July 15, 2006
Who knew "Heading South" would resonate so?
How exciting ... I got a phone call Wednesday from Elizabeth Hayt, a contributor to the New York Times, in conjunction with a story running tomorrow (but now available online), Libidos of a Certain Age.
Her topic is 
Heading South,the new film starring Charlotte Rampling as a female sex tourist visiting Haiti in the 1970s. An excerpt:
A rave review by Stephen Holden in The New York Times called the movie “one of the most truthful examinations ever filmed of desire, age and youth.’’ Since it opened July 7, theaters have been packed with women about the same age as the ones on the screen. Some bought tickets in groups for a kind of middle-aged girls’ night out. Interviews indicated the movie has hit home with this audience because it affirms the sexual reality of women of a certain age, that even as they pass the prime of their desirability to men, libidos smolder. More than a few said they came seeking a hot night out.
Well done, Elizabeth, your interviews hit the nail on the head. Two great engines of female sex tourism are man shortages and involuntary extended celibacy.
I had thought "Heading South" would do middling business, like other films about sex and travel such as "Before Sunrise" and "Echoes of Paradise" (see my full list of travel romance films, here). Instead, it seems heading towards Hitsville, more in line with 
How Stella Got Her Groove Back and (in the UK) 
Shirley Valentine.
Bravo that this topic has struck such a chord and is attracting full houses. It comes to Washington Aug. 18, and a full schedule nationwide can be found here.
In my (cut by the editor) interview with Elizabeth, I covered a lot of the basics found in 
Romance on the Road:
- Female sex travel largely began in the 1840s, continued until World War I, and resumed in the 1960s. From 1980 to the present, an estimated 600,000 women have had holiday romances with men in the developing world. These affairs zoomed after the 1998 release of the film version of How Stella Got Her Groove Back.
- Female sex travel parallels the first and second waves of feminism, in the 1840s and 1960s.
- The second wave of female sex tourism, in the 1960s, coincided not only with a resurgence of feminism but the expansion of leisure travel and man shortages. French Canadian women surged to Barbados for male companionship, and Northern European women to Southern Europe and Africa. In the 1990s, Japanese and Taiwanese women began heading toward Bali and Phuket.
Well, all our stuff in the interview got cut by the editor, who wanted to focus on women who had seen the movie. But the distributor is arranging for me to see the movie next week, in case of more media inquiries.
Guess I should take this opportunity to send a letter to the editor of the New York Times. In case it never gets in, here goes (ain't it fun to just publish all your letters to the editor immediately on your blog?!?!):
Women, sex and travelTo the Editor:
Re: "Libidos of a Certain Age" (Style, July 16):
The popularity of the film "Heading South," about vacation flings in Haiti, reflects extended involuntary celibacy, documented by the University of Chicago, suffered by many single older women.
Women are indeed "Heading South," and have been doing so since the 1840s, when the earliest English and American female travelers began romping about Rome.
Since the Victorian era, women have learned that the solution to Affection Deficit Disorder is a boat, train or plane ride away. In the Caribbean, Greece, Morocco, Bali and Kenya, surpluses of young men, willing to exchange affection for gifts, await female tourists.
The result has been hundreds of thousands of holiday romances, often of mutual benefit. One student at a Caribbean community college run by my mother-in-law has his tuition paid by his European girlfriend. In exchange, many women find healing from romantic breakups at home.
Jeannette Belliveau, author, "Romance on the Road"
Beau Monde Press
Baltimore, Md.
I also went to Wikipedia and got started with some basic information on female sex tourism, see here. At first it looked like the article would be deleted for being too much based on my book, but I beefed it up with many important citations and won some of the critics over.
Also, let me announce to the word, I'm available if any more feature reporters, NPR stations, or travel section editors want to learn more about this phenomenon! Here's how to contact me.
And here's an earlier blog of mine related to "Heading South."
- posted by jbelliveau at 3:32 PM in Love, Sex, Romance and Travel
