To dislike men who seek out foreign brides

[Hartley99]

There are quite a few documentaries about this on YouTube. The guy is usually ugly or boring or nerdy (usually all three). He claims to be ‘looking for love,’ when in reality, of course, he’s looking for a sexual partner. So he goes online and searches for girls in poor countries - often Thailand or Russia. In almost every case the girl is younger and/or much more attractive than him.

Recently, there was a documentary on channel 4, and I ended up having an argument with someone at work about it. They thought the whole thing was ‘sweet’ and funny and couldn’t see anything wrong. To them it made sense. The guy got to have sex with a girl out of his league, and the girl got to move to a richer country with more opportunities. To me it just seemed revolting. However you spin it, they are taking advantage of her poverty. They know that she wouldn’t look twice at them in any other circumstance. Apparently, after the invasion of Ukraine there was a massive spike in men looking for Ukrainian brides online. I mean that says it all. Or am I being uptight and judgemental?

https://juliebindel.substack.com/p/female-sex-tourism-white-middle-aged

Read this, pretty accurate and gives a clear reason why women go there.

It’s quite simple. The women are using their money to buy what’s attractive and for the most part these predatory women find African and Caribbean men more attractive than say Thai or Filipino men.

And tbh, I’m not sure if as many Thai men would accept these women’s advance even to escape poverty. Some men would rather starve than be with a woman they found physically unattractive / old enough to be their mum or gran. Literally.

Fetishisation. And plain old exploitation.

I don' think it is sweet, or anything like that... but these blokes want a companion to shag, do housework etc, and feel wanted, and the woman wants a bloke to provide for her. They are using each other.

There is a chap who frequents my local Costa who has a Thai bride. They have been together for years, and looking at them, you would think they would have met naturally in a bar or something. They are very happy.

Yea exactly! People in need of something that are willing to exchange for it

im sorry to be so blunt but you are just naive

We are all bought and sold to a degree every day. I mean the fact we go to work for an employer or a client means we are selling our skills etc for money

The world is unfortunately very cold and harsh. Focusing on just one aspect like in this case is frankly a waste of time

to be brutally blunt how is that different from some of the marriages in the UK ? Think of Bernie ecclestone - I mean he is a very successful man but hardly a catch and yet married the most beautiful women. With your logic that is also "prostitution "

how on earth can you say "it seems icky at first glance?"

Total double standards and judgement also

Again that is purely subjective - you could argue either way

let me make it easier for you to understand. My point is that you are saying she is only with him for the money and power. Very judgemental!

I thought like this until I stated working with a woman from Thailand who married an English guy. She told me what her life would have been like had she stayed. Now I understand.

I know a grubby man who went to Thailand to get a young girl. She came back over here and I met her, she was lovely. Later I saw him without her. He told me he dumped her back to Thailand as she wouldn't sleep with him. He was yukky, she really was the sensible one.

I don't think she's all that bothered about the power tbh. That would be their daughter.

I think many of us understand from the perspective of the women. They are choosing the least worst option. This is why its so frustrating to read 'it's a choice' as a justification for the men. Because it implies the women choose marriage to them from an array of other acceptable options.
Equally frustrating is the justification the men have 'given them a better life' which frames their selfishness as a good deed. It may be a choice, it may be a better life (if you ignore those who are abused, treated as servants, ostracised, restricted in a way that inhibits their individual development and autonomy) but its not a choice any woman should have to make.
Addressing that is a huge task, and I'm not holding Colin and Bernard responsible for finding a solution. Just not being part of the problem would be a start.

Exactly. Not all choices are equal.

Plenty of British/western women marry for money.

I guess it depends on what 'least worst' entails.

If the woman is looking at a lifetime of poverty, drudgery and childbearing with a potentially violent man in her home village or a slightly dull life with a below average looking guy in the UK, then 'least worse' might actually be 'dream life'.

It's all going to come down to what the man is like. The woman is obviously taking a big risk moving thousands of miles from home with a man that could be abusive.

He might actually be a really nice guy that's never managed to attract a partner in the UK (or he might not).

Really nice guys don't struggle to attract partners in the UK. Unfortunately, genuinely nice guys are not so commonplace capacity exceeds demand. If a man is struggling to attract a partner in the UK, one of two things are likely to be true. Either he's restricting his choices to women of a particular age or attractiveness level that doesn't match his own, or he isn't as nice as he thinks he is.
Obviously there is a vocal cohort of single men who are strongly resistent to that. Rather than reflect on their own desirability and manage their expectations, they prefer to believe the fault lies with the women rejecting them and that the women who will accept them are 'right' rather than merely desperate.
There's also something that doesn't sit right with me about the suggestion that men 'not good enough' for western women will 'do' for women from abroad. A man's suitability and attractiveness as a partner shouldn't ebb and flow depending on the relative desperation of the women concerned.

"They should know their place"

Lovely.

Well heaven forbid a man acknowledge that he's not actually as attractive as he thinks he is... Obviously all the women here are just wrong. Women here don't want them, so they go off and find one who needs them. As if "nice" enough is the only standard women are allowed to have for their partner.

Who should?

But western women who marry for money aren't desperate. They live in a country with free healthcare and welfare support. They make the choice to marry for money because, let's be honest, they are shallow and hard. Most women couldn't do that. Sure, they might be wary of marrying a lazy bum, or a man with debts, and they might be extra impressed by lots of money, but there would have to be more. There would have to be some affection and attraction as well.

A girl from a poor rural part of Russia or Thailand doesn't have that choice. If she comes from a large family, they may depend on her. She may have sick or ageing parents and grandparents. People on this thread have got angry and accused me of patronising them – suggesting I think a Thai girl isn't intelligent enough to make her own choices. My point is she often doesn't have a choice. No pretty 25-year-old would choose to marry a fat, bald 60-year-old man she barely knows.

Sure there are cultural differences. And no doubt in some cultures people do value status and prestige above love and romance. But they think that way because of poverty. In a wealthy country, where women are well-educated and free to live life on their own terms, few would move to the other side of the world to marry a man 30 years older who they barely know. They'd marry for love. Or they wouldn't bother at all (as is increasingly the case).

I agree that you must judge such relationships individually. It's easy to slip into cliches and stereotypes. Not every single older westerner with a young Thai bride is the same. She may have come to the UK to work as a nurse, for example, or to visit family, and there may have been a genuine attraction. It's the men who join dating agencies that match young girls from poor countries with old, or unattractive, men from rich ones. That's what I loathe. I watched a documentary in which a man who ran one of these dating sites angrily defended himself and claimed it was all about love and romance and so on. It's sickening to watch. He's in it for money. Both he and the men who join are exploiting the girls.

Whenever there is a thread about this or commercial surrogacy the arguments about business transactions and everybody being happy and agency and choice always come up. The only reason the agencies and websites organising these things target poor women in poor countries is because those women don't have great options. Rich countries are outsourcing the problem of chauvinist men onto women trapped in poverty.

Have you ever considered that these men, that you clearly have such a low opinion of (you're a bully IMHO) might actually be considered a catch in another country?

Just because you think them to be beneath you, doesn't mean that other women think the same.

From my experience living in the a Far East, just being Western moves to you up a couple of places in terms of attractiveness. If you're tall and blonde/blue eyes that's another couple of places. Men that women in the uk might only consider to be a '3' might be a '7+’ in Asia.

Who exactly am I supposed to be bullying? This is what I'm on about, you're offended by the mere suggestion that a woman might not be attracted to an unspecified man.