As an English teacher in Thailand for over a year, I had the opportunity of having a closer look at the sex industry in Southeast Asia.

I felt that sex tourists, and brothel-goers in general, radiated a patriarchal sense of entitlement which, in the case of the foreigners, would not be acceptable, or even possible, back home.

 Honestly speaking, women who envision a grand life for themselves and their children are not lined up for extra-curricular sex with some (excuse the cliché) foul-mannered, overweight, middle-aged, married, balding alcoholic- only the most vulnerable are really up for this job.

Many sex tourists, who wouldn’t even be eligible for a date back in Germany, Canada, Australia, or wherever else they come from, find solace in the fact that their money buys their egos back, at the expense of someone else’s health or happiness.

This ideology reeks with dehumanization and confirms that men are mere providers of money, and women are subject to its rule. There is also plenty of gay sex-tourism, in which (mostly young) boys are exploited in the same way as women.

Sex tourism, then, is a tragedy, for both the sex workers, who don’t always choose to be there, and for the men who pay them.

A Forced Profession

I do not mean to say that sex tourism, or sex work, for that matter, is a black and white issue, and for those sex workers who love their jobs, I am no one to judge their choices or their profession.

However, we can’t ignore the fact that many people are smuggled and then forced into the trade, either by lack of any other option, or by pimps, or even by their family members, who may be desperate for a piece of the profit.

As well, the risk factors for sex workers are very high, and many succumb to AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. Those who seek out sexual services, particularly those who are married or in other relationships, risk the lives of their partners when they return home.

Some say that sex tourism is about sex, but I think it’s about power and opportunism. I am not sure we are reaching our human potential, as tourists and ambassadors of our nations, by contributing to additional social gaps in the world.

While it is true that sex workers make more money than working in the market, there are other, more effective ways to improve the lives of people, besides buying sex from them. For those women, men and children who are trafficked, or bound to the trade by economic desperation, it seems hopelessly unfair that they should have to sacrifice the most personal areas of their bodies for the sake of someone’s vacation, ego, or fantasy whim.

Perhaps as tourists, and as people, before we depart, we might care to ponder not only others’ choices, but also our own, and what we want to make of them.

 By  Emily Hansen

Every year, tourists flock to Southeast Asia, in hopes of netting the tropical ocean dream.
Khaosan Road, Bangkok’s backpacker coconut cream pie, proves that not only can you sleep for three dollars a night, but you can also be anyone you want in Paradise.

For some, this means picking up dreadlocks while exiting Watson’s pharmacy, and wearing more tie-dye than would fit in the back of a VW van. For others, however, it means purchasing sexual services from a woman, man, or even a child, and imagining themselves as Love Gods.

One can smell a lot of things on Khaosan Road- patchouli, pineapples, Pad Thai, and as well, the more pungent odor of sex tourism- the question is, whether or not it’s all about peace, love and happiness.

Sex tourism, present throughout the world, is particularly prevalent in South East Asia, where the connected problems of human trafficking, AIDS, and poverty, continue to flourish and claim lives at unprecedented rates.

Sex tourists, defined as “those who travel to a country for the sole purpose of having sex” see it as an opportunity, or even an entitlement, to have sex available for less money than they would pay at home.

They perceive that those involved in the industry are making a choice to sell their services. Some even say they are “helping” sex workers, as other available labor, particularly for women, generally yields a lower profit. Sex tourists tend not to differentiate between buying groceries, and going to the brothel to buy sex- both provide someone with economic sustenance.

It is also true that some sex workers tend not to distinguish between sex work and other work, which may or may not be any less exploitative- the difference, is in the body parts used.

We, products of Christian influence, have moralized sex, unlike in some other countries, including some Southeast Asian nations, where it is seen in more neutral terms. Many sex workers wish to provide services without judgment or police interference, and continue to fight for better protection within the industry.

"One of the most serious yet inconspicuous activities causing far-reaching and sometimes irreversible damage to the social and cultural fabric of local societies is that of sex tourism," he warned. 

The Trinidad born researcher, believes white men and women go to the Caribbean and other parts of the world for sex because of a quest for 'gender equality' and what they do is spurred on by 'racialised power'. 



He pointed out that many sociologists think some male tourists who resent 'women's perceived power' at home turn to women in third world tourist destinations, because it gives them a chance to escape the pressures from their wives, girlfriends, or colleagues for equal rights and status in the home and on the job.

"Female prostitutes in the Caribbean, in contrast, typically neither challenge nor demand anything much from male sex tourists," he said. 

White women are also turning to Caribbean men to challenge some of their own men's traditional roles or to live out their sexual fantasies. 

"Such female sex tourists affirm their sense of womanliness by being sexually desired by other men," wrote Bryan who is also director of Caribbean Studies at the University of Miami. He added, "in their home countries, these women may be stigmatized for having either illegitimate or casual relations with black men or younger men, or for having many sexual partners" . 

"In holiday resorts such as Negril, Jamaica, white women are allowed anonymity to enjoy liaisons with black males, younger boys, or as many men as they desire, out of view of neighbors and friends in their home countries." 

"Some argue that sex tourism provides an economic opportunity for marginalised subgroups of the population," wrote Dr. Bryan. But it is also "one of the contributing factors to the HIV-AIDS epidemics, Hepatitis B and C, and other diseases." 

And this is a critical reality in a region where AIDS is a sustainable development issue that could affect the very economic survival of the Caribbean.

If an 'escort' plays his cards right, being with a tourist sexually can raise him a pretty penny. Most of the women are into oral sex, largely taboo among Jamaican males; for this act, some of the women are reportedly willing to pay as much as US$100. According to a Jamaican beach bum 'Jim', this is normally played out in their hotel room.

The success of the Terry McMillan's book and film 'How Stella Got Her Groove Back' added a fillip to sex tourism as many successful American women flocked to the Caribbean beaches to find sex and romance. 

Indeed the majority of these adventurous tourists travel to Jamaica in the winter season. They are single women in their mid-forties and are from major cities in the United States. They are not necessarily into long-term relationships, but Jim says they return regularly to their island boy, bringing gifts like jewellery, designer sneakers and clothing.

But while they like the gifts the 'escorts' ultimate hope is to be like Winston, Terry MacMillan's lover - marrying and migrating, preferably to the United States. It gives them an opportunity for a new life and better days for their children.

But to Dr Anthony Bryan, a prominent Caribbean scholar and professor of international relations at the North-South Centre of the University of Miami, the desire of white women and men to pay for sex can be traced, in part, to "The racist stereotype of the exotic and erotic black or mixed-race woman or man". 

Writing in Caribbean Tourism: Igniting The Engines Of Sustainable Growth, a paper published by the North-South Centre, Dr. Bryan examines several facets of the tourism industry, including its growth, the social and cultural impact, the problem of HIV-AIDS, sustainable development and the future of the industry in countries that run the gamut of tourist destinations. 


Dr. Byran defines sex tourism as activities by foreign visitors that include 'typical prostitution'; the trafficking of women, men and young girls. In addition, he pointed out, it caters to a diverse group, heterosexuals, homosexuals and pedophiles.

Amidst the hand-gliders, speedboats and sunbathers on the beaches of the Caribbean, there are the buffed (and not so buffed) bodies of young men hoping to catch the eye of a single tourist woman looking for a good time. And if that is the case, they have come to the right place.

Indeed "BEACH BUMS" are on the increase. And some teenaged boys are leaving school to get involved. This is according to Barbadian-born Dr Joan Phillips, a post doctorate research fellow at the University of London. 


"Fourteen to 15-year-old boys are leaving school to go on the beach to get to the big money. The big money is having sex with tourists. They tell you that school was not doing anything for them. They usually start during summer and then don't go back to school," she said. 

"From my study carried out in Barbados, I argue sex tourism is about all the above, including romance, remuneration and entrepreneurship. It is based on racialised sexual fantasies of the black man; it's about the black man trying to be white. It's the new commodity on sale for the tourist dollar and the newly liberated in search of the post-colonial Mandingo." 

Phillips did not give figures, but said, "A guestimate could be one in five couples on the beaches and perhaps one in three couples at certain nightclubs. What is significant is that it has become more visible over the last ten years." 

She stressed also that "beach bums" were not the only ones involved in sex tourism, which also took place in the privacy of hotels and massage parlours. 

As to the financial rewards, Phillips added: "There are cases where he gets to travel to a European country with all expenses paid for a couple of months, up to a cash sum of US$15 000, the gift of an  18-carat gold ring, the underwriting of shopping sprees, apartment rentals, jetski and general subsistence." 

"It begins with the woman paying for drink and entry to clubs, then after about two weeks, when she is about to leave, she accompanies him to Bridgetown, where he is treated to a shopping bonanza of brand name articles." 

Dr. Phillips emphasized that sex tourism, a product of slavery, was not new to the Caribbean. White women always wanted to sample black men, while the latter saw them as their hope of financial and social boost, she added. 

American sociologist Klaus de Albuquerque agrees with the erotic element to sex tourism. He believes that for the white woman who flock to the Caribbean for sea, sun and mostly sex, it's a 'phallic sojourn' in search of the 'big bamboo'.

Barring some isolated cases of women traveling for sex among North American Indian tribes, female travel sex (involving American and English women) began in Rome in the late 1840s, at the same time as first wave feminism, which encouraged independence and travel.

Affairs and intrigues, particularly between American heiresses and impoverished European aristocrats, continued steadily until World War I, inspiring a whole genre of literature such as Henry James's Daisy Miller, Joaquin Miller's The One Fair Woman, and much of the early output of E.M. Forster.


Female sex travel declined from the time of the Depression until the 1960s.

Coincident with the explosion of leisure travel in the 1960s and second wave feminism, sex tourism by women re-ignited, first via French Canadian women travelling to Barbados and Swedish and Northern European women to India, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia and the Gambia. Female sex travel became ubiquitous throughout the Caribbean, from the tiniest islands through the big destinations of Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Barbados.

Today, many other destinations are popular, including Morocco, Nepal, Thailand, Ecuador, Costa Rica, Mexico—everywhere with beaches (or in Nepal's case, mountains) and a surplus of underemployed men.

Female sex tourism's first and second waves coincided not only with feminism but with Victorian era man shortages that began in England and later occurred in continental Europe and the United States.

Social reasons for women seeking promiscuous and no-strings-attached sex abroad include the dating war, as typified by extreme competition between the sexes in schools, the workplace, while dating, in marriages, and even in contentious divorces. The dating war appears especially to drive sex tourism by Australian and Japanese women, and to a lesser extent, German and Scandinavian female tourists.

The changing theme of pop culture in the wake of the feminist heyday in America and elsewhere cannot be ignored. From the 1970s onward, the emergence of stronger, independent character roles for women in film, music and television doubtlessly influenced the expectations of ordinary women viewers everywhere in the western world.

The men may do it for the money, or for the sex, or for other unresearched reasons. Women usually give clothes, meals, cash and gifts to their male prostitutes. In some destinations, there are "going rates" for male companionship, ranging from $50 to $200. In other destinations, especially in Southern Europe, Turkey, and the French Caribbean, men do not expect to be compensated.

Female sex tourism is travel by women, partially or fully for the purpose of having sex. The practice differs from male sex tourism in that women do not typically use the structures of the sex industry (e.g. strip clubs, sex shows and organised tours) to meet foreign partners.


Women's trips may be referred to as "romance tourism." They typically involve sex with locals from the holiday destination country, as opposed to with other tourists.

The phenomenon has been explored by French Novelist Michel Houellebecq in his novel Platform and in the non-fiction book Romance on the Road. These works support the idea that sex tourism by both men and women reflects serious problems in the tourists' home countries, including a "dating war", or profound disharmony between the sexes.

The primary destinations for female sex tourism are Southern Europe (mainly Italy, Greece, Republic of Macedonia, Croatia, Turkey, Israel, Slovenia, Spain) also Lebanon, the Caribbean, (Bali in Indonesia and Phuket in Thailand).

Lesser destinations include Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Fiji, Ecuador and Costa Rica.
Bali, Thailand, the Dominican Republic and Cuba are exceptional in that both male and female sex tourists use these countries.

An estimated 650,000 Western women have engaged in travel sex since 1980, many of them multiple times. By some estimates, 80,000 North American and European women travel to Jamaica for sex every year.

Lesbian sex tourism is nascent but evident in Lesbos (Mytilini) in Greece, Bangkok and Pattaya in Thailand. The men used by tourist women are termed kamakia (“fishing harpoons,” Greece), galebovi (“seagulls,” Croatia), гларуси (glarusi) (“seagulls,” Bulgaria), sharks (Costa Rica), rent-a-dreads, rent-a-rastas, rent-a-gents and the Foreign Service (Caribbean).

Male prostitutes may in general be referred to by various terms and euphemisms. Some of these men can be considered gigolos, for instance.
"A holiday fling" or "a holiday romance" may refer to either sex tourism (having sex with a local) or an affair with a fellow holidaymaker, possibly from one's own country or indeed package tour. Either may be called "fun in the sun".