Defining Sex Tourism: International Advocacy, German Law, and Gay Activism at the End of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

D e p i c t i o n s o f s e x a n D t r av e l are impossible to avoid in West German gay print culture during the 1970s and 1980s. Magazines such as du&ich and him printed travel reports, images, letters to editors, personal advertisements, and travel bureau advertisements that enthusiastically described or depicted the “exotic” possibilities awaiting a predominantly white readership. Guides such as the Frankfurt-based Gay Reiseführer, Copenhagen-based Golden Key, and, perhaps most widely consumed, Spartacus International Gay Guide, which moved from the UK to Amsterdam in 1972 and then under new ownership to Berlin in 1986, offered travelers easier ways to access popular gay destinations, as well as information about the political, legal, and societal situation in countries of interest.1 Placed in a longer history of gay travel, these publications are not tremendously surprising.2 Not only were they relatively popular, but discussions of sex