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From Taboo to Tourist Industry: The Construction of Interracial Intimacies between Black Men and White Women in Colonial and Contemporary Times
Author(s) -
Meszaros Julia,
Bazzaroni Christina
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
sociology compass
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.782
H-Index - 31
ISSN - 1751-9020
DOI - 10.1111/soc4.12210
Subject(s) - taboo , white (mutation) , gender studies , colonialism , tourism , romance , sociology , dominance (genetics) , race (biology) , history , psychology , anthropology , archaeology , psychoanalysis , biochemistry , chemistry , gene
Abstract This literature review examines the role emotions play in the construction and regulation of commercialized heterosexual interracial intimacies between White women and Black men, beginning with the strict regulations of the colonial era, and moving to the development of “romance tourism” in the contemporary era between Northern White women and Black men in the Caribbean. During colonialism, White men constructed a taboo against sexual relationships between White women and Black men in order to ensure their dominance over women in their own racial group and all “Other” men. In contemporary times, relationships between White women and Black men have moved from taboo and marginalized to touristic attraction, as more middle class White women from the United States head to the Caribbean (and at times Africa) in search of romance with local men, demonstrating the importance that emotions like desire have in (re)producing globalization.