British men choosing foreign wives for their "Stepfordesqeness"

[margerykemp]

For want of a better word but hopefully ykwim.

Based on my sample size of 4 (doubt if there is research on this) I have noticed British men marrying Mediterranean/Asian women and then experencing v different marriages than their friends with UK wives. The 4 in question are quite mysogynistic in general but the way they treat their wives, I cannot imagine as many ethnic British women putting up with. They are almost slaves, chained to the house, do 100% housework/childcare ( and none of these men work long hours/ have commutes). They have lots of hobbies, wives have none. Car is for their sole use. Etc etc.

So, I have started to think: have these men deliberatly sought out these 'submissive' wives? Is this just a blip in ppl i know or part of a wider trend?

Btw ... as for the 'life is better here' argument ... that is a bit dubious, IMO. There are plenty of countries where men seem to be living perfectly decent and pleasant lives, yet women are a commodity to be advertised to UK men as desirable wives.

DH and I used to work in Bangkok and about 95% of the British, American and Australian men we worked with were shacked up with a very submissive, younger, poor Thai girl. They also all used prostitutes regularly, it was absolutely and 100% the social norm amongst the expat community there. My DH's 67yo boss over there used prostitutes as young as 16 if not less They used to all tease DH for having a Western wife. I hate to think what they said about me! So many horrible tales from our time there. A choice one being DH's colleague who used to nip out at lunchtime for a blowjob These guys all maintained a veneer of respectability, but I enjoyed making them feel uncomfortable sometimes, they were quite nervous around me and sometimes looked a bit jealous of the fun and banter that DH and I shared, although more often I was given weird looks in bars for being the only non-hooker present.

There definitely was a sense of bitterness among these men toward Western women, I think they'd all had bad experiences or been unsuccessful in relationships and the simple sex/money arrangement worked for them. They described Western women as not looking after themselves, fat, bolshy etc. Yuk yuk yuk. They took pride in how tiny and beautiful these poor women were, it made them feel like big strong men. For the women, largely from poor subsistence communities, they had financial security and could send money to their families in northern Thailand.

I know of a few cases like this and in the end the wife got her British passport and left the pig-like husband, having realised she could support herself and live happily in Britain. The guy of course was left alone and bewildered, ha!

I know many ex pats who buggered off with Thai women too, after uprooting their families to go and live in Thailand.,

Reminds me of this one forum I was on back when I lived in the US and most of the other members were UK guys who had married US women and they used to go on about how much more feminine and home oriented American women were than swearing, drinking British women who never made an effort with their appearance. Stereotyping arseholes. Especially given the fact there's plenty of American men who bring back wives from foreign places because they're apparently more submissive than US women. DH used to work with a guy who bragged that his wife put his socks on for him on a morning.

My DH jokes that when we're in our 50s and I'm not up for sex any more that we can move to Thailand and live in a lovely house with a pool, and I can read books, drink cocktails and have massages while he gets himself a young Thai girl. We met a German couple in a sex-tourist central beach location who had this arrangement and seemed entirely happy - the husband dancing on the beach, beer belly out, with a young Thai woman while his wife sat by with a book and a cocktail

Note that this is a joke I think

Dittany - some ridiculous percentage of movement of Thai women from the country to the city or beach locations was to work in the sex trade. An a high proportion of women working generally in Thailand work in the sex trade. Thai men also use prostitutes very openly. Poor women with darker skin from the countryside seemed to be the sex class, and Thai men aspired to marry a pale-skinned Chinese-looking girl.

I don't think the Thai government offered any protection to these women at all. V sad.

Sorry for hijack, I'd blocked all this stuff out.

It's all economic isn't it. It's not because the women are actually more subordinate. WOmen aren't stupid. I LMAO at the foreign men who come to Japan looking for a butterfly and get the shock of their life after they marry and find that their wives demand his entire paycheck and hand out pocket money to their husbads . But Japan's a separate case, because economically it's about par with any western country.

But men who go to poor countries because the agencies have told them the women are more subordinate there? Yes, they are rapists. I hope their wives leave them as soon as they get their permanent residencies.

It's a twisted kind of economic though. If it were simply the case that people got into this kind of marriage out of pure need of money, men would be doing it too, in huge numbers. We might want to think the people who bring up their daughters to do this are utterly desperate, and sometimes they may be - but often, they're not. They just don't value women very much.

(Sorry, I get that it's hardly a newsflash to observe that economy is usually run on misogynist principles, but I think it's worth stressing.)

One of my vile experiences was travelling to Thailand Christmas afternoon with a plane full of men, almost, the misogyny was tangible.

Im slightly wishing i hadnt mentioned the asian example i know of as, as much as their are lots of worthwhile feminist issues surrounding thai brides the most oppressed women of this bunch are the italien/spanish women.

They didnt move here for the money/ citizenship. At least 2 of them have rich/ middle class families back home. I think theyve been raised with different expectations of marriage thab uk women.

It's the same deal though, isn't it? Automatic power ina relationship.

Are you sure this is because of their origins, then? Italian women can be really feisty (I'm thinking of my wonderful colleague), well, as much as other women. And not all UK women are out there kicking butt, as a lot of the very sad posts in relationships suggest.

I did wonder if this is what a former flatmate was up to. He was always going on trips to Russia and Ukraine; lots of comments on his FB wall from random blonde haired ladies all over the CIS.

He was not a pleasant individual at all - I remember one episode where he'd sent an email about bills to a former flatmate and started it "hey sexy" and she hit the ROOF. He couldn't figure out what he'd done wrong.

I think the idea that certain women are more subservient is not true, the fact is in these relationships is that the power balance is so totally skewed in the balance of the man, the women has no choice but to be subservient.

The man has essentially 'purchased' her as a domestic and sexual slave.

I used to work in a Thai restaurant, the owners had met like this and they did seem to have a very equal relationship, but that's one case out of how many..?

Slightly off topic, but this proves why normalisation/legalisation of the sex trade is a very bad thing indeed.

The 'cool' set at college are all constantly holidaying in Thailand, numerous photos with loads of different Thai women. Makes for uncomfortable viewing.

My DH told me to frequently look away as I kept giving men filthy looks.....

For what it's worth, I was thinking about the economic aspect and I'm less and less convinced this is always or inevitably to do with women who're in dire economic need. DH pointed out that Russian women who advertise themselves or are advertised as mail order brides (and who do use all the rhetoric about how demure/husband-pleasing etc. they would be), tend to know at least some English, and many are fluent in English with high levels of education. They're not from very poor families.

I find it really creepy that there are obviously men out there who want a highly-educated wife ... but are using that (which she could use to earn her own money) as a kind of trophy.

Are you serious? Mediterrean women not feisty?

Unless your friends are over 60yo or went to a very remote village. If you are comparing our generation or the younger ones no way that you will find submissive wife in Madrid, Rome, Milan, Nicosia, Limmasos, Athens etc.

I think generalising all mediterranean women as feisty is as bad as saying all uk women are lazy fat slobs.

And it's a myth that feisty women dont suffer dv.

I know a few wife-purchasers, mainly people my parents know or work with. The common denominator with them seems to be that they are the kind of slightly creepy, socially inept, unclear-of-boundaries men that most women instinctively avoid. They have either had failed marriages very young, or reached the age of 40 or 50 without having a serious relationship at all. DH claims that they often live with their parents long into adulthood (there are wife-purchasers at his work, and apparently they are not popular there either).

At least one I'm thinking of isn't really abusive, I don't think, although he is very odd and probably a bit difficult to live with. He seems to treat his Thai wife reasonably well, although she is very reticent in company and has few women friends. Another is very creepy, and his wife calls him "daddy" in front of other people.

What offends me about the whole wife-buying thing is the entitlement mentality behind it: "I may be sorry and smelly and boring, but I am entitled to have young gorgeous women feign interest in me and have sex with me".

I worked with a Thai-wife purchaser in the late 80s so it's not that new. He and his brother got wives through an agency. He couldn't be bothered to go through the machinations of courting someone, spending money on dates and being pleasant (his own words!) when he could, for a one-off payment, have someone keep house for him during the day and treat him like a sex-god at night. He was a creepy bastard, not bad-looking but no social skills at all. Yuk!