Interviews about Gay Travel

[ChrisAndHisKind]

Hey everyone,

I'm a researcher of gay/queer history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, working on a project about gay travel and sexuality. As part of this project, I'm hoping to do interviews with men who have experience traveling around the world. What I'm trying to do is push back against the moralizing (and honestly sometimes homophobic) rhetoric of "sex tourism" and talk about the different ways gay men like us have sex - whether it's just for fun or also involves romance/relationships - when traveling.

I'm especially interested in talking to guys who have experience traveling to or living in Southeast Asia during the 1980s and 1990s, but I also want to talk to men who've traveled to many different parts of the world during that time. Because of the sometimes sensitive nature of the topic, all interviews would be completely anonymous and would follow the informed consent model.

If you're interested or just want to know a little bit more about the project, shoot me a message. I'd love to hear from you.

Chris

[mr giggles]

Hey everyone,


I'm especially interested in talking to guys who have experience traveling to or living in Southeast Asia during the 1980s and 1990s, but I also want to talk to men who've traveled to many different parts of the world during that time. Because of the sometimes sensitive nature of the topic, all interviews would be completely anonymous and would follow the informed consent model.



Chris

A good start (as well as interviews) in exploring the themes of the multicultural minefields of sexuality and culture is the non-fiction book:
The Rice Queen Diaries
by Daniel Gawthrop

In the author's experience: ... "his encounters become transactions, and he learns the hard way that sexual desire has a human and emotional cost".

[ChrisAndHisKind]

This is an excellent tip - I'll check it out!

[Brad the Impala]

This is an excellent tip - I'll check it out!

The fact that you had apparently never heard of this book suggests that you are in the very early stages of your research. You might get more response from the hardened denizens of this forum when you have demonstrated some prior research or knowledge of the subject.

[ChrisAndHisKind]

That's a good point, Brad - I probably should have included more information about past work that I've done. For anyone who's interested, my work related to German tourism and politics prior to 1990 can be found here:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1363460718758664

https://hsl.hypotheses.org/tag/christopher-ewing

https://www.ghi-dc.org/publication/bulletin-61-fall-2017

With this project, I'm broadening the temporal and geographic scope of my work while focusing specifically on sexual practices and experiences, rather than the politics of desire generally.

I hope that's helpful, but I'm happy to answer additional questions anyone has!