In the affluent West, ageing is a lonely affair. Many elderly people in the First World live alone in houses and apartments. In a lot of cases the road ultimately leads to an aged care facility — the final departure lounge from this world, so to speak. Even as better medical technology makes death increasingly optional there the inevitability of being alone becomes more certain for most people.
But for the young in the Third World, this poignant fate awaiting Western Europeans and North Americans presents vast opportunity. As the population of the affluent First World ages, there will be more money its people will be spending on something they cannot buy locally — companionship.
Commentor Ronald Montemayor observed…
| SUPPORT INDEPENDENT SOCIAL COMMENTARY! Subscribe to our Substack community GRP Insider to receive by email our in-depth free weekly newsletter. Opt into a paid subscription and you'll get premium insider briefs and insights from us. Subscribe to our Substack newsletter, GRP Insider! Learn more |
I’ve been to a lot of internet cafes where Pinay teenagers chat with multiple foreigners to hook-up with them (i.e. become their boyfriends aka sugar daddies), it came to a point that it has become a cottage industry here in this country.
The same technologies and services that cater to overseas foreign workers (OFWs) that has made it easy for money to flow into the Philippines from the affluent world now serves the needs of lonely Western males looking to hook up with young Filipino ladies for long-distance virtual relationships. Indeed, the Philippines is poised to use 21st Century technology for its unique brand of enterprise. This time rather than remittances being pushed into Philippine shores by an army of overseas foreign workers (OFWs), cash will be pulled in by girls sitting in front of screens and Webcams parcelling out their attention across multiple open chat sessions.
As the demand for this “service” grows, so too will the aspirations of many young girls degenerate commensurately. The lure of an easy source of income requiring very little investment in education and scant development of traditional marketable skills is just too tempting for a millenial generation raised on a diet of the instant celebrity the country’s entertainment industry routinely serves up over local television and cinema.
What is the source of Filipinas’ irresistible allure to European and North American men? Johnny Lis who moved from London to the Philippines and has lived there for three years offers some insight to The Telegraph UK…
One of the main attractions for male expats here is that many girls, particularly those from less well-off backgrounds, will actively seek relationships with foreigners, no matter how old, overweight, and generally unappealing they would be to most people.
Primarily that would be for financial reasons but it’s something of a status symbol as well for a local to have a foreign boyfriend/husband (it’s also to do with an innate desire to have light skinned children – ‘whitening’ skin products are everywhere).
The average foreign man here will be retired/divorced, but you do also get a few younger ‘digital nomads’ as well, both are just as likely to end up in relationships in my experience.
The matchmaking site Christian Filipina offers sound advise to men who are seeking romance with Filipino women over the Net. Foremost of all (by itself important enough to be used as the title of the article) is to never send money to someone you’ve never met. The site managers evidently cannot emphasise this enough and go on to assert…
Our advice is don’t do it. By sending money before you have met someone, even just a few dollars, you are risking ruining a potentially good connection. As soon as someone receives money, then the pressure from family and friends to think of you as an ATM machine starts. Just don’t risk it. Save the money, and buy a plane ticket to go visit as soon as possible. We insist – don’t send money to someone you haven’t met, under any circumstances, for any reason, period.
Not surprisingly, good advise is rarely heeded and the lure of direct channels to the hundreds of thousands of Filipino women trawling the Net and amassing vast portfolios of red-blooded foreign men is harder to resist what with Facebook and dozens of chat apps that can be installed on smart phones, tablets, and computers providing video-calling facilities becoming more and more embedded into the fabric of society.
benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.com.
Not to mention the “pay-per-view” thing, can be easily done now with the current tech accessible to almost everyone. I think it’s part of that “service” you mentioned.
(just registered, testing comment post. Keep it up GRP!)
That is just the dark side of the BPO trade.
Another country high on BPO (and mendicant attitudes among many) has made an official business out of this: http://www.vice.com/read/bucharest-webcam-studios-america-outsourcing-sex-trade
The true masters of the scam trade are the Russians (including Ukraine, Belarus) usually with men running things in the background: http://www.russian-dating-scams.com/scams/first_things_to_know.htm
“As soon as someone receives money, then the pressure from family and friends to think of you as an ATM machine starts”
…Lol.
And that’s one of the many reasons why nobody in the outside world treat us fairly. We degraded ourselves as a slave producing nation. How cool is that? (insert face palm)
That’s why when we host something (aka APEC) with the international community they never take us seriously. I mean come on, girls are willing to sacrifice their morality to some petty cash? most Religious Asian country? Desperate? Sacrifice?!? Come on people.
They would rather leech on some foreigner (mainly money in exchange for “#companionship” #suki_xxx) than to work as a clerk which is a very decent job. That is just sick on so many levels.
I am the mirror, the one who projects this society. A great pretender armed with false appearance of virtue or goodness, while concealing real character or inclinations. I am da hypocrite, I am a Filipino.
#It’sTrulyMoreFunInthePhilippinesSexIndustry
Men from First World countries; worked mostly of their entire lives. The Children grow up; have families of their own. Spouses die; and they are left alone in their old age. The Children have to earn their living.
Old people (men/women) usually end up, in a nursing home; cared for by some TNT Filipino workers.
Why not get a young spouse from the Philippines? The care is good. There is VIAGRA for sex. Maybe, you can start again another family. And, you don’t end up dying alone in a nursing home. A good young wife is much better than a TNT Filipino nursing home worker. So, go for it!!!
Who knows, the partnership with white, old, and obese caucasians can produce another miss universe or miss world.
“… in a nursing home; cared for by some TNT Filipino workers.”
I am sure you are refering to USA bec no Filipina or Filipino is allowed to work in the EU till after she/he has complied to a few rules/laws. And to be hired to do that, one needs very specific diplomas.
The TNT caregivers in the EU will usually be from the poorer EU countries. Some will even be scammers or inheritance hunters, just like there are allegedly groups of Russian women who exchange information on how to divorce Western European men in such a way that they – and their possible boyfriends back home – can live well on it.
@B. R. Salazar,
In dutch wedding/marriage law, a couple can decide to have a civil wedding in 2 ways (or or, not both obviously):
1) married with common ownership of property (Dutch: gehuwd in gemeenschap van goederen)
2) married prenuptial agreement (Dutch: gehuwd op huwelijkse voorwaarden)
During a divorce settlement in the former case, everything is split in half; while a divorce settlement in the latter case, its about what each brought in at the start of the wedding, will be his/hers.
Most (richer) guys/girls are too naive to opt for the latter option. So that means – although one party is clearly less rich than the other at the start of the wedding – that the richer party will be stripped to the bone because they choose for option 1.
Your statement is correct and accurate. It does happen as described by you.
@Robert:
I am referring to the Filipino TNTs in the U.S.A. The Nursing Homes pay them below the minimum wage level.
Anybody can become a nursing home worker, without any training or diploma in America.
So, this is where most of the Filipino TNTs work, under the table deal; with the worst working conditions and low pay.
@Hayden,
I thought so (USA).
Just to add/compare:
In my country (Netherlands) it is almost impossible to get a job without a diploma. Paying below minimum wage is also almost impossible and it is also against the law (exploitation). Having more than one paid job is also a rarity.
Then why not go to even less developed (hence, cheaper) countries like Rwanda, Ethiopia or Congo?
As one who is just that, a retired Caucasian American man with no wife and grown children, I retort. For ten years I spent more hours than I can count seeking a woman from Thailand or Philippines.This involved numerous subscriptions to dating sites then visiting first Thailand in 2009 then the Philippines in 2011. Since then I have returned many times.
I do not drink alcohol. I have never been to a bar here or had a bar girl or prostitute. Currently I stay in the Philippines. Why not?
I abided by the rule of don’t send money until visiting. Then a 42 yr old Filipina in Laguna rocked my boat and I was hooked. Four years later I catfished her and that dream died.
Now with a 50 year old woman of substance and could not be happier in Pampanga. I do see the obese (or not) Caucasian with young Filipinas here at the mall. I tried that also with a 27 yr old really nice girl here who wanted to be devoted to me. She is kind, smart, sweet, sexy, capable. I chose the 50 yr old woman of substance and beauty for my life now.
The great thing about online: do it correctly. Write letters! You find out the education and intelligence. Have conversations by text chatting. You find out how self-centered she is (maybe). Then have polite video chats after awhile. It is like a traditional courtship. Do it right and you get gold.
“Growing Filipino cottage industry attracts lonely First World ‘sugardaddies’.”
That’s been going on for generations and the whole world knows about it; we’re just now talking about it because we’re running out of things to talk about.
Politics and prostitution in the Failippines have to be the only jobs where inexperience is considered a virtue.
I was recently talking to another ex-pat friend about this phenomena of older first world men hooking-up with Filipina women who are typically one fourth their age. My ex-pat friend mentioned that she and her friends have coined a term for these men: LAH. I asked what the acronym meant. She replied “Losers at Home”.
I’m sure there are exceptions.
@Aryianna,
guilty as charged. I am such a “loser at home” kinda of type.
Please let me try to explain how such types come about.
Some men are looking for a specific kind of woman as their future wives. They (the women) must be docile, submissive, not outspoken and certainly must not have an opinion of her own.
These men must have been in a relationship with a woman from their own country but got disappointed by how these women interact. It probably resulted in the fact that those men got very frustrated. Ultimately they divorced their wives and ended up quite (absolute or relatively) old.
Because most (or even all) Filipino women are raised with the nature of Delikadesa, these are the perfect type of women for those guys.
I am sure most of these guys dont see themselves as losers. They actually hit the “jackpot”. They got what they want.
A perfect example of this is portrayed and shown in the documentary “Father Figures”
http://www.fatherfiguresdocumentary.com/
Documentary
A lifetime of family. A shocking discovery. An impossible choice.
Father Figures is a POV documentary that journeys behind the lens of Canadian filmmaker April Butler as she examines her own 73-year-old father’s romantic relationship with a 23-year-old woman living in the Philippines.
Dale met Girlie on-line and 2 months later announced their engagement. Dale has moved Girlie from her family home in Roxas City, Philippines to a nearby apartment they both share. A wedding is on the horizon and Girlie is also hoping for a baby.
What begins as a quirky love story about family and a future step-mother half the filmmaker’s age, soon spirals into a world of poverty and western entitlement. As she follows the couple throughout Asia, April begins to wonder who is conning whom. Her moral compass already on high alert, all bets are off when an accidental discovery reveals a lie sending shock waves through Canadian and Filipino communities.
The filmmaker finds herself at a heart wrenching crossroads…at what price does the cost of family become too much?
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1pewgp_x1k77xi-father-figures-documentary-shortfilms_shortfilms
It is refreshing to have some people talk openly about a subject that has, heretofore, been just whispered about or glossed over. This practice of ‘hooking up’ without being actually a ‘hooker’, however mendicant or opportunistic it is, seems to fit ‘hand-in-glove’ with the mores and moral attitudes of the country today. “One man’s sinkhole is another man’s gold mine”. “Instant gratification” and “whatever works to achieve it, is fair game”. The problem with this, though, is that nothing happens in a vacuum.. what one does or does not do affects others. An example is set and accepted, and there’s always a sneaking feeling that there’s nothing wrong with doing it ourselves. What’s more is that, if it is wrong, it really isn’t our fault. It’s always the others’, or, “isn’t everybody else doing it”? It is unfortunate that the need to ‘get by’ or just plain envy trumps the need to preserve Filipino customs and traditions.
Doesn’t culture matter any more?