Ragionamenti del mio viaggio intorno al mondo [Chronicles of my voyage around the world] by Francesco Carletti (1573–1636), a Florentine slave merchant and the first private individual to circumnavigate the globe, is a rich source of information about human trafficking from Africa to Spanish America. Carletti writes in detail about his encounters beginning in 1594 in Africa, America, and Asia, including the Philippines, Japan, Macao, Malacca, and Goa, before returning to Europe via the Cape of Good Hope in 1602. But what makes Carletti's record extraordinary are his reports about the sexuality of the peoples he observes in these locations. Following the publications of earlier Italian travel writers Niccolò dei Conti (1395–1469) and Antonio Pigafetta (1491–1531) about the practice of Asian men purposely piercing their genitalia to insert studs and other objects to gratify their female sexual partners, Carletti investigates this phenomenon, concludes its verity, and attributes its existence to the dominance of women's agency in Asia. Carletti's recollections of his voyage are testimony to how exploration during the early modern era catalyzed a transformation in racial discourses and the appreciation of erotic desire in foreign cultures.