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Jamaican Sex Tourism becomes the Subject of Steamy Documentary

Compiled by Traci Lawson

  Jamaican Sex Tourism
 

Jamaican Sex Tourism.

When white women flock to Jamaica for a little fun in the sun, the R&R they're often looking for is not "Rest and Relaxation" but to "Rent a Rasta" according to director J. Michael Seyfert. His eye-opening expose' of the same name sheds light on a barely acknowledged form of sex tourism, namely, white women who visit the Caribbean Islands to get their groove back with the help of black locals.

This documentary claims that, each year, as many as 80,000 females from a variety of relatively-wealthy Western nations descend on Jamaica alone. The long-concealed phenomenon was also recently the subject of Heading South, a fictional account of similar goings-on in Haiti.

Most of those inclined to indulge their Island Fever with wanton abandon are apparently middle-aged and/or "overweight spinsters". Ignored by white men, and afraid to date blacks openly due to the social taboo, they look for satisfaction at remote resorts amidst the anonymity offered by Jamaica as a sex tourism "paradise".

These "decadent dames" safely lure their boy toys with money, electronic gadgets, designer clothes, baubles, or whatever material item it takes to get uncomplicated sexual favors in return along with the strict understanding that like in Las Vegas, "What happens in Jamaica, stays in Jamaica." As one satisfied customer, a 45 year-old spinster from the Midwest explains her addiction to her hedonistic getaway, "A girl who no one looks at twice gets hit on all the time here. All these guys are paying her attention, telling her she's really beautiful, and they really want her. It is like a secret, a fantasy, and then you go home."

While this glimpse of the lucky ladies' rationale for their no-strings liaisons is certainly informative, the picture is actually far more interesting when chronicling the history of Jamaica, winding its way from the slave days through the rise of the Rastafari to the present. Framed from this perspective, we suddenly see a persistent pattern of utter subjugation and economic inequality, with islanders providing 'tud service'only being the latest form of exploitation.

Perhaps most telling is the desperate summation of a suffering black woman seen begging for an end to the Jamaican people's neverending cycle of poverty. She wants, "the white world to come give us our deliverance, because it was them who take us out of our land and carry us here."

Viewed in this light, Rent a Rasta is a clarion call which establishes that sex tourism is not merely the harmless indulgence of horny white women gone wild, but a burgeoning trend which continues to wreak havoc on a Caribbean culture and family structure already in crisis.

Do you remember the film in which "A handsome young Jamaican with bulging pectorals strides up to three middle-aged women strolling barefoot by the sea." His opening gambit is an invitation to ride on his glass-bottom boat. Then the real business: ''Yes mon, my friend and I noticed you last night. You were wearing sneakers,'' he says to one. ''Oh yeah?''

''We said, 'Those are oldies but goldies!''' he continues. ''How dare you!'' The woman's brassy American accent is a marked contrast to the melodious Jamaican one. ''Didn't your mother teach you how to talk to ladies? 'Oldies?'''

The women storm off past a fence that cordons off their all-inclusive resort, leaving their suitor behind. David Patrick, about 30, scratches an ear ruefully but takes the rejection in stride. ''Women been coming in droves since that movie,'' he says.

He's talking about the film How Stella Got Her Groove Back, the movie about a woman who goes to Jamaica and falls in love with a man half her age and rediscovers her enthusiasm for life. ''It's not just Americans,'' Patrick says. ''English women, Germans, Swiss - they all say the same thing: That they've come to get their groove back.'' The movie was based on a book by Terry McMillan who said she kept running into women who bought tickets to Jamaica after Stella became a bestseller in 1996.

The movie, starring Angela Bassett as Stella and Taye Diggs as her lover Winston, appears to have had even more of an effect. ''Jamaica couldn't have paid for the publicity we're getting,'' says photographer Ken Ramsay, referring to scenes that linger on white-sand beaches, turquoise and emerald waters, cloudless skies and exotic flowers.

Jamaica's Tourist Board had in fact, screened the film for U.S. travel agents and aired TV spots promoting the island as a lovers' getaway. Mark Adkins, a manager at the public relations agency Adkins-Rome Entertainment and Marketing in Los Angeles, describes an enthusiastic response, with ''a lot of women... saying they wanted to go to Jamaica to find their Winston.'' ''We're seeing groups of ladies coming together that look like the type Terry McMillan was writing about - more single ladies,'' says hotel manager Brian Sang.

Mr. Sang, executive manager of the Jamaica Grande resort at Ocho Rios on the island's north coast, says one visitor sent him a poem saying she and her girlfriends were ''coming to get their groove back.'' A new lexicon has grown around the movie. ''I've heard tourists say things like, 'There's a Stella thing going on here,''' Sang says.

But, Wayne Cummings, president of the Negril Chamber of Commerce and first vice president of the Jamaica Hotel and Tourist Association (JHTA), told the Sunday Herald on June 12, 2006, that sex tourism is not condoned by the organisations that he represents.

He pointed out that although many visitors to exotic locations such as Jamaica often arrive with hope of finding an "escort", the country has made efforts to move away from this image. "It still happens, but we categorise it as tourist harassment. We invite tourists here for sun, sea, sand and Jamaican hospitality, which does not necessarily include sexual favours," said Cummings.

Mr. Cummings further added that sex tourism brought with it many negative implications such as the spread of infectious diseases and a tarnished national image. "Those persons in the sex tourism industry are better served by getting training and incorporate themselves into legitimate tourism jobs," he said. Cummings indicated that tourism interests in the resort towns have better working relationships with the police, and this has prevented the problem from being an overt one. He also indicated that tourism interests have also begun to address the problem through education. Cummings also spoke to the issue of staff training at the Sandals hotel chain to ensure that internal and external interaction does not become or appear untoward.

Perhaps most telling is the desperate summation of a suffering black woman seen begging for an end to the Jamaican people's neverending cycle of poverty. She wants, "the white world to come give us our deliverance, because it was them who take us out of our land and carry us here." Viewed in this light, Rent a Rasta is a clarion call which establishes that sex tourism is not merely the harmless indulgence of horny white women gone wild, but a burgeoning trend which continues to wreak havoc on a Caribbean culture and family structure already in crisis.

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