The sordid history of the sexually exotic East

I can't take credit for the title of this thread -- I just cut and pasted it from this article:
http://www.slate.com/id/2221479/pagenum/all
It's a review of the new book, "The East, the West, and Sex: A History of Erotic Encounters." It's a very well-written and critical article, and touches on many topics we play around with here on Tikicentral, such as notions of the "exotic" and the sexual element that pervades so much of it all. Definitely a line of cultural and historical critique meant to challenge, not celebrate.

[ Edited by: Thomas 2009-06-29 23:45 ]

This book and the discussion of it I linked to above has touched off an interesting back-and-forth involving the book's author himself (see link below). I know generally TC is not a place for focusing on book reviews, but I think this all relates to tiki pretty substantially. A moment's reflection on figures like Leeteg and Gauguin, to name just two, makes the connection pretty clear to me at least, and the moral ambiguities surrounding the whole matter are substantial, as I think the book author points out very effectively.

The book author's reply to the book review (linked to above):
http://www.slate.com/id/2224462/pagenum/all