Sexotic: The interplay between sexualization and exoticization

Abstract

This introduction to the special issue on the ‘sexotic’, reflects on the heuristic potential of the ‘sexotic’ lens. It situates this approach within existing research on the history of sexualization and exoticization and demonstrates how the ‘sexotic’ opens up fresh vistas on topics like mobilities and migrations, arts and media, as well as science and moralities.

‘Frustrated women invite the immigrants to Europe’: Intersection of (xeno-) racism and sexism in online discussions on gender aspects of immigration

“…The discussants repeatedly express the conviction that these people (women) are responsible for the strength of the immigration wave as they are those who ‘invite’ or ‘welcome’ the immigrants, mainly because of their sexual fantasies and preferences associated with non-European, ‘exotic’ men. In this attribution of blame to a specific group of sexualized Europeans (predominantly women), we can see features of ‘sexoticization’ described by Schaper et al (2018) or Nagel (2001), showing how the discursive interplay between exotic and sexual can be used in the process of othering of ethnically similar actors. We can also observe how these tendencies are interrelated with the constant disparagement of the immigrants based not only on their construction as culturally different (xeno-racism), but also on traditionally racist comments related to biological differences.…”

“…124–129). Similarly, Schaper et al (2018) introduce the term ‘sexoticization’ referring to the ‘intersection between processes of sexualization and exoticization’ and state that ‘[t]he sexual as well as the exotic are prominent markers of the unknown, of alterity, and of “excess” in the “western” imaginary’ which often mutually intensify each other (Schaper et al, 2018: 2).…”

“…The third category of the domestic sexual Other is constituted by the tendency to exclude domestic actors of the immigration discourse mainly through their association with alternative norms of sexual behaviour related directly to the ‘sexoticized’ (Schaper et al, 2018) immigrant Other. In this category, the excluded are primarily considered people of ‘loose morals’, a judgement meaning anything from being ‘a prostitute’, ‘a horny elderly woman’, ‘a naïve adventurous girl’ to being ‘a homosexual’ or ‘a perverse politician’.…”

Migration and Sexual Change

“…In Western societies, one of the most important legacies of colonialism is precisely the vast repertoire of regional or racial sexual icons and stereotypes evolved during the colonial experience (Voss e Casella 2011). Unsurprisingly, these banks of knowledge may be used to characterize immigrants as sexually different, through heavily gendered joint process of ethnicization and sexualization (Schaper, Beljan et al 2018). Needless to say, such a process is contingent upon a process of signification that is -in a semiotic sense -largely arbitrary (Sciortino, 2012).…”

Brazilian escorts on a Portuguese escort website: strategies, tensions and power relations

“…ressonância e fixidez em categorizações raciais/culturais existentes primordialmente em países da Europa, sendo produto dos processos colonizadores em países do sul. Dados esses processos, noções que circunscrevem a sexualidade dos habitantes desses países são estabelecidas por meio de estereótipos que afirmam a lascividade, dependência do sexo e disponibilidade para os encontros sexuais, não somente entre os próprios "nativos", mas com os "turistas" estrangeiros, um verdadeiro processo de sexotização (Schaper et al 2018), ou, conforme Octávio Sacramento (2019, existiriam "metáforas térmicas" opositivas. O Brasil, no caso, visto como quente (no clima, na sociabilidade e na sexualidade) e a Europa (dos turistas) como fria.…”