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Thought it was just men who flew abroad for squalid sexual kicks? Meet the middle-aged, middle-class women who are Britain's female sex tourists
By Julie Bindel PUBLISHED: 23:56 GMT, 25 August 2013 | UPDATED: 15:36 GMT, 26 August 2013

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They are called bumsters in Gambia, Rastitutes or beach boys in the Caribbean and sanky pankies in the Dominican Republic. These are the men who, in increasing numbers, are providing sex in return for money or goods to women who want a holiday romance. The men are invariably from impoverished families, have little or no education and are sometimes illiterate.

According to the beach boys, there is little shame or stigma in selling sex to older white female tourists, and some claim earning money this way affirms their masculinity (posed by models)

Most of the women are white, middle-aged or older and come from Europe and North America. They travel alone or with female friends and often have a history of unhappy relationships with men at home. They are looking for attention and excitement but end up, often without realising it, being one half of a prostitution deal. Barbara is one such woman. In her late 50s and divorced, she travelled to Jamaica for her first holiday alone last winter. She had fantasies about sunbathing on white sand and swimming in a clear blue sea, but no plans for a holiday romance. Her destination was an all-inclusive resort in Negril, on the western tip of Jamaica, one of the biggest destinations for female sex tourism. I got off the plane at Montego Bay and boom! there he was, she tells me over the phone from her home city of Sheffield. I have never seen a man as fit as Chris. His dreadlocks were down his back and his legs were like a footballers. I thought: Why is he looking at me like he fancies me? Im not his type. Soon Barbara threw aside her inhibitions and realised she could behave in a way she would never dare to at home. It was like total freedom. Chris was all over me and I couldnt get enough of that beautiful body, she says. He showered me with compliments about my legs, my hair, how I smelled, everything. He even said he liked my accent. Barbaras previous marriage had been abusive and damaging, leaving her feeling, as she puts it, worthless and like no man would ever look at me again. She says: Chris made me feel gorgeous and special straight away. Yet this was the beginning of not a holiday romance but a commercial exchange between a relatively rich

Westerner and an impoverished beach boy. It is prostitution, but often only the seller, and not the buyer, is aware of that. Barbara realised Chris viewed her as a sex tourist only when one day he told her, No money, no sex, after she refused to give him cash for a drug deal.

According to the beach boys, there is little shame or stigma in selling sex to older white female tourists, and some claim earning money this way affirms their masculinity (posed by models)

Barbara, like many women who find romance in Negril, says she is shunned by men of her own age in the UK, because they want thinner, younger women and for some reason can get them. Over the past decade, I have been researching the increase in female sex tourism in underdeveloped and poorer countries. I made contact with Barbara through a social networking site where I had discovered women exchanging details about long-distance romances with men in Jamaica. Not one of the women used the phrase sex tourism, but most of them discussed how they had sent money to their boyfriends to pay an urgent debt or to rent accommodation in time for their next visit. None would give me their full names, because their friends and family members are not aware they have been going abroad for sex. Chris moved into my hotel room with me and we had wild sex every night, Barbara says. At first, he insisted on paying for everything, but after a couple of days he said he was owed money by a business contact and I had to bankroll him until it came through. Barbara is on an administrators salary in the UK, but one evening in her 120-a-night hotel would cost any of its own porters four weeks wages.

Chris never got that money he was owed, she says. I ended up paying for everything and once, when I refused, he told me he could pick up any white woman he wanted who would be happy to give him money. Despite this, she remained under the illusion until the end of her holiday that Chris was her boyfriend. She says now: If he pretended to fancy me when we were together and just slept with me for money, does that make him a prostitute or just a lying b*****d? The stereotypical image of the sex tourist is a Western man who travels to Thailand or the Philippines to pay for sex with young women and even children. But in the past three decades the numbers of women travelling primarily for sex with local men is thought to have increased significantly. The practice has become less stigmatised, and tour operators even add thinly veiled references to sex tourism for women as a marketing strategy.

Racial difference plays a significant role in the female sex tourist experience (posed by model)

Phrases such as fantasy island are bandied about, feeding off a mythology about male sexual prowess, perpetuated by the beach boys themselves because its good for business. It is not just sex the women are seeking, though. Academic researchers often class women such as Barbara as romance tourists, as they usually believe the men they meet on holiday are in love with them. Middle-aged and older women with low self-esteem and a history of failed relationships are more likely to fall for the delusion. In the film Shirley Valentine, the central character travels to a Greek island craving love, attention and genuine emotional attachment. The reality of sex tourism is very different.

I have visited Negril. The resorts biggest attraction for tourists is its four miles of stunning white sand. It has a population of almost 6,000 and is host to travellers from all over the world. American spring break students arrive between March and April, and Europeans and North Americans during the winter months. In 2008, an estimated 351,404 tourists came, making up approximately 20 per cent of Jamaicas total. Since then, the numbers have continued to rise, according to the Jamaica Tourist Board. The beach boys I met in Negril were all desperately poor and vulnerable, yet outwardly confident and hypermasculine at the same time. I spent several days with one of them, Clinton, during which he never stopped trying to get me to have sex with him. When I asked why he dated only older women, he said: If I take a tourist out and she wants to help me out as a friend, give me money and let me stay with her in the hotel, whats wrong with that? Of course I have sex with them, but thats because Im not gay I like women. I asked Clinton what he looked for in a woman and he told me: I look for the milk bottles (white women who have obviously just arrived on the island). Most of the beach bars advertise cocktails with names that are well-used euphemisms for a large penis, such as Big Bamboo, Dirty Banana and Jamaican Steel. I was on the island during spring break and Negril was thronged with young, conventionally attractive, bikini-clad female students but the beach boys paid no attention to them at all. At night, in bars playing loud reggae, young men would pull older white women to their feet and show them how to do dirty dancing, by way of introducing them to my body, as one man told me. It was an unusual sight women, some in their 70s, bumping and grinding with men young enough to be their grandsons and drinking Red Stripe beer out of cans. I was sick of the men on offer back home, says Linda, when I speak to her on Skype, having made contact with her through the same social network on which I found Barbara. Linda is a Londoner who runs a pub with her daughter. She has a string of failed relationships behind her. They were all the bloody same, she says. Expect you to treat them like Gods gift, treat you like you dont matter and never consider what it is you want. 'The men I have been with (in Turkey) are a damn sight more handsome than they are and yet treat me like theyre grateful to be with me the opposite of what Im used to.

One young man told me the white women he had sex with made him feel sick. They stink, have rough skin and look like old dogs. No wonder they have to pay for a man
Barbara and Linda are in good company. Each year, as many as 600,000 women from Western countries are said to engage in sex tourism. (The statistics in this area are little better than guesswork, given that few would confess to engaging in the practice in a self-reporting survey, but the figures for men are thought to be many times greater.) In 2001, research based on 240 interviews with women on the beaches of Negril and two similar resorts in the Dominican Republic suggested that almost a third had engaged in sexual relationships with local men in the

course of their holiday. Of those 80 women, nearly 60 per cent admitted there were economic elements to their relationships, but they did not think of themselves as sex tourists, or their sexual partners as prostitutes. Only 3 per cent said their relations were purely physical, and more than half considered them to be about romance. According to the beach boys, there is little shame or stigma in selling sex to older white female tourists, and some claim earning money this way affirms their masculinity. At the same time, the comments I heard in Jamaica about the women seen with younger men were often misogynistic and cruel there is far more acceptance of older, obese men partnering conventionally attractive younger women than the reverse. One young man told me the white women he had sex with made him feel sick. They stink, have rough skin and look like old dogs. No wonder they have to pay for a man. A hotelier told me the women were all ugly and fat. Men wont touch them where they come from, he added. I would be ashamed to be seen with any of them. Some female sex tourists who move to live permanently with Jamaican men are beaten or abused.

First ladies: Female sex tourism was first mentioned in the 19th century, in the U.S. and Turkey, as feminism grew
Andrea Johnson, a corporal with the Negril police, told me: The relationship ends up sour and we have to intervene. 'Ive seen some nasty domestic violence towards the white women who move in with their boyfriends. Dawn, a regular visitor to Negril, says: They often talk about white women as if we are old slappers. 'I used to think Derrick was respectful of me and really loved me, until I heard him laughing with the other boys one night. It turned my blood cold. Dawn met Derrick on her first trip to Negril in 2006 and has since returned twice a year to spend time with him. Derrick is now 27 and Dawn is 30 years older than him. I fell head over heels with him when we first met and he couldnt get enough of me, but Im not daft, she says. I knew he was as keen on my money as he was on me but they have nothing here and live like paupers. Once a month, Dawn sends Derrick 20 for food and when she visits the island she pays for everything, from meals, drinks and taxis to clothes and spending money. What do I get out of it? she says. A lot of fun, and a beautiful body to have my wicked way with whenever I want. Racial difference plays a significant role in the female sex tourist experience. White women who would never consider being openly involved with a young black man back home feel free to do so while travelling and often use this as an example of their anti-racism. However, the same women will often treat their boyfriend as little more than a servant. There is still a tendency to focus on the men as exploiting tourist women economically, emotionally or sexually, rather than being exploited by them. Yet there certainly is exploitation on both sides.

The sex tourism problem has become so great in some countries that there have been half-hearted efforts to reduce it. During the 2002-2003 tourist season, the Gambian law-enforcement agencies, in collaboration with the national tourism association, launched an anti-bumster campaign. Uniformed security personnel rounded up obvious-looking bumsters, shaved off their dreadlocks and began routinely patrolling the tourist areas along the coast. A similar initiative has since been tried in Negril. But the women travelling for sex and love are not being deterred, and nor are the impoverished young men who have only their own bodies to sell. A version of this article appeared in New Statesman.

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Comments (827)
Newest Oldest Best rated Worst rated View all Why is having sex abroad "squalid" according to the article's headline? Or is this just the writer being judgmental and sensationalist? Sex is a basic human need regardless of age and if it is done between two consenting adults I don't see how that makes it squalid, or is this just a relic of the Victorian, prudish "No sex please, we're British" mentality? Men pay for sex whether it's through straightforward prostitution (which has been around for millenia) or by dating through drinks, meals, presents, etc or by marriage. If middle-aged/elderly Brit and other women like to travel abroad to have sex with younger men in exchange for money, meals, presents etc I don't see why anyone should reasonably object to that. Both sides gain from the exchange; it provides an income to poor people in developing countries and if it gives pleasure to older people who would otherwise be sexually ignored in their own country I don't have a problem with that, as some of you seem to have. - Tiredofbeingrainedon , Sodden-on-the-Water, United Kingdom, 26/8/2013 15:59 Click to rate Report abuse Rating 46

Ah, middle aged women with low self-esteem, the DM's *coughdacre'scough* favourite target. - giantcatbear99 , London, UK, 26/8/2013 15:50 Click to rate Report abuse British women are so easy - badgalriri , Glasgow, 26/8/2013 15:46 Click to rate Report abuse Take care of yourself and have a good personality and you will be successful with men/women no matter what age! - Spiffy , Sparta, Japan, 26/8/2013 15:44 Click to rate Report abuse Ah - all the casters of the first stone are out in force today. Judge not that ye be judged , you lot! - Charlie Dennis , Canterbury, 26/8/2013 15:43 Click to rate Report abuse True, men do it so why shouldn't women, but the difference is that women of any age want love, romance and to find their soul mate, whereas men are happier for sex just to be a financial transaction. - Penny , Worcester, 26/8/2013 15:41 Click to rate Report abuse More of a reflection of our rich western society than them. Western world stereo types shun women so easily on in life so why cant they have a bit of fun. It only really matters if people are stupid enough to take it all too seriously, I live in Egypt and I have these types coming in with their local boyfriends all the time. They are called the MMD's.. My Mohamed's Different.. well, sadly for most of them, he very rarely is. - edward , El GOUNA, 26/8/2013 15:40 Click to rate Report abuse There are some sick women out there who will be a bit sicker when the STDs surface - absolutely gross and nauseating - why do some women have no dignity? - nina , cambridge, United Kingdom, 26/8/2013 15:36 Click to rate Report abuse British men like Thai, Philippino women while British women like young black guys in Africa and the Caribbean. - YoungAfricanMale, Planet Earth, 26/8/2013 14:20 Not this British woman thank you very much. - snookypie123, Brighton, 26/08/2013 13:40 Nor this one! Rating 48 Rating 56 Rating 15 Rating 31 Rating 26 Rating 1 Rating 30

- poor northener , up north, hey up, 26/8/2013 15:36 Click to rate Report abuse Lots of Gambian studs want to marry "rich" western women as they can then get visas to a better life. The poor women end up supporting the chap and sending money to the Gambia to support his relatives. Hmm sounds like a high price to pay for a holiday romance - Up to my ears , Over the rainbow, 26/8/2013 15:35 Click to rate Report abuse Share this comment The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. Rating 36 Rating 59

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