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Intro • People are motivated by pleasure (Quoidbach, Sugitani, Gross, Taquet, & Akutsu,

2019) • Pleasure comes in many forms (e.g., food, leisure, sex - primarily important for

this essay, pleasure is considered through lenses of sugar and sex) • Access to pleasure is unequal across the board (requires money and power)

(Rizwan, 2017) • Global white supremacy means that in general, white people have far greater

access to pleasure than people of color (Black people in particular) (Tessman, 2013)

• Thesis statement – Through global white supremacy and their financial ability to pay for the consumption of both sugar and sex, white peoples have a long history of exploiting Black peoples in the Caribbean for pleasure.

Argument – During the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, white British colonists exploited enslaved Black peoples to build sugar plantations

• Global domination, imperialism, and colonialism (with their associated slavery) spread across the globe (Cromwell, 2014)

• Colonialism and imperialism brought great wealth to white people while simultaneously violently exploiting people of color (Brower, 2016)

• Caribbean climate ideal environment for growing sugarcane, a high pleasure, high demand product that white people could afford (Anker, 2020)

• Transition – these circumstances created a local economy that catered to white pleasure

Argument – Changes in Caribbean economy

• Environmental degradation slowed sugar production (Draper, 2017) • Changes in British laws regarding slavery changed the economics of sugar

production • Haitian slave revolt scared British colonists and forced white colonists to work

with Black leaders who were formerly enslaved (Kaisary, 2008) • People who were formerly enslaved needed work, which the Caribbean

economy was not prepared to support (Deere, 1990) • People often turn to sex work when there are constraints on other viable

economic options (McCarthy, Benoit, & Jansson, 2014) • Transition - British colonists withdrew from Caribbean islands without taking

responsibility for the resultant economic vacuum – Caribbean peoples had to do something to build their economy and their natural resources had been depleted

Argument – Current economic opportunity in the Caribbean caters largely to the pleasure of white tourists

• Many kinds of pleasure currently on offer on Caribbean islands (e.g., high-end resorts and all that goes with them) (Padilla, 2007)

• Sex tourism is not insignificant in the Caribbean islands, partly because sex work is common (Siliang-Lu, Holmes, Noone, & Flaherty, 2020)

• It is primarily white peoples who consume these forms of Caribbean pleasure (Padilla, 2007)

• Transition – the imposition of British imperialism in the Caribbean brings whiteness into direct association with pleasure in that region.

Argument – For centuries, the producers of Caribbean pleasure were often Black, and the consumers of pleasure were often white

• For many years, white peoples were the primary group who could afford sugar (Anker, 2020)

• White peoples (primarily Western) are the primary group who travels to the Caribbean for the pleasure industry (Séraphin & Butler, 2013)

• Black bodies are exoticized and hypersexualized by white peoples (Duvivier, 2008)

• Black peoples have generally produced through the exploitation of their bodies the pleasure that white peoples consume

Conclusion

• The climate of the Caribbean encouraged British colonial sugar plantations, but only until environmental degradation and British anti-slavery laws disrupted this commerce enough to make it less desirable to white colonists

• The resultant economic system was unequal to the economic needs of peoples living in the Caribbean

• Black descendants of enslaved people kidnapped from Africa are hypersexualized in modern Western culture, laying the groundwork for lucrative sex tourism in an area of economic need

• The economic circumstances and colonial history of Caribbean islands means that Black bodies have been exploited for white pleasure in this area for centuries

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