User:MNC-2016/Male prostitution

Sex tourism goes beyond the transactional exchange of sex for currency, it may involve temporary relationships, emotional, or physical intimacy. Due to the unclear parameters these relationships have been described as "ambiguous entanglements". Gay sex tourism is found throughout Brazil in many different communities and some areas of the Amazon rainforest. Different entities throughout Brazil have focused on straight aligned sex work and have neglected gay sex tourism. Sex tourists may travel to specific locations to enjoy a holiday and find a "temporary relationships" who will fill the roles of sexual partner, dining companion, tour guide, or dancing companion/instructor. Women who spend time with male escorts while on vacation may be any age, but are predominantly middle-aged women looking for romance along with sex. The rates of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted infections are high in some Caribbean and African countries which are popular destinations for female sex tourism. The connections established by sex tourism challenge the ways that scholars of sexualtity, gender, and race by pushing back on traditional conversations about agency and resistance.

Most research regarding sex tourism have been from tourist perspectives instead of the perspective of sex workers themselves. This has negated sex worker experiences and has largely only focused on negative connotations of sex tourism like child sex trafficking and sexually transmitted diseases. However, recent studies have helped problematize these oversimplifications by highlighting the economic, sexual, and racial dynamics that are leveraged by both the tourist and the sex worker in these sexual economies. In the case of women who consume male sexual labor while on vacation, scholars have previously insisted that they should not be analyzed using the same language and framework as their male counterparts because rather than sex, they were thought to have engaged in an economy of romance or "romance tourism."