This is the time of year when many Saudis who are able will travel outside of the Kingdom to beat the intense heat, relax and enjoy themselves with a vacation. The majority of Saudis will take what most of us think of as a traditional vacation. However there are some who prefer what I refer to as the “dark side of a Saudi vacation.” These are the Saudi men who will chose to go to Morocco, Philippines or Thailand or elsewhere on a holiday (sans wife and children) for the sole purpose of indulging their sexual appetite and fantasies. Some of these men will pleasure themselves with female prostitutes and others may choose to avail themselves of male prostitutes, young boys or even young (as in underage) girls. These men are known as the “Saudi Sex Tourists.”
This is a very delicate and sordid issue and does happen. It is not something that should be buried under the sand and ignored. It is a thriving trade. The actions on the part of these men are not only indicative that they have a serious problem but these actions result in other realities as well. Pregnancies of foreign women left behind who likely only know they were intimate with an Arab man but may not know his nationality let alone his name. For some reason these men when indulging in the various acts seem not to care or desire to practice safe sex and use protection. Many of these same men also bring home “unpleasant souvenirs” of their holiday in the form of a sexually transmitted disease (STD) which in turn is passed on to the wife. The husband may go to a private physician for treatment while the wife is too ashamed to acknowledge that something may be amiss.
Although dated, Time Magazine did an interesting article on this very subject.
This particular post is not intended to Saudi bash but at the same time, I don’t think one should simply ignore the darker side of a particular culture or society and pretend it does not exist. Perhaps through constructive dialog one can come up with solutions to minimize these incidents from continuing to happen.
Filed under: Entertainment, Just for fun, Saudi Arabia, travel | 65 Comments »
