| Sumario: | This article argues that, in order to understand the expanding gay travel worlds of the 1970s and 1980s, it is necessary to follow both gay liberation politics and harmful practices. Just as expanding political opportunities for gay men opened up new possibilities for scene building, the networks of travel and communication that both resulted from and enabled this expansion also became useful tools for some men to skirt newly consolidated age of consent laws. A close examination Spartacus International Gay Guide, a guide for same-sex desiring men founded in the UK in 1970, and its head editor John Stamford, reveals the complicated ways in which this language could be used to navigate shifting legal regimes. In so doing, it created opportunities for white, Western European men to pursue sexually exploitative and harmful practices that were inextricable from wider networks of gay travel.
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