Caribbean Pleasure Industry

About this book

In recent years, the economy of the Caribbean has become almost completely dependent on international tourism. And today one of the chief ways that foreign visitors there seek pleasure is through prostitution. While much has been written on the female sex workers who service these tourists, *Caribbean Pleasure Industry* shifts the focus onto the men. Drawing on his groundbreaking ethnographic research in the Dominican Republic, Mark Padilla discovers a complex world where the global political and economic impact of tourism has led to shifting sexual identities, growing economic pressures, and new challenges for HIV prevention. In fluid prose, Padilla analyzes men who have sex with male tourists, yet identify themselves as "normal" heterosexual men and struggle to maintain this status within their relationships with wives and girlfriends. Padilla’s exceptional ability to describe the experiences of these men will interest anthropologists, but his examination of bisexuality and tourism as much-neglected factors in the HIV/AIDS epidemic makes this book essential to anyone concerned with health and sexuality in the Caribbean or beyond.

Themes & subjects

About the author

Mark Padilla

Mark Padilla is a medical anthropologist with cross-training and programmatic experience in global health in Latin America and the Caribbean. Since 1996 he has conducted mixed-method ethnographic research in the Dominican Republic, focusing on the social effects of demographic and political-economic changes on sexuality among young men. His award-winning book, Caribbean Pleasure Industry: Tourism, Sexuality, and AIDS in the Dominican Republic (University of Chicago Press, 2007), examines the influence of the tourist industry on Dominican men’s sexuality, their sexual practices / identities, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the Caribbean. More recently, he has conducted projects on gay and bis…