http://www.dailychilli.com/news/3496-beach-gigolos-rounded-up-in-bali
Beach gigolos rounded up in Bali Indonesian security forces launched a crackdown targeting "tanned and muscular" men at Kuta's Bali beach on Monday, hours after the Jakarta Globe ran a story about a new film about the resort island's gigolos. The film, Cowboys in Paradise, which documents foreign female tourists and the men who allegedly service them, immediately touched a raw nerve, with Kuta Beach task force members raiding the beach and taking 28 men and one woman into custody for failing to produce identification. The head of the task force, Gusti Ngurah Tresna, told Detik.com that "all members of the Kuta beach task force participated in the raid." "They are detained because they don't have ID cards or licenses to work as beach vendors," Tresna said, adding that some of the detained men were "tanned and muscular." "The local administration office will check their identities and the addresses of where they are staying in Kuta. If they don't have them, they could be sent home," he said. The beach task force will keep monitoring the activities of the detained men. "We want to prevent anything that can damage tourism in Kuta," he said. Minister of Culture and Tourism Jero Wacik - himself Balinese - said that though he had not seen the documentary, he would launch an investigation. The fact that "Kuta Cowboys" operate in Bali and other Indonesia tourism destinations popular with the backpacking market, should come as no surprise to authorities and the reaction is likely to be criticized as a knee-jerk reaction. The film's Singapore-based writer and director, Amit Virmani, told Twitchfilm.net, that he came up with the idea for making "Cowboy's Paradise" after meeting a 12-year-old boy in Bali who confessed an eagerness "to grow up and be of sexual service to Japanese women." "Actually, I'd known about the cowboys and similar phenomena elsewhere long before that. But they were just fun facts to me. Women traveling for sex?" "Guys making money off it? Big deal. Happy for all, but not enough to make a film about it. Then I met this kid in Bali, all of 12 and eager to grow up and be of sexual service to Japanese women. Now there was a story," Amit said in the interview. The movie trailer posted on his website - which has been been viewed almost 20,000 times since it was posted in December - profiles a number of tanned, muscular local surfer boys who speak candidly about their escapades with foreign women, including their stock pick-up lines in a number of foreign languages. "Hi girls. I think I know you from last night. What are you doing tonight? If you don't have any plans you can come with me tonight. I love you," an unidentified male cowboy tells the camera. According to Amit, each year, thousands of women travel to Bali in search of paradise. A 'Kuta Cowboy' with a female tourist "And many find it in the arms of Kuta Cowboys. Masters at peddling holiday romances, these bronzed beach ambassadors have made Bali one of the world's leading destinations for female sex tourists," he said. The movie also presents an argument that the cowboys are not gigolos because they do not charge for sex. "The film reveals some of the island's most closely-guarded secrets. Why don't the boys charge for sex? How then do women compensate them? Where do time management skills fit into all this? And how does a cowboy's family feel about his errant ways?" Amit added. What surely will spark further controversy is the revelation that some of the cowboys are actually married. A local woman said in the movie that she did not mind her husband sleeping with his "guest" for one or two nights. "When my husband's guests come, he stays with them. For a night or two, I don't sleep with him. I don't mind that," the woman said. The movie, completed in 2009 after a two years in production, premiered at the DMZ Documentary Film Festival in South Korea on April 21. - Jakarta Globe Image Source:cowboysinparadise.com Published April 26 2010 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
