Porn tourism: a problematic or useful concept?

ABSTRACT

Where does ‘porn tourism’ situate within the ‘the charmed circle of sexuality’? If porn tourism is to be conceptualized, it will fall under the umbrella of sex tourism. But should it be developed as a concept in its own right? Or would that reify deviance and create a hierarchy of ‘appropriate’ tourism? Issues such as place, distance, difference (travelling between the Global South and Global North), and consumption are important to assess. But does the concept ‘porn tourism’ other the ways in which sexuality, sex, and sexiness are built into much leisure activity today? The tension between the scholarly impulse to understand sexualized touristic practices and the aversion to overemphasize the sexual in social patterns is the impetus for this special Forum section on ‘porn tourism’.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex tourism
• porn tourism
• leisure
• sexuality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 I thank scholar Laura Agustin for a friendly conversation on this several years ago during her visit to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA.

2 I credit my Tourism and Adult Entertainment Consumption Research Project co-researcher, scholar Paul Maginn, for this term.