For gay and bi male travellers arriving in a new city, logging into a hookup app is as much of a ritual as checking in to their hotel.
But their interactions in their grid—and the quality of sexual experiences they have as a result of their chatting and exchanging photos—can differ dramatically depending on whether they’re single, in an open relationship or monogamish. It can also differ based on their ethnic and racial backgrounds and how that background is seen in their destination. Will the traveller be considered fresh meat, a fetish or a misfit? Will a couple have sexual adventures that bring them closer together, push them apart or oblige them to keep secrets from each other and those back home? How important are sexual encounters, anyway, in the discovery and enjoyment of a destination?
Two new studies led by researcher Oliver Qiu at the University of East London, in the United Kingdom, aim to pull back the curtain on gay men’s experiences navigating digital dating and hookups while away from home. What they reveal is at once liberating and complicated. Travel sex can be a medium for self-validation, escapism and experimentation.
Social research about sex and travel often focuses on commercial sex tourism, with a dash of interest into single people’s non-commercial sexual adventures. Phenomena like sexual non-monogamy among gay male couples, and the experiences of gay men of colour, don’t get nearly as much attention. Two studies published recently by Qiu and colleagues in the Annals of Tourism Research are just the beginning of a series of papers Qiu has planned.
For the first study in the series, Sexual Non-monogamy in Tourism, Qiu interviewed 26 men he found on Grindr. Most were in couples, but some were single. He divided the couples into three types: monogamous, monogamish (sex outside the relationship only when both partners are involved) and open (partners can pursue external sexual relations independently).
“I considered it unethical to send invitations on a platform that’s for a specific purpose, mostly sex. So I built a research profile with my face on it and a research statement inviting people who wanted to participate to message me,” Qiu told Pink Ticket Travel in an interview. “There were some people who pretended they were interested in the research and would ask me to go to their place for some fun, which also would be unethical, but some were genuinely interested. I asked them to spread the word, so there was a snowball effect to the research.”
One participant was Jason, a Brit in his 20s who was in a committed relationship for four years. He and his partner had threesomes with locals and tourists while on holiday in Scotland and Thailand. “They presented themselves as completely monogamous in their daily lives and social circles, and only Jason was comfortable enough to disclose this hidden element of sexual adventure in their relationship.” They had four main rules: sex outside the relationship only during holidays, both had to act as a single unit (i.e.,, just threesomes), the focus and attention needed to revolve around themselves and lastly, after the encounter they would keep it private. They discussed not wanting it to be a regular thing, “but we did both enjoy it,” Jason said, “and I enjoy the infrequency of it as well.”
Those in open relationships were more likely to pursue their own interests without compromise and were also more open emotionally with the men they hooked up with. A thirty-something Nigerian man in an open relationship told researchers, “We’ve both blocked each other on the app because we are like individual hounds, and we like different types of people. So, we just let each other explore on our own.”
While monogamish couples reported that shared experiences away from home strengthened their intimacy, their play partners can sometimes, for better or worse, feel objectified. According to Qiu, “Single participants did not have good experiences with monogamish people, because some of them felt used, like it was about what was convenient for the couple: ‘I’m just a plaything.’ But then, some of them found that thrilling. Being ‘just a tool for them to use’ stimulated their erotic wiring.” Travellers in open relationships were less adverse to building emotional and physical intimacies beyond sex, and Qiu found that the single participants tended to prefer interactions with open-relationship men because of this emotional availability.
Monogamish participants tended to be more aware and interested in safe sex when having threesomes, while many open participants said that they often engage in unprotected sex and typically have many sex partners who regularly engage in casual sexual intercourse with other queer men. “For them, the risks involved in unprotected sex during travel served as a source of excitement and sexual stimulation. Hence, they are more susceptible to contracting sexually transmitted infections, in some cases even more than single Grindr users,” states the study.
In the second study, Volatile Desirability in Tourism: A Multi-Method Intersectional Analysis, Qiu and his team investigated how queer men of colour navigate tourism and Grindr by interviewing 13 men about their identities and experiences. One of the most widely reported experiences involved getting lots of attention because they were considered “fresh meat.” Andrew, a 34-year-old Chinese Malaysian, told researchers, “You will be popular just because you are new to them. It doesn’t mean that you are popular just because you are special.” This popularity is often compressed into a very small window. As tourists quickly become familiar faces in a “stagnant local pool,” their success often peaks in the first few days before declining. For many who feel invisible at home, the attention is exhilarating.
“At home your concoction of identities would be read in a certain way, based on your culture, based on your geographical location. When you go somewhere else, that concoction is read differently—not just your body, face, fitness and age, but your ethnicity, your socio-cultural capital like the way you speak, your accent. Think of all those films about British scumbags going to the U.S. and being surrounded by blonde American girls,” says Qiu. “Some of the oldest stories are about middle-aged men going to Southeast Asia, or middle-aged European women going to parts of Africa or the Caribbean. That pattern of mobility is almost like chasing erotic visibility, to feel like a sexual being again.”
Lewis, a thirty-something Filipino, lives in London but has visited Kuwait and the United States. “When I was in Kuwait...I felt very wanted by Arab guys. There’s a certain attraction for Asians like us— fairly smooth skin, lighter-toned compared to them, skinny, very smooth. So, there was a big demand. [Then] I went to Florida. I went to Orlando and Miami, and then Seattle as well. American guys are, like, hungry for me. Okay, my God, this is the dream. Like, hot guys are offering me a meetup…Here in London, these guys do not notice me…I was like, why do these people like me here? Maybe I have to travel there more? Maybe I need to move? Maybe I’m in the wrong place?”
Though some men feel fetishized according to a racial type, and therefore objectified and unappreciated for their uniqueness, that’s not always the case. Qiu also writes about his own experiences as a thirty-something Chinese man: “I love to travel with Grindr exactly because of the possibility of being fetishized. The digital distance protects me, but it also allows me to bathe in the validation that comes from other men’s objectifying attention. Being fetishized, to me, feels better than being ignored: at least it means I am wanted, perhaps even lovable.”
But not every destination is so welcoming. A forty-something Indonesian man recounted his experience in Southern Europe, where a muscular, bearded “circuit” aesthetic dominated. In Madrid and Athens, “nobody, literally nobody, zero people replied to my text or even texted me or tapped me…It’s like they don’t want me there…. But I find it weird that people don’t want to talk, even just on chat. I went with a friend of mine. He’s a 62-year-old Argentinian, and he was actually in demand in Madrid. Don’t get me wrong, he’s quite tall and handsome, a daddy type. God, I was almost depressed. Maybe they don’t like my type because I’m smooth and skinny.”
Qiu is fascinated with ideas around travel, Grindr, leisure and sex. “It’s about serendipity, about unpredictability. Yeah, it sometimes can be very disappointing when you get nothing. But throughout the whole journey you only need one special connection, one good encounter, to make a journey memorable.”
