Talking with a sex tourist – part 2

The pleasantries over, Mike settled back on the couch to brag about his life in Angeles City.  He was 53 years old when his company was bought out, and he lost his job.  He decided to visit the Philippines since Filipinos speak English, and being an older foreign male, it was only a matter of time before he heard of Angeles City.  He was loving every minute of his time here and had no intention of ever returning to the states.

His reasons were no-brainers.  “It’s paradise here.  I love the heat, and for $225/month, I get rent and utilities.”  As for the women, he said, “Why not have sex with the women?  There are young girls everywhere.”  While I didn’t have the guts to ask him what he meant by “girls”, he was confident enough to admit that when he first came, he had sex with 16 and 17 year-olds.  “It’s no big deal.  It’s just what happens here and is accepted by everyone.”

I wondered secretly if he’d have been so talkative if he’d known that I was volunteering for RENEW.  Most likely not.  I also itched to tell him that he could be prosecuted in both the Philippines as well as America for having sex with a minor.

He continued on with his confession.  “Men see sex much differently from women.  Some men have sex here, others prefer to sit back, relax and watch the women.”  He lived in an area with other foreigner men, and they liked to get together, drink beer and talk about their sexual conquests.

It was bizarre how what made him feel like a king actually made him so pathetic.

Talking with a sex tourist – part 1

Filipino coffee is excellent, and a small boutique hotel on Fields Avenue was a great place to order a cup and watch people.  Tucked between bars, it saw a lot of tourist traffic, mostly male, although a few foreign women came and went.  It also was very quiet, and one afternoon I drank a latte to relax and mull the day over.

It was the rainy season, and unfortunately I had no umbrella.  Just as I finished, the sky opened and torrential rain filled the street.  I wasn’t going anywhere for a while.  There were couches and a big-screen TV near the door, and I spotted a white-haired man in his 70s watching a basketball game.  Insatiable curiosity filled me.  I had been dying to talk to one of these guys and find out what made a sex tourist tick.  The answer was inherently obvious, but I still wanted to talk to him.  A little hesitantly, but with increasing determination, I wandered over and did my best to casually sit down near him on the couch.

For the sake of argument, I’ll call him Mike, though that wasn’t his real name.  He was surprisingly easy to talk to and had no problem answering my questions.  We talked for about an hour.  Mike was 73 years old, American and had been living in Angeles City for 17 years.  He was from Philadelphia.  In his younger days, he had worked for the Air Force before having a good career in computers.  

Mike had never married and had no children.  His brother worked in Washington D.C., and his sister-in-law worked for a humanitarian foundation, which I found somewhat ironic.  Obviously she hadn’t rubbed off on him.  Mike had also traveled to Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Cambodia.  Pattaya, currently holding the title for the world’s biggest sex tourist destination, is in Thailand, and while he didn’t say, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he’d been there already.  Cambodia, of course, has a much larger problem with child prostitutes, and I wasn’t bold enough to ask him if he’d been interested in that.

He was completely open about his life, supremely confident and without a care in the world.  He was so arrogant that I only had to listen and occasionally prod him with a new question.  Otherwise he rambled on, and I did nothing to stop him, just mentally making notes and hoping that I’d remember everything.  I could hardly believe my luck in finding a man who would honestly talk about himself and his life in Angeles City.

Getting to know Fields Avenue again

It was a little strange to be in the Philippines again.  Instead of continuing my teacher’s contract in South Korea, I had returned to Angeles City  to volunteer for the next eight months with the RENEW Foundation “http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/02/19/angeles.philippines/“.  Looking back on it now, I was naive and didn’t yet fully understand how difficult it was to infiltrate an illegal industry that operates openly.  Full of optimism and excitement, I was ready to dive in and make progress.

Once the jet lag had worn off, a social worker took me back to Fields Avenue so that I could see what had changed.  We went  late in the morning.  While some bars were open, most were not, and so the street was much quieter.  Young men were delivering cases of alcohol before the evening rush began, while bleary-eyed tourists recovering from the previous night’s excesses ate in restaurants.  Some chatted in small groups, probably trading stories and advice, while those alone stared off into space.  It was all so predictable.

The biggest change was the signs.  Most were still in English, but I noticed more written in Korean.  Ownership of the bars was just beginning to pass from British, American and Australian to Korean men, whose countrymen made up a sizable proportion of visitors.  Clark’s airport was only four hours from Seoul, and so Fields Avenue sex tours were popular weekend getaways for some Korean men.  The social worker also told me that hotel construction was a booming industry.

She took me to a side street running parallel to Fields Avenue.  During the day it was completely empty, and we walked down it unchallenged.  At night, however, it transformed into the place for freelancing pimps to bring women and underage girls.  RENEW had received minors from this area in the past.  It was so dangerous that the only time RENEW had gone down it, they had been in a trike (motorcycle with a sidecar), and they did not slow down.  It was not a place to take a casual stroll.

Not for the first time I was reminded that we were a small group of Filipinos and foreigners, committed to fighting prostitution and sex trafficking, yet we were walking against thousands who either saw nothing wrong with it or were ignorant.  Who could we help?  Perhaps only a few lives here and there, but those people surely mattered.

One of the most important things I would learn was mental flexibility.  Like many people, I am a law-abiding citizen.  It simply takes time to learn how to live and think in a society hurt by corruption, and in the coming months, that mentality shift would prove to be invaluable.

Transitions

I am highly introverted, and I tend to think a lot about everything.  My twelve days in the Philippines inevitably ended.  Life, somewhat unfortunately, returned to normal back in South Korea.  I continued teaching English at a middle school and tried to focus on creating lesson plans.  Yet although I enjoyed my students, I was always looking over my shoulder, back into the past and remembering the lives whose paths I had crossed.  To walk the line between life and death, in a way, and then return to “regular” society was frustrating.  I was determined to have more.

Fields Avenue in Angeles City is high profile because of the sex tourist clientele.  Yet prostitution and human trafficking quietly exist in other parts of the city.  There are areas of the city with casas (or “red houses”) that hold minor girls, and of course there are many other clubs that cater to Filipino men.  The more I learned about sex trafficking, the more I understood how incredibly difficult it was to reach the victims.  I really didn’t know how it could be done, but I wanted to search for those who were faceless.

That fall, nine months after my first visit to Angeles City, I returned to volunteer with the RENEW Foundation.  I would stay for eight months and go deeper into the city’s underside.

Masks

I admit it, the world sometimes scares me.  Every day it seems there’s a new story about the nice history teacher who turned out to be a child molester, or the soccer coach and pillar of the community who abused his wife.  While there are plenty of good people, there are others who seem to hide their true selves expertly, and you would never have suspected their real nature.

On my last night before returning to South Korea, our group returned to another Fields Avenue bar.  The music pumped as usual, and although I was interested in what RENEW’s leader was saying, I couldn’t hear him.  I watched customers instead.  No big surprises – they gazed avidly at the women or groped those sitting in their laps while throwing back drinks.

We were sitting on the top floor, and my attention shifted to a foreigner in his 40s who stood nearby at the ledge of the balcony.  A waitress had pointed him out as the club’s owner.  He was watching the 25 young women dancing in their skimpy costumes.  Nothing unusual.  I don’t know why he captured my attention, but maybe because he was watching them a little too intently.  As I studied him, his eyes suddenly changed.

One moment they were calm, benign and normal.  The next, his mask had dropped and the real man was seen.  In his eyes I saw possession, self-satisfaction, lust and tremendous ego.  This was a very dangerous man.  For a few seconds he surveyed his kingdom of young, nearly-naked women, master of his universe, and then just like that, the mask was back again.  Gentle eyes, everything totally hidden.  If I had seen him away from that place, I would never have known who he really was.  He was that good at deception.

Everything connected to Fields Avenue is an illusion.  The clubs’ owners are no different, and it gave me a better idea of what we were fighting against.

What motivates the major players in sex trafficking and prostitution?

I have fought against sex trafficking in the Philippines and South Korea, and the number one question I get from friends and family is “Don’t the men care about the women at all? ”  The answer is no.  Even though they are someone’s daughter or sister, the customers and the traffickers don’t care a whit about them.  They really don’t.

In the movie “Nefarious: Merchant of Souls”, a former sex trafficker talks about this reality.  “No one cares about these girls.  They are turned into objects.  Just like you go into the market and you buy yourself a pair of underwear, you go into a different kind of market and you buy yourself a woman.”  In the beginning, the trafficker might feel some guilt, but eventually the desire for money wins.  This man explains,  “It’s hard for the first time or the second time, but you just get to a point where you say it’s good money.” ” http://nefariousdocumentary.com/”

Tenancingo is a small town  about 50 miles southeast of Mexico City, and it is a major source of trafficked Mexican women  in the United States “http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/09/mexican-women-forced-into_n_676165.html“.  A U.S. government report states that Tenancingo traffickers “describe a need to maintain a cold-blooded outlook on their work that they call ‘killing emotion’.  Another strategy they employ to detach from their illicit work is absenting themselves during the transaction of sexual services.  They avoid sentimental ties.  ‘Love needs to stay outside of this type of business’.”  http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/155769.pdf

On the other side of the equation, of course, are the customers, who are the number one reason sex trafficking happens.  Without them, there would be no prostitution.  You can think of anything legitimately sold in this world – cars, books, houses, food, DVDs – and if there was no buyer for it, it would quickly be discarded and the seller would try something different.  The fact is that some men are willing to pay for women, and so long as they are, you will see sex trafficking happen.  I can only begin to speculate what motivates them: lust, loneliness and the need to control someone are all possibilities.  Whatever their reasons, they are willing to tell themselves anything so that they don’t feel guilty about what they’re doing.

Combine a person who desires money with a person who is lonely or chasing lust, and then add a young woman or girl to that mix, and you will see disastrous consequences.

Seeing a Filipino bar

Very loosely speaking, there are two kinds of sex bars in Angeles City: those for tourists and those for Filipino men.  Generally the two sides don’t mix, although here and there you’ll find Filipino bars that welcome foreigners.  I never saw the reverse, however.  We returned to Fields Avenue with RENEW a few more times, speaking with women and gaining a better insight into their lives.

I was only there for twelve days and would then return to South Korea.  Sitting around the kitchen table one night, RENEW’s leader asked me if there was anything else I wanted to see.  Without hesitation, and not knowing what I was getting myself into, I said, “A Filipino bar.”  The other volunteers agreed, so we made plans to go out the next night.

This bar was in a different part of the city, away from tourists.  We went very early, just after they opened, so that we would be the only ones there.  Things didn’t really get going until around 11 p.m., by which time we’d have left.  RENEW had already visited it and so was familiar with how it operated.  As our group of six people pulled up in trikes and got out, my first impression wasn’t great.  The building was old and run-down, with a man standing at the door.  Inside there was room for about 40 customers with the usual small stage dominating the room.  A kitchen and bar were off to the right, with private rooms on the second floor.  The sound system was in a tiny room to the right of the stage, and inside we spotted a little girl, five years old, playing with a toy.

Admittedly I was not in the mindset to give the place the benefit of the doubt.  Prostitution, voluntary or forced, is just wrong, and so I was hardly objective.   But an idiot could have picked up on the evil surrounding us as we found empty seats near the stage.  The bar owner came out to get a glimpse of us, probably thinking we were either journalists or missionaries.  To keep everyone happy, we ordered french fries and drinks as one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen came out onto the stage and started dancing.  She was probably about twenty years old, with long, straight, black hair.  She could have been a model.  Her lovely face, however, was wooden.  Her eyes flickered once towards us and then focused uncompromisingly on the wall behind us.  She exited as soon as the music finished and not a moment later and was soon replaced by another dancer, as expressionless as the first.

The music was loud, and so we were able to talk among ourselves without being overheard.  RENEW’s leader explained that in the past they had visited here and were unsuccessful in trying to talk to the women.  The employees watched them like hawks, and the bar was possibly run by a gang.  It did not seem the women had much choice in what they did.  From the looks of their eyes, some of them appeared to be on drugs, as well.

We did not stay long.  As soon as other customers started arriving, we paid our bill and left.  I would never forget the extraordinarily beautiful woman, whose eyes conveyed a life of untold suffering and hopelessness.

Fields Avenue – street culture

We finally left the club and headed for a restaurant further down Fields Avenue.  Out on the street, the crowds were larger now that the prime party hour had arrived.  Our group kept close together, watching out for pickpockets while sidestepping vendors selling everything from gum to roses.  We were joined by men who had already found their women for the night.  It was hard not to stare, or glare, for that matter.  I had never seen self-satisfied, white-haired geriatrics strolling with young women in their teens and twenties.  The women had changed into tight street clothes, and I wondered what they were thinking.  Although their blank faces gave away nothing, it was safe to say they weren’t looking forward to spending the night with complete strangers who were 50 years older and grossly overweight.  The pride on the men’s faces was almost laughable.  I was disgusted.

After dinner, the others sat around the table, asking RENEW’s leader more questions, but I felt restless.  I excused myself and found an empty chair by the window where I could quietly watch the street.  I analyzed people passing before me and started seeing a pattern in the middle of chaos.

The tourists and their trophies were there, of course.  Then came the women walking to work, and the little girls selling roses.  A small group of transvestites stood on a corner; here and there a tourist policeman kept an eye on things.  A few freelancers, those women not affiliated with a bar, waited for customers, their pimps close by.  While women in the bars are supposed to be 18 years old, that wasn’t always the case for the freelancers.    

Our restaurant was in front of a club, and I watched one of the GROs talking to a passing tourist, trying to get him to go inside.  They laughed together, and after a few moments he moved on, looking happy and relaxed.  But the second he turned away, the woman’s smile vanished.  That moment is something I have always remembered.

Sex tourist clubs – under the facade

The club had a mamasan (a female pimp in her 50s) dressed in a black pants suit, and she kept a sharp eye on both the customers and the women, ready to pounce the moment a man raised his hand.  Although she was flirtatious with the men, smiling and flattering them, even from a distance I saw a hardness in her that disturbed me.  Your eyes will always give you away, and hers were empty.  Many mamasans are former prostitutes, and by the time they get this far, a lifetime of exploiting others or being exploited, one way or another, will have always taken its toll.

It didn’t take long to see through the illusion of lights, beautiful women and good times.  It was obvious the women were not thrilled to be dancing on a stage in their underwear for leering men.  While three or four danced with some enthusiasm at the front, most were grouped towards the back, trying to hide.  Nearly all were expressionless, staring over the heads of the men.  A RENEW staff member said that many are careful to not make eye contact with a customer.

The mamasan flashed the laser light at many women that night, signaling they had been chosen.  It would have been impossible to miss a green beam in your face, yet I saw several women ignore it, I suppose pretending they hadn’t seen it.  It was a battle of wills, with the mamasan persisting in shining the beam until she finally gave up in exasperation.  The man, of course, would have to choose someone else, and the original woman would get an earful from the mamasan later that night.

How a sex tourist bar works

We made our way to the second floor and found a long, skinny table in the balcony that overlooked the stage.  We had an excellent view of the entire club.  The GRO (Guest Relations Officer) set down small bowls of popcorn, took our drinks order and disappeared.  I concentrated hard while RENEW’s leader explained what was happening.

The object of a sex tourist bar, of course, is to make a lot of money off the foreign men.  To do this, everything is geared towards two things: getting them to buy drinks and also a woman for the night.  If a man was interested in a particular woman, he would raise his hand, and either the mamasan or papasan (lead female/male pimp for the women) would come over.  The man would then give the mamasan the woman’s number, and the mamasan would shine a piercing laser light in the woman’s face, which was her cue that she had been chosen.

She would then sit with the man, who was required to buy her drinks.  If he decided to spend the night with her, he would discreetly pay a fee to take her to his hotel room.  At the time I visited, this was about $30.  The fee was known as a “bar fine”, although it’s also been called an “early work release”.  Since prostitution is illegal in the Philippines, bar owners claim ignorance of it, saying that whatever happens when the woman leaves the bar is between her and the customer.

This is the basic operating system of the clubs, although I would learn there are many other things happening under the surface.