The Other Sex Tourism: Rich Women Paying Men

Now that travel has returned to pre-pandemic levels, the tourism industry is once again booming—including sex tourism. Mention “sex tourism,” and what springs to mind is affluent white and Asian men visiting developing and Eastern European countries where they pay to play with young women who have few other employment options. But sex tourism also includes a significant—and apparently growing—number of affluent women from the global North (England, Europe, North America, Japan, China) who combine vacationing in the global South (the Caribbean, Africa, and South/Southeast Asia) with sexual adventures involving significantly younger and poorer men.

Many gay and bisexual men (and some boys) sell sex to other men, but sex work involving male sellers and female buyers has remained largely under the radar. Recently, researchers from Norway and Johns Hopkins University searched databases for studies of female sex tourism. They found none before 1970, but 46 published from 1970 through 2018. The studies tracked more than 5,000 female buyers and male sellers who cavorted in 21 countries, but usually in the Caribbean (31 percent), Africa (31 percent), and Asia (18 percent). The study shines new light on tourism defined by the four S’s: sun, surf, sand—and sex.

Names for Sex Buyers and Male Providers

Throughout history, tales have been told of wealthy older women who “kept” younger, less-affluent men (and sometimes boys) as companions, dance partners, and lovers. During the 1920s, affluent men visited France and dropped into dance halls where young women, gigolettes, worked as paid partners—while on the side, often selling sex. A much smaller number of women paid to dance—and do other things—with young men who became known as gigolos.

During the 1970s, D.H. Sterry was a young man who paid his rent as a gigolo, and later wrote a memoir, Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent. “Chicken” is slang for young, possibly underage sex workers. Since then, as women have gained moe economic power, a small—but apparently growing—number have become “sugar mamas,” or sex buyers. New terms have emerged, for example, “sanky panky,” Caribbean slang for tourist women who enjoy “hanky panky in the sand” with local men.

Male providers go by many names:

• Boy toy
• Professional boyfriend
• Brichero (South America)
• Bumster (West Africa)
• Money boy (China)
• Jungee (India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh)
• Pillow host (Japan)
• Rastitute (the Jamaican contraction of “Rastafarian” and “prostitute”)
• Rent-a-dread (referring to dreadlocks, the Rastafarian hairstyle)

The Exotic Other: Age, Race, Social Class, and Fantasies

The women who buy sex and the men who sell it almost always meet at beach resorts. The women are usually over 40, and the men in their late teens to early 30s. The women are overwhelmingly white, mature, affluent, well-educated, and extensively traveled. The men are non-white, considerably younger, less educated, and from low socioeconomic backgrounds with little opportunity for upward mobility.

The women are motivated by sexual boredom at home and fantasies of sex with the exotic other, particularly by the myth that black men are hypersexual, unusually skilled lovers, and magnificently endowed. Actually, black men have the same range of libidos, sexual skills, and genital sizes as other men, but the women embrace the myths, and their professional boyfriends stoke their fantasies. The men strive to be charming, solicitous, gracious companions. Many women want buff, hard-bodied men, so the men get into bodybuilding and go shirtless, wearing tight bathing suits that emphasize their endowments.

But socioeconomically, the women have the upper hand. In their home countries, gender roles may constrain them, but as sex tourists, they’re in charge, which many experience as a welcome change. They may or may not be racist, but they choose the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia in part because they enjoy neo-colonial fantasies of power over those who were colonized. An American woman who visits Jamaica frequently said, “Women who vacation here like control. They don’t need a man in their lives, except for sex. Better to have someone uneducated who acts like your lackey. That way, you can decide when it starts and when it ends.”

Some of the men entertain only women. Others also cavort with sex-tourist men. Across all 46 studies, the men averaged encounters with one to two women a month and made $100 to $500 per experience.

Transactions Veiled by Pseudo-Relationships

When men pay for sex, that’s all most want. But a small fraction of women sex workers also offer companionship, conversation, and dining: “girlfriend experiences.”

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Most sugar mamas want boyfriend experiences, pseudo-relationships that include flattery, sweet talk, laughter, lots of conversation, and “love,” i.e. sex. Of course, the men don’t love them, but to succeed as boy toys, they become adept at acting as if they have a real affection for their “janes.”

Professional boyfriends rarely ask directly for money. Instead, after turning on the charm, they tell stories of financial hardship, needing schoolbooks, caring for infirm relatives, and distress over their inability to afford the college educations they insist they want. The women make donations.

The men don’t consider themselves sex workers, but “players” living out fantasies of being hypermasculine studs. They feign subservience while working subtly to manipulate their ladies into opening their purses. They have no more affection for the women they seduce than women sex workers have for johns. In India, the jungees call their customers “ATM amamajis,” automated teller machine grandmas. Experienced money boys seek out women who are older, overweight, and not particularly attractive believing they’re easier to seduce for more money. As one Dominican beach boy explained, “The sex gives me no pleasure. It’s a business. I don’t care how they look. I’m happy to entertain ugly women if they have money.”

Many of the men want something more precious than money. They’re looking for marriage and visas out of their countries to the U.S. or Europe. It’s not clear how many hit this jackpot, but among professional boyfriends, stories abound of those who have married and emigrated. Some years ago, on a trip to Cambodia, I met a young man who was upfront about wanting to seduce older European or American women into marriage so he could emigrate.

Some women sex workers feel okay about unprotected fellatio (BBB, bareback blowjobs). But the vast majority insist on condoms for other insertions. Women sex tourists and their boy toys often feel differently. Several of the studies in the recent analysis showed that neither the women nor the men consistently required condoms. The men said they interfered with pleasure. The women said they spoiled their vacation fantasies.

There are no credible estimates of the proportion of women around the world who pay for sex, so it’s impossible to speculate how many engage in sanky panky. But some do. In a study of online sites offering escort services, Yale investigators found that 11 percent catered to a female clientele. And based on the plethora of new terms for the phenomenon and the 46 studies in the recent report, the number of women who “sexscape” to exotic destinations appears to be growing. Evidently, what’s good for the gander is increasingly attractive to the goose.