By Julie Bindel. 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 photo from the film Paradise Love.
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. Soon Barbara threw aside her inhibitions and realised she could behave in a way she would never dare to at home. He even said he liked my accent. It is prostitution, but often only the seller, and not the buyer, is aware of that. 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.
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. None would give me their full names, because their friends and family members are not aware they have been going abroad for sex. Despite this, she remained under the illusion until the end of her holiday that Chris was her boyfriend.
