Dennis-Benn counters this narrative by illuminating the fictional experience of women in the sex tourism industry, through attention to the violence of imperial logics towards both the women working to make a living and towards the land itself. She refuses to portray either entity as passive, but rather demonstrates the agency and small acts of rebellion which thwarted the imperialist imperatives of the (sex) tourist industry. For example, she describes how Margot “doesn’t see [sex work] as demeaning” but rather “as merely satisfying the curiosity of foreigners; foreigners who pay her good money to be their personal tour guide on the island of her body” (Dennis-Benn 10). Here, she demonstrates the way in which sex workers such as Margot subvert the fantasies of foreigners for their own economic gain. Further, the comparison of island and body further indicates the power of local Jamaicans as tour guides, who can control the parts of the island which are visible or accessible to outsiders, at least to some extent. It is notable that the island/body is only knowable through the agency of the tour guide, and not a passive object which can be extracted submissively.

Dennis-Benn furthers the agency of the natural environment of Jamaica as a rival geography. At one point, when Alphonso begins construction on his new hotel development, an earthquake halts the progress of this exploitative destruction of the local ecosystem (both which displaces trees and humans alike). In response, “they decided to halt the construction until a later date” (Dennis-Benn 290). It is further implied that they attribute the earthquake to the supposed powers of Miss Ruby, who was “wielding spells with her wild hand gestures and that strange language” when “all of a sudden the earth started to shake” (Dennis-Benn 290). In this way, women, alongside the natural environment, challenge the presumed omniscience of neocolonialist powers through active, even violent resistance.

The hydrofeminist personification of the ocean, through the character of Pregnant Heidi, furthers this trope. The screams of Pregnant Heidi articulate the pain of the women for whom the island is not a source of romance, but of rape. Further, the active resistance of Pregnant Heidi, who continually screams and seeks tourists to drown, demonstrates a vocal and violent revulsion of tourist bodies, demonstrating the way Jamaica’s waters become a rival geography which challenges colonialist geographies of domination.