Why Sex Tourism?

By Serge Kreutz

Version 2.1, August 2005

I believe that a materialistic and biological approach is appropriate for most philosophical issues.

"Materialistic", in this context, does not mean: based on financial considerations. Rather, "materialistic" expresses adherence to the assessment that everything that is has a cause, and that the cause is in the material world. The antonym to materialistic is idealistic. As a philosophical category, the term "idealistic" expresses that people believe that what exists in this world has its causes in the realm of an invisible force that has no material representation in this world. For example, those who believe that man has been created by a God, and that there is a parallel world, named heaven, would be classified as idealists.

In an everyday sense, those who adhere to a materialistic philosophy are more likely than idealists to see down-to-earth causal connections for what exists, and for what we do. Idealists would believe that a person's actions are guided by his moral values, while materialists would assume that practical interests guide these actions. Or, one step further, idealists falsely believe that our moral values are based on rational contemplations about what is wrong and what is right, while in reality, our moral assumptions are just a Sunday dress for our naked interests.

Morals are but polite lies.

What a "biological approach" means is more directly understood. We, members of the species Homo sapiens sapiens, are primates, closely related to apes, and some very, very basic biological axioms apply to us, just as they apply to chimps or orangutans.

Basic axioms that apply not just to the higher mammals but to all animals are: we all aim to avoid (as best as one can) losing our lives, seek nutrition, and pursue sexual satisfaction and procreation. Like a mathematician who reduces a meter-long equation into something as simple as Pythagoras' formula, all expressions of human life somehow fall into the above-mentioned categories.

Why then, does our civilization seem so complicated?

Actually, from my materialistic and biological perspective, it appears much less complicated than politicians, ideologues, writers, and philosophers make us believe. Much of what we consider culture, from a biological point of view, has about the same value as a rooster's comb.

But this is not a book on the pros and cons of a materialistic and biological view of life. It is an article on sex tourism.

I do not intend to involve myself in the debate on the degree to which sex tourism is deplorable. I generally do not think in moral categories. They are too arbitrary, and apart from that, they are tainted by a lot of hypocrisy and hype.

I actually believe that sex tourism is a natural social phenomenon. If we assume that striving for sexual satisfaction is a primary motivator in people's lives, than it is understandable if men hunt where they can find easier prey.

This article is not politically correct. I am not interested in political correctness. I am interested only in the truth.

They can legislate equal rights for men and women. That's fine with me. But this doesn't alter some very basic points of human biology. The sexual relationships of humans aren't naturally as exclusive as the sexual relationships of birds. Among practically all primates, including humans, dominant men (so-called alpha males) strive for sexual access to a good number of females. Even when strong one-on-one partnerships are formed, every opportunity for a sexual encounter with a new partner is appreciated.

This is neither in accordance with accepted moral standards, nor is it politically correct. But it's still the pattern beneath even formal behavior. A commander-in-chief may make a decision to go to war less for political reasons but because it affords him the opportunity to be away from home with a mistress. Or an Australian diplomat may pursue a posting in Cambodia because child sex is much easier arranged there than, for example, in Canada.

Men have a natural interest parallel sexual relationships. And if the chances to achieve such a setting are slim in Europe or the US, or if such an undertaking requires undue effort, they will move to more favorable grounds.

North Americans and Europeans have an easy time setting up multiple sexual relationships in South America, in many countries in Asia, and in Africa. And they usually can pick the most attractive girls.

This behavior can be regulated, but as long as the basis on which it grows is not withdrawn, it cannot be rooted out.

The basis is that for as long as in Third World countries, the sexual interests of North American and European men are a perfect match for the feeding (economic) interests of local women, the business of matchmakers will thrive.

I believe that it is a natural phenomenon that men are guided by interests of sexual conquests, and women by concerns of protection and feeding (apart from less pronounced sexual interests). We should stop to see ourselves as fundamentally different from other primates. We are just apes who have developed a more sophisticated system of communication (a.k.a. language), and therefore the means to accumulate technological advancement throughout generations, and to share results with a large number of other members of our species.

But down below, we are just apes. Our basic motivations are animal-like: to avoid the destruction of our individual life, to seek nutrition, and to pursue sexual satisfaction. So-called higher values are usually false.

Or rather, we can easily unveil the materialistic, biological forces behind the façade.

People don't take action in order to implement moral notions, or political correctness. They take action because it matches their interests. Only after having decided for a certain course, they undertake to veil the interests behind their decisions and pretend to act out of adherence to moral imperatives, which is easier to sell to the public than self-interest. It's wise tactics to behave like this.

It doesn't matter that often, people are not even aware that they pursue certain agendas because they match their interests, and instead believe that they do it out of virtue. To behave in accordance to one's interests does not require awareness. Natural selection assures that only those whose behavior matches their interests will procreate.

If we take the phenomenon of sex tourism, we will see that the ideological positions taken by each and every social group are in tune with their biological interests.

Western male sex tourists usually find nothing wrong with their behavior, or at least they claim that what is wrong is none of their business. In Third World countries, they frequent cheap local prostitutes, marry attractive local women, and play around in other modes.

Young local women who derive material benefit from the sex tourists also find nothing wrong with it. They need the source of income… for themselves, and for their offspring.

In both cases, the opinion they subscribe to matches their biological interests.

Now to the coalition of those who oppose sex tourism, allegedly out of moral concern.

The women in the countries from where male sex tourists hail are usually strongly against sex tourism. No wonder. Their biological interest is that "their" men stay at home and compete for the females of their own societies… and do not go abroad for easier, younger, and more attractive women. They have reason to be jealous. The women sought by male sex tourists in Third World countries are their immediate competitors.

They may love their men, and hate their female competitors, but this will not be the issue they publicly address. Publicly, they deplore the exploitive character of the relationships of Western sex tourists in Third World countries. When sex tourism issues are discussed anywhere in the world, I know ahead the position occupied by representatives of Western womanhood. No sympathy with sex tourists!

And in order to provide substance to their cause, they will lobby Third World governments to implement laws pertaining to the sexual conduct of foreign men, or they will lobby their own government to outlaw sexual contact of their own country’s men with women in Third World countries below the age of 23.

I know already their coalition partners: the local men in Third World countries. How could they possibly accept happily the presence of Western men who prey on their girls and women? The local men themselves want to prey on their girls and women. Western men are unwelcome competitors; all the more as Western men usually have a substantial economic edge.

It is no surprise that young women in Third World countries dream of husbands from North America or Europe. They may even be able to migrate from the Third World to the Old World (Europe) or the New World (the Americas). A haven of social and financial security awaits them.

Local men in Third World countries can't offer such prospects. Therefore, they hate Western sex tourists and want girls who consort with them severely punished. (Mentally, gang rape by angry local men would be the preferred punishment, but in our times, such measures are difficult to implement in many countries, at least in peacetime.)

Somebody missing in the anti coalition? Oh yes, of course: elder local women in Third World countries (at least those whose daughters aren't about to marry Western men, thus providing an emigration route for the whole family).

With predictable accuracy, all social strata involved propagate opinions that are in accordance with their biological interests. This cannot be an accident. It's their being part of, and member in, a specific social group, which determines the opinion they subscribe to; they do not arrive at specific opinions out of moral consideration, or concerns of human rights.

The anti coalition, of course, is much stronger than the coalition of those who benefit from a sex tourism constellation. Therefore, we can see the conditions becoming worse for sex tourists anywhere in the world.

But enter war and destruction, terrorism and natural disasters, anything that erodes social order. Then you have a new playing ground for men from rich societies hunting for sexual gratification among the poor women in a newly or once again poor country. For when they are down, the sex tourists are up.