Sex and Tourism: Journeys of Romance, Love, and Lust [Hardcover]

Kaye Sung Chon (Author), Thomas Bauer (Author), Bob Mckercher (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0789012022 | ISBN-13: 978-0789012029 | Publication Date: May 30, 2003 | Edition: 1

Explore the complex relationship between tourism and intimacy in this new book with a worldwide perspective!

With a unique combination of academic and personal accounts, Sex and Tourism: Journeys of Romance, Love, and Lust takes you behind the scenes with motel owners, adventure travel guides, backpackers, and others working on all sides of the international tourism industry. 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.

The global focus of Sex and Tourism will introduce you to:

• off-season romance on the island of Crete
• sex tourism in Cambodia
• a South Korean museum dedicated to women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military
• the sexual aspects of adventure travel in Canada
• cross-cultural marriage in Thailand
• gentleman's clubs in New Orleans
• Australian river guides and their potential liaisons with clients

People who travel to escape their day-to-day lives often become involved in situations they would never find themselves in at home. Good or bad, many of these situations are examined in Sex and Tourism. You'll learn about the illegal trafficking of girls in Nepal, worldwide programs for combating child sex rings, and the lethal combination of AIDS and tourism, but you'll also find accounts of love and romance far from home. You will see how the tourism industry can act as a facilitator of human intimacy and what happens when different cultural realities collide.

Anyone involved in recreation, leisure, anthropology, social science, or tourism will be interested in this book. Sex and Tourism is an enlightening guide to the complex world found at the crossroads of sightseeing and sex.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 242 pages
• Publisher: Routledge; 1 edition (May 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789012022
• ISBN-13: 978-0789012029
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,960,485 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars So-so book, April 17, 2010

By 

Rune Rindel Hansen (Copenhagen, Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Sex and Tourism: Journeys of Romance, Love, and Lust (Hardcover)

This books is comprised of a series of essays about sex tourism, most of them accademic. It's an interesting subject. The book defines sex tourism in a more broad sense than what is generally understood. For one example in Europe it is very common for young people in north Europe to go on holiday in south Europe, where the holiday is beach, party, drinking and sex! Or in the winter, the go on skiing holiday, where afterskiing and party and sex is an essential part of the experience. Journeys like this falls within this books definition of sex tourism, because sex is a significant motivation for the tourism. Well the books essays explore the subject of sex tourism from various angels. It states that prostitution in third world countries catering men from richer countries is not only a bad thing, because it brings wealth to those countries, it advocates a decriminalization of prostitution, but warns about the high risk of contracting sexual transmitted diseasses, like HIV. Some alarming investigation has revealed that in some cases 40 % of the prostitutes in South Asian countries like Thailand and Cambodia is infected with HIV!