Intimate Tourism Markets: Money, Gender, and the Complexity of Erotic Exchange in a Costa Rican Caribbean Town

This article focuses on heterosexual North American and European tourist women in a transnational town in Atlantic Costa Rica renown for its intimate “vibe” and independent eco-oriented tourist development, where they grappled with the unexpected monetary aspects of intimate relations with Caribbean-Costa Rican men. Drawing from three women’s narratives, I explore the particularities of how North American women give money to men with whom they...