August 6, 2006
Another take on the movie "Heading South"
Well, there certainly is no shortage of controversy about the film "Heading South," including this review from the Boston Globe, "A muddled exploration of sex tourism."
Here is my letter to the editor regarding this review.
A muddled view of women, travel and love
Ty Burr's movie review, "A muddled exploration of sex tourism" (Aug. 4), displays a rather harsh take on the women shown in "Heading South," who travel to Haiti for sex with local men.
Perhaps the reason director Laurent Cantet never sets a match to a potential "tinderbox of racial and sexual exploitation" is that so very few First World women are actually involved in "moral strip-mining of the Third" World.
Rather, the opposite is often true, as I found out during six years of research for my new book, 
Romance on the Road. As one example, my husband's mother, who founded a community college on a tiny and quite poor Caribbean island, teaches a student whose tuition is paid by his older foreign girlfriend. Her gift of college courses is tremendously significant in the scheme of this young man's life.
Outsiders often damn such relationships, showing little empathy for the loneliness of many tourist women, who flee man shortages, a dating war, or a painful divorce. Their holiday lovers are also seek an escape from lives of poverty, limited options and local women who reject them.
Both parties in a holiday romance often benefit, and the fact that one in 30 such relationships evolves into something long term demonstrates that the hunt for a mate is yet another activity that has become globalized.
Jeannette Belliveau
Author, Romance on the Road
Beau Monde Press
- posted by jbelliveau at 11:48 AM in Love, Sex, Romance and Travel
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