Why Do They Offer Free Sex to Their Guests?

Tourists Are Very Grateful.

In Gambia, sex is currency.

Don’t expect flowers, sweet words, or seduction games.

The offer is direct the body in exchange for something money, clothes, a cell phone, or just the vague promise of a better future.

I see young bodies smiling at tourists who could be their parents or grandparents.

I see the raw, naked power of money, what it buys when everything else is scarce.

Arriving in Gambia, you’ll be approached.

Your age, physical appearance, or personality doesn’t matter. You’re white, you have money you’re automatically desirable. Sex is offered as “free,” a gift of hospitality. But nothing is truly free.

There’s always a bill that follows the request for help for family, business, education. It’s a debt system where your body is the initial capital and the reward comes later.

The hotels know, the taxi drivers know, everyone knows.

Gambia’s tourism industry largely rests on this undeclared trade of bodies. Entire villages depend on the money their young people manage to extract from tourists sexually.

When a local approaches you on the beach, they aren’t acting alone they’re supporting a family economy.

The sex you have in that hotel room feeds mouths you’ll never see.