Sex in Bali

Sexual relationships between Balinese and tourists (turis) who visit Bali are common practice. Andrew Duff-Cooper posits that "non-locals on holiday enhance their time with sex".(1) Both the tourist and the local seek out the exotic in one another, their mutual perceptions of each other being "imaginative constructs" usually with only a tenuous connection to the "social facts" and the realities these "facts" represent(2) outside their immediate context of desire and fornication. The archetypal holiday romance, as the initial experience of cross-cultural coupling, is somewhat modified once a couple makes a commitment to continue their relationship beyond the boundaries of the host-guest domain. To remain together in Bali or elsewhere requires formal recognition and sanction of the partnership in order to secure a visa (or residence) for the expatriate partner.

This paper deals with heterosexual relationships between Balinese Hindus and Melburnians who decide to settle in Melbourne, a major Australian city.(3) The overwhelming majority of these couples are Balinese males married to Australian females. Unfortunately, the only academic commentaries available on southeast Asian-Australian `marriage' relationships which result in migration to Australia concern either homosexual interactions or the `mail order bride' syndrome.(4) In focusing on Australian female sponsorship of Balinese males to Australia this paper will address issues concerning "the body in its cultural, political, and psychosocial contexts"(5) by drawing on the work of an eclectic range of `feminist' theorists. These issues arise in the contexts of `marriages' between Balinese males and Australian females that are usually formalised and certified.(6)

The major project of the paper is threefold. I will introduce discussion of inter-racial relationships born out of a touristic encounter. I will also position the protagonists against a background of the usual (and unsatisfactory) tropes employed for inter-racial couplings. Finally, I will illustrate aspects of social processes in Bali and in Melbourne which ultimately legitimise the relationships, despite their generalised categorisation as `aberrant' due to racist and sexist ideologies in both natal cultures.

The process involved in finding a permanent venue for the cross-cultural relationship born out of a `holiday romance' is fraught with both social and bureaucratic implications. The initial difficulties encountered are located in `nationality' differences as represented by passports and identity papers, but are compounded by the phylogenic identities of the protagonists. The term `miscegenation'(7) remains an ideal gloss for such relationships, particularly since the term itself reflects the dichotomised cultural...