The research explores the relationship between male sex work and tourism in Botswana. Over the past decade, the tourism industry has been one of the fastest and largest growing economic sectors in Africa. Studies in other contexts confirm a strong correlation between growth in the tourism industry and the increase in sex work. While there are theoretically sound and empirically informed studies on the many forms of sex work especially in Asia and other parts of the world, and female sex work in the tourism industry, male sex work is still under-researched, and especially its occurrence in the tourism industry.
In-depth face-to-face interviews were conducted with male sex workers following a secondary data analysis, which helped shape the interview questions. Support groups and the police were also interviewed as important players given the existence of sex work in a semi-criminalized and fuzzy legal system in Botswana. While interviews with male sex workers focused on their experiences, attitudes and perceptions of gender, sexuality, race, and victimization in their interactions with sex tourists, interviews with support groups and the police focused more on their expert opinion of the activity, the law, services provided and reforms that are needed in Botswana to address the phenomenon. By so doing, this study achieved its two main objectives: (i) to advance knowledge and close the gap in understanding male sex work in the tourism industry, and, (ii) to propose a suitable discursive framework within which emerging bodies of empirical research on male sex and tourism in Africa could be guided or analysed, and contribute to Southern Criminology and some aspects of Queer Criminology.
From the analysis of interview data, it was evident that partial criminalization of sex work and the wide stigmatization of homosexuality had pushed male sex workers underground. They operate within organized networks, with the aid of technology and friends. It was evident that there are a lot of issues interwoven into the transactional relations between male sex workers and foreigners/ tourists including blurred lines between same-sex and heterosexual identities, blurred lines between love/attachment/affection and sex work, and the influences of family, race and religion against the socio-cultural expectations, the economic struggles and the social and legal positions of men. Some struggles within their interactions with tourist clients included language barriers, concerns with health risks such as HIV and STIs, stealthing, violence, alcohol and drug abuse, and the imbalance in power in such transactions. However, benefits were also outlined to include; adequate cash flow to take care of important familial needs, gifts, clothes, cars, free travel, hotel living, wining and dining as well as exploring one’s sexuality. The police interviews mostly lamented their inability to enforce the laws, mostly due to the lack of clarity in the laws, as well as the hidden and organized nature of the activity. The support groups on the other hand, were more focused on the accessibility of health facilities by sex workers, having their own clinic within their various premises to offer sexual health services, HIV screening, Antiretroviral therapy (ARVs) and Pre Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP). Reforms proposed include decriminalization, sensitization and legalization.