Sex, Tourism and the Postcolonial Encounter: Landscapes of Longing in Egypt

by Jacobs,Jessica

• ISBN13: 9780754647881
• ISBN10: 0754647889
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-11-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

There has been a widespread perception that female sex or 'Romance' tourism is either some kind of emancipatory practice, like Shirley Valentine, or else a purely exploitative liaison, based on social and economic disparities. The men involved are likewise dismissed as only interested in money or a possible passport.Illustrated by revealing interviews with women and men in the tourist resorts of Egypt, Syria and Jordan, this book questions this dualistic representation of western women and the 'native' men they sleep with. It broadens the scope of issues involved, examining the link between these holiday romances and a much wider romanticism of place and people - of the landscapes of paradise, deserts and the lure of the Bedouin sheikh - that are used to sell these destinations. It argues that the romantic stereotyping and deliberate positioning of 'Third World' resorts as places that somehow exist outside of the modenities the women come from is inextricably bound up in the relationships. Similarly, for the local man the tourist resort is perceived as a place other than his own cultural space and time and represents a modernity that is otherwise only found in the 'West'. The relationships that ensue can therefore only occur because the tourist resort acts as an intermediate space. In analysing the interaction of these men and women within the context of modernity, the book provides insights into gender issues to do with globalisation, travel and sexuality, as well as opening up the debate on sex tourism and showing this to be a lot more ambiguous and complicated than it might at first appear.

Table of Contents

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