typical daily social roles, in particular those related to the family.