Means by which intercultural influences are transmitted within a society and between societies around the world. Flows may involve finance, media, movement of people, finance, etc.
Published in Chapter:
Privileges and Problems of Female Sex Tourism: Exploring Intersections of Culture, Commodification, and Consumption of Foreign Romance
Copyright: © 2015
|Pages: 24
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-8606-9.ch020
Abstract
This chapter provides an exploration of female sex tourism, or romance tourism, a global consumer phenomenon that has evolved over several decades. Amidst forward strides in their social and economic empowerment, many women in advanced countries still experience marginalizing constraints to their freedom, mobility, and expression in many aspects of life. Yet, scholarly research and anecdotal evidence suggest that some women have utilized sex tourism as a means to escape such domestic constraints and find entrée to myriad social and cultural privileges at certain destinations abroad. Moving beyond tenured, clichéd stereotypes that typically associate sex tourism with male consumers, this chapter brings to light the rationale, justifications, criticisms, and cultural issues pervading this institution. Despite its liberating potential for women, female sex tourism does, at least somewhat, rely upon and reinforce historically entrenched national and cultural demarcations that tend to marginalize the people (partners, families, communities) of targeted destinations in the developing world.