25
According to Michael B. Farrell, 80% of the sex tourists to Costa Rica are American. 77 Since tourists usually stay at a hotel and some of these hotels are exclusively for sex tourism, it is much easier to calculate the client‘s numbers. The hotels that allow tourists to take women into their rooms are dedicated to the sex trade. Families and business people do not frequent these places.
Nevertheless, we should not assume that prostitutes are absent in American chain hotels. Chaser writes that he was able to get two sex workers at San José‟s Charriot: “I stay about a half hour away from San Jose at the Charriot Costa Rica. So you can probably add an hour on for their time. I was there last January and I played $300 to a VERY Beautiful young lady who was my true companion from about 10pm until about 3 or 4 am. I was sure she was a bargain.” 78Nucknuts confirms that the Charriott has a good variety of sex workers working in its premises, but the higher quality of the hotel drives prices up. Chaser complains about the Charriot “is charging too much for the women”. “The girls do expect more if you are at the Charriott. Not only due to the time but they know you have to be „high-end‟ to stay there.” 79 Tman, on the other hand, has the opinion that the Charriot also has sex workers with prices no higher than at Del Buey: “I know guys that stay at the Charriot and never pay more than $100...for all night sometimes...not that I understand wanting a prostitute ALL NIGHT.” 80 Gringotim thinks that the Charriott might be further away from “the Gulch” 81, or the prostitution area where Del Buey is, but this does not entitle the place to be more expensive. Chaser believes that being further away from the Gulch “doesn‟t justify mucho dinero.” 82
Hotel Del Buey, Hotel El Duende and others nearby are part of downtown San Jose‘s ―Gulch,‖ area.
These are establishments that cater only to sex tourists. Given this fact, we can provide a rough estimate of the number of clients in the red-light district based on their occupancy rate and the number of rooms. Needless to say, as we have seen above, not all sex tourists stay at these hotels. Some also rent apartments in downtown or stay with friends or relatives.
Number of
Hotel
Occupancy
rooms
Hotel 1
200
50%
Hotel 2
87
50% - 60%
Hotel 3
96
100%
Hotel 4
116
100%
Hotel 5
110
50% - 60%
Hotel 6
74
60%
Hotel 7
30
100%
Hotel 8
40
50%
Hotel 9
69
50%
Hotel 10
104
100%
77 Michael B. Farrell, “Global campaign to police sex tourism,” Christian Science Monitor (Article on-line); available at
http://csmweb2.emcweb.com/2004/0422/p11s01-wogl.htm; accessed June 30,2004.
78 http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4442
79 http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4442
80 http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4442
81 The name is used since the Hotel Del Buey is downhill in San José and sex tourists must “climb up” to the other sex spots.
82 http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4442
26
Total
926
According to these data:
1. The average occupancy rate for these hotels is 72%. In a regular day, there are 667 occupied rooms, of which two men occupy half of them. This gives us approximately 1000 persons per day. If the average stay in Costa Rica is seven days, there will be 4,000 men per month and 48,000 men per year.
2. According to our ethnographic observations and data from the sex forums, many American sex tourists stay either at Hotel Del Buey or at Hotel El Duende. Both hotels have a total of 200
rooms and are usually 100% full. The waiting period for a room is of a month and a half. In a given month these two hotels will have approximately 1,200 men (average of seven days per person and half of the rooms).
3. Since there are many more hotels that cater to sex tourists and that not all sex tourists go to these hotels, the minimum could be around 20,000 men and the maximum around 50,000 men; that is, between 5% to 10% of the total number of American visitors. The administrators of Costa Rica‘s sex forums indicate that only 5% to 10% of mongers know about the websites.
CostaRicaticas.com has 2,500 subscribers and many more thousands as guests. If the relationship established by its administrators between loggers versus actual mongers is correct (5-10% of mongers are members of the Websites), a total of 30,000 to 50,000 ―mongers‖ is not a far-fetched figure. If we add up to this group, those American and Canadian ex patriots who live in Costa Rica and who also participate in the sex trade, the numbers could double.
Davidson, one of the most knowledgeable experts on the subject of sex tourism, cites a 1994
study estimating that more than 30,000 Americans and several thousand more Canadians had retired to Costa Rica. Many of the single men among them were described as ―sex-pats,‖ ex patriates who retired there not just for the climate, tax breaks, and other advantages but also for the ―easy and cheap sexual access to their preferred sexual objects.”83 If we include the ―sex pats,‖ the total number of sex tourists might be between 50,000 and 80,000.
One of the interesting facts of Costa Rica‘s sexual tourism is the concentration of a large number of the American tourists in a few hotels. These hotels have not followed a thought out plan of development but have rather benefited from urban decay and loss of customers by former tourist hotels in downtown San José. This was the case of Barrio Amón, a very classy neighborhood in San José that started to sell its run-down buildings some decades ago. Hotel Del Buey, for example, was bought in this area before the tourist boom in Costa Rica for approximately one million dollars, and now it is being estimated to be worth more than 15 million dollars. The same can be said about Hotel El Duende. This was a proper hotel for business executives some years ago; nevertheless, it became too noisy and polluted before it became a place for picking up sex workers. These two hotels get around of 75% of the sex tourists who are members of CostaRica.Ticas.com. The rest goes to other hotels nearby, such as Hotel 2 or Hotel 3
in downtown San José, or other ―no mongers hotels.‖ 84
Hotel Del Buey is the favorite place for sex among sex tourists, as the poll in Costaricaticas.com shows. The members are asked where ―would you like to go if you only had one more sexual opportunity in your live.‖ 65% answers that they would go to Hotel Del Buey. 30% say they rather spend it at MP‘s such as MP5, MP 1 and MP 2. 4% indicate they would spend this last sexual 83 http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~drclas/publications/revista/Tourism/hannum.html Con formato: Inglés
84 http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1227&highlight=poll (Estados Unidos)
27
experience at Tea Amargo, a nightclub owned by the same company that runs Hotel Del Buey. Not one single member suggests that he would spend his last sexual act with his wife or with his partner back home. 85
On a single night in September 2004, we found 250 sex workers at Hotel Del Buey and 95 at Tea Amargo. These two places concentrate 75% of the American clientele and the same company owns both. This is rather unique and very different from other sexual Mecca such as Rio or Thailand. During high season in January, there were 700 sex workers at Hotel Del Buey and 500 sex tourists.
―Mongers‖ or sexual tourists spend their days having sex in such hotels without having to step out of them. They resemble the gay baths of the 1980‘s in the United States. A monger usually has sex three or more times a day, with more than one woman. Dcr37 reports having had sex with 37 sex workers in 10 days:
no it was not my 37th trip, it was my 3rd. but what i did was have 37 chicks in a ten day period.....yes it was heaven. i wish i could remember all the names, and will try to figure it out, with the help of my videos [sic] and pics 86
The large concentration of mongers and sex workers in a few hotels must be taken into account as part of the Costa Rican excitement. One walks into Hotel Del Buey and is struck by the number of both sex workers and clients. It adds a sort of legitimacy to an activity that is liminal. It brings men together in spaces where sex can be openly recognized and discussed, something many admit having problems doing back home. It creates a culture that not only shares its liking for paid sex but also its life philosophy. Carlos, a dealer, thinks that Del Buey is a sort of big Roman-type orgy room. It mesmerizes men and helps them jump into a holiday from daily life. He has seen American tourists who come to see the place, with no intentions of engaging in sex, get caught immediately into this culture and remain hooked to it. ―You get in here, feeling like any other sixty- year old man, not that attractive and not so competitive any more in the game of romance, and see hundreds of beautiful women trying to get your attention, willing to please you and to have sex with you and then you feel like a young man again and you do not want to lose this feeling anymore, something that will happen when you walk out of Del Buey‘s front door. You come back and you come back because you no longer want to leave for good.‖ Lucy, a sex worker, believes it is not only paid sex that turns this industry into such an addictive drug; ―Prostitutes don´t care about good looks. You have a large number of women who are not turned on by youth. This is what makes these places so enticing.‖
85 http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=4361
Con formato: Inglés
86 http://costaricasex.board.dk3.com/viewtopic.php?topic=716&forum=1&22
(Estados Unidos)
28
3. ORIGINS AND CHARACTERISTICS
Sex tourism is tourism, partially or fully for the purpose of having sex, often with prostitutes. One term for a sex tourist is ―sexpat.‖ When travel opportunities opened up to a growing segment of the middle class in the mid-19th century, including that of the United States, sex tourism evolved into a common activity. As many European countries became wealthier, clients expanded their search for sex into other regions, such as the Caribbean and northern Africa, where prices for sex were more moderate.87
Wealthy people have always traveled to distant parts of the world to see great buildings or other works of art; to learn new languages; or to taste new cuisine. As long ago as the time of the Roman Republic places such as Baiae were popular coastal resorts for the rich. The terms tourist and tourism were first used as official terms in 1937 by the League of Nations. Tourism was defined as ―people traveling abroad for periods of over twenty four hours.‖88
Mass travel could not really begin to develop until two things occurred.
a) Improvements in communications allowed the transport of large numbers of people in a short space of time to places of leisure interest, and
b) Greater numbers of people began to enjoy the benefits of leisure time. A major development was the invention of the railways, which brought many of Britain's seaside towns within easy distance of Britain's urban centers.
The father of modern mass tourism was Thomas Cook who, on 5 July 1841, organized the first package tour in history, by chartering a train to take a group of temperance campaigners from Leicester to a rally in Loughborough, some twenty miles away. Cook immediately saw the potential for business development in the sector, and became the world's first tour operator.89
Some argue that sex tourism started in the Americas with the arrival of Christopher Columbus and the exchange of trinkets for sex with the Indian women. Ann Barger Hannum says, ―Considerable research supports the theory that, along with potatoes, tobacco, and other commodities, Columbus and his crew also brought the first cases of syphilis to the New World.‖90 Eduard Said writes that in the New West Indies the phenomenon of sexual exploitation of Colonial peoples is rather old and that ―Western men have long projected racist fantasies onto the ‗primitive‘/natural Other.‖ 91
These authors suggest possible reasons for seeking sex in another country or region:
*
More relaxed morality laws (for some people a lower age of consent may also be relevant)
*
Less rigorous enforcement of laws
87 http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/T/Tourism.htm
88 http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/T/Tourism.htm
89 http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/T/Tourism.htm
90 by Ann Barger Hannum, Tricks of the Trade:Sex Tourism in Latin America in: Con formato: Inglés
http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~drclas/publications/revista/Tourism/hannum.html (Estados Unidos)
91 http://www.awigp.com/default.asp?numcat=sextour. Issue Number 5, March 2001.
29
*
Cheaper rates (typically due to traveling from a economically wealthy country to a poorer one)
*
More anonymity / privacy
*
Finding certain ethnic groups more attractive
*
Preferring the "work ethics" of foreign prostitutes to those of one's own country
*
Finding sex in tropical surroundings and a hot climate more arousing Common destinations for sex tourists include Brazil, Thailand, Cambodia, Costa Rica, and Cuba. Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain, Russia, Hungary and the Czech Republic have also become popular destinations for sex tourists. In many of those destinations, sex tourism is still only a small percentage of overall prostitution, with most prostitutes serving local men.
Destinations for female sex tourism include the Caribbean, Costa Rica, Gambia, and some North African countries. This variant of sex tourism usually doesn't include outright prostitution, as some local males consider it a kind of sport to pick up female tourists, since sex with local women out of a committed relationship is hard to get for them.
While most sex tourists only engage in this activity with other adults, a small percentage actively look for adolescent or even younger prostitutes, while others are not very selective either way, regarding age. Several countries, such as Costa Rica, have severe laws against having sex with children.
According to Ronnie Shaw, Thailand serves as a model illustrating the socio-economic, political, and cultural context that acts as a catalyst for the sex tourism trade. According to her, thousands of rural women were taken to the cities to satisfy a growing demand by American troops first, and of sexual tourists later. Shaw thinks, ―Sheer economic need combined with American male patronage created a prostitution economy.‖ 92
She believes that in Costa Rica the same conditions were there for the sex industry to flourish. First of all, the country has undergone a similar process: ―This mirrors Costa Rica where many women and children, uprooted due to cuts in social programs, provide personal services to western tourists.‖ 93
It might be politically correct to blame urbanization, rural uprootness and globalization for the increase of prostitution Costa Rica. Nevertheless, this country does not seem to fit Shaw‘s model. There might be some connections between prostitution and globalization, but not those envisioned by her. First of all, the country was not undergoing a process of urbanization in the 1990‘s when the sex tourist industry took off (This had taken place after the 1960‘s). Secondly, there had never been American bases in her territory. Moreover, the country has no army and military bases. Finally, the country has had a massive immigration of Nicaraguan workers that reflects low unemployment.
There is poverty nonetheless, but the society is more egalitarian than most Latin American or Southeast Asian nations. Most sex workers who target the American sex tourist‘s demand are not Costa Ricans and therefore, are not engaging in prostitution because of poverty. On the contrary, Colombian or Dominican sex workers must have good sources of income back home to be able to afford the trip to Costa Rica and to be able to pay people to take care of their children and relatives. The local women 92 Ronnie Shaw, Fantasy Voyages: Exploration of White Maleś Participation in the Sex Industry, The Berkely McNair Research Journal (82).
93 Ronnie Shaw, Fantasy Voyages: Exploration of White Maleś Participation in the Sex Industry, The Berkely McNair Research Journal (82)
30
who do come to the hotels and nightclubs that cater to American tourists are middle class, most of them employed and with at least secondary education.
The country does belong to the Third World and as Shaw points out, to the realm of the ―other‖ and the
―exotic‖. The population is mostly white or mestizo (Indian and Spanish) and different from the Anglo-Saxon phenotype. This might lead Americans to perceive Costa Rican society as more ―traditional‖,
―uncivilized‖ and ―close to Nature‖ than the States and allow them to act in ways they would not dare to act back home: ― You‘re getting down and dirty [culturally tabooed sex] and you‘re loving it! Admit it! You can‘t do this at home.‖ Hence, a shift in ethics may exist because of the foreign atmosphere.‖-
writes a sex tourist.94
American tourists comprise the greatest bulk of sex tourists simply because Costa Rica is close to the States and the country has a lower standard of living. Geographical proximity is not the only factor; if this were the case, Haiti would be a major sex tourist Mecca in the region. American men prefer light-skinned Ticas. You hardly find black Costa Rican sex workers in the Gulch.
Self-definition
Michel Foucault in his book ― The history of Sexuality‖ argued that many sexual practices develop in a context in which those who act on them do not become aware that they constitute a sexual culture. 95
Before modernity, for example, men had sexual practices with other men and women with other women, without both groups acquiring what we now call a sexual identity. They might have thought that they were engaging in ―Sodomy‖, but would never have considered being ―homosexual.‖ The perception of belonging to a sexual minority took, according to Foucault, centuries to develop.
In the case of sexual tourists, there is a growing sense of identity, not that different from homosexuals.
First of all, sex tourists have created a non-pejorative definition of their practice that excludes terms such as ―sex tourist‖ or ―sex depredator.‖ For them, men who pay for sex are ―whoremongers‖, a word that is shortened to ―mongers.‖
The dictionary defines ―monger‖ as ―A person promoting something undesirable or discreditable." A whoremonger is a man who likes paid sex.
Mongers do not see anything wrong in their preferences for young women who sell sex. They are aware that most people do not approve of them. Prolijo, for example, thinks ―We may not personally consider what we do to be undesirable or discreditable. However, I would bet that most of us would not advertise our hobby to the general public, most of whom do not share our views.‖ 96.
Being a ―monger‖ is not just a sexual practice anymore. Fr. Lus thinks that a monger‘s additional trait, besides the attraction toward paid sex, is his rejection of committed relationships.
I am a whore-monger. I do not apologize for that. I love women – plural, not singular. I love sex. I have been
married. That is a fine thing for some people, perhaps even for all people some of the time. It worked for me for
94 Ronnie Shaw, Fantasy Voyages: Exploration of White Maleś Participation in the Sex Industry, The Berkely McNair Research Journal (83)
95 Michell Foucault, The History of Sexuality Vol. 1, Vintage Books, 1990.
96 http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=82&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight 31
only a limited number of years and then was a) not fun b) not pleasurable c) demanding and finally by mutual
agreement, it was over. I have dated and had a few long term (6 months or more) ‘relationships’ but, due to my
unwillingness to make such a relationship permanent and/or my preference for independence and maintaining
my ‘own space’, that didn’t work out…
So, my answer – years ago – was to go to places where I could find available and affordable sex and
companionship. First, I enjoyed the company of the whores in places like Amsterdam, Munich, Saigon, and
Bangkok when I was in the service. Years later, it seemed natural to head down to Tijuana where I have now
been going for 25+ years. In recent years I’ve tried Hong Kong, Jamaica and most recently, Costa Rica. . 97
Mongers themselves like to initiate their friends into their culture. Similarly to gays who like to bring other men out of the closet, mongers like to out their friends. It is fairly common to read in Internet a story of how men entice each other to get involved in prostitution. A typical case is of a man who is in a holiday with his wife and gives a call to an American friend who lives in Costa Rica. The monger invites him for a drink at the Blue Queen in Hotel Del Buey. After being introduced to the women and being told how to get them, the man decides to come back next time without his wife. ―A new monger is born!‖- he writes with pride.
Sex tourists are growing in numbers. Prostitution in the States, after the sexual revolution in the 1960‘s, seemed destined to decline as a middle-class activity, but it seems to be on the rise again among males who visit third world countries. Many North Americans, according to Express321, ―have come out of the closet‖ and ―Packs of mongers show up every week. Even young guys are going in real numbers now, many of them can get young ass for free at home or for the price of a meal and a few drinks. But I am sure they like a sure thing with a hot chick.‖98
In our ethnographic observations we have found many young and attractive American tourists in the nightclubs and massage parlors. Some of them are visiting relatives in Costa Rica, are in student-exchange programs or simply vacationing. Many public American figures participate in the sex trade.
R. W., for example, a famous football player of the Miami Dolphins, was spotted at Hotel Del Buey. In Quepos, for example, there are sex workers who target exclusively young male and female Americans.
American women may feel a sense of power hiring the services of a sex worker and thus break away from dating patterns in the United States. On the other hand, the men find it much easier to pay for sex than to approach local women. Cristina, who works in a hotel that caters to young Americans, asserts that these young tourists would never confess to their peers back home what they do in Quepos; ―But they pay for sex like the older ones. They want sex in the tropics no matter the cost.‖
―Mongering‖ does not grow just in numbers but it is becoming incorporated into middle-class ceremonies, such as bachelor parties. Raffie, for example, is getting married. Nevertheless, he asks for help to older mongers as he is planning to have, along four of his friends, his bachelor party in Costa Rica.
Hi,
My wedding party is going down for a final sendoff and I wonder if I can get some advice on arranging a wonderful time for 4 guys...3 nights.
We'd like to hang together....orgy-style....it's our first time to CR and we want it to be memorable.99
97 http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=97
98 http://www.costaricaticas.com/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=2856
99 http://216.157.152.197/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=3621
32
He gets a good advice from RealmanK who thinks Raffie is heading for trouble. Once he gets into mongerland, the odds are that he will stay: ―Don't go...you'll never go through with the wedding. Hell, you may never return home.‖100
Mongering might be coming age irrelevant, but not yet. Despite the participation of young mongers, the average sex tourist is still between 50 - 59 years of age (38%). A smaller group is between 40 - 49
years of age (27%). The rest is divided between the very young and the very old. Some sex tourists are in their eighties, and many more are between sixty and seventy years old. Marylin, a sex worker, tells us that the youngest man she has had is an American boy who was 13 years old. His uncle in a private party in Guanacaste introduced the kid to her. The oldest man she had been with was 92 years old. ―He only wanted me to masturbate him and I learned he died three weeks later.‖ 101