Publication Date

2007

Document Type

Article

Abstract

Provincetown, Massachusetts USA, a rural out-of-the-way coastal village at the tip of Cape Cod with a yearround population of approximately 3,500, has 'taken off' since the late 1980s as a popular GLBTQ tourist destination. Long tolerant of sexual minorities, Provincetown transitioned from a Portuguese-dominated fishing village to a popular 'queer' gay resort mecca, as the fishing industry deteriorated drastically over the twentieth century. Today Provincetowners rely mainly on tourists—both straight and gay—who enjoy the seaside charm, rustic ambiance, and a healthy dose of non-heternormative performance content, in this richly diverse tourist milieu. As Provincetown's popularity as a GLBTQ tourist destination increased throughout the 1980s and '90s, new forms of "sexual outlaw" lifestyles, including the leather crowd and the gay men's "tourist circuit," have appeared in Provincetown, which challenge heteronormative standards, social propriety rules, and/or simply standards of "good taste," giving rise to moral outrage and even at time an apparent homophobic backlash. This conduct interrogates how far citizens are willing to go to tolerate non-heteronormative (and at times outlaw) sexual conduct, produced by sexual minorities whose lifestyle is on the edge of the law and sometimes outside it altogether. This paper will analyze sexual tourism in Provincetown, to interrogate sexual citizenship, and both contradictions and possibilities for overcoming the sexual divide.

Original Citation

Faiman-Silva, S. L. (2007). The Queer Tourist in 'Straight'(?) Space: Sexual Citizenship in Provincetown. The International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities & Nations, 7(1), 205-215.

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