Sex Tourism

The term sex tourism refers to the development and expansion of industries providing sexual services to tourists. These industries-which include not just the establishments that provide sex shows and prostitution, but also travel agencies, hotels, and other businesses-have developed to cater primarily to Western and Japanese men who travel for business and leisure activities. Consider the growth of sex tourism in Thailand alone, which is a common destination for sex tourists. In 1981, Thailand received two million international tourists a year; by 1996, this number had more than tripled to seven million. Most notably, the vast majority of tourists in Thailand-five million in 1996-were unaccompanied men, with a significant portion of them being sex tourists.

Experts link the growth of sex tourism to broader patterns of tourist growth. According to the UN World Tourism Organization, by the year 2000, tourism was the single most important global economic activity. Tourism has been promoted extensively as a developmental strategy for third world countries. Local governments have actively promoted tourism as well, as it has become increasingly important in sustaining their economies. Worldwide, tourism is approximately a $3.5 trillion industry.

Sex tourism is well documented in a number of countries, including Thailand, the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Brazil, the Netherlands, and the Dominican Republic. It has been especially pronounced in Asia, and its roots are linked to the impact of the U.S. military presence there in the middle of the 20th century. Though prostitution has a long history in the region, sex tourism is a direct outgrowth of U.S. military bases and “rest and recreation” centers established in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. These centers were created to provide sexual services to American GFs serving in the region and relied on the sexual labor of local women. In fact, prostitution regularly flourishes during wartime, with the tacit or explicit approval of military leaders and with little concern for harms caused to the women involved. It is often justified as a means of channeling men's presumed sexual “needs.” In Southeast Asia, the early growth in international tourism-made possible by the expansion of commercial airlines and other leisure services-occurred around the same time as the placement of American troops in the region. The infrastructures put into place to serve American military personnel were well suited to the expansion of sex tourism after military withdrawal.

The structure and operation of the sex tourism industry continues to be shaped by Western imperialism, colonial legacies, and racialized notions of sexuality. For instance, sex tourism is often promoted as beneficial to both third world economies and individual sex workers and their families, thus encouraging sex tourists to see their exploits as “beneficial.” Moreover, the promotion of tourism and sex tourism- which includes package sex tours-advertises the sexual availability of young women and girls to tourists, highlighting the notion that Asian women are submissive, exotic, and thus sexually desirable. In these ways, sex tourism can be considered to be built on the idea of male entitlement to sex, to cast men's involvement in a paternalistic framework, and to hinge on race-based images of the feminine characteristics and sexual availability of girls and women in the third world. Moreover, these images can be considered as not [Page 650]simply based on notions of racial difference, but also on racial hierarchy.

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