Female Sex Tourism
Female sex tourism is travel by
women, partially or fully for
the purpose of having sex.
Female sex tourism differs from
male sex tourism in that women
do not use bars, sex shows and
formal tours to meet foreign
men. There are "de facto" tours,
however, such as airplanes bound
to the Gambia in West Africa
full of British and Scandinavian
women seeking affairs with beach
boys.
Often such trips are referred to
by women as "romance tourism."
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 few
destinations, especially in
Southern Europe, Turkey, Bali
and the French Caribbean, men do
not expect to be compensated.
While men tend to go to Asia for
sex tourism, women tend to head
to the Caribbean, Southern
Europe, and Africa. The patterns
have been explored by Michel
Houellebecq in Platform and in
the non-fiction work Romance on
the Road, and are important in
that they 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 conflict between the
sexes.
Thailand, the Dominican Republic
and Cuba are exceptional in that
both male and female sex
tourists find these places
all-purpose sexual emporia.
The primary destinations for
female sex tourism are Southern
Europe (mainly Italy, Greece,
Turkey, Croatia and Spain), the
Caribbean (led by Jamaica,
Barbados and the Dominican
Republic), Ghana and Kenya in
Africa, Bali in Indonesia and
Phuketin Thailand. Lesser
destinations include Nepal,
Morocco, Fiji, Ecuador and
Costa Rica.
Lesbian sex tourism is nascent
but evident in Lesbos (Mytilini)
in Greece; Bangkok and Pattaya
in Thailand, and on Bali in
Indonesia.
Tourist women are called Shirley
Valentines (if British),
longtails (in Bermuda), yellow
cabs (Japan) and, in Jamaica,
milk bottles if newly arrived or
Stellas if black. Female sex
tourism in Barbados has been
dubbed “Canadian secretary
syndrome.”
The men who chase tourist women
are kamakia (“fishing harpoons,”
Greece),galebovi (“seagulls,”Croatia),
sharks (Costa Rica),
rent-a-dreads, rent-a-rastas,
rent-a-gents and the Foreign
Service (Caribbean), Kuta
Cowboys or pemburu-bule (“whitey
hunters,” Bali), Marlboro men
(Jordan), bomsas or bumsters
(the Gambia), sanky pankies
(Dominican Republic), "gringa
hunter" in Ecuador and "brichero"
in Peru.
Barring some isolated cases of
women traveling for sex among
North American Indian tribes and
within Turkey, female travel sex
(involving American and English
women) began in Rome in the late
1840s, at the same time as
feminism's first wave, which
encouraged independence and
travel.
Affairs and intrigues,
particularly between American
heiresses and down-on their luck
European aristocrats, continued
steadily until World War I and
inspired 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, with the exception of
India, Nepal and Thailand, where
intrepid women from England,
France, Czechoslovakia, the
United States and elsewhere
continued to attract the
attention of maharajas and other
Asian royals, despite the uproar
of World War II.
Coincident with the explosion of
leisure travel in the 1960s and
feminism's second wave, sex
tourism by women re-ignited,
first via French Canadian women
traveling to Barbados and
Swedish and Northern European
women to 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.
In the 1990s, women from Japan
and Taiwan began to appear on
the beaches of Bali and Phuket
in Thailand.
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
cropped in continental Europe
and the United States.
Other societal reasons for women
seeking intimate companionship
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 to especially
drive sex tourism by Australian
and Japanese women, and to a
lesser extent, German and
Scandinavian female tourists.
Another factor in women engaging
in holiday romance is identity
loss. Many women behave while
traveling in a way at odds to
how they behave at home, where
fear of the "slut" label curbs
the kind of hedonistic behavior
seen on holiday. Traveling and
expatriate women often try on a
new, more experimental identity
when away from family and
friends.
Additional reasons include:
* sexual connoisseurship -- an
interest in experiencing a
variety of men
* a search for healing after a
divorce or breakup (see Michelle
Thomas, in Major academic
publications, below)
* prolonged involuntary celibacy
* the commodification of sex,
whereby affection is now
something that can be purchased
by women, as well as men, as
well as the globalization of sex
and affection markets
* interest in fulfilling sexual
fantasies
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