Interesting book on Rio...and the sex tourism...Anybody read?

[Badboy81]

[seajoc2]

I read it.  Very interesting book. 

[floridarob]

Looks interesting....

[Lonnie]

Tourist Attractions

Performing Race and Masculinity in Brazil’s Sexual Economy

Gregory Mitchell

While much attention has been paid in recent years to heterosexual prostitution and sex tourism in Brazil, gay sex tourism has been almost completely overlooked. In Tourist Attractions, Gregory C. Mitchell presents a pioneering ethnography that focuses on the personal lives and identities of male sex workers who occupy a variety of roles in Brazil’s sexual economy.

Mitchell takes us into the bath houses of Rio de Janeiro, where rent boys cruise for clients, and to the beaches of Salvador da Bahia, where African American gay men seek out hustlers while exploring cultural heritage tourist sites. His ethnography stretches into the Amazon, where indigenous fantasies are tinged with the erotic at eco-resorts, and into the homes of “kept men,” who forge long-term, long-distance, transnational relationships that blur the boundaries of what counts as commercial sex. Mitchell asks how tourists perceive sex workers’ performances of Brazilianness, race, and masculinity, and, in turn, how these two groups of men make sense of differing models of racial and sexual identity across cultural boundaries. He proposes that in order to better understand how people experience difference sexually, we reframe prostitution—which Marxist feminists have long conceptualized as sexual labor—as also being a form of performative labor. Tourist Attractions is an exceptional ethnography poised to make an indelible impact in the fields of anthropology, gender, and sexuality, and research on prostitution and tourism.

[davet]

I read it several years ago and wondered whether I ever crossed paths with the writer in one of the places. It is very much an academic book, with academic concepts like "performative labor" to wrap your head around, and a sense that everything is to prove a main thesis. But that's how academic anthropology is like and it's still a very interesting book on sex, race, class, and gender. I also love the idea of someone going to a whorehouse - "just to write my dissertation, ma'am." With Mitchell, I could believe it!

I'd be interested in an anthropological discussion of the clients. Hmmm, maybe that's why I'm here. 

[SolaceSoul]

First read it when it was published a few years ago (2015 or 2016).

“Caribbean Pleasure Industry” by Mark Padilla is another published thesis that’s a good thorough read as well. 

[davet]

There's a real paucity of writing and discussion about male prostitution and pornography. Feminists tend to think they are just as bad as the straight side. I think there are serious differences worth exploring.

[SolaceSoul]

1 hour ago, davet said:

There's a real paucity of writing and discussion about male prostitution and pornography. Feminists tend to think they are just as bad as the straight side. I think there are serious differences worth exploring.

Feminists tend to either ignore male - male sexuality or want to speak for us, as if they know the first thing about us!   They need to just stay in their lane. 

[Vanbcanthony]

Black Sexual Economies: Race and Sex in a Culture of Capital looks like it could be an interesting read as well.

Wish someone could share with me a copy of those two books mentioned above. 

[NoGagSuckerSF]

Way too intellectual for my pretty little head. Have no desire to read it and hope the author used university and foundation dollars for his research!!

[davet]

On 11/9/2021 at 1:56 PM, NoGagSuckerSF said:

Way too intellectual for my pretty little head. Have no desire to read it and hope the author used university and foundation dollars for his research!!

As they say in the movies, you always think better with a dick in your mouth (and the electro-disco soundtrack going). Do that enough and you won't need no stinkin' books.

[NoGagSuckerSF]

3 hours ago, davet said:

As they say in the movies, you always think better with a dick in your mouth (and the electro-disco soundtrack going). Do that enough and you won't need no stinkin' books.

Gawd no, turn off that damn noise pretending to be music. Gimme the sounds of my throat sloppily pleasuring a long Black dick!!