In Queer Love Noelle Stout provides a refreshing take on a widely-studied topic: sex tourism and hustling in contemporary Cuba. Focusing on a handful of case studies of mostly young habaneros trying to get by in a hostile economy and rapidly changing social and political environment, this is ethnography at its best: powerful portrayals of daily life presented in an engaging and elegant style.

The book makes a convincing case that changes in sexual attitudes and behaviour provide a useful insight into the complexities of post-Soviet life in Havana. Its particular contribution is the focus on Cubans who sell same-sex services, and/or have different kinds of intimate same-sex relationships. The book gives us a fascinating peek into some aspects of queer Havana, demonstrating at the same time that same-sex networks, especially among young people, are increasingly impossible to disentangle from the web of sex tourism. Though its theoretical framework is loose, the book follows the main trends in recent queer theory, replacing identity with the more fluid concept of desire. Indeed, the case studies demonstrate that sexual performances, preferences and practices are shaped, and alter along with, changing economic opportunities, social values, personal contacts, and individual ambitions.

The Introduction offers a useful overview of the post-Soviet scene, setting the stage for later understandings of the seemingly contradictory attitudes and relationships of queer Cubans to commercial sex work. Even as hustlers embrace entrepreneurialism, consumerism and in some cases criminal activity, many of their understandings of entitlement, justice and equality are grounded in the socialist values they were raised with, values they retain even as they criticise the current Cuban government. Chapter 1 gives the wide view of developments in state policy, social attitudes and cultural representations of same-sex desire in Cuba over the past few decades, painting a picture of increased tolerance and visibility combined with ongoing repression.

The case studies presented in chapters 2 to 5, with detailed and at times moving accounts of the primary informants, are the heart of the book. In chapter 2 we meet a gay brother and sister living in a Havana flat inherited from their parents. This privileged situation, in a city plagued by a housing shortage, allows them to establish a relatively stable family life with lovers and friends, similar to alternative forms of queer kinship elsewhere. Though they attempt to disassociate from what they identify as the ‘social decline’ of Havana's ‘queer enclaves’ (p. 59), the siblings' desire for hard currency draws them into work and relationships that share elements with the commercial sexual exchanges they condemn. Still, they perceive ‘real’ love and desire as free from commodification. Here, and throughout the case studies, Stout demonstrates that light-skinned Cubans distinguish ‘true love’ and authentic sexual identity from commodified sexual practices by using racialised and classed discourses that associate sex work, laziness and stigmatised gender roles with dark skin and a lack of culture/education.

Chapter 3 revolves around a middle-aged gay man who earns a good salary as a photographer on the black market. Oscar shares his home with friends who cook and clean instead of paying of rent, and has a series of relationships with male sex workers (pingueros) who satisfy his sexual desires but not his craving for emotional intimacy. Oscar's economic privilege allows him to ‘approach(es) his domestic life with market logics that include(d) certain ideas about contract labor, firing, and authority’ (p. 99). Chapter 4 shows how such logics cross the boundary between the professional and personal lives of hustlers. Melba works as a go-between for tourists and hustlers, including her young girlfriend. The ways the couple talk about their open relationship and their multiple male and female sex partners, describing themselves as modernas, hints at ‘unexplored aspects of female sexual desire and practice’ (p. 114). The illicit activities of Melba and her posse, from hustling, petty theft and conning to violence, as well as their constant run-ins with police, challenge common outside perceptions of Cuba as a peaceful utopia.

In chapter 5 Stout turns the lens on the foreign tourists, in the main wealthy, white men from North America and Europe, who come to Cuba in search of fun and sex. Sometimes arrogant and explicitly racist, they pay to get what they want, withholding money when they feel ripped off. But these men also get tied into more complicated emotional and economic exchanges with their Cuban lovers and mates, sometimes combining solidarity with consumerism. Particularly illuminating is the description of foreign activists who travel to Havana with political motives, and end up using sex and romance with Cubans to get a taste of the ‘real’ Cuba. As Stout notes, the comparative literature often portrays tourists as one-dimensional (pp. 205–6, note 2). Yet she herself moves in this direction at times, reiterating that travellers remain ignorant of the impact of their presence, gifts and money on the ‘authentic’ Cuban experience they seek. At the same time, Stout recognises that she ‘often found (herself) in a similar role to that of foreign gay tourists’ (p. 148). Chapter 4 includes a discussion of the author's ‘own place in the emergent social hierarchies cutting through Havana's contemporary queer enclaves’ (p. 143). This is a salient, if uncomfortable, reminder that researchers in Cuba share more than a little in common with tourists.

After Love makes an important contribution to the study of queer sexuality in contemporary Havana, and also to our understanding of the multiple ways in which the daily lives of Havana dwellers are affected by the changes in the Cuban economy since the 1990s. But the book is muddled about how to characterise this economy. Is it ‘late socialism’ (p. 4), a ‘mixed economy’ (p. 188, note 10) or ‘dual system’ (p. 119)? Like some other commentators, Stout seems to assume that foreign investment, entrepreneurship and consumerism are proof of ‘capitalism’. This confusion does not undercut the conclusions of this excellent ethnography, but it does suggest that more research remains to be done on how Cuban socialism functions in these queer times.