Tourism creates social, cultural and health impacts on host communities. Current paper analyzes, through an ethnographic study and 14 interviews with young ecotourism guides, how the sexual scenario in the tourism context and its sexual scripts construct the vulnerability to STD/HIV and to commercial sex among young "caiçaras". Traditional sexual scripts, operated by "sex playing", "pleasure," "no sexual inhibition" scenario, revealed social inequalities among "caiçaras" and tourists and expanded the young people's vulnerability to STD/HIV and the commercialization of sexuality. Female sexual scripts (passive/naïve) impaired the condom negotiation in collected sexual scenes. The "more autonomous" scripts were interpreted as availability for "sexual program". The "non-failing" and "pick the tourists" scripts also broadened the vulnerability of young males. The tourist context builds a unique sexual scenario and crosses the local residents' social-affective trajectory. Political and local health programs must take seriously into account the tourism impact.
Tourism; STD/HIV; sexuality
