ABSTRACT
Migrants, tourists, economic entrepreneurs and others travel to take advantage of whatever they believe and find as they move from one economic, social and political space to another. Some of this travel leads to enduring ties with the places visited, and most of it entails crossing borders. This chapter explores how and where sex and sexual intimacy feature in these processes, questions on which the literature has until recently been comparatively and surprisingly silent. It aims to show how borders have very different implications for the rich and the poor, and so too for the kind of sex they can realize and imagine there. Popular cultural images of crossing borders are often tied up with a seductive image of sexual discovery; they symbolize the crossing of sexual boundaries and hold out the promise of real sexual emancipation and fulfilment. Foreign affairs may generate sexual possibility, but it is power that always seems to realize desire.
