When academics, social analysts, and the American public in general talk about sex tourism, in virtually all cases, they refer to older men traveling to un- or under-developed countries to pay and have sex with younger women and girls. But recently, the sex tourism activities of women have begun to get more attention and with it, a different set of questions is asked:

[M]any regard the relationship between beach boy and female tourist as harmless fun. The woman gets guilt-free sex while keeping a firm hold on the purse strings. Where’s the harm? . . . For others, this is exploitation pure and simple. Even where no money is exchanged, this sort of behaviour destabilises local communities and families. Ignorance and lack of concern about the abject poverty and lack of choice that characterises the men’s lives leads the women to romanticise their actions. . . .

The playwright [of the upcoming London play Sugar Mummies], Tanika Gupta, traveled to Jamaica to research the subject first-hand, and says she was shocked to find how female tourists objectify the black male body. “A lot of women talk about how ‘big’ black men are and how they can go all night. It becomes such a myth that even the men now use it. There is this terrible mutual delusion going on. And you do find yourself thinking, ‘We’re not a million miles from slavery.’”

So the question becomes, is there a double standard in which sex tourism on the part of men is immediately condemned as inherently exploitative, patriarchal, even imperialistic and subjected to full criminal prosecution, while that on the part of women is often overlooked, dismissed, and even justified as “harmless fun” or “helping the local economy?”

Actually, this question also comes up when we look at the apparent rash of incidents in recent years in which female teachers have been caught having sex with their young male students. While it’s true that the women teachers are also prosecuted as sex offenders, there’s little denying that the general public often sees their indiscretions as somehow less harmful than when male teachers have sex with their young female students.

So in the case of female sex tourism, should we consider it as harmful as male sex tourism? Ultimately, I think that while the “objective” activities between male and female sex tourism are often similar or even identical, the historical and cultural context can be very different. In other words, whether we like it or not, there is an historical dynamic of sexism and patriarchy that exists in male sex tourism that does not exist among the female version.

I am not saying that female sex tourism should be considered absolutely harmless. My point is that we cannot consider the two type to be identical because the social consequences of male sex tourism, whether we like it or not, are often much more harmful because they reinforce a gender hierarchy that is infused with power imbalances and outright male domination.

But is female sex tourism that much better? Does it also promote a contemporary “slavery” image of non-White men catering to the desires of rich White (or at least westernized) women? I’m not sure what the final answer here is, but my point is that if we were talking about male sex tourism, the answer to that question would be much more immediate and emphatic.