An intriguing, compelling and educational read

Men travel the world for all sorts of reasons.  They seek to expand their range of experiences.  They look to visit faraway lands and enrich their life paths.   And of course, some of them are seeking relatively uncomplicated sexual encounters with a variety of women.

Men seeking the latter often find themselves trekking to places like Thailand to get their pleasure.  Indeed, the world offers many such sexual paradises for the modern man seeking sexual variety and adventure.  Haiti is one of those paradises, and the author of Naked in Haiti explores the travels of a man from the USA who takes a vacation in Haiti, looking for some sexual frolic and finding some intrigue along the way.

Early in the book, the narrator meets a social worker for the United Nations named Ingrid.  She’s a classic modern day progressive, filled with slogans (’Sister Solidarity’) and cuts so many corners with her thinking processes.  Still, Ingrid serves an important literary function – she allows a dialogue so that the author can explore aspects of sex tourism and the related philosophy and world view surrounding it.

The author is smart and well educated (evidently a college professor from somewhere in the USA), so his discourses with Ingrid are quite intelligent.  Of course, ‘Sister Solidarity’ is repulsed by such frank discussions, ironic since she is so representative of the type that likes to believe they are capable of adult and mature discussions, while in fact they tend to mire discourse in a labyrinth of euphemisms and dubious assumptions.

I don’t mean to depict the book as simply a socratic exchange, exploring the issues surrounding prostitution, sex tourism, and related pastimes.  It’s much more than that, and quite a compelling read.  The thing is, these issues are not given much attention in mainstream culture.  Whenever it comes up, it’s in the context of a human trafficking breaking news, or related ornery and criminal practices.  No question, human trafficking is a serious problem, but it’s just a subset of the whole world of sex tourism that it is a mistake to believe the ugly face of sex trafficking completely permeates the world of commercial sex.

The action quickly takes the duo to ‘The Florida Club,’ ostensibly a strip club but more accurately a bordello of sorts. Here, Ingrid really gets out of character, but that’s part of the fun of this book.  Like real life, people aren’t exactly what they seem, and events sometimes take strange, unpredictable turns.  That’s life, that’s what people say.

The book has a definite episodic nature, but that’s part of the charm.  But the chief strength of Naked in Haiti is that it explores these topics maturely.  I recommend this book for anyone interested in some insights into the industry, particularly from the consumer point of view.

You can order a copy of the book at Amazon.com.