In Search of the Big Bamboo

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Since the early 1970s, Barbados has become a popular destination for female tourists seeking what the sociologist Graham Dann has called "close encounters of the Third World kind." Young males—"beach boys"—cruise the sands in search of unattached tourist women. Beach boys are easy to spot because of their distinctive wardrobe: They go in for T-shirts, baggy swimming trunks, Teva sandals, gold bracelets, and brand-name sunglasses, preferably Oakley or Ray-Ban. They are without exception physically fit. Some have bleached hair, and a few sport baby dreadlocks, called "nubbies."

A beach boy might rent out beach chairs and umbrellas for a living; he might sell coconuts or aloe vera or coral or handcrafted jewelry. He might deal drugs. But most beach boys spend their days leading tourists to water: renting out Jet Skis, giving water-skiing lessons, organizing sailboat trips, staffing glass-bottomed boats. These jobs are usually part-time or seasonal, and the relatively low wages they command are insufficient to maintain the enviable beach boy lifestyle. Beach boys require the latest clothes and shoes, immodest jewelry, meals and drinks at pricey tourist restaurants and nightclubs. Hustling female tourists earns them these necessities.

Sex tourists advertise their availability in various ways. Novices are much more likely to travel in groups, and they respond warmly to the faintest invitation: "Is this your first visit to Barbados?" or "Would you like to come on a Jet Ski ride with me?" The veteran sex tourist is much more direct. She sits on the sand alone, masked by designer shades, scouting for the most appealing beach boy. If the wrong one saunters over, she sends him away. Of course, the older she is, the less discriminating she can afford to be.

Even before the initial encounter, a beach boy is able to glean some information about a potential client from her swimwear, her reading material, her accent. This sizing up is important: Beach boys have a hierarchy of preferred clients based on nationality, affluence, age, and attractiveness. A wealthy, attractive French Canadian in her 30s tops most lists. My informants believe that French Canadian women have prodigious sexual appetites and a correspondingly inexhaustible supply of gifts. (Among the beach boys of Martinique, Air Canada is known as Air Couconne, or Air Pussy.) Germans and other Europeans rank below French Canadians. Young Brits are fine in a pinch, but they are usually on a tight budget; older British women are preferable. Young white American women are at the bottom of the hierarchy, because their racial hang-ups are said to translate into sexual inhibitions. Black American women are preferable, if they're rich, but a black female tourist does not do much to enhance a beach boy's status. As one beach boy told me, "I can get a black girl anytime."

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