The Other Sex Tourism: Rich Women Paying Men

Globetrotting affluent women increasingly pay men for sex.

• Global travel has rebounded since COVID, and so has sex tourism.

• Most sex tourists are wealthy men, but some are affluent women.

• Women look for young male "boy toys" at beach resorts. The men cavort for money, but the big prize is marriage and a visa to the U.S. or Europe.

Now that travel has returned to pre-pandemic levels, the tourism industry is once again booming—including sex tourism. Mention “sex tourism,” and what springs to mind is affluent white and Asian men visiting developing and Eastern European countries where they pay to play with young women who have few other employment options. But sex tourism also includes a significant—and apparently growing—number of affluent women from the global North (England, Europe, North America, Japan, China) who combine vacationing in the global South (the Caribbean, Africa, and South/Southeast Asia) with sexual adventures involving significantly younger and poorer men.
Many gay and bisexual men (and some boys) sell sex to other men, but sex work involving male sellers and female buyers has remained largely under the radar. Recently, researchers from Norway and Johns Hopkins University searched databases for studies of female sex tourism. They found none before 1970, but 46 published from 1970 through 2018. The studies tracked more than 5,000 female buyers and male sellers who cavorted in 21 countries, but usually in the Caribbean (31 percent), Africa (31 percent), and Asia (18 percent). The study shines new light on tourism defined by the four S’s: sun, surf, sand—and sex.
The Other Sex Tourism: Rich Women Paying Men