Editing Sex tourism (section)

== Cultural attitudes ==
Globally, there are different cultural attitudes towards sex tourism. In less developed countries for example, families in poor rural areas may sell their children to human traffickers, who will take the children to major cities to work in the sex industry.<ref name="Samarasinghe">{{cite book|last1=Samarasinghe|first1=Vidyamali|title=Female Sex Trafficking in Asia: The Resilience of Patriarchy in a Changing World|date=2008|publisher=Routledge|location=New York and London}}</ref> In Thailand for example, women will support their husbands by becoming sex workers.<ref name="Samarasinghe" /> To work in the sex industry, particularly in less developed countries, can often be seen as a viable source of income available to struggling families from low socioeconomic backgrounds.

The cultural attitudes of sex tourism in highly developed countries such as [[Australia]] however where sex trafficking is illegal and highly policed can offer a different perspective to those of lesser backgrounds. Brothels are still vivid within states such as New South Wales, Tasmania and Victoria where people can exchange money for sex. Recent studies suggest that sex slavery is still happening in Australia, exploiting the vulnerability of individuals and families from poor backgrounds.<ref>The Conversation, Human trafficking and slavery still happen in Australia. This comic explains how, June 12, 2019</ref>

Male tourists, sometimes known as ''sexpats (''expatriate ''+'' sex tourist''),'' join [[Online community|online communities]] in which they share advice on destinations<ref name=":2">Monge-Nájera, J. (2016). Male sexual tourism in Costa Rica: team spirit, peer dialogue and gender roles in a large sample of Internet forum posts. Cuadernos de Investigación UNED, 8(2), 207-216.</ref><ref>Blevins KR and Holt TJ. (2009). Examining the Virtual Subculture of Johns. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 38 (5), 619-648</ref> and, although it is not among the most common cases, there is the category of "girlfriend experience" which, in some cases, evolves into an emotional relationship.<ref name=":2" /><ref>Milrod C and Weitzer R. (2012). The Intimacy Prism: Emotion Management among the Clients of Escorts. Men and Masculinities, 00 (0), 1-21.</ref>

General attitudes towards sex work are complex and often regarded as controversial.<ref name=Samarasinghe /> Many countries where tourists come from, can have harsher attitudes towards sexual services.<ref name="McPhee/McCartan">{{cite book|last1=McPhee|first1=Duncan|title=Sex Offending and Sex Tourism: Problems, Policy, and Challenges|publisher=Palgrave Studies in Risk, Crime and Society}}</ref> Often the men who travel seeking to pay for sex may do so because it is much harder to engage in sex work in their home countries. Furthermore, in some countries, such as Cambodia and Thailand, this practice is considered commonplace, and men who do not engage in commercial sex may be considered unusual by their peers.<ref name="ProCon" />

Sociologists from the [[University of Leicester]] conducted a research study for the [[Economic and Social Research Council]] and End Child Prostitution and Trafficking campaign, which interviewed over 250 [[Caribbean]] sex tourists.<ref>{{cite book
| last       = Taylor
| first      = Jacqueline Sánchez
| editor1-last  = Clift
| editor1-first = Stephen
| editor2-last  = Carter
| editor2-first = Simon
| title         = Tourism and Sex: Culture, Commerce and Coercion
| access-date    = 7 October 2011
| series    = Tourism, Leisure and Recreation
|date= May 2000
| publisher = Continuum International Publishing Group
| isbn      = 978-1-85567-549-0
| pages     = 41–53
| chapter   = Chapter 3: Tourism and 'embodied' commodities: sex tourism in the Caribbean
| chapter-url    = https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6yMcS7-qWcC&pg=PA41
}}</ref> Amongst their findings were:
* Preconceptions about [[Racialism (Racial categorization)|race]] and [[Gender roles|gender]] influenced the tourist's opinions.
* Underdeveloped countries are considered [[Cultural relativism|culturally different]], so in Western tourist's [[Cultural relativism#Political critique|understanding]], the exploitation or male domination of women is without consequence or stigma of that found in their home countries.

Despite a great deal of interest in sexual tourism amongst theorists, detailed studies of cultural attitude are rare,<ref>{{cite journal|last=Bender|first=Kimberly|title=The Implications of Sex Tourism on Men's Social, Psychological, and Physical Health|journal=The Qualitative Report|volume=9|issue=2|pages=176–191|url=http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR/QR9-2/bender.pdf|date=June 2004}}</ref> regardless of the increasing accessibility of group studies in the past three decades.<ref>{{cite web|title=BangkokPod Interviews Kaewmala of Thai Sex Talk|url=http://www.bangkokpodcast.com/thai-sex-talk-kaewmala/|access-date=11 December 2012|date=13 February 2011|archive-date=11 December 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121211181803/http://www.bangkokpodcast.com/thai-sex-talk-kaewmala/|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Open-Ended Prostitution as a Skillful Game of Luck: Opportunity, Risk and Security among Tourist-Oriented Prostitutes in Bangkok|url=http://www.pattayapages.com/girls/academic.html|publisher=Erik Cohen Department of Sociology and Social-Anthropology Hebrew University of Jerusalem|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130219164003/http://www.pattayapages.com/girls/academic.html|archive-date=19 February 2013|df=dmy-all}}</ref>