Sex in Tourism

This book encompasses the diversity and complexity of sex in tourism, including the light, dark and shades of grey between. It studies the affects and effects of diverse sexual encounters in tourism; romance tourism, sex tourism and exploitation in tourism, including the sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism and sexual harassment.

On the Hunt for Noble Savages: Romance Tourism and Ageing Femininities

Casual sexual encounters are closely wedded to leisure travel, and have received a lot of attention in both theoretical and empirical work. However, the relationship between romance tourism and female ageing remains largely under-researched. This article offers critical insights into the interplay of the successful ageing and sexual relationships abroad of older women travellers. It shows that romance tourism has both positive and negative implications for women’s physical and psychological health and wellbeing. Although exotic escapes help reconnect women with their youthful selves, enhancing a sense of self-confidence and challenging the narrative of decline, casual sex may also generate conflicting feelings once the travel romance is over. This article also encourages the rethinking of the complexities of ageing femininities, sexual activity and health risk in ‘silver’ romance tourism today. Additionally, it argues that the sexual health guidelines and information campaigns should adopt a more multifaceted approach to sexual expressions, and encourage alternative views towards sex and sexuality in later life, in order to not create a rather oppressive ideology among older women.

Towards a Deeper Understanding of the Meaning of Male Beach Worker-Female Tourist Relationships on the Kenyan Coast

<p>Knowledge and research on sexual-economic relationships between local men and Western female tourists in different touristic locations around the world has grown, as has public interest and awareness of the phenomenon. However, the direct perspectives of the men whose lives constitute the focus of such studies remain scarce. This has resulted in the phenomenon being understood mainly and inadequately through the concepts of 'romance tourism' and 'female sex tourism'. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Kenya's South Coast region, this article foregrounds the voices of male beach workers and the meanings they assign to these relationships, against a backdrop of the historical, social, economic and political dynamics within which these relationships are pursued. The men attest to socio-economic hardships and marginalization, against which they seek to establish long-term intimate relationships with foreign female tourists, as well as non-sexual economically motivated friendships with foreign tourists, termed family friends. The narratives and analyses show that the pursuit of these relationships as livelihood strategies also flows from the men's struggles to fulfil traditional and contemporary ethno-societal gender expectations, through which men are generally construed as the expected breadwinners and providers. </p>

Między romansem a orientalizmem. Tysiąc i jedna opowieść o miłości

The paper describes the phenomenon of romance tourism through the narratives taken from the German Internet portal 1001-Geschichte.de. Romance tourism is a term used to characterize women who during holidays in the countries of global south engage in a personal relationship with a local man. As that relationship is emotional in character it cannot be limited to simple sex tourism. The German portal connects women whose feeling were abused by local man. The stories they share are consistent with narrative structures used for describing romantic love in the Western culture. However, due to the specific context, exotic environment and different cultural background of the lover, those stories are all examples of Saidian orientalism. Those dimensions form the subject of the present paper.