![\"Inside](\"http:\/\/costaricasex.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/fusion2.jpeg\")
<\/a>Costa Rica\u2019s sex tourism industry used to be the exclusive province of graying gringos groping their way through their final throbs of virility.<\/p>\n
Elderly American sex tourists \u2014 or \u201cmongers,\u201d as they call themselves with a touch of pride\u2014 travel to San Jos\u00e9 for catch-and-release \u201cfishing trips,\u201d only not the kind you\u2019re thinking of. Instead of heading out to sea, most mongers spend their days and nights sweating on barstools in Costa Rica\u2019s landlocked capital, casting amorous lines at young sex workers in hopes of reeling in a curvy \u201cTica\u201d in a low-cut cocktail dress.<\/p>\n
San Jos\u00e9\u2019s Hotel Del Rey and Casino is sometimes called the most famous brothel in Costa Rica, or \u2014in more breathless moments\u2014 the world. That superlative might be a bit of a stretch, but the Del Rey certainly has a far-reaching reputation as an international house of tryst.<\/p>\n
Prostitution is legal in Costa Rica<\/a>, but pimping is not. That makes meet-up places like the Del Rey and the neighboring Key Largo bar so popular. On any given night of the week, legal-age sex workers from Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Panama, and occasionally Eastern Europe mix it up with beer-breathed gringos in their 50s and 60s and \u2014thanks to the wonders of pharmaceutical advances \u2014 occasionally guys in their 70s or 80s.<\/p>\n But that scene is starting to change. Recently a newer generation of prurient 20- and 30-somethings are starting to elbow out the geriatrics at the bar. They aren\u2019t exactly unsung heroes of their day, but these younger sex-minded tourists are breaking the generation barrier and tearing down old prejudices that have long made Costa Rica\u2019s mongering scene an old white man\u2019s game.<\/p>\n \u201cThe U.S., with its Puritan roots, looks down on this type of behavior. But it\u2019s normal in many parts of the world,\u201d says Michael, a 31-year-old sex-tourism proselytizer who brought five buddies to Costa Rica for a vacation in late January \u2014 his sixth such trip in seven years. \u201cI have some friends back home who don\u2019t like the idea, but the vast majority do, even if they think they\u2019re not going to at first. Once they try it, they get over their preconceived notions pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael, a surprisingly sober and good-looking lad who claims he has no problem \u201cgetting girls\u201d back home, says he likes sex tourism because it\u2019s \u201cconvenient\u201d and \u201cstraightforward.\u201d Then he blathered some crap about how he \u201cloves and appreciates women, so it\u2019s an artistic thing\u201d and how \u201cmore successful people \u2014 athletes and actors \u2014 do this all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael\u2019s friend Bob, also from New York, leans on the bar next to him, wearing an ill-fitting Spanish league soccer jersey that makes him look openly unathletic. Bob says he\u2019s on his first sex tourism trip, but he boasts with a hint of adventurous pride that he\u2019s already taken four prostitutes up the elevator to his room.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s awesome,\u201d Bob says, a little louder than necessary. \u201cWhen you walk into the bar, every girl checks you out. Now I know what it feels like to be a girl.\u201d<\/p>\n Bob whips out his iPhone and, with the pride and slight awkwardness of any collector, shows me the photos of the sex workers he\u2019s been with over the past week. Then he opens his WhatsApp and shows me the ongoing chats he\u2019s maintained in strained Spanglish with his new sex-worker friends. \u201cLook, one of them even let me make a video.\u201d<\/p>\n I nodded companionably.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not only young gringos who are dabbling in sex tourism. In other Latin American countries, where attitudes towards prostitution are more relaxed, paying for sex is just not that big of a deal. In fact, it\u2019s not uncommon for young Latin American men to have their first sexual encounter with a sex worker, paid for by dad, who is eager to test his son\u2019s \u201cmanhood.\u201d<\/p>\n And for those who lost their virginity in the rented embrace of a sex worker, going back for more doesn\u2019t require a suspension of morality.<\/p>\n \u201cAm I a sex tourist? Yeah, I guess so,\u201d laughs Ruben, a 27-year-old banker from Mexico City. \u201cEcotourism was part of the attraction to Costa Rica, but I knew about the prostitution here and I wasn\u2019t going to leave without doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n Ruben said that Mexico doesn\u2019t have the same \u201cstigma or prejudice\u201d about prostitution found in the United States. Still, it\u2019s not something he partakes in at home, \u201cbecause it\u2019s dangerous and you don\u2019t know which ones are transvestites.\u201d<\/p>\n Ruben said he hired a Dominican prostitute in a bar at Costa Rica\u2019s Playa Jac\u00f3, which has quickly become the main coastal hub for Central America\u2019s sex tourism industry. On any given night, a throng of 80-100 sex workers \u2014 mostly Colombians and Dominicans \u2014 press up against young American surfers in tightening board shorts.<\/p>\n Ruben says he doesn\u2019t have any regrets about going for it, although he admits it took a bite out of his daily budget. \u201cIt cost $100, but was worth it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll tell my parents and friends about it, but will probably leave out some of the details.\u201d<\/p>\n Sex workers acknowledge that their clients are getting younger and younger. On a recent weekend visit, I polled several dozen sex workers at the Del Rey and Key Largo\u2014 let\u2019s call it Fusion\u2019s Unscientific and Slightly Salacious Sex Survey (FUSSSS). Invariably, they all reported that their youngest gringo clients were somewhere between the ages of 18-22. In fact, some of the johns are getting so young that even the sex workers are starting to feel a little uncomfortable with the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the young guys come in here looking for older women,\u201d said Nuria, a fit-looking sex worker north of 40. \u201cPersonally, I won\u2019t go with anyone as young as 18 or 19; I have no interest in boys. Just like I won\u2019t go with drunks or men old enough to die in bed.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo what age do you like?\u201d I asked, immediately wishing I hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n \u201cYour age,\u201d Nuria replied with a bedroom wink. Then her friend gently touched my forearm and mentioned the possibility of something called a \u201cclub sandwich,\u201d to which I valiantly doffed my cap and repaired in haste to the comfortable anonymity of another bar.<\/p>\n So why are sex tourists getting younger? Could it be that dating apps like Tinder have conditioned young men for a more transactional approach to hooking up? Conceivably. Could it be that this article is entirely overwritten and struggling to find a meaningful conclusion? Perhaps.<\/p>\n \u201cI do believe that Tinder has propagated the idea of consequence-less sex, but I do not think it has become a tool that has mobilized the acceptance of prostitution among young men and women,\u201d says Aditi Paul, a PhD candidate at Michigan State University who last year published a study about online dating behaviors.<\/p>\n Instead, Paul says, the \u201csexcapades\u201d of young men in foreign brothels is probably something more akin to the Vegas effect.<\/p>\n \u201cThey might approach the whole thing as, \u2018What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas\u2019,\u201d Paul said. \u201cSo even if they participate in such an activity that they might consider as debauchery in normal situations, since they are in a foreign land it becomes acceptable. This kind of mentality, together with their preconceived idea of casual sex, could lead to higher participation in prostitution.\u201d<\/p>\n Whatever it is, it can quickly become a thing for guys like Michael from New York.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>