Sex Tourism and the Gaze

Sex tourist destinations are gendered social constructions which are created, promoted and consumed by and for the dominant tourist, that is, the white, Western male. Western men travel to 'third world' countries in order to visually and physically consume difference in the form of the exotic female Other. This highlights how both the male and tourist gaze overlap and form a ‘male tourist gaze’ which is privileged within tourist discourses and which perpetuates racial and gendered stereotypes.