After more than a decade in the adult industry as Samantha X, and then running my own escort agency, there isn’t much I haven’t seen, heard or done.
But when I learned about Losers Back Home – the dirty old men who move to Pattaya, the sex capital of Thailand – and what they get up to there, I was shocked to my core.
And believe me, if I’m disgusted, you know it’s rotten.
In case you didn’t already know, Losers Back Home (or LBHs) are Western men, often divorced or simply rejected by women in their own country, who pack up their socks and sandals and flee to Thailand looking for sex with women who are usually searching for a way out of poverty.
In many cases, they ‘fall in love’ with a local young enough to be their daughter.
But don’t you dare call it sex tourism or prostitution; they will surely baulk at that. Oh, no, these men have met their ‘soulmate’. These women ‘love them back’.
They hang on their every word. They obey their instructions. They make them feel young again.
Not like their ex-wives – the ‘nags’ who did nothing but ‘bitch and moan’.
After more than a decade in the adult industry as Samantha X, and then running my own escort agency, there isn’t much I haven’t seen, heard or done, writes Mail+ columnist Amanda Goff
No, this is real love, uncomplicated by the mundane domesticity of a long marriage with an age-appropriate woman.
But let’s be real about these ‘relationships’.
These young women may appear to be ‘in love’ – and they all deserve Oscars, if you ask me – but it’s a façade.
And why wouldn’t you deliver the performance of a lifetime for a man who is covering your rent and the bills?
And the fact he’s helping with childcare or throwing some cash at your extended family to keep things sweet probably helps too.
Now, before I continue, let me be clear: I have absolutely no issue with men paying for sex. Most things in life are transactional – just ask any divorce lawyer.
I built a career out of men paying for sex, but that’s where the similarities end between my former clients and these LBH’s in Thailand.
My clients weren’t delusional. They didn’t think I was in love with them, nor did they seek to control me with their money. They paid for my time, then left afterwards.
‘When I heard about Losers Back Home – the dirty old men who move to Pattaya, the sex capital of Thailand – and what they get up to there, I was shocked to my core,’ says Amanda. (Pictured: characters from HBO series The White Lotus)
I had nothing in common with a 21-year-old Thai woman who has spent her whole life dancing around poverty and sees another woman’s grandfather as a ticket to survival.
In my opinion, there is a vast difference between men who pay for discretion and intimacy from a sex worker in a country like Australia to those men who abandon their families to live a pathetic fantasy that starts in the cocktail bars of Pattaya.
It’s an abuse of power, pure and simple.
I once met a woman whose ageing father now lives in Pattaya with his 23-year-old ‘fiancée’, while his ex-wife is back home picking up the pieces of their shattered life together.
This woman no longer speaks to her dad. Their last communication was an email from him saying his new partner ‘makes him feel young again’.
Reading it made her feel physically ill.
Another friend of mine has an uncle who went to Bangkok for a work trip and never came home. His wife sometimes wonders what she did wrong.
He’d ‘met’ a young Thai woman, probably while loitering around a red light district with his colleagues ‘for a laugh’.
I once met a woman whose ageing father now lives in Pattaya with his 23-year-old ‘fiancée’, while his ex-wife is back home picking up the pieces of their shattered life together. (Pictured: a stock image of a red light district in Bangkok)
‘He won’t say she’s a sex worker but he seems to be handing over money to her and her family every week,’ the friend told me.
And here’s the most shocking thing: these men think they’re Superman by rescuing these women from poverty and giving them a ‘better life’.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t see all of these Thai women as victims. Many are smart, strong and fully aware they’ve struck gold. Good for them.
But, please, let’s not pretend these are love stories. And let’s not indulge the idea that these LBH’s are knights in shining armour.
Thailand is a beautiful country. Thai women are not a last-chance saloon for pasty white men rejected by Western dating culture.
There’s a reason why every woman cringes when they see an older man strutting around Thailand like he’s the cock of the walk.
We know what you are. And we see your adult daughters back home quietly asking themselves if they ever truly knew the man they once called ‘dad’.
