One of my favorite novels is Platform by Michael Houellebecq, which primarily centers around the the sex tourism industry in Thailand. I was excited by this idea, not because I neccesarily wanted to run and do it, but because Houellebecq’s narrator lays it out in such a frank but explicit way (to paraphrase): people travel, they want to connect and have a memorable experience. For most humans, this means sex, and to a lesser extent — sights.

I’ve always been interested in how sex and love manifests itself in a globalized world economy. In Platform’s case, this is fleshed out within tourism, but it can also also be carried into long term partnerships, and marriage. Even as a kid I was very curious about mail-order brides and how that came to be carried out.

Fifty years ago a mailorder bride from Korea would have been as common as from any country. Suddenly, South Korea is the 10th or 11th richest country in the world and these days Korean men import women from Vietnam and China. Thirty years later we’ll likely see Vietnamese men bringing in women from, say, rural China and Uzbekistan. The chain goes on and on, just as in any part of our economic system.

This week I found a fascinating story via Reuters Web site titled Older White Women Join Kenya’s Sex Tourists. This piece adds yet another angle to this web.

Here we have rich white women from England touring East Africa in search of young men. Of course the story presents it as if it may-or-may-not be prostitution, which is good (albeit a ridiculous notion), because otherwise it probably wouldn’t have been covered in this manner.

The white beaches of the Indian Ocean coast stretched before the friends as they both walked arm-in-arm with young African men, Allie resting her white haired-head on the shoulder of her companion, a six-foot-four 23-year-old from the Maasai tribe.

The article goes on to mention that as many as 15,000 girls in four coastal districts — about a third of all 12-18 year-olds girls there — are involved in casual sex for cash, with another 3,000 girls and boys working in the sex industry full time. I don’t know why boys aren’t part of the first figure.

And why the author is including these statistics in a story about something alleged to be more of a romantic encounter, I’m not sure either. Unless, they, like me, like you, know that it’s prostitution.

Emerging alongside this black market trade — and obvious in the bars and on the sand once the sun goes down — are thousands of elderly white women hoping for romantic, and legal, encounters with much younger Kenyan men.

They go dining at fine restaurants, then dancing, and back to expensive hotel rooms overlooking the coast.

I’m not trying to condone or condemn this sort of prostitution, romantic encounter, or any other. I’m not interested in that here. I’m fascinated by this dynamic. I’ll leave the criticism to others.

Flashing a dazzling smile and built like an Olympic basketball star, the 22-year-old (Joseph) said he has slept with more than 100 white women, most of them 30 years his senior.
“When I go into the clubs, those are the only women I look for now,” he told Reuters. “I get to live like the rich mzungus (white people) who come here from rich countries, staying in the best hotels and just having my fun.”

Sounds like the women in the story (neighbors Bethan and Allie) have a great time too. Should they be criticized?