"The entire town is a brothel, and its support system"
July 13, 2015 12:38 AM   Subscribe

Australian journalist Margaret Simons visited Angeles City in the Philippines to find the children left behind by Australian sex tourists. She found a lot of them. (Trigger warning for sexual abuse of minors)
posted by retrograde (27 comments total) 27 users marked this as a favorite
 
Well, that's the most horrifying and depressing thing I'll read for some time. I mean, it's not just the ongoing sexual assault and rape of children - that would be mere atrocity. It's the fact that the local economy depends on it.
posted by um at 1:45 AM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


The information on the number of cases was not readily available, I was told. Finding it involved data recovery, for which I might be charged. The department could not comment on individual cases, because of privacy laws.... welcome to Australia and fuck you.
posted by mattoxic at 3:20 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


I am so looking forward to DNA-linked child support. The bittersweet windfall of the DHL pedophile Larry Holborn (tawdry - uh no, you're looking at a dedicated child rapist here, that's not tawdry, journalist, that's vile) to the children he left behind.

I'm sceptical about the passage on contraception - she's referring to the off-prescription ulcer meds which are pretty safe early on, and contraception is available if expensive. It's definitely frowned upon, but it's not that impossible in the Philippines these days.

And the stuff about the bribes is more complicated because there's bribes to get stuff done for underpaid government workers which suck and then there's corruption bribes to get illegal stuff ignored or done which is horrific.

But two tiny passages which are basically summing up complicated things only in an otherwise pretty evenhanded piece, I'm impressed. Her take on RLC thing was great - it gets to the point where you're all "He doesn't beat his 16 year old wife? He applied for the birth certificate of the children? What a great guy."

Except mostly I just think the new thing would just be "Virgin twelve year old, sterilised!" not actual human rights.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 3:40 AM on July 13, 2015 [7 favorites]


From the article...

"During the Vietnam War it was the home of the Clark Air Base, then the largest American military facility outside the US. The base stayed open until 1991, when an eruption at Mt Pinatubo, the volcano looming 15 kilometres to the west, precipitated its closure. By then, the town of the angels had become one of the centres of Asian sex tourism."
posted by Mister Bijou at 3:59 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Thanks for posting. Horrifying stuff. The existence of this place depends on an undercurrent of misogyny caked with the thinnest veneer of denial I see in Australia. I see it here all the time, not just in the popular media, but on "generalist" forums like Whirlpool - which is just a cesspit of horror every time something vaguely gender related gets near.

The treatment that Gillard, Triggs, Hanson-Young, and even Credlin get in our popular media, on the radio, from our parliamentarians and in social media and cafe conversations across the land comes from exactly the same source. And it's supported in our society.

When I read shit like this, it makes perfect sense that we want to torture refugees: we don't give a crap about people in other countries. Indeed, we export our misery to them.
posted by smoke at 4:42 AM on July 13, 2015 [14 favorites]


"Indeed, we export our misery to them." :(
Why can't human beasts just stop. Just.. stop. Excuse this, it's hard this.

Not as hard as it is for the people forced to carry the weight of these beastly deeds.
posted by xarnop at 5:08 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


When I was in the Air Force guys who had been stationed at or gone TDY to Clark would talk with wonder about Angel City and what kind of evening $20 could get you. It was considered a single man's paradise. I wondered what would happen to places like that after Clark and Subic Bay closed, looks like the Australians were there to pick up where we left off.
posted by MikeMc at 6:27 AM on July 13, 2015 [3 favorites]


Shit, this puts my piddly-ass deadbeat dad story into a whole new perspective. Just when you start to have a little faith in the human race again.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:04 AM on July 13, 2015


Abortion, like prostitution, is illegal in the Philippines.

I get the feeling that the laws against abortion are enforced much more strictly than those against prostitution.
posted by clawsoon at 7:07 AM on July 13, 2015 [14 favorites]


When I was in the Air Force guys who had been stationed at or gone TDY to Clark would talk with wonder about Angel City and what kind of evening $20 could get you. It was considered a single man's paradise.

This is just so nauseating. "Gee, it's paradise because I can pay poor women - who are much younger and more attractive than me and with whom it is unlikely that I could sleep if they had free choice - to do whatever I want and it will cost less than dinner at Applebee's". It's stuff like this, honestly, that makes it really difficult for me to trust men, and it's so baffling. How could you want that? Why would you enjoy it? What kind of broken empathy and dead soul do you have to have? I have some respect for men who want to hire sex workers and who pay decently and act as decent clients (and I have some friends who do sex work, so it's something I understand as a real thing that real people do) but the whole thing just makes me realize that I don't understand humans, and especially not men.

Also, I think the colonialism/war piece is so important. This would never be happening if the Philippines hadn't been impoverished and attacked by European powers and the United States.
posted by Frowner at 8:16 AM on July 13, 2015 [37 favorites]


This is just so nauseating. "Gee, it's paradise because I can pay poor women - who are much younger and more attractive than me and with whom it is unlikely that I could sleep if they had free choice - to do whatever I want and it will cost less than dinner at Applebee's".

Keep in mind that many of these guys were in their late teens, maybe early twenties thousands of miles from home (most for the first time ever). I don't think they were putting a whole lot of thought into this beyond: get paid, get drunk, get laid. They would go to a bar, have a few drinks, a pretty girl would make an offer and you can figure it from there. Also, peer pressure can weigh heavily here, do you want to be the weird guy who doesn't like girls or sex? It's not as if every airman indulged but obviously there were enough of them to support the bar/prostitution industry in Angel City.
posted by MikeMc at 8:39 AM on July 13, 2015 [5 favorites]


From the United States, Australia seems like a big place. The entire adult male population of Australia is something like 8 million people. Obviously only a small percentage are involved in (we really, really need a new word for this) "Sex Tourism" of any kind, but still, most people probably have a colleague or friend or relative, or friend of a friend who is involved in this.
posted by cell divide at 8:40 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


Apologies, I've just realized my comment above doesn't make much sense. No reason to respond to it, I realize that it's dumb.
posted by cell divide at 8:42 AM on July 13, 2015


Don't worry cell divide; here in The America we still have stadiums full of fans rock out to Gary Glitter on a regular basis.
posted by buzzman at 8:49 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


As a person who grew up reading comic books to escape from That Which Needed Escaping From, and who grew up to become a superhero-y career STEAM educator who works around young students, I have a personal day dream that I have mused on occasionally of being a superhero who shows up wherever kids are in need. And I'd be like a Human Torch-type superhero.

First, I'd get the young person to safety. Then, I'd deal with the person who would injure children.

Where do I get that from? From remembering me as a kid always praying for the older version of myself to somehow show up and save me when I was the one in need.

And personally I think these men should be set on fire. Not because I'm all that vindictive but rather so that they experience what being abused feels like over a lifetime. Just all at once.
posted by Mike Mongo at 9:30 AM on July 13, 2015 [4 favorites]


I was reading Winnie the Pooh last night, and thinking about the fact that Christopher Robin's idyllic childhood was one side-effect of Empire. He had ancestors who carved out a space for him, killing off dangerous animals, impoverishing less-lucky humans, with the result that he had a carefree, innocent childhood in a safe place.

This is kind of the opposite of that. And it's also, in part, the by-product of Empire.
posted by clawsoon at 10:52 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


I disagree. I think creating a good, safe childhood for your kids is entirely possible without hurting other cultures/people. And in the long run, you are creating more dangers for them, as exploitation leads to war and instability. Doesn't do you any good to have a great childhood only to die early in combat or by an act of terrorism, or live in a country in which you have fewer and fewer freedoms due to a constant state of war.
posted by emjaybee at 10:58 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


I disagree. I think creating a good, safe childhood for your kids is entirely possible without hurting other cultures/people. And in the long run, you are creating more dangers for them, as exploitation leads to war and instability. Doesn't do you any good to have a great childhood only to die early in combat or by an act of terrorism, or live in a country in which you have fewer and fewer freedoms due to a constant state of war.

I hope this is true, and I don't disagree with you. However, in these two specific cases - Christopher Robin and the children of Angeles City - I think it's true that Empire had a lot to do with both the idyll and the horror.

It reminds me of that book about abusers - Why Does He Do That? - which points out that abusers keep abusing because of the benefits. Empires are a lot like that, too. Yes, there'll be a backlash eventually, but eventually is a long time from now.
posted by clawsoon at 11:25 AM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


Winnie the Pooh last night, and thinking about the fact that Christopher Robin's idyllic childhood

Though Christopher Milne was privileged, his life was not necessarily the idyll portrayed in the fantasy version of it. We should be careful about drawing real world conclusions from fantasy.
posted by Quinbus Flestrin at 11:39 AM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


(for other folks who are wondering, I googled and RSL is the Returned and Services League )
posted by jquinby at 12:03 PM on July 13, 2015


"Keep in mind that many of these guys were in their late teens, maybe early twenties thousands of miles from home (most for the first time ever)."

I get that but as a teen and young adult I never could have imagined using someone for sex like that without caring how much it could hurt them.

But I guess having plenty of experience being shoved into accepting others advances without complaining, I know neither to trust men, nor to trust that women who are acting like it's fine really think it's fine.

Though some might actually be fine, I know how well it can be faked to the point you yourself can't even remember when you're pretending or not. Until that pain wells up inside you again and you remember.

Maybe fewer men know what that's like. Or maybe testosterone/culturalization forces them to be terrible creatures more often than women (honestly I do actually have sympathy for this possibility).
posted by xarnop at 1:04 PM on July 13, 2015 [6 favorites]


The government involvement in sex tourism is confined mainly to sex crimes, specifically child sex crimes, on the basis that even if the offense occurred overseas and thus technically outside their jurisdiction, those citizens represent a continued danger to Australians if they were allowed to return.

Some rough figures: of the roughly 15,000 people on the Australian child sex offender watchlist (ANCOR) about 10% of them travel overseas each year - the top 4 destinations are Bali, Singapore, Bangkok, KL.

If the Australian Federal Police sees someone high risk on the watchlist traveling overseas, say to Bali, they will tell the Indonesian National Police that "a known paedophile named X is arriving in your country, on this flight, staying for Y days in this city and leaving on another flight, please do the needful and watch him closely." - just like they do for people on the drug smuggler watchlist, which is how they got Indonesia to do their dirty work for them (execution of Chan and Sukumaran)

Laws have been in place since 2010 to allow child sex offenders to be tried in Australian courts for offenses that take place in other countries if the other country's legal system are too ineffective to prosecute them - but only 30 offenders have been arrested this way, a larger amount were arrested and charged by the local police with the aid of the AFP tip-offs.

On sex tourism in general... I think the fact that sex tourism exists at all is... fundamentally due to economic inequality. I don't think we can get away from that fact. As long as some people are very rich and some people are very poor, there will be societal dysfunction.

I mean, think about the scale this represents: imagine there was another country, fabulously rich, far richer than Australia or the United States, they might as well be aliens, and they were willing to pay $100,000 a night to have sex with a guy or girl: it would be a rational choice for some people - who would pass up that kind of life changing money - and then that begins to distort every single aspect of your society. It devalues all other kinds of work. Prices of other goods become inflated.
posted by xdvesper at 4:14 PM on July 13, 2015 [8 favorites]


This is extremely depressing. I wish I had the words to express how sick this makes me.
posted by SisterHavana at 4:14 PM on July 13, 2015


"On sex tourism in general... I think the fact that sex tourism exists at all is... fundamentally due to economic inequality. I don't think we can get away from that fact."

So people who have extra money for sex are now and will always be incapable of actually investing in empowering ways in communities they are concerned about-- rather than using the fact they offer aid to sexually abuse a communities precious children?

I dunno, even if we fix economical inequality- there is still something broke in the human spirit that this is where people take witnessing injustice, suffering and need.

They see only an opportunity to abuse and exploit instead of an opportunity to commit good deeds by their fellow human beings and make the world a better place. Something that is a great honor to do for a fellow being.
posted by xarnop at 6:56 PM on July 13, 2015 [1 favorite]


On sex tourism in general... I think the fact that sex tourism exists at all is... fundamentally due to economic inequality. I don't think we can get away from that fact. As long as some people are very rich and some people are very poor, there will be societal dysfunction.

I don't think they are easy things to separate, but there is a big element as well of people traveling in order to behave in ways that are stigmatized at home (like getting day-drunk in public, say). People want to do those things but social pressure prevents doing so at home, while traveling allows quite extreme versions of "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" and people will do some extraordinarily awful things.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:46 PM on July 13, 2015 [2 favorites]


The entire adult male population of Australia is something like 8 million people. Obviously only a small percentage are involved in (we really, really need a new word for this) "Sex Tourism" of any kind, but still, most people probably have a colleague or friend or relative, or friend of a friend who is involved in this.

Oh, I would say most Australians not only know someone who is involved in sex tourism, they know they know someone who is.

I actually don't know anyone who has ever mentioned to going to the Philippines for sex (or the Philippines at all, come to think of it), but going to, say, Thailand for sex tourism (or at least partaking in it while they're there, even if it isn't the primary point of their trip) is something that many Australian guys talk about pretty openly. Prostitution is legal in quite a bit of Australia, so it's generally a less taboo subject than in the States, but I'm not sure many people stop to think about the difference between a licensed brothel in a first-world country versus what is being described in the article.
posted by retrograde at 8:19 PM on July 13, 2015


I used to do work for a program based in Thailand, and I met this guy who visited there regularly. He said he came to buy knock-offs of designer stuff, but I'm pretty sure that he came because of the prostitution. He was obsessed with it. Over the course of a few encounters he explained that it wasn't just the sex; it was the whole procedure of trawling the bars, seeing who was available, making a selection, and so forth. I read similar accounts on websites for expats: "old hands" were explaining that it was like a candy shop, you didn't need to jump at the first opportunity, you didn't need to feel pressured into paying more than the going rate (maybe $20-$30?), you didn't need to buy "lady drinks" (fake drinks, part of the cost of which goes to the sex worker you buy it for). Heaven forfend you let them get away with anything other than the transaction you came for.

It's very easy to say HURF DURF CAPITALISM but I'm convinced that this power imbalance was part of the attraction: the customers didn't want "sex"; they wanted the feeling of control. Their lousy few dollars got them a woman who would fawn over them all evening and they had selected her. There was no fear of rejection, no fear that the encounter would be anything other than what they wanted. And if they so desired - and this would be up to them - a few dollars more would give them her company all night. That sort of encounter is not something I could desire, but it seems very clear to me that it's what they were looking for. You just can't separate the sex out and call it a commercial transaction. It's ... well, it's kinda rapey and creepy.

And that's even without the pedophilia, and without the child-abandonment which is very possibly a thing in Thailand as well.
posted by Joe in Australia at 10:30 PM on July 13, 2015 [9 favorites]


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