Sex Tourism in the Philippines

http://www.cbc.ca/national/blog/video/crimejustice/sex_tourism_in_the_philippines_1.html

I began to watch this but zoned out. I am all too aware of this aspect of child sexual abuse - I've seen documentary after documentary from all around the world concerning the exploitation of girls and women for the purposes of sex. Now, I just zone out when it comes across my screen.

If the media were genuinely interested in exposing child sex exploitation then they would cover the issue in it's entirety, go at it from every angle, and not leave out half of the victims that this kind of traffic creates.

The exploitation of young girls and the enslavement of naive young women for the purposes of sexual gratification arouses in us our more base human instincts and, subcounciously we are both horrified and titilated at the same time, thus our interrest for the perpetual reporting of a very tired subject. Tired in the sense that for all of the exposure by the media, all of the drum pounding by concerned social activists, nothing changes one iota. But then again, change or the eradication of such gross mis-conduct is not the aim here, is it?

I am not insensitive to this problem, quite the contrary (being the daddy of four girls). It's just that it is amply covered by a biased media voracious for sensationalism and I don't feel the need to a participant in what is nothing more than blatant manipulation of the populace's emotions to the aim of making the reporter appear to have a social conscience.

A genuine social concience would also expose the very real, and just as prevelent traffic of young and teen age boys for the same purposes. However, collectively, our sensibilities are offended at the idea of young males being used for the sexual gratification of adult males. As a society we still find this aspect of human sexuality repulsive and creepy. Thus the silence in mainstream media - sexually exploited boys just don't make good copy!

Maybe they think we don't cry...

Over many years, I've seen reports on the exploitation and abuse of girls. I believe this to be a very important topic. However, it was the silence of reports on boys that erked me so much. It's not until recent years that this seemed to come more to the light of day. It's not that the reports of the girls should be minimized - certainly not! But it's time to include the other reports as well.