ABSTRACT
Gay East Asian men travelling to Bangkok has been one of the most notable transnational tourism flows on a global scale. This chapter aims to fill this unexplored research gap by appropriating the theoretical framework of intimacy from sex work/tourism studies to investigate relationships between gay Taiwanese men and Thai money boys. It also aims to shed new light on existing discussions of intimacy in prostitution by highlighting the multiple meanings and functions of intimacy with the local prostitute for sex tourists, due to the duality of their roles as both tourists and clients. The chapter reviews the genealogy of gay tourism studies and traces its ties between sex tourism and domestic prostitution, to critically rethink the meanings and functions of intimacy within prostitution for clients in the context of gay Taiwanese men travelling to Bangkok. It compares the literature on sex tourism to studies of domestic prostitution from the perspective of intimacy within prostitution.
