One of the hottest-selling books here these days is about trade — but it has nothing to do with Singapore's exports of semiconductors or petrochemicals. 'Invisible Trade' is a ground-breaking book on Singapore's sex industry.
Description
Welcome to the very real, largely hidden, and often surreal world of high-class sex for sale in Singapore, where the sexual desires of this tiny island run the gamut from simple missionary zeal to the cracking of the whip. Never before have outsiders been offered such a fascinating look into the weird and wonderful, delightful and sometimes depraved world of five-star, high-class prostitutes that operate in Singapore's flourishing sex trade. Featuring real stories of American models moonlighting as high-class escorts in Asia, and American businessmen in search of exotic Eastern promise! #1 non-fiction bestseller at Borders Singapore and Kinokuniya Singapore (Southeast Asia's largest bookstore.)
Pages208
Released2004
LanguageEnglish
PublisherMonsoon Books
ISBN9789814358101
SellerSimon & Schuster
Reviews
At last, after thirty years of my avoiding the city-state, this book restores my faith in the Singapore character and gives me reasons to return.
Paul Theroux, writer
Frank, fascinating, weird and unputdownable!
Harper’s Bazaar Singapore, August 2004
Smart, funny and intoxicating! Who knew that sex in Singapore could be this interesting?
Annabel Chong, US-based porn star of Singapore origin
Lim's ability to capture the essence of his subjects makes for engaging reading. Mixing humour subtly into the text allows the curious reader to flit over the subject matter without getting too drawn into the pathos of the issue.
The Business Times Singapore, 2 July 2004
For those writing about the sex industry, there is always the danger that the story will become as exploitative as its subject matter. In this survey of high-end sex workers in Singapore, Lim (Inside the Outsider) manages to avoid this trap by giving the workers space to speak for themselves. The book collects the accounts of a variety of sex workers ? But by and large, readers are left to draw their own conclusions regarding the relative pathos of these sex workers' situations; Lim's focus is on the complexities of the trade and the Singaporean society ? this book hit number one on bestseller lists in Singapore.
Invisible Trade is a expose of, as the subtitle says, High-class sex for sale in Singapore. While it is no surprise that such things go on even in squeaky-clean Singapore, what makes Invisible Trade stand out it could actually have been written-and published-at all in the city-state. Although it is positioned as a matter-of-fact descriptive study, there are more than enough explicit details to give a potential protector of public morals the shakes. Lim's journalist style is to affect the present tense-the subject shudders, remembers, says, exclaims, grunts-creating a sense of immediacy and, indeed, intimacy while providing his subjects with a sort of timelessness that they probably don't achieve in reality.
The Asian Review of Books, January 2005
