Sex Tourists--Solicit Them and They Will Come

After reading Alex Renton's eyewitness account of prostitution in Thailand, I would advise sex tourists, pedophiles, and perverts headed that way to rethink their summer vacation plans.

Renton's sifting through the numbers suggests nearly a million men a year hop a plane to Thailand with images of nubile, compliant nymphettes dancing in their heads. Sex tourists are a diverse bunch--American, European, Japanese, and Australian. These are men eager to get down-and-dirty with one or more of the 2-million-strong army of Thai prostitutes. Highly coveted by pedophiles are the childen, who it is said offer "yum-yum" or "boom-boom" for a few dollars a sordid act.

Although the true facts are hard to come by, Renton's investigation of the oldest profession concludes that the number of prostitutes in Thailand is lower and their ages higher than is commonly reported. The actual number of prostitutes is closer to 150,000 than to 2 million. Likewise, reports of children involved in prostitution are difficult to verify and the numbers are probably inflated significantly.

Make no mistake, though, prostitution flourishes in Thailand, even though it is illegal. If reports of its extent are exaggerated and that brings in more free-spending sex tourists, then who's going to complain? Not the prostitutes, the pimps, the bar owners, the cabbies, the airlines, the hotels--everyone who makes money from tourism. Neither will the 21 international agencies based in Thailand to fight the sexual enslavement of women and children. If the true dimensions of the sex industry are overstated, it's easier for them to get money to fight it.

If some pedophiles return from Thailand unable to find what they wanted, then good! They might complain, but I have the feeling no one's going to have much sympathy for them.

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