August 13, 2006
Female sex tourism: Topic A in Britain
As I noted in an earlier press release, the simultaneous release of my book, 
Romance on the Road, the movie Heading South and the play Sugar Mummies in London had catapulted the issue of female sex tourism to the greatest degree of public awareness it has perhaps ever received.
(At least since the Victorian era, when the release of Henry James's Daisy Miller created a public frenzy.)
This week, female sex tourism has been Topic A in Britain.
Today we have in London's Daily Mail the article "Men for Sale," and on Wednesday the Guardian's "This Is Not Romance."
On Tuesday, I appeared (via a live hookup from the BBC's Washington, D.C., offices), on the BBC Woman's Hour, along with the playwright Tanika Gupta, who wrote "Sugar Mummies," and Julie Bindel, the author of "This Is Not Romance." (You can hear the audio of this program here.)
Hostess Jenni Murray and producer Lizz Pearson prepped me extensively and sympathetically for this appearance.
Surprisingly, I was the one on the BBC panel with the task of defending women who travel for sex and romance, with Gupta and Bindel, two ardent feminists (?), attacking this practice. To me, it shows gumption to go out and find some lovin' rather than sit at home in New York or London, Baltimore or Nottingham, bemoaning one's fate. And Jenni seemed to give me plenty of time on our 11-minute segment to make this point.
All the better that many of the destinations that Western women visit, from Cuba to the Zambia to the Arab world, are peopled by young men whose culture genuinely permits the admiration of older women and of women with fuller figures. (A subtlety missed by Gupta and Bindel.)
My appearance on the Woman's Hour was mentioned in the Daily Mail, and this morning I sent the following letter to the editor:
Dear Editor,In re: "Men for Sale (Kathryn Knight, 13 Aug.), it's interesting to be identified as "the self-confessed sex traveler who appeared on Radio 4 this week." (Yes, it was I on the radio.)
I spent six years researching the topic of female sex tourism for my new book (Romance on the Road: Traveling Women Who Love Foreign Men).
My conclusion: It's no great surprise that the women of the West, beset by dating wars and man shortages, travel to resorts and get together with Third World men, themselves beset by dating wars and woman shortages. Now affection and companionship are a commodity -- something that can be purchased -- and a globalized commodity at that.
The fact that one in 30 of these holiday romances evolves into a long-term relationship shows that, underneath the games and manipulation sometimes seen in Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Barbados, the Gambia, Kenya, Bali, Phuket and hundreds of other destinations for lonely women, are encounters that bring together international couples who smash the old rules of mating behavior.
Sincerely,
Jeannette Belliveau
Baltimore, Md., USA
What is most fascinating to me by FAR are the comments that appear underneath the Daily Mail and Guardian articles. This once-taboo topic is coming into the open, with women acknowledging their own trips and a growing minority of commenters defending the practice of romance on the road -- even when it includes gifts and outright payment -- as an understandable and human response to simple loneliness.
I'll return soon to the astounding comments posted by readers on these Guardian and Daily Mail articles.
- posted by jbelliveau at 10:41 AM in Love, Sex, Romance and Travel
