TY - JOUR

T1 - Negotiating the edge

T2 - The rationalisation of sexual risk-taking amongst Western male sex tourists to Thailand

AU - Bishop, Simon

AU - Limmer, Mark

PY - 2018

Y1 - 2018

N2 - Every year thousands of Western men travel to Thailand as sex tourists in order to participate in paid-for sex. Although many of these men will use condoms in order to protect themselves against sexually transmitted infections, despite the risks others will not. By applying Steven Lyng’s (1990) concept of edgework to data collected from 14 face-to-face interviews with male sex tourists in Pattaya, Thailand and 1237 online discussion board posts, this article explores the ways in which these men understood and sought to rationalise the sexual risks that they took. It argues that notions of likelihood of infection and significance of consequence underpin these behaviours, and identifies the existence of understandings of sexual risk that reject mainstream safer-sex messages and frame condomless sex as a broadly safe activity for heterosexual men. The article concludes by summarising the difficulties inherent in driving behaviour change amongst this group of men for whom sexual risks appear to be so easily rationalised away as either inconsequential or irrelevant.

AB - Every year thousands of Western men travel to Thailand as sex tourists in order to participate in paid-for sex. Although many of these men will use condoms in order to protect themselves against sexually transmitted infections, despite the risks others will not. By applying Steven Lyng’s (1990) concept of edgework to data collected from 14 face-to-face interviews with male sex tourists in Pattaya, Thailand and 1237 online discussion board posts, this article explores the ways in which these men understood and sought to rationalise the sexual risks that they took. It argues that notions of likelihood of infection and significance of consequence underpin these behaviours, and identifies the existence of understandings of sexual risk that reject mainstream safer-sex messages and frame condomless sex as a broadly safe activity for heterosexual men. The article concludes by summarising the difficulties inherent in driving behaviour change amongst this group of men for whom sexual risks appear to be so easily rationalised away as either inconsequential or irrelevant.

KW - AIDS/HIV, Condoms, Sex work, STDs

U2 - 10.1080/00224499.2017.1365329

DO - 10.1080/00224499.2017.1365329

M3 - Article

VL - 55

SP - 871

EP - 879

JO - The Journal of Sex Research

JF - The Journal of Sex Research

SN - 0022-4499

IS - 7

ER -