Inequalities And Discrimination In Sex Tourism

Beyond isolated interpersonal dynamics between sex tourists and sex workers, the practices of sex tourism are pervaded by its historical context of structural and global inequalities. These global structures of inequality are reproduced, navigated and, in some cases, subverted by the experiences of sex tourists and sex workers, entailing constant negotiations of power. In this essay, I will argue that exchanges within the sex tourism industry as it exists today could not function without the influence of complex, historically embedded structural inequalities such as racist colonial othering and exoticisation. As such, it is important to analyse sex tourism within these contexts of inequality, as it is upon these axis that the industries of sex tourism are motivated and are able to operate. Edward Said’s theoretical work on the conception of orientalism and its profiling of the exotic ‘other’ can be applied when examining the historical foundations of sex tourism, as a neo-colonial gaze continues to underpin contemporary sex tourism practices (1978). Rivers-Moore’s ethnographic study of San Jose discusses the colonial imagining of the ‘other’ as integral to the practices of sex tourism, within which racist stereotypes are purported to justify the motivations of male sex tourists. While sex tourism has historically been defined as the practice of travel with the primary motivation of engaging with commercial sex services, it should also account for contemporary reconfigurations of sex work; for example, women’s sex tourism, or non-heterosexual sex work, which may not be commercially based. However, these new forms of sex tourism are not free from historically situated inequalities, and new dynamics of inequality are produced from these practices.

Amidst the varying intersections of inequality that may exist within sex tourism, colonial and imperial ideologies of the exotic ‘Other” (Staszak 2008, pg. 43) remains an almost constant factor of the dynamic. Edward Said’s 1978 text Orientalism discusses this is relation to Western conceptions of the ‘Oriental’ other, where epistemological power is reinforced with colonial stereotypes. Othering occurs when a “dominant in-group” forms discourses around the perceived differences of another group, negatively connoting it as a means of reinforcing the dominant group’s superiority (Staszak 2008, pg. 43). In the context of Said’s theoretical work, the foreign culture becomes the Other as defined by its difference from Western colonial culture, while a “flexible positional superiority” assures that the West is always viewed favourably (Said 1978, pg. 7). These biased discourses construct an image of the other as uncivilised, primitive and unintelligent, characterising them as oppositional and inferior to Western culture. In conjunction with the primitivism the colonial gaze prescribes, the Other often becomes the subject of exoticism through assumptions of unrefined, animalistic sexuality (Knellwolf 2002). This fascination with “sensuality and savagery” in the colonial imagining of the Other (Knellwolf 2002, pg. 19) is of immense importance in discussions of sex tourism, as it makes apparent the exoticising fantasy that the Western sex tourist projects upon the Othered sex worker. Megan Rivers-Moore’s 2011 ethnographic study of sex tourism in San Jose demonstrates this exoticised othering, as well as the racist conceptions of Latino masculinity that stem from neo-colonial imaginings.

At the centre of Rivers-Moore’s ethnography is the role of colonial conceptions of the other in Gringo’s justification of their sex tourism practices. In order to maintain the sense of moral superiority that colonialism granted, many white, male sex tourists rely upon racist, Western representations of the Other- in this case, aggressive stereotypes of Latino machismo- to “naturalize and neutralize their own participation” (Rivers-Moore 2012, pg. 857). These stereotypes are generally founded upon racist Western media representations, and tend to be almost completely unsubstantiated by real life experience, with the anthropologist finding actual interactions between sex tourists and ticos (local Costa Rican men) to be very rare (2011, pg. 400). According to many of Rivers-Moore’s participants, the ticos are “horrible” to women, and that “so many women have told me that [the participants are] nicer than the ticos”, (2011, pg. 399) as they “treat them with respect” (2011, pg. 400). Imagining the Other to be violent, insensitive machista allows Gringo sex tourists to define themselves in oppositionality to them- “racializing Costa Rican men and imagining them as backward […] allows tourists to take on the contrasting role of more modern, enlightened men” (2011, pg. 401). By focussing only on this, they are able to “ignore the fact that the women they encounter are in fact working” for them, vindicating themselves of their own possible ‘backwardness’ in paying women for sex (2011, pg. 401).

Said’s discussion of colonial knowledge can be applied to this phenomenon, describing the way in which the Westerner assumes they know “what is good for them better than [the Other] could possibly know themselves” (Said 1978, pg. 42). The opinions of the sex workers themselves are largely irrelevant to the dynamic, as the Gringo assumes his knowledge over her is greater than her own ability to perceive her own treatment by men. Unlike Western women, which Rivers-Moore’s participants claim are too demanding and unfeminine, they applaud the “low maintenance” of Costa Rican women, where pleasing them is “straight-forward” (2011, pg. 403). The individual needs and desires of women are homogenised as the Westerner impresses their neo-colonial understanding of these apparently simpler women (2011, pg. 403). Despite their positionality as sex tourists, their ostensibly superior treatment towards Costa Rican women allows them to believe that they are morally enlightened and cultured- “the almighty Gringo”, as one of Rivers-Moore’s participants bragged (2012, pg. 850). This racist complex of superiority “relies […] on a critique of the masculinity of other men”, as well as epistemic power over Othered women, in order to be morally sustained (2012, pg. 850). Consequently, the dynamic of sex tourism is inherently structured around historical conceptions of the colonial and gendered Other.

The racialisation of sex tourism, especially in regard to the sexuality of the Other, forms what Williams refers to as a “racial hierarchy of desire” (2013, pg. 45). In this colonial hierarchy, white sexuality is elevated and viewed as respectable, whereas the Other’s is cheapened, characterised by promiscuity and commercial sex. “Put another way, desire and affection are defined as ‘lighter’ and prostitution as ‘darker,’ effectively racializing the entire process” (Cabezas 2004, quoted in Weichselbaumer 2012, pg. 1222). This concept parallels colonial conceptions of civilisation and primitivism, with the Other being fetishised difference, while also being degraded for crude, uninhibited sexuality. Imperative to the function of sex tourism, it provides an illusion of validation for Western sex tourists, allowing them to frame their exchanges as benign, or even positive, as do the participants of Rivers-Moore’s study in purporting their noble treatment of the women in San Jose. While they position their sexual exploits as a fundamental part of masculine desire (Rivers-Moore 2012, pg. 856), the local men, who would otherwise threaten their relationships with local women, are positioned as sleazy, without morals (Rivers-Moore 2011, pg. 400).

However, the racialising of sexuality that occurs in sex tourism dynamics extends far beyond the archetypal scenario of white male tourists and female non-white sex workers. Many ethnographic examples are bringing attention to the dynamics of gay and female sex tourism practices, as well as the forms of global and historical inequality that are apparent within these new structures (Sanchez Taylor 2006; Phillips 2008; Weichselbaumer 2011; Mendoza 2012). Foremost, female sex tourism has often been displaced from contexts of inequality and exploitation. By both anthropologists and female sex tourists themselves, the practice is often referred to as “romance tourism” (Pruitt & LaFont 1995, quoted in Weichselbaumer 2011, pg. 1222). This terminology, which undoubtedly cushions the negative connotations of sex tourism, reveals broader “essentialist models” (Sanchez Taylor 2006, pg. 44) of viewing women as “less sexually desirous” than men, and as incapable of sexual exploitation in the the ways that men are (Weichselbaumer 2011, pg. 1220). However, many studies into female sex tourism indicate that this is not the case, and that sex tourism conducted by women is still rooted in racial and neo-colonial inequalities, regardless of its label as romantic (Sanchez Taylor 2006; Phillips 2008; Weichselbaumer 2011).

In an effort to distinguish themselves from male sex tourism, women often employ the fantasy of a short-lived romantic fling with a foreign man, which happens to include sexual relations. This is not to say that the notion of romance is simply a facade, as Weichselbaumer notes, “none of the women considered herself a ‘sex tourist’ as they generally regarded their liaisons to be genuine” (2011, pg. 1221). Nonetheless, a fetishisation of exoticised men, particularly the hypersexualisation of black men and their bodies, is salient within discussions of female sex tourism. As made apparent through common elements of ethnographic studies of female sex tourism in Barbados (Phillips 2008), the Carribean (Weichselbaumer 2011), Jamaica and the Dominican Republic (Sanchez Taylor 2006), exoticised racial conceptions of the Other is a prevailing element in attracting tourists. As many of Weichselbaumer’s informants describe, the appeal of the racially Othered man lies within colonial associations of a closeness to nature, quite blatantly alluding to expectations of primitivism (2011, pg. 1227). “Through the lens of racism, then, Caribbean men epitomize the romantic ideal”, writes Sanchez Taylor, “as their ‘animalistic’ attributes make them more like men than white men” (2006, pg. 49). This parallels the motivations of the male sex tourists in Rivers-Moore’s ethnography, where it is claimed that the foreign women are more truly feminine than those in their home country. Of course, the reversal of gendered inequality in female sex tourism is a notable “transgressive element” of the dynamic, but many of the essential neo-colonial elements of racial inequality remain in tact to ensure the “dominant racial order” (Weichselbaumer 2011, pg. 1227). Ultimately, “female tourists’ sexual–economic relationships with local men are predicated upon the same global economic and social inequalities” that “underpin” male sex tourism (Sanchez Taylor 2006, pg. 42-44).

Similar formats of sex tourism within which this racial gaze is apparent include homosexual sex tourism, which is vastly underrepresented in anthropological study. The work of Cristóbal Mendoza (2013), documents a fetishistic gaze towards the young men in Puerto Vallarta, Western Mexico. He observes the way Otherness and difference is exoticised by tourists, as recounted by Mexican male sex workers. “Gringos […] come here to get dark-skinned people….”, as well as pursuing particular stereotypes of masculinity that they believe to be unique to Mexican men (Mendoza 2013, pg. 132-133). These inherence of these traits to Mexican men is perpetuated by tourism media, which “represent them as ‘the exotic other’” in order to appeal to Western male sex tourists (2013, pg.132). This demonstrates the universality of racial othering and difference as an integral element of sex tourism, regardless of the gender or sexuality of the Western sex tourist.

Further discussions of inequality should examine more nuanced understandings of power between sex tourists and sex workers, acknowledging the autonomy and agency of those in the sex tourism industry in negotiating their experiences. However, overarching structures of inequality that persist through historical contexts are imperative to the analysis of sex tourism, constistenly present within male, female and heterosexual practices. Manifestations of neo-colonial power through exoticised racial imaginings are proven to be a predominant element of sex tourism practices, despite of the other relatively transgressive intersections of identity that the sex tourist may represent.