July 10, 2006
Women who travel for sex: Sun, sea and gigolos
Yet another article on female sex tourism, this one in Britain's Independent and entitled "Women who travel for sex: Sun, sea and gigolos."
This article is a nice roundup of what is going on but also contains some stretches in its criticism of the whole phenomenon, to whit:
It is a nasty twist that the countries where this sort of tourism is most rife are ex-slave colonies. Many are still dealing with the fallout of colonialism. All the hotels, restaurants, cars and glass-bottomed boats in Negril [in Jamaica] are owned by Americans. The urban economy doesn't even belong to the local people.Yet the women who sleep with the beach boys insist they are helping race relations. They flatter themselves they have gone native. "In my play there's a scene where a white woman is taking about how she loves R&B and reggae and what she calls hip and hop," says Gupta.
It is the female tourist who books the flights and determines the length of time she will spend with their boyfriend, as well as making day-to-day decisions when they are together, such as when and where they eat. One 21-year-old migrant from Haiti who had been working in Sosua, told Sanchez Taylor that he even had to "snog" his tourist client despite a bad toothache and a swollen face. If he did not, he would not be able to afford the antibiotics to cure it.
In Sugar Mummies, Gupta deliberately allows herself one relationship that might just work. "I'm not saying anything about mixed race relationships, I'm talking about these specific kinds of sex-tourist relationships where women go out there specifically to have sex. It will probably backfire and a whole load more women will go off to Jamaica.
Thought I would take another occasion (wrote a similar letter a few weeks ago to the editor of Pattaya Today, see my blog here) to write a letter to the editor. Here goes, in case they never print it!
Dear Editor,Liz Hoggard's article, "Women who travel for sex: Sun, sea and gigolos" (July 9), makes the point that sex tourism is not practiced only by white women.
Black women (who mainly visit the Caribbean and Africa) and Japanese and Taiwanese women (heading to Thailand and Bali) also travel in search of affection. It's not entirely correct to say that female sex tourism is rife in ex-slave colonies, what with Nepal, Morocco, Ecuador, Fiji and Phuket now on the list -- practically everywhere, in fact, except Antarctica.
With such a steady stream of lonely ladies heading from the West to developing countries, my book,
Romance on the Road, estimates that in the past 25 years, 600,000 Western women have engaged in holiday romances with men in foreign countries.
Critics of female sex tourism such as Nirpal Dhaliwal are quoted as saying these women are guilty of "hypocrisy." Yet gifts of cash, business capital, clothing and meals to poor men, multiplied by the hundreds of thousands, offer foreign aid -- in significant amounts -- from one hand, one heart, to another. My mother-in-law, for example, runs a community college on a small Caribbean island where one student's tuition is paid by a foreign girlfriend.
Also note that one in 30 of such romances leads to a lasting relationship. Thus my question: What really galls critics of female sex tourism? Is it perceived "exploitation" of poor foreign men? Or are these critics implicitly saying, oddly like members of the National Front, "Don't date or fall in love outside your color, nationality or economic group"?
At least seven compelling reasons propel casual travel sex by women, including man shortages (near-crippling for professional black women) and dating wars at home. It's a wonder all traveling women don't indulge. With Western women of all colors now looking for love an airplane ride away, it's clear that they and their holiday lovers have decided that a swap of gifts for affection is in everybody's best interests.
Sincerely,
Jeannette Belliveau
Beau Monde Press
Baltimore, Maryland, USAPS This article also mentions Terry McMillan's ex-husband, whose name is Jonathan Plummer (not Jeremy).
- posted by jbelliveau at 4:54 PM in Love, Sex, Romance and Travel
- Comments
- Post a comment
Remember personal info?
