Sex Tourists in Their Own Country: Digital Media Advertising of Asian Women by the Australian Sex Industry

Abstract

In a globalized market, the supply of Asian women for Western men through the commercial sex trade is no longer confined to Asian sex tourist cities. The researchers examined the web-based advertising of brothel and escort (outcall) businesses operating in Melbourne, Australia to quantitatively and qualitatively assess the extent of “Asianization” of the local prostitution market. The research was motivated by Laurie Shrage’s 1992 observation that male sexual demand for Asian women and women of other color shapes prostitution in the contemporary world. The researchers found more than 40 percent of Melbournebased legal prostitution businesses advertising primarily Asian women, and the content of their advertising to significantly echo characteristics of Asian sex tourism marketing that are described in the critical tourism literature. The research empirically supports Shrage’s view and has implications for understanding rich-world sex industries like that in Australia as relying critically on the incorporation of Asian women.

Key Words:

• Prostitution
• sex tourism
• sex industry
• website advertising
• Asian women
• Australia