Tropical Escapes: Canadian Travellers, Latin America, and Sex

Abstract

"Most Canadians who travel south do so in search of sun, sand, and that prized but elusive winter tan, and do not necessarily have much contact with the local people and their cultures. However, this is not the case for a significant number of travellers whose journeys are motivated by the pursuit of more carnal desires. Focusing on a series of texts, from short fiction to film, memoirs, plays, and poems, this essay examines the representation of the sexual adventures of Canadians in Latin America, a subject that is largely ignored in Canadian letters. More precisely, it shows how the erotics of sexual emancipation is seldom untinged by the politics of race, gender, and particularly class; yet, it can still lead to cultural encounters in which the traveller is transformed by his/her interactions with members of what are initially deemed foreign cultures, not the least by gaining an appreciation of the value of those cultures."