Curious Tourism: Responsible Travel Podcast · Voyascape Media

Let's Talk About Sex Tourism

·1 hr 7 min·2 clips

Erin Hines opens by framing sex tourism as a centuries-old part of travel that has grown with globalization into a major industry around the world. She introduces Dr. Christopher Ewing, a professor and researcher who has spent years studying the queer politics of race and sex tourism, and his work anchors the discussion. From there, the episode moves through history, misconception, local impact, and the bigger forces that keep the industry moving. The conversation keeps circling back to the idea that sex tourism is not separate from power. It sits inside it. Race, economics, history, and global inequality stay at the center throughout. The hosts test easy stories against what the research and the real world suggest, including how tourists can imagine themselves outside the rules they accept at home. Ewing pushes back with a structural view of the problem. Law alone does not solve it. National criminal law, especially when it focuses on narrow age-of-consent offenses, catches very little, and most people who break those laws are never caught or prosecuted. That is why the discussion keeps turning toward broader structural change instead of enforcement slogans. It also notes that criminalizing sex work within a country can push it underground and make conditions less safe for the people involved. The episode briefly touches on the argument that visible, regulated red-light districts may be safer, while keeping the point cautious rather than settled. The episode ends by asking listeners to think less about tidy answers and more about how travel, law, labor, and exploitation collide in messy ways.

As heard by us

A serious travel conversation that keeps the human and structural stakes in view.

The episode treats sex tourism as a travel subject with a long history and a wide reach, shaped by power, race, economics, and inequality. Erin Hines and Dr.

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Why you'd press play

When you want travel talk that does not dodge the hard parts.

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