Beautiful Khmer women and the men who exploit them

Ubiquitous sights in Asia include motorbike drivers in surgical masks, face moles with hairs measuring several inches, and pot-bellied white men in stained t-shirts and man-sandals holding hands and walking beside beautiful Asian women (or girls) wearing short skirts and sad, vacant expressions.

As I write in a breezy, outdoor café called Green Mango, two white guys sit across from young Khmer girls at nearby tables. The sight usually makes me indignant. I know Westerners and Khmers can fall in love. But why is the Westerner is almost always an old dude snagging himself a much younger Cambodian girlfriend? Of course, professional, non-sexpat men here have Cambodian girlfriends and wives. I know some of them—they’re journalists and lawyers and businesspeople. I simply find it hard to believe that in addition to vast cultural differences and language barriers, you can find deep, meaningful connection with someone 30 years your junior.

Now, the idea that a great relationship comes out of a “deep, meaningful” connection is of course a Western construct. Why can’t a relationship be pragmatic, with each person contributing what he or she has to offer (money/security, sexiness/delicious amok)? I suppose it can. Perhaps it’s American women's addiction to romantic comedies that makes us so stuck on the idea of true love. And perhaps my belief in this myth is the reason I feel so quick to admonish the pairing of the gross-old-dude/beautiful-young-girl-without-many-options. I have the privilege to pursue romance.

So my whole premise is in part based on imbedded Paternalism. I want to pull those girls away from those men, tell the guys “Shame on you,” and teach the girls they have other choices than laying underneath that slob. Trouble is, they sometimes don’t. And moreso, even if they do have alternatives, many would prefer the life they’ve chosen. Ultimately, isn’t that their right? Nicolas Kristoff, the Times columnist, has set off a firestorm of criticism recently for his assertion that sweatshops help the world's poor. Perhaps even more incindiary was his attempt to play savior a few years ago, when he bought two teenage sex-workers in Cambodia from a brothel. One of the girls went straight back to her madam. This is the problem of meddling without offering a sustainable alternative. These women surely would've benefited more from membership in a union for sex workers and free health care than from Kristoff's misguided attempts to play God.

Before I left the United States, I sat on a flight from New York City to Buffalo, flipping through the channels on JetBlue TV. I landed on Dateline, whose addictive formula of luring sad characters to a house and then parading their depraved desires before millions of viewers has become a cultural phenomenon. Few stop to analyze what appeals to them about watching a show about men who want to have sex with children, but I think that bizarre double-standard deserves a proper assessment by a team of social psychologists.

This particular week, Chris Hansen & Co. had organized a Cambodia-specific “How to Catch a Predator.” It focused on a village outside Phnom Penh whose main export is virgins. I watched in horror at the country I was about to call home. Thousands of pedophiles visit the town, and others in Cambodia, annually, to have sex with children, often as young as infants. Tens of thousands more come to have sex with teenagers and young women and men. It seems as though every other day, we read in the paper about an arrest of a man accused of sleeping with 17 minors.

The question is, how do we balance a gut-instinct revulsion to exploitation with letting adults make their own choices? Relationships between two opportunistic adults becomes muddied in a place where child abuse and violence against women is often met with impunity. Recently, Cambodia started cracking down on prostitution. Their approach—busting brothels and arresting the prostitutes—does nothing to protect the women. It just adds to their daily risk of assault. Newspaper reports of police gang raping arrested prostitutes are common.

This is the reality of Cambodia, no need for Dateline sensationalism. It’s maddening and saddening, and makes me wonder if it’s at all possible to convert my indignance into something productive.