Neo-colonialism: British women traveling to former colonies…for sex!

After reading my commentary (and related articles) on the queen’s diamond anniversary in Friday’s edition of Caribbean Net News, a reader from Uganda e-mailed a link to an article that she thought I would find “worthy of a comment”. And it only took my reading the first two sentences to appreciate why she thought so:

Bethan, 56, lives in southern England on the same street as best friend Allie, 64. They are on their first holiday to Kenya, a country they say is ‘just full of big young boys who like us older girls’.

(Perhaps this explains the rather intimate embrace Uganda’s relatively young 63-year old president, Yoweri Museveni, gave 81-year old Queen Elizabeth when she arrived there last week for the Commonwealth Summit….Just kidding folks!)

But, truth be told, there’s nothing new about British women being overcome by “jungle fever” and traveling to former colonies in Africa and the Caribbean to be cured – as most islanders my age (45) can readily attest.

What is new, however, is that there are as many women over 50 as there are under 25 now making this neo-colonial booty call. No doubt unprecedented rates of divorce, growing acceptance of interracial relationships and the financial resources older, single women have these days help facilitate this phenomenon.

And lest you think the older women are having to settle for leftovers, consider the 50-something sugar mammy who said that she felt like a giddy teenager after “a baby aged 18 insisted ‘Me no want the kitten, me want the cat’…[meowwww!]”.

Of course, to be fair, I should note that increasing numbers of middle-aged black American women have been seeking sexual healing down in the Caribbean for years – as Terry McMillan chronicled in her bestselling (autobiographical) novel How Stella got her groove back. (And have you seen the new commercial being run by Bermuda’s Ministry of Tourism in America, which feature three middle-aged professional women swooning over the black toyboy one of them brought back home from her island vacation…?)

But it behooves us to wonder about the implications and consequences of this seemingly-unnatural trend (of these white cougars hunting black stallions) on our society. Although, I can already hear the shouts of judgmental scorn being spewed from church pulpits all over the Caribbean about these casual affairs.

Yet there’s no denying that it’s a win-win proposition for the parties directly involved:

They are so wonderfully flattering. They make you feel like a real woman. I don’t mind paying for their drinks and meals if they spend the night. [Jane, 67]

We both get something we want – where’s the negative? [Allie, 64]

Indeed; after all, these are consenting adults who assume total responsibility for ensuring not only mutual satisfaction, but also mutual protection. Which should be contrasted with the menace British men pose by traveling to poor countries in Asia to prey on underage girls (and boys).

Therefore, I’m inclined to agree with Allie. And, yes, I believe prostitution is a victimless vice that should be decriminalized – even when the prostitutes are black men….

Besides, even if hotel managers (or police officers) have probable cause to suspect that our native beach boys are chatting up matronly-looking tourists as a prelude to an illicit assignation, prohibiting (or, God forbid, prosecuting) such hospitality would be unsustainable and utterly counterproductive.

On the other hand, there would be a welcome drop in regional crime and a concomitant boost in tourism if we could get more of our delinquent young men to stop fighting each other and start making female visitors “feel like [real women]”.

So to all of our female visitors, I say don’t worry, be happy and come back soon….

Related Articles:
English women who travel to Africa for sex

How Stella got her groove back…then totally lost it!
The Queen’s diamond anniversary

women sex tourists