Wanderlust Writers on Travel and Sex

There may never have been a time when men (and women) have not traveled for sex. The intrepid pedestrian Thomas Coryat, whose Crudities of 1611 was the first real travel guide, already notes that the allurements of the Venetian prostitutes have drawn trade from all of Christendom. For all epochs for which we have records it can be demonstrated that sex has been not merely supererogatory to travel but often its real impetus. And much of this sex has been bought and paid for. Until recently most expressions of this experience have been taboo. But in the last century, as the technological and economic power of the west, especially, enables more of its citizens to indulge in travel and the fantasies that impel them, a literature of sexual travel has emerged. Wanderlust is a voyeuristic collection by celebrants (and detractors) of the fugitive ecstasies, humiliations, and consequences of paying for sex far from home. Men and women, gay and straight, buyer and seller, amoral and conscience-strickenall contribute a perspective on what can now be acknowledged a commonplace, though emotionally fraught and morally ambiguous, experience of the traveler. Included are selections from Stendahl, Timothy Mo, Nelson Algren, Alma Guillermoprieto, William T. Vollman, Marilyn Jaye-Lewis, Michel Houellebecq, Terry Southern, Christopher Isherwood, Joe Orton, Jonathan Ames, Rachel DeWoskin, and many others.Hemmingson, Michael A. is the author of 'Wanderlust Writers on Travel and Sex', published 2003 under ISBN 9781560254317 and ISBN 1560254319.