Almighty gringos: Masculinity and value in sex tourism

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with sex tourists in San José, Costa Rica, this article explores the connections between masculinity and the production of value in sex tourism. I argue that in the context of increasing opportunities for travel and technological innovations, North American masculine identities have become transnational, including for non-elite men. Sex tourists’ descriptions of their experiences reveal that they are involved in a contradictory search for a masculine identity that is simultaneously progressive and hegemonic, one that relies not only on sex workers but also on a critique of the masculinity of Costa Rican men and other tourists. This article also suggests that sex tourism is best understood as a relational economy, in that the encounters between sex tourists and sex workers produce value that is simultaneously economic, embodied, and emotional, including the possibility of temporarily enhanced social status.