For nearly a decade, Brazil has surpassed Thailand as the world's premier sex tourism destination. As the first full-length ethnography of sex tourism in Brazil, this pioneering study treats sex tourism as a complex and multidimensional phenomenon that involves a range of activities and erotic connections, from sex work to romantic transnational relationships. Erica Lorraine Williams explores sex tourism in the Brazilian state of Bahia from the perspectives of foreign tourists, tourism industry workers, sex workers who engage in liaisons with foreigners, and Afro-Brazilian men and women who contend with foreigners' stereotypical assumptions about their licentiousness. She shows how the Bahian state strategically exploits the touristic desire for exotic culture by appropriating an eroticized blackness and commodifying the Afro-Brazilian culture in order to sell Bahia to foreign travelers.

Sex Tourism examines the issues which emerge from sex worker-client interactions and from tourists visiting 'sex destinations'. It is a comprehensive summary of past research by academics and original primary and secondary research by the authors and has examples from Asia, Australasia and the USA. The authors have generated new models to show different dimensions of sex tourism, which normalise at least some components of the sex industry, and represent a new way of looking at sex tourism by challenging the preconceived perceptions that some people have of sex tourism or confirm the impression of others. Sex Tourism looks at issues of importance to those working in tourism, women's studies, gender studies and social change.

DIVAn ethnographic case study of sex tourism in the Dominican Republic, showing how the sex trade is linked to economic and cultural globalization./div

Written in a unique combination of academic and personal accounts, Sex and Tourism: Journeys of Romance, Love, and Sex takes you behind the scenes with motel owners, adventure travel guides, backpackers, and others working on all sides of the tourism industry all over the world. The editors have created a model that views the situation from three different perspectives: tourist, tourism provider, and nature of the encounter. Unlike other related volumes, this book is not just about the sex trade, but also about the role of tourism in love, marriage, and relationships Sex and Tourism is an enlightening guide to the complex world found at the crossroads of sex and sightseeing. To view an excerpt online, find the book in our QuickSearch catalog at www.HaworthPress.com.

This book encompasses the diversity and complexity of sex in tourism, incorporating the light, dark and shades of grey in between. It brings together work and ideas from a diverse array of researchers from around the world and examines the affects and effects of diverse sexual encounters in tourism, romance tourism, sex tourism and sexual exploitation in tourism – including the sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism, and sexual harassment. Sex in tourism has arguably been an understudied area of research relative to the central roles that sex plays within tourism experiences. This volume explores the complexity and nuanced nature of sex in tourism in more detail. It will be of interest to students and researchers of tourism impacts, tourist behaviour, hospitality management, destination management and development.

In the city of Natal in northeastern Brazil, several local women negotiate the terms of their intimate relationships with foreign tourists, or gringos, in a situation often referred to as "sex tourism." These women have different experiences, but they share a similar desire to "escape" the social conditions of their lives in Brazil. Based on original ethnographic research and presented in graphic form, Gringo Love explores the hopes, dreams, and realities of these women against a backdrop of deep social inequality and increasing state surveillance leading up to the 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympic Games. It touches on important contemporary issues, including sexual economics, transnational mobility, romantic imaginaries, gender representation, race and inequality, and visual methods. The graphic story is accompanied by analysis and contextual discussion, which encourage readers to engage with the narrative and expand their understanding of the broader social issues therein.

Sexual spaces, normally inhabited by (mostly) female sex workers, are understood as masculine spaces, and positioned for and around male consumers. However, red light zones and public sex performances in both Thailand and Holland are being explored and visually consumed by female tourists in significant numbers. Their presence in red light districts and sexual venues is at odds with the ways in which sexual spaces have normally been positioned. Woman and Sex Tourism Landscapes explores female tourists' interactions with highly sexualized spaces and places in two very different contexts: the Netherlands and Thailand. Addressing this incongruence, this text explores the ways in which these spaces are constructed, and examines the different relations that govern the management of, and female tourist interactions with these liminal,sexual zones. Ethnographic data collected in both countries suggests that far from being male-centred spaces, the red light districts and associated sexual entertainment venues are very much open to female tourists. Drawing on this research the author argues that some women are indeed interested in exploring sexualized zones, challenging assumptions about women’s involvements with sexual space. Thinking specifically about the visual nature of women's sexualized experiences, the analysis draws on a range of different theoretical understandings that address power, privilege, and the gaze. An important contribution to a range of debates, this book will appeal to students and researchers in tourism, geography, sociology, gender studies and cultural theory.

Gringo Gulch is a spot in San Jose, Costa Rica, home of female sex workers who have male clients from abroad (from North America in particular). Rivers-Moore s work leads the way in a burgeoning scholarly initiative to explore global sex tourism based on long-term qualitative research. Her work on the gulch is populated not only by sex workers and their clients, but also by state agents and NGO workers. All of them, she argues, use sex tourism as a strategy for getting ahead. Rivers-Moore addresses central questions: why has Costa Rica (a middle-income country thought to be an exceptional success in Latin America) emerged as a major site of sex tourism? How do sex tourists and sex workers derive meaning from their experiences, in what way do they profit from their encounters with each other? And how has the neoliberal entrenchment of state services and provisions across Latin America affected the role of the nation-state in relation to sexuality? This book shifts the conventional analysis away from questions of whether third world women s participation in sexual exchanges with first world men in tourism economies are exploitative; it asks, instead, new questions about how something is gained by all parties involved (presenting opportunities for economic and social mobility in terms of class positioning for all). Audiences for the book will include anthropologists, sociologists, historians, geographers, as well as scholars in Latin American and Caribbean studies. "

The State of Sex is a study of Nevada’s brothels that situates the nation's only legal brothel industry in the political economy of contemporary tourism. Nevada is part of the "new American heartland," as its pastimes, people, and politics have become more central to the nation. The rise of a service and leisure economy over the past sixty years has propelled sexuality into the heart of contemporary markets. Yet, neoliberal laws in the United States promote business but limit sexual commerce. How have Nevada's legal brothels survived, while the rest of the country criminalizes prostitution? How do brothels operate? Who works in them? This book brings social theory on globalizing economies, politics, leisure consumption, and emotional labor in interactive service work together with research on contemporary prostitution and sexual commerce. The authors employ an innovative, multi-method sociological approach, combining historical analysis of how the brothels came to be with over a decade's worth of ethnographic research on the current state of the industry.

In recent years, the economy of the Caribbean has become almost completely dependent on international tourism. And today one of the chief ways that foreign visitors there seek pleasure is through prostitution. While much has been written on the female sex workers who service these tourists, Caribbean Pleasure Industry shifts the focus onto the men. Drawing on his groundbreaking ethnographic research in the Dominican Republic, Mark Padilla discovers a complex world where the global political and economic impact of tourism has led to shifting sexual identities, growing economic pressures, and new challenges for HIV prevention. In fluid prose, Padilla analyzes men who have sex with male tourists, yet identify themselves as “normal” heterosexual men and struggle to maintain this status within their relationships with wives and girlfriends. Padilla’s exceptional ability to describe the experiences of these men will interest anthropologists, but his examination of bisexuality and tourism as much-neglected factors in the HIV/AIDS epidemic makes this book essential to anyone concerned with health and sexuality in the Caribbean or beyond.