International Dating Discussion forum

The next few chapters are for the man who’s decided to go for it. He may not be ready to settle down, but wants to enjoy the companionship and intimacy of an exotic woman. He may not be inclined to write letters with his valuable time. He needs a woman he can talk with and touch. What a woman has done in the past doesn’t concern him. He’s interested in how she treats him as a lover, not how she has acquired her ability to please.

If this describes you, and you have the time and money, catch the next plane for the Philippines, Brazil, Thailand or Costa Rica. In my opinion, these are the best four places in the world to mingle with exotic women. I’ll also discuss several other places in the world where you can have a good time. After you check into your hotel, shower and rest from your long flight, grab a taxi and head for any of the great bars I’ll be mentioning. Prepare for the fantasy of your life.

Sailors call the Philippines Fantasy Island. It’s an appropriate name for a place with your choice of hundreds of young women to share a drink, an evening, a week or even a lifetime. It is also the inspiration for the title of this book.

Both Thailand and the Philippines offer a special kind of entertainment call go-go or girlie bars. They are filled with attractive, bikini-clad, young ladies to entice and entertain you. The larger, noisier bars have as many as twenty-five girls dancing on the stage at one time. Another twenty-five are on the floor, talking with customers. After thirty minutes each group trades places. A few bars rotate the dancers, with one girl taking the stage and one leaving after every song. In Thailand, dancers must finish their shift before they are available. In the Philippines, just catch a woman’s eye while she dances, pat the seat next to you and she will be there in seconds.

Even if you aren’t a drinking man or don’t like loud rock music, don’t feel you aren’t welcome at these bars. Give them a chance. You can still have the time of your life. Order a coke or juice and you’ll be greeted with nothing but smiles. Not all the bars are rowdy and noisy. A few are small and intimate, the music soft, and the ladies attired in pretty dresses instead of tiny bikinis.

Depending on the bar, you may not even need to make eye contact. Before long a young lady will sit next to you. In Bangkok, she will ask your name, where you’re from, how old you are and how long you’ve been in her country (probably in that order). In the Philippines they add one question: Are you married? Even in bars you can tell the Philippines is a Catholic country. Every Filipina who is unmarried is marriage-minded.

It’s best, though, for you to pick out one lady you like and make eye contact. Gesture for her to come and join you. These ladies are good at body language. There may be anywhere from two to fifty times as many ladies as gentlemen in the bars, so the competition for men is fierce, but friendly. If business is slow, you may even feel that you’re the show and they’re the audience, you will attract so much attention. Get used to being stared at. It can be disconcerting at first.

If someone else sits with you it may be difficult to persuade the lady you’ve got your eye on to come and join you. There is an unspoken code of honor that prevents these women from infringing on each other’s terrain. Most will ask permission to sit next to you. Simply indicate, in words or gestures, that you have other interests at the moment. An unwanted lady will rarely make a pest of herself.

If you find the girl next to you interesting, buy her a drink and get acquainted. It’s hard not to like these ladies. Leave and try another bar, then another and another. After you’ve visited six or seven, go back to the bar with the girl you liked best. Chances are she will still be there. If she’s not, just seek out your second choice. After you’ve been to a few bars, though, you may have trouble remembering who was where. Some of the bars look alike, especially from the outside. Don’t feel shy about taking notes, if you need to.

The bars are great places to meet ladies — almost too great. The real challenge is selecting someone from the hundreds available. A lot of the girls are simply stunners. They make it hard to keep your mouth from hanging open. When they sit, bikini-clad, next to you at the bar with a sweet smile fixed on you, they can be an irresistible temptation. They snuggle up close and hold your arm. Some have a superb talent for turning men on. They know how to touch you in a provocative, but decent, style. They make it difficult to leave them. Chances are, if this is your first experience in these kind of bars, you will have a hard time resisting. Try anyway. Don’t just grab the first pretty face who comes along. The problem is you may want to take them all home.

Many Westerners think the women in these so-called "girlie" bars are whores, but they are wrong. International travelers know what these women are really like. More than one man has declared these bars the best places in the world to meet women.

Once you get to know a few young ladies you will understand why they do what they do. Most of them are nice, honest girls who need money to help their families survive. They also need someone to love. The bars are a last resort for them. They send money home to their families, to whom they lie about the kind of work they do. Many are religious. Some even pay their way through school by working in the bars. Don’t think just because you have money that you can have any girl you want. The go-go bars are more like a semi-professional pick-up scene or dating service. If the women don’t like you, they won’t go out with you. No one forces them to go out. Some girls are actually virgins and never leave the bar with customers.

I’m not sure why the professionals in the Eastern and Western parts of the world have such different attitudes toward their livelihood. Western professionals are, I think, more aloof and demanding than Asian women. Maybe they want immediate gratification and lack the serene patience of Asian women. Unless you can afford to pay a few hundred dollars a night, Western prostitutes give a "quick in and quick out" treatment without the small talk and touching that make sex a real pleasure. A Thai or Filipina prostitute does not rush into things. Your way is her way.

There are young girls working in the bars of Bangkok and Manila who are willing to marry within days after meeting you. All they want is someone to be nice to them and provide support. I suppose the same is true for many impoverished parts of the world.

Some men do try to take them all home. One semi-retired man from Oklahoma, Bill, had his own little harem to escort him around. He looked to be in his sixties, and had five young ladies following him all the time, giggling at his jokes. For this sort of debauchery, Southeast Asia is a good place. You can hire what the GI’s call a "hootch" girl. Since you’re a foreigner, they’ll expect you to pay more.

The bar scene in Costa Rica, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Brazil differs quite a bit from the go-go frenzy of Thailand and the Philippines. Many Latin bars double as brothels. You have the options of taking a girl into a back room or the hotel upstairs for an hour or two, or taking her out for a night or a few days. A few bars have stage shows where a lot more goes on (and off) than in the go-go bars of Asia, though there are strip shows in Thailand also. Some bars in Latin America have girls employed by the bar, while others are a meeting place for freelancers and their customers.

Sex tourism has gotten a lot of attention lately. It is frowned on by the media and coverage is usually slanted. The news gives the impression that men who travel to Asia are exploiting women. At worst, a sex tourist is no different from a man who hires a prostitute in San Francisco or New York. If you think any form of prostitution exploits the person taking the money, you are entitled to your opinion. There is just as valid an argument for the other way around. Maybe it’s the poor sucker who has to pay for sex who’s being exploited.

Another misconception by the media is the implication that men travel overseas to have sex with underage girls. The age of consent overseas is generally eighteen, as it is in the U.S. It’s true that younger girls are sold into prostitution, especially in Thailand, but they work in brothels that tourists rarely visit. The bars I mention in Thailand and the Philippines require proof the girls are eighteen or older. They also demand a physical examination before they are issued an identification card allowing them to work in the bar. The girls must also have a blood test once a week to be checked for sexually-transmitted disease. In these tourist bars, girls are free to come and go as they please.

Prostitution is accepted, widespread and big business in Thailand. Most towns have several brothels, even if it is only two or three girls. Bangkok has been called the "whorehouse of Asia," but it has competitors to the title. Singapore, Seoul, Manila and Hong Kong can all file claims to that dubious honor.

One sad note is that, in Thailand at least, children are sometimes sold into indentured servitude to work in brothels and massage parlors. Some young girls, who are attractive and from poor families, are sold for a seemingly piddling amount — perhaps a couple hundred dollars. Then they work several years in servitude for a tiny amount per year. It is not the girls’ choice to be sold, but it would dishonor their family to leave, so they stay and fulfill their servitude. It is a shame, since no Thai man will ever marry a woman if he knows she has such a background.

In the Philippines employers may have a possessive attitude toward the women who work in their bars, but their employment is not indentured. If a man sees a girl he likes and wants to take her away with him the bar demands a tribute. A girl will quit her job, if she likes you, to travel or live with you while you are in the Philippines. The bars refer to this as "snaking out." You will not have to pay the bar for her, but you should give her something.

It helps to be a good judge of character if you intend to spend some serious time with a woman from a bar. Otherwise you may end up with someone who doesn’t really love you, but wants your money.

Here are some tips on how to detect that kind of person. Avoid girls who bring up the topic of money immediately. Before you take her from the bar, ask her how much money she wants for your liaison with her. Ask the bartender which of the girls has worked there the longest and which are new. Go for the new. if that is your preference. You may have a better chance to strike up a romance if she not an experienced professional. A new girl, however, may be a thief terminated by another bar looking for a victim, though this is rare.

In Thailand the women act more professional than in the old days. They will often tell you how much money they expect before leaving the bar with you. That never used to happen. You were supposed to know the going rate, and then pay after you parted ways, whether it was an hour or a month later.

Go-go bars in Thailand and the Philippines charge a "bar fine" to take a girl from the bar, usually between US$10 and US$20. Then you must also pay the girl. That will run as high as US$100, but should average around US$40. Prices for a wild night in Hong Kong are about ten times higher. Angeles City in the Philippines is an exception where the bar fine includes the girls’ companionship for the night. She gets half of what you pay the bar.

Unlike the West, in Asia money is usually paid after you enjoy a bar girl’s company, unless you are paying the bar. This tells you something about their sense of honor and trust. They are confident in your generosity. Be generous and pay her based on how well a woman treated you, if you must say good-bye after only one night. If keep her as a companion for longer, your good-bye present is subject to negotiation.

In the Philippines you get the best exchange rate from large currency U.S. dollars, preferably US$100 bills, as the smaller the bill the lower the exchange rate. US$1 bills are practically worthless on the gray market. Filipinos horde U.S. dollars as a hedge against inflation and economic insecurity. In Latin America, the cheapest place is Cuba. Other good places are Costa Rica, Dominican Republic and Brazil. Prices there range from US$50 to US$100 a night. They can be lower if she likes you, you spend several days with her, or you negotiate well.

Sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea, herpes and AIDS are always a risk to people with multiple sex partners. While the risk of getting AIDS through heterosexual intercourse is much lower than once feared, a condom is still the proven method for preventing infection. I suggest you use one.