Sea, sun… sex?

Svetlana admits that she thought about a possible meeting when she decided to go with a friend to Sicily. She turned 24, and for six months she had no one. So they chose the club hotel not by chance: “From the description it followed that there were many events for young people, during parties and sports we would have met someone for sure. And so it happened.

There were a lot of nice young people around, we immediately felt light and cheerful. Already on the second day, I got into a conversation with one handsome Italian, and another began to look after my friend. We agreed that she would hang a towel outside the window when they wanted to retire to the room so that I would not accidentally interfere with them. And I had enough kisses, I didn’t want to rush things.

Having met the next day with the guys at the pool, we kissed each other on both cheeks, and that was it. Nobody wanted to go further. Everything happened very naturally.”

The very word “vacation” hints that it’s time to let go, to remove the usual restrictions. Unlike busy work time, which is associated with discipline and responsibility, vacation is a freedom that we rush to use. Moreover, the sun calls to undress and give free rein to sensuality.

According to a survey of the International Online Dating Service Parship, conducted in 2006, 32% of Europeans, like Svetlana, once could not resist a holiday romance. However, no one has yet explored their motives. What do they seek – to survive a brief adventure without continuation, or to plunge headlong into another life, risking not returning to the old one? And what does the other person we meet on vacation mean to us?

Go beyond the borders

Travel gives us the opportunity to go beyond the boundaries of established ideas about ourselves. “We repeat the same actions every day,” explains sexologist Irina Panyukova. “Habits provide stability, but do not encourage experimentation.”

We are also held back by the expectations of others. After all, they are used to us, we are part of their life, which suits them as it is, so if we try to change, the environment returns us to the previous framework. “But its controlling influence is reduced when we go on a trip,” the sexologist continues. We are moving away from our reality, from the views of friends and neighbors.

Already on the train or plane, we meet new people who do not know us. They don’t have expectations that we strive to meet. We relieve ourselves of the burden of our own and other people’s ideas about the past, and this creates the conditions for us to try ourselves in a new role.

Psychoanalyst Christoph Allanik offers his hypothesis: “Going on vacation frees us from parental control. This effect can be called “the fruit of incestuous fantasies”: we get rid of the image of the maternal or paternal “other”. Those who experience difficulties in daily life at home often feel much better abroad. Traveling outside the country, they are literally freed from the power of their loved ones.”

But the main boundary is not outside, but inside us, physical movement in real space only helps to cross it. The distance is determined individually. It is enough for someone to leave the city, sit on the shore of a pond, and someone needs to get into a country where they speak an unfamiliar language.

Become an erotic object

“I don’t speak English very well, but that didn’t bother me,” Svetlana continues. We laughed a lot and made gestures. That was enough to understand each other.” And it’s so easy to move from gestures to touches! And so we go to a place where, as it seems to us, it is much easier to find flirting and sex, where they are available to those who no longer hope to meet their love at home.

Morality calls this phenomenon sex tourism and unequivocally condemns it, despite the fact that Russian women, like European women, are actively exploring the beaches of Cuba, Senegal, Kenya and North Africa. Perhaps the spread of this type of travel will soften public opinion over time, but so far its fans have been put in a difficult position.

45-year-old Anastasia, a regular visitor to Santo Domingo, shares her secret with only two friends, taking an oath of silence from them. She admits that meeting with young people near the hotel, their looks, compliments and hugs restore her faith in herself: “Let me guess that they are attracted more by my money than beauty, but this week I get more warmth than in the whole a year in Petersburg!

Irina Panyukova emphasizes that “there is no dress code on the beaches, it is not the social status of a man that is assessed, but only his physical attractiveness. And the perception of the other as a sexual object leads to the fact that a woman considers herself in the same context. In ordinary life, we are fragmented into several social roles. During the holidays, the number of roles is reduced, and you can finally become “just” a woman.

Romantic tourism

Anastasia does not change partners on vacation. Every year she returns to the same young man and is afraid to find him in the arms of another like her. “Many established and independent women don’t want to associate themselves with too busy men,” says anthropologist Frank Michel. “But on vacation, they behave differently, adhering to a romantic outlook on life, and claim to be looking for their love. Therefore, I call such trips romantic tourism.”

To avoid embarrassment, whether out of hypocrisy or delicacy, these women do not pay their exotic lovers with money. They prefer to present a reward in the form of a gift: a suit or a moped “to make it easier to find a job”, a TV “for elderly parents” …

Many tourists are attracted to black partners. “In their eyes, they embody masculinity,” says Irina Panyukova. Unlike urbanites who move little and spend a lot of time indoors, which reflects on their appearance and restricts their movement, beach natives are physically active, they have good posture, they are athletic and have animal grace.

“Unconsciously, they are associated with a good gene pool,” emphasizes Irina Panyukova, “and consciously, with animal passion, temperament, physical strength and sensuality. In addition, they have unusual facial expressions and unfamiliar smells, and this, like everything unusual and new, stimulates the imagination and spurs sensuality.

Novel according to plan

Moving away many kilometers from home, is it so important for a lonely vacationer to escape from reality? Or maybe he just wants to improve this reality by creating a pleasant souvenir for himself – a memory of a small, non-committal summer romance?

For three years, Kamil, a 25-year-old taikwondo coach, has been posting ads on a free dating site looking for travel companions. “I started doing ads when I was alone after six years of constant communication. Now it has already become a habit: I go online and go on vacation with a girl I like. I have already traveled this way to Istanbul, to Corsica, to Algiers, Brazil… Sometimes it’s just sex. Sometimes tender relationships. Sometimes it’s both together. But it never lasts longer than the vacation lasts.”

What attracts Camille in such a relationship? Ease. He shares only the best moments with his companions and does not become attached to them. For him, this is a huge advantage: no need to compromise, which means no suffering, although he admits that he hopes to “find his love.” In the meantime, in anticipation of love, he remains alone, and his loneliness is getting harder.

learn from experience

“A vacation is not a treatment, it is a cosmetic procedure,” reflects Christoph Allanick. “Travel doesn’t fundamentally change us, and while we see a lot of things differently on vacation, we don’t start asking ourselves the big questions.” We do not become different people, but we feel and behave differently.

“A holiday romance can be a very useful experience if you learn and integrate this experience into your life so that it improves this life,” emphasizes Irina Panyukova. For example, we have noticed that flirting improves our mood or men try to help when we are dressed more feminine … and you can smile and wear more elegant dresses not only on vacation. Maybe we would like to visit companies more often or visit art galleries. And flirt and be feminine.

As for sadness when parting with pleasant people, with favorite places – this is a natural feeling, an inevitable consequence of our attachment. Fighting him is like fighting your own humanity. However, you should not idealize a swimming instructor or an attractive bartender with whom more than one passionate night has been spent.

“The point is not that each of these men is somehow exceptionally good,” says Irina Panyukova, “but that in their society we allowed those qualities that we suppressed in our ordinary life to manifest. Returning, we miss not so much the wonderful partners we met on vacation, but the unrealized part of our own soul.

This is confirmed by the story of Svetlana. After kissing an Italian, she happened to experience something more serious with one of the animators. “He worked during the day, I had fun, and in the evening we met. After leaving, I received a message from him thanking him for the time we spent together. And nothing more. This does not bother me: I knew that one day I would have to return to reality. And he wasn’t part of it.”

We return home with memories not only of our companions, but also of ourselves, as we were with them. It is this experience – new behavior and a fresh look at ourselves – that we can make part of our reality.

Understand your goals

The most valuable thing we bring back from vacation is new impressions about ourselves, says sexologist Irina Panyukova. To make them positive, it is useful to define goals in advance. Non-romantic ones – to relax, sleep, get prettier, improve health, see new places – will allow us to enjoy our vacation, even if there is not a single gentleman older than five years nearby.

But goals can also be romantic: coquetry, flirting, dancing, communication or closer contact, caresses, sex. It makes sense to consider in what case and to what degree of intimacy we are ready to get in a relationship in order to avoid reckless actions for the company or on a drunk head, because of which we will feel guilty, dislike for ourselves or annoyance at the girlfriends who “dragged” us in it.

It is important to provide for security measures, hygienic and psychological, and to keep emerging relationships at the level that is convenient for us at the moment. But we should not passively expect that someone will do what we secretly desire. If the meeting does not happen, then the result may be unexpected: in the end, she took and was seduced by a completely inappropriate subject. Understanding your preferences is a sign of adulthood.