U.S. Airmen Are Long Gone

August 15th, 2009
John M. Glionna

In Philippine town, the U.S. airmen are long gone, but the tawdry streets remain In Angeles City, the Clark Air Base servicemen have been replaced by lonely old men lured by young girls selling sex for the price of a burger and fries.

Reporting from Angeles City, Philippines - At a club called Koko Yoko, balding men with bulging bellies sit at an outdoor bar, sipping beers and leering at the young girls who pass on the model's runway gone wrong called Fields Avenue.

Many of the girls weigh barely 90 pounds, their high heels pushing their almost adolescent bodies at perverse angles. There are cross-dressers fooling no one, calling out to men with tattoos, Popeye forearms and gray hair on their backs.

"Lady boy!" they squeal. "Lady boy!"

Some men pass by with girls one-third their age, swinging their hands together like a couple on a first date. Others cavort with three girls at once, the women all clutching their client like daughters competing for Daddy's attention.

Fields Avenue, the main pedestrian drag in Angeles City, is a legacy of the time when this row of run-down bars was the romping ground of restless young American airmen stationed at Clark Air Base.

The U.S. base closed in 1992, and the often-randy airmen have gone with it. But the girls, the sex, the round-the-clock raunchiness remain. Only the customers have changed.

A thriving sex tourism trade attracts foreign customers by the thousands in search of something they cannot find back home: girls young enough to be their granddaughters selling sex for the price of a burger and fries.

Once populated by virile men in their early 20s who started each day with 100 push-ups, the place is now home to older men who need help pushing themselves out of bed in the morning.

Most are bused up from Manila, an hour away, on golf and sex package deals. This is no quasi-innocent boys' night out. Rather, it's a single-minded realm of weary-looking loners on a resolute hunt that smacks of feeding an addiction.

Many are ex-military men reliving former glories, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper wannabes, some gathering at the local American Legion post before embarking into the night.

There is a one-armed man, a retiree with a walker and another dapper gentleman who strolls along in a dress shirt, twirling an umbrella, whistling a private tune.

Many head to the bars with the red-light special called "The Early-Release": Buy your girl 10 drinks and she's yours, no questions asked.

Nobody asks questions here. Nobody gives their name. Credit cards are a joke; who wants to leave behind any economic traces that they ever set foot here?

A young dancer in tight red hip-hugger pants and matching sports bra acknowledges that Fields Avenue may not be pretty, but the money is good. She rolls her eyes at two overweight men who pass by looking like large reptiles dressed in children's clothing.

Sure, the sex is disgusting, she says. But at least it's over quickly.

Outside Koko Yoko, the doorman, a 33-year-old paraplegic, perches on a wheeled wooden pallet. He says his father was an American who once served at Clark, his mother a local girl. He contracted polio when he was 11 and has worked here ever since.

The street, he says, takes care of him. Soon, an idle stripper climbs onto his back, rubbing her crotch into the back of his neck.

Nearby a saggy-faced Australian lights a cigarette. He's been in Angeles City for about a month, his last stop on a sex circuit from Bangkok to Manila after getting laid off from his electrician's job in Sydney.

In Thailand, he says, the girls didn't speak the language. Manila hookers were too streetwise, the bars too spread out.

But this is Easy Street. He can sit atop his bar stool and ogle hundreds of passing girls fresh from the countryside who perfect the tricks of their trade before moving on to The Show in Manila.

The Australian signals a street vendor and buys some knockoff Viagra. He says he prefers the girls working one street over, who cost only 500 pesos, or about $10, apiece.

"Anything goes here," he says, lighting another cigarette. He leans over to offer a bit of Fields Avenue inside information: "You can get a young girl here to do anything if you promise to marry her."

All along Fields Avenue, the come-on banners with their Web addresses advertise good pay (up to $10 a day) for hostess jobs. But applicants must speak Korean, Japanese or Chinese.

A balding man pulls up on his motorcycle, greeting several other men loudly in German. They already have their catch, and girls jump on the back as the cycles roar off.

At the Tourist Assistance Booth, Odysius Garche says the older customers are better behaved than the U.S. airmen were. "I just tell them: 'The girls are inside. Go make your own deal.' "

Nearby, a chubby American with glasses eats a hot dog. He says he's a bar manager, but offers no details.

He came to Angeles City from California, to follow up on a chat-room hookup. He ended up on Fields Avenue, drinking late with the dancers, hearing their stories.

"This is clean fun," he says. "There's no sex shows. These girls are not slaves. They have minds of their own."

Behind him, women call out from the doors of bars with names like the Doll House, Club Lancelot, Treasure Island, Club Cambodia, the Blue Nile and the Amsterdam.

Suddenly, a group of twentysomething men storms past, laughing and arm-punching. The news spreads and girls pop their heads out the doorways to catch a glimpse of boys their own age.

One calls after them with a deal she hopes they can't refuse:

"Free!" she says, laughing.

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U.S. Millionaire to Be Tried for Foreign 'Sex Tourism'

July 16th, 2007
Associated Press

Seven years ago, Russian courts convicted a wealthy American motel owner of molesting children, sent him to prison, then expelled him from the country.

The experience did little to keep Anthony "Mark" Bianchi stateside. Over the next few years, U.S. officials allege, he traveled to Moldova, Romania, Cambodia and Cuba to recruit destitute boys for sexual trysts.

Bianchi, 44, of North Wildwood, N.J., faces trial beginning Monday under a controversial federal law aimed at thwarting "sex tourism." He is accused in this country of committing crimes — assaulting nearly a dozen minors — on foreign soil.

More than 50 cases have been brought under what's known as the Protect Act, and more than 30 of the defendants have been convicted, the Justice Department says.

So far, however, only one federal appeals court — the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals — has reviewed the law, upholding it in a 2-1 ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court decided not to hear an appeal of that decision.

Critics, including dissenting 9th U.S. Circuit Judge Warren J. Ferguson, charge that Congress reached too far in giving international police power to U.S. prosecutors. Ferguson asked if U.S. agents should likewise round up Americans who buy marijuana in Amsterdam or Cuban cigars in Timbuktu.

"It is a very unusual theory to say that you can prosecute an American citizen in this country for actions taken completely in another country," said Rory Little, a former federal prosecutor and Justice Department official who is now a University of California law professor. "This is not a crime against America, although it's a crime against universal morality."

The majority in the 9th Circuit case found the law to be an appropriate extension of the Constitution's foreign commerce clause, since money changed hands.

The 9th Circuit case involved Michael L. Clark, a 70-year-old Seattle man who in 2004 became the first person prosecuted under the law. He pleaded guilty to molesting boys in Cambodia, while reserving the right to challenge the law itself, and is serving a 97-month sentence.

Beyond the constitutional issues, attorneys say defending clients in these cases is a nightmare, in part because they can't match the overseas investigative resources, including diplomatic and political clout, of the U.S. government.

"To do this in a foreign country, you have to send an investigator over there, and that person has to make contacts in the community. That may not be possible, given the language differences and cultural differences," said Michael Filipovic, an assistant federal public defender in Seattle.

In the case due to start Monday, prosecutors charge that Bianchi assaulted nearly a dozen teenagers and plied them with money, liquor, gifts and trips.

"Americans go to these countries and create a pretty bad image," Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Levy said. "A hundred dollars can buy a lot of food for a pretty long time for a lot of these families. ... This is the kind of case that shows why there's a need for this (law).

" Bianchi's lawyer, Mark Geragos, said the discovery process has shown what defense attorneys are up against in such cases. He said records make it difficult to even verify the age of the reported victims, and he planned to argue that several of the boys recanted their accusations.

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Estonians Fear Growth in HIV

Jun 14, 2006
by Joel Alas

TALLINN - An international health specialist has warned that Tallinn could become a “take-off point” for HIV infection across Europe, a fear that is fuelled by Tallinn’s thriving sex tourism industry and Estonia’s growing rate of HIV infection, which remains the highest in Europe.

The disease also appears to have spread from injecting drug users and into the general population, with reports of growing infection levels amongst university students in Tartu. American health economist Jeffrey W. Mecaskey said Estonia’s health care sector should brace for the impact, as thousands of HIV sufferers are now entering the disease’s critical phase. Mecaskey, who has visited Estonia three times in the past year, is part of a team of health experts attempting to help the country deal with its HIV epidemic.

“People may believe this is a problem isolated to Narva and the northeast, but Tallinn would be regarded as the other epicenter,” Mecaskey told The Baltic Times. “There is a concern transnationally that this could be a take-off point for infection around the world. As long as sex tourists can comfortably negotiate away the use of a condom with a sex worker for a couple of euros, we have a problem.” Estonia has the highest prevalence of HIV in Europe. About 1.1 percent of its population carries the disease – more than double the average rate of infection in OECD nations.

Researchers have tracked the disease’s spread from Russia through St. Petersburg and into northeastern Estonia as passed through syringe-using drug addicts. But the disease has now jumped into the general population via sexual infection.
Convincing people to be tested for the disease remained one of the biggest challenges, Mecaskey said. Young men, particularly marginalized Russians, were reluctant to be tested. A growing number of untested women were passing the disease on to their unborn children, leaving a trail of “HIV babies,” he said.

The Ministry of Social Affairs this year launched a new strategy, which includes educating people through schools and providing testing for military recruits. Coordinator of the national HIV strategy, Triin Tikas, said Estonians needed to take “national ownership” of the problem. Tikas confirmed that those working in the sex industry were one of the key areas of concern, particularly as they were likely to come into contact with foreign visitors.

“This year, we will undertake a population study among prostitutes to provide more correct data on HIV prevalence. We must work in cooperation with Finland to warn people in their own countries before they come. There are always two sides – the buyer and the seller. Finnish customers make up a rather significant part of the customers.”

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Maryville man to be profiled on "America's Most Wanted"

June 8, 2006

MARYVILLE (WATE/AP) -- A Maryville man who pleaded guilty in an international sex tourism case, then disappeared, will be featured on the "America's Most Wanted" television program.

Court documents show Kevin Bruce Cooper, who has been profiled multiple times in the 6 News Fugitive File, traveled in June 2000 with a tour group called Tours to Paradise that arranged for U.S. travelers to meet Thai minors.

Prosecutors said while in Thailand, Cooper developed a consensual sexual relationship with a 15-year-old boy.

Cooper pleaded guilty in summer 2005 and was sentenced to two years and nine months in prison.

After the federal case was filed against him, state authorities dropped charges filed earlier, accusing Cooper of getting three teenage boys high on drugs and alcohol, then molesting them.

Cooper was ordered to report to federal prison two months later, but he dropped out of sight.

He was declared a fugitive in November.

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A favoured haven … for paedophiles

From Tom Sullivan in Goa

INDIAN beach capital Goa risks becoming a new Asian hub for child sex tourism because of its lax attitude to paedophiles, say activists.

Child welfare groups claim paedophile cases go unreported and prosecutions are rare despite strict child protection laws and mounting evidence of a thriving child sex industry.

Only two foreigners have been jailed in Goa since their first paedophile case hit the headlines over a decade ago.

Less than ten suspects, almost all elderly European men, including several Britons, have ended up in court.

Goa’s deputy chief of police, speaking at a UN conference last month, said Goa “has got the tag of ‘favoured haven’ for paedophiles”.

However, he added that the state, which receives two million foreign visitors each year, has not had a single reported child sex abuse case involving a foreigner since 2003.

It is impossible to know the full extent of child sex abuse in Goa, but media reports suggest hundreds of paedophiles travel regularly to the region.

It costs about £350 to traffick children from poorer Indian states such as Bihar and Orissa. When they arrive in Goa they are “hired out” for between £500 and £1000 a month – the younger the child the higher the price.

The children of impoverished migrant labourers are also at risk, easily lured by paedophiles, sometimes with the consent of their parents.

“We see foreigners giving money and gifts to children or their families and then going off with them,” said Mathew Kurian, founder of a local child rescue group.

“But when we report it to the police they refuse to act. They won’t even file a case unless they have concrete evidence.”

An anti-paedophilia group, Children’s Rights in Goa (CRG), has documented a string of cases where suspects have jumped bail, escaped custody, intimidated witnesses or been acquitted due to lack of evidence.

“There is a fear of damaging Goa’s reputation as a tourist destination,” explained the group’s director Nishtha Desai, adding that the police are often reluctant to charge suspects.

“We have complained about suspected paedophiles but none have been charged,” she said.

“In one case we raided a room accompanied by the police in Calangute [Goa’s busiest resort]. We found a British man in bed with a 13-year-old local girl. We could not do anything as there was not enough forensic evidence.”

Desai’s organisation has called for suspected paedophiles to be denied entry visas. “Surely they should be prevented from coming back here? As far as we know nobody has been stopped.”

Measures to tackle child sex tourism in other Asian countries have been more successful in securing extraditions and prosecutions. “Stricter law enforcement in Thailand and Sri Lanka could lead to more paedophiles coming to the coasts of India,” said a spokesman for the UN Office for Drugs and Crime.

Anti-sex tourism campaigns aimed at beach resorts and hotels have had some success, said Desai, but they have also led sex offenders to become more secretive.

“Now we have more reports of houses in villages being used rather than hotels. They are less overt.”

A high-profile sting operation by the news magazine Tehelka caused an uproar in 2004 when beach shack restaurant owners were filmed on hidden camera offering underage boys for sex for as little as £8 a night.

The magazine tracked sex tourists from Germany, France, Holland, Sweden and the UK and exposed a bogus event management company used to hire out children.

Children are also sent to houses ostensibly as domestic servants, accompanied by a female pimp posing as their mother.

Other paedophile rings run bogus child shelters and orphanages. CRG has identified at least 50 registered homes which it wants investigated.

A ruling earlier this year by a Bombay court saw two Britons given six-year jail sentences and heavy fines for abusing street children in a home that they ran.

For activists such as Desai it was a rare piece of welcome news.

“It was a very positive signal from the courts. I hope it will have an impact in Goa,” she said. “If we could get more paedophiles convicted that would be the best deterrent.”

28 May 2006

Link to Original Article

Buying Sex is Not a Sport

Here's something close to our hearts:

The Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW) is launching a campaign against sport/sex tourism in Germany during the World Cup Football Games, 2006. It is called “Buying Sex is Not a Sport: No to Germany’s Prostitution of Women during the World Cup Games.” Please sign on to the CATW International Campaign and forward it to networks, organisations, political representatives and individuals for their action and signatures.

Here's some of the text of the petition:

From June 9 - July 9, 2006, 12 German cities will host the World Cup Games. Approximately 3 million football fans – mostly men – will attend. It is estimated that 40,000 women will be “imported” from Central and Eastern Europe into Germany to “sexually service” the men.

Germany legalized pimping and the sex industry in 2002. However, it is predicted that the legal red light districts will be too small for the thousands of sport/sex tourists in attendance. In preparation for this influx, the German sex industry has erected a massive prostitution complex for the “booming business” expected during the games.

“Football and sex belong together,” claimed the lawyer of the newly opened 3,000 meter mega brothel in Berlin, built next to the main World Cup venue to accommodate 650 male clients. Wooden “sex huts” called “performance boxes” that look like toilets have been built in fenced-in areas the size of a football field, with condoms, showers and parking for the buyers and a special focus on protecting their “anonymity.”

Buying sex is not a sport. It is sexual exploitation in which women are physically and psychologically harmed, and women’s bodies are treated as commodities to be bought and sold.

Treating women’s bodies as sexual commodities violates international standards of sport that promote equality, mutual respect and non-discrimination. FIFA President J.S. Blatter, “acknowledges the prominent role of sport, and especially football, as a vehicle for delivering clear and firm messages to eradicate the huge blights undermining society around the world." How will the World Cup Games help eradicate the blight of trafficking and sexual exploitation?

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L.A. Man Charged in "Sex Tourism" Case

May 19, 2006 06:22 AM EST

A 57-year-old Los Angeles man who formerly worked as an English teacher in Bangkok is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court here today on charges stemming from an investigation by federal agents that he engaged in illicit sexual conduct with underage boys while living in Thailand.

Steven Erik Prowler was arrested in May 2005 by the Royal Thai Police in Bangkok after the police, acting on a tip, saw two youths leaving the suspect's apartment. The boys, ages 15 and 16, subsequently told police that Prowler had paid them to engage in oral sex. Thai authorities contacted Immigration & Customs Enforcement agents in Bangkok immediately following the arrest. Thai authorities prosecuted Prowler for molesting the youths and he remained jailed on the local charges until being turned over to ICE last week.

Accompanied by ICE agents, Prowler returned from Bangkok to Los Angeles Saturday to face allegations detailed in a criminal complaint of traveling with the intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct and engaging in illicit sexual conduct in foreign places, charges that each carry a maximum sentence of up to 30 years in prison. The case is being prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.

According to a criminal complaint that accuses Prowler of sex tourism charges, when ICE agents in Bangkok questioned the suspect shortly after his arrest, he stated that he often paid children the equivalent of $5 U.S. dollars for two hours of sexual contact and that he “felt compassion for the kids.”

Following Prowler's arrest, ICE agents and the Royal Thai Police executed a search warrant at the suspect's Bangkok apartment. There, according to the affidavit, agents found more than 100 photos of naked Thai males, ranging in age from 14 to 16. In addition, investigators recovered numerous hand-written journals where Prowler described sexual encounters dating back more than a decade with underage males in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and Mexico. Finally, agents found vials, labeled with boys' names and ages, containing locks of hair. The affidavit states that Prowler told ICE agents he saved the photos and hair as “souvenirs” of the children he had sex with.

“Men who think the abuse of vulnerable children is an acceptable sexual outlet are sadly mistaken,” said United States Attorney Debra Wong Yang. “New laws in the United States allow us to arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate those who want to victimize children overseas. Working with colleagues in other nations, we are striving to protect children around the world from predators who will stop at nothing to abuse those most vulnerable people on the planet.”

Thursday, the Thai government expelled Prowler, paving the way for his return to the United States. He is expected to make his initial appearance in federal court at 2:00 p.m. today before a U.S. Magistrate Judge.

“The charges against this suspect are a direct result of the extraordinary cooperation we received from Thai law enforcement,” said Kevin Kozak, acting special agent in charge of the ICE office of investigations in Los Angeles. “Some pedophiles mistakenly believe they can escape detection and prosecution by committing child sex crimes overseas. We are putting pedophiles on notice that ICE and its law enforcement partners here and abroad stand ready to pursue and prosecute those who sexually exploit children.”

Prowler is the third person to be prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California on child sex tourism charges under the provisions of the PROTECT Act, which was signed into law by President Bush three years ago. The PROTECT Act substantially strengthened federal laws against predatory crimes involving children outside the United States by adding new crimes, increasing sentences, and modifying the burden of proof requirements for federal prosecutors to bring charges.

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Retraining "bumsters" to shake sex tourism tag

By Rose Skelton Thu May 18, 8:47 AM ET

FAJARA, Gambia (Reuters) - The young Gambian man in the yellow string vest calls out to a European woman walking along a wide golden beach shrouded in a fine sea mist.
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"Hey nice lady! Nice lady, I want to talk to you," he yells. She keeps walking.

"It's nice to be nice," he grumbles as he returns to his friends, his matted hair escaping from his cap.

The young man is one of Gambia's "bumsters," youths who offer to walk with tourists as they visit markets and beaches in this tiny West African nation and who fend off the attentions of rivals for a small fee.

What is left unsaid but understood is the possibility of a more intimate relationship, that could be a ticket, however temporary, out of poverty.

A week-long relationship could mean three hot meals a day for the Gambian man and a luxury hotel bed to sleep in, plus money for beer or cigarettes.

"I experienced one time when there was a young boy who was trying to get me to his house for 'the real Gambian Experience' as they call it," said Wilma, 35, from the Netherlands.

"It was very hard to get rid of him. Yes, he was trying to sell himself," said Wilma, who did not want to give her surname.

In many African countries, it is common to see older white men with young local black women, but Gambia, along with some resorts in neighboring Senegal, has earned a name as a place for older European women to meet young African men.

Now a British hotel manager is working to get the bumsters off the beaches and into legitimate jobs in order to improve Gambia's image.

Precise numbers for the sex tourism industry are hard to get. A 2003 report by
UNICEF said 60-70 percent of visitors to one of the main tourist areas near the capital Banjul were there for "sun relaxation and cheap sex."

Flights from Britain regularly arrive with a high proportion of women traveling alone, often visiting younger Gambian men they met on previous visits.

A lasting relationship can mean continued financial support -- invaluable in a country ranked as one of the 25 poorest in the world -- and, if all goes well, a visa to live in Europe.

For European women, it is a chance to have a young and potentially attractive holiday companion.

But for those not interested in a liaison with a local man, being approached in this way can be unpleasant -- and that was what spurred British hotelier Geri Mitchell to create jobs for the men annoying her guests.

Mitchell, 52, who manages The Safari Garden Hotel, a leafy oasis in the Fajara beach area near Banjul, selected a group of young men and sent them to train as tourist guides.

They now charge tourists a set rate of 30 Dalasi ($1) an hour or 50 Dalasi ($1.75) for a one-off trip. The hotel offers them a formal introduction to the guests.

The project, which built on a previous government initiative to train reformed bumsters as guides, has provided much needed financial relief to Lamine Bojang, a guide in his mid-twenties.

Bojang's father died when he was young and so he is the family's chief earner, and has to pay his siblings' school fees.

"In my family, I play a big role," he said.

Before becoming guides, Bojang and his friends used to collect firewood in the forest and sell it to make ends meet.

Now, they say, they are able to make a basic living and they have earned the respect of the hotel and its guests.

Part of the guides' training involves learning how to recognize and report sex tourism involving an underage person.

The majority of prostitutes in the tourist area near Banjul where the guides work, are underage, with some as young as 12, according to the UNICEF report.

The U.N. agency has also said it is concerned the former British colony is increasingly becoming a destination for sex tourists as countries in southeast Asia take steps to shake off their image as havens for pedophiles.

Mitchell said the tourist guides also help monitor sex tourism.

"That's a message that we really want to get out to sex tourists: don't come, because everybody is out there and taking responsibility for what's going on," she said.

Rachel, 25, traveled alone from Britain to Gambia for a holiday, and praised efforts to deal with the bumsters.

"I just think the worst thing about the Gambia is that you can't step outside of your hotel for a minute without being hassled. I think the Gambia would be a much better place without that. I think official tour guides are probably the best way of doing that," she said.

Link to Original Yahoo Article

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.