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[This is the text -- minus a few editorial changes in the magazine version -- of my article on sex tourism in Costa Rica in the Summer 2007 issue of Karma Magazine. The published version's here.]

“I’m not here for nature hikes or bird-watching,” says Jerry, a 27-year-old architect from Cleveland. “I’m here for one thing only—screwing.”

“Here” is San Jose. Not the one in California (coincidentally, the city where Karma Magazine has its headquarters and legendary Friday-afternoon orgies). But the capital of Costa Rica—one of Latin America’s most prosperous countries, and a place famed for its ecotourism. Costa Rica draws about a million visitors a year with its beaches, rain forest, volcanoes and diverse wildlife. The capital, though, is a hotbed for mankind’s favorite indoor activity; prostitution is legal, and despite its appeal to sex tourists, 70% of the clientele for prostitutes in Costa Rica are homegrown.

Like Jerry, I’m in San Jose to screw. I’m also here to observe the sex scene and write this article. San Jose is one of the most popular destinations listed on the International Sex Guide, an online community for the growing ranks of men who venture abroad to romp with working girls. Regular posters on the ISG, and similar websites, call their activities mongering. In recent years, whenever a dating dry spell lasted too long, I’d trade the reality of being lonely in New York for the attainable fantasy of mongering with as many hot women as I could afford in Rio de Janeiro. I’d heard good things about San Jose, too, and wanted to give it a try. I knew it was time to flee the Big Apple when I got picked up in a club—literally picked up by a bouncer and tossed out the door after a girl complained about me hitting on her.

Of the 500,000 Americans who take the relatively short flight of 7 hours or less from much of the US to Costa Rica each year, there’s no way to tell how many come to monger. But 26% of that half-million are single men, and many of them seem to spend at least some time in San Jose cavorting with the attractive ticas—as female Costa Ricans are known—and women from neighboring countries who earn their living in the capital’s thriving sex trade.

With only a few days to spend here in San Jose, I’ve planned my pilgrimage around three places with large followings on the monger websites: the Hotel Del Rey, Bar Idem, and my hotel, the Sportsmens Lodge.

“It’s my third trip this year,” Jerry says as we walk through the lobby of the Hotel Del Rey, ground zero of San Jose’s sex scene. The Del Rey has a small (by Las Vegas standards) casino, a restaurant, and other typical amenities. But above all, it has the Blue Marlin bar, a legendary hook-up spot for working girls and gringos. The hotel’s website calls the Blue Marlin the city’s “number one meeting spot.” Truer words were never uploaded.

Jerry and I are having a beer in the Blue Marlin when a short-haired brunette approaches him. She says in broken English: “You’re too handsome to be alone. Let’s go.” “Maybe later,” he says. “Not really my type,” he tells me, “especially when there’s so many to choose from.” It’s around midnight, peak time for the Blue Marlin. Women are everywhere alongside the bar’s counter, which undulates like a snake from one end of the place to the other. There are women with long dark hair and pouty lips. Bleach blondes. A few black girls from the Caribbean. “There’s girls here around the clock, but this is prime time,” Jerry says.

It might be hard for Americans, to whom legalized prostitution is literally a foreign concept, to understand how mainstream the sex industry is in other cultures. As long as the girls are at least 18, prostitution at a major hotel like the Del Rey isn’t fodder for a scandal the way it might be if dozens of hookers, dressed in “work clothes,” started turning up at the Waldorf-Astoria.

No less esteemed a travel guide than Frommer’s recommends the Hotel Del Rey, dryly noting that the Blue Marlin “is very popular with tourists, expatriates, and prostitutes.” And consider this: The Del Rey’s owners have been trying to get permission to build a footbridge to the opposite street, where they run another property, the Key Largo. Like the Blue Marlin, the Key Largo—an officially-designated historical site that once housed the University of Costa Rica’s music school—is a watering hole for prostitutes and mongers. The footbridge has been opposed by the mayor but supported by San Jose’s Municipal Council. The council president says the mayor is discriminating against the owners because they allow prostitution. The mayor says his opposition is based on practical reasons—his staff doesn’t see a need for the bridge—not on morality.

Whatever the mayor’s motivation, the fact that an important official like the council president would publicly criticize the mayor for being against prostitution shows what a different world Costa Rica is from the U.S.

The Del Rey and Key Largo are also official tourist sites recognized by the Costa Rican Tourism Board.

It’s 2am, and I’m tired, but horny. Bopping up the small staircase from the casino is a petite blonde. She’s wearing, of all things, overalls. Most of the girls try to outdo each other in low-cut dresses or ass-clenching skirts. But she’s sexy enough to pull off the farm-girl look, especially as she touches her breasts and shimmies to Styx’s “Mr. Roboto”—San Jose seems to have a thing for 80’s music.

Lose yourself long enough in the parade of girls at the Blue Marlin—or one of the hooker hangouts in Rio, for that matter—and you slip into an altered state where primitive longings trump any shame you might have about paying for sex. I can try to kid myself that as a journalist, I’m different from the other guys here. But even if I wasn’t doing this article, odds are I’d eventually wind up in San Jose. I have, if not an obsession, then at least a fascination with exotic prostitutes and the mongering lifestyle.

The girl in overalls is named Tina. After small-talk in Spanglish, we talk price. She wants $100 for an hour, basically the going rate among Blue Marlin girls. Mongers on the Costa Rica blogs urge you to fight “ticaflation” by drawing the line at $75 or $80, but I’m too beat for serious haggling, and Tina, however, does agree to kick in a second hour.

We take a short cab ride to my hotel. Tina is as bouncy in bed as she was in the bar. But she won’t kiss on the lips. It casts a pall over everything. The Girlfriend Experience, or GFE, is like the brass ring of mongering. It’s the feeling of intimacy that allows you to “forget” you’re paying for sex. For me, a GFE is nearly impossible without passionate kissing.

I have similar kissless experiences with four or five working girls the next few days. It’s a letdown from my romps in Rio, where almost every prostitute I’ve been with has been a voracious lip-locker.

SCHOOL DANCE
Mongers consistently rate Bar Idem as one of the must-see spots in San Jose. Idem has a “school dance” atmosphere— “guys on one side, girls on the other,” writes Prolijo on the International Sex Guide.

“That’s actually one of the things I like about Idem,” Prolijo continues. “Don’t get me wrong, I like being groped and propositioned as much as the next guy at places like the Blue Marlin, but there are times where I want to be able to just sit back, relax, sip my bottled water, chill out and leisurely make my selection without being hassled or pressured.”

Idem is about a half-mile from the Del Rey. There are about 20 girls the afternoon I’m there. Although Idem isn’t fancy, it has a comfortable feel like a local pub. All of the girls are attractive, some of them quite stunning. Unlike the Blue Marlin where you’re free to negotiate with the girls and take them back to your hotel, Idem has fixed prices (about $50 an hour). You choose a girl and use one of the rooms in the back.

Roberto, the 62-year-old manager of Idem, is an avuncular man with glasses and a well-groomed mustache. He is immediately receptive to my request to discuss Idem for this article, and finds a number of girls who have no problem appearing in print. Not always an easy task, since many prostitutes aren’t eager for publicity.

Afterwards, I’m in a quandary. I’m not particularly horny today (or maybe I’m just worried about how much money I’ve already spent on this trip), but Roberto has been so helpful, it would almost be disrespectful to leave without getting a session.

One of the girls is a lovely Nicaraguan, Marina. She makes my decision an easy one. After we have sex, I ask her, “Does it ever seem unnatural to be intimate with men you just met?” “Yes and no,” she says. “This is how I survive for now, so I have to keep my mind comfortable with it. Most of the men who come here are very nice, so that’s good.”

“What about men you’re not attracted to?” I ask. “Everyone has something nice,” she says. “Some have it outside, some inside.” Her job is to focus on that quality so she “can be passionate and make him feel passion, too.” It’s acting, she adds, “but it’s not lying. Most of the men understand that this is fantasy.”

Marina seems serene with her life. I can’t say the same for Diana, a prostitute I meet that night at the Blue Marlin. She’s cute, but by no means stunning. She’s also bouncing-off-the-walls drunk, and introduces herself by groping me. But her “party girl” persona has a whiff of sadness. Sure enough, she tells me she hasn’t made money the last two nights. I feel more protective towards Diana then sexual. I touch her face, wanting to reassure her that everything will work out. But she seems to take it as a sign that I don’t want to be with her, and her expression turns glum. She’s a reminder that even in this fantasyland where the sex trade is legal, not everyone’s life is a dream.

I make a lame attempt at lifting Diana’s spirits. “You’re very pretty. There’s plenty of guys here who’ll go crazy for you.” It’s bizarre, trying to inspire a prostitute to forge ahead and make the sale. I feel slimy and sympathetic in the same breath. What I’d really like to do is help her figure out other things she can do with her life. Without the kind of toughness of spirit that Marina seems to have, what are the chances that Diana will survive the sex trade intact? But she’s in no condition for vocational counseling. I give her $10 so she can at least take a cab home. If I were truly a nice guy, would I have given her more?

TICA-FRIENDLY
My hotel, the Sportsmens Lodge, is a fast-rising institution among mongers. The bar draws a regular contingent of working girls. Naturally, the hotel is “tica friendly”—i.e., you’re allowed to take girls to your room, and you don’t have to pay a surcharge for the privilege. The owner is a charismatic Californian, Bill Alexander, who’s made the place into a vibrant mix of mongers, wealthy American expatriates, and true outdoor enthusiasts who come for Costa Rica’s world-class fishing, golfing and other sports.

One morning, I drag myself out of bed after an hour’s sleep and head to the bar before the free breakfast ends. All the regular girls have been gone for hours. But there’s a girl I haven’t seen before, a pretty Asian, nibbling on a Danish. She certainly doesn’t fit the profile of any working girl I’ve encountered in San Jose.

Turns out she (we’ll call her “Allie”) just returned to San Jose from visiting friends in another part of the country. Tomorrow she’ll be flying home to New York. She’s staying at the Sportsmens Lodge because she wanted a hotel close to the airport. She could be a prostitute who’s just BS’ing me. But why bother? It’s perfectly legal for her to solicit.

“Where do you live in New York?” I ask. I almost spit out my scrambled eggs when she says her street—it’s 4 blocks from my house. We seem to be hitting it off nicely. Wouldn’t it be something, I think, if I traveled all this way to party with professional girls, only to meet a “civilian” from my backyard?

Allie seems clueless about the local sex scene. That night, when the Sportsmens Lodge’s bar comes alive, she glances at a table of girls and comments on how pretty they are. “I wonder where they’re from,” she says, as if they were tourists. “You’ve got it a bit backwards,” I say. “They’re the reason that men come to San Jose.” She’s a bit shell-shocked, but also fascinated, as I debrief her on the spicier aspects of life in this tropical paradise.

Though Allie and I are scheduled for different flights home, we bump into each other the next day at the airport, where I finally ask for her number. We get together that weekend in Manhattan. She’s in a tight red dress and looks as enticing as any of the girls in San Jose. When she invites me back to her apartment for a snack, I’m convinced that some of San Jose’s sexual “magic” has rubbed off on me. Even Allie’s lack of interest in physical contact with me—I needed the jaws of life to pry her dog off my leg, though—doesn’t kill the buzz. It’s only when she doesn’t return my calls, and the weeks pass and it’s nearly a month since I so much as touched a girl—that’s when I realize I’m home again.

[end]

sex tourism

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