Everybody knows that Bali, the beautiful tropical island of Indonesia, is a popular tourist destination for locals and foreigners alike. However, many are not aware that the island is also a paradise for females looking for sex vacations.

“Bali gigolos”, “Bali beach boys”, “Whitey Hunters (Pemburu Bule)” or “Kuta cowboys” are some of the names referring to Balinese men who seek a living through entertaining foreign women visiting the island. Finding them is not difficult. If you are a female tourist and alone, many will approach you when you are having a stroll on the beach or along crowded streets of Kuta. Of course, even more of these cowboys can be found in the night clubs and bars (not ranches, mind you).

Muscular and glossy-skinned, Balinese men appeal largely to women from Britain, Australia and many other places, but wealthy and single Japanese women are the biggest catch that makes up the highest number of visitors. In 2002, the Japanese consulate in Denpasar put up a ban on tour groups and issued a travel warning worried about the rape or sexual harassment cases to Japanese tourists. However, it did not have any impact in curtailing the trend.

Although this side of the colorful market is not openly talked about, single, wealthy and even older women do travel to Bali for a romantic experience with a companion who offers them all the attention they have longed for.
The life of gigolos seems more of a dream life for most Balinese men with perks like spending the night in lavish hotels, having free meals, expensive gifts and getting invitations for vacations abroad. Some even chart a more serious relationship with their clients afterwards.

Cowboys in Paradise

Released in South Korea at a film festival, Cowboys in Paradise is a documentary made by Singapore-based writer and director Amit Vermani. Candid interviews of Bali beach boys over how they flirt and seduce female tourists brought up increased attention to the beach boys like never before. Amit came up with the idea of making this documentary after a 12-year old Balinese boy confessed to him that he wanted to grow up fast to provide sexual services to Japanese women.

This documentary has far-reaching impacts.

Most of the cowboys previously did not feel offended being called a gigolo. They took their job as an opportunity to earn while helping out women in distress. However, after the release of the documentary, most beach boys have displayed feelings of resentment and refused the label of a gigolo.
In 2010, police even started a crackdown on the beach boys in response to the documentary and arrested about 28 of them who were under suspicion of selling sex to tourists. The former Bali Governor, Made Mangku Pastika, stated that they damaged the image of Bali.

Each year, thousands of women travel to Bali in search of paradise. And many find it in the arms of Kuta Cowboys, the bronzed beach ambassadors who've made the island one of the world's leading destinations for female sex tourists.

COWBOYS IN PARADISE gets between the sheets of Bali's 'holiday romance' trade to reveal some of the

The film also charts the typical trajectory of a Cowboy's life, from entry into beach life to his reign at the top of the tourist-industry chain, before following his heartbreaking descent into obsolescence. By the end, the myth of paradise is shattered and the viewer is presented with a more realistic proposition: Paradise is always elsewhere.
island's most closely-guarded secrets. What separates a Cowboy from garden-variety gigolos? How do women compensate him? Why are time management skills crucial to his success? And how does his family feel about his colourful ways?

Existence of the female sex tourism industry in Bali is an undeniable fact and one that is bringing more visitors to Bali. However, that may not be enough reason to let these cowboys to roam around freely if it is causing moral degradation in the island.

The Game of Love in Indonesia

He sat right in front of me, parked so close that there could be no misunderstanding.  N* was fabulous at the guitar, and a phenomenal singer to boot.  He belted out love songs, strategically replacing certain words with “Kristin,” just in case there was any shadow of doubt that he was singing just for me.  If not for the myriad of Bintang beers the group had downed, this might have been quite awkward.  But everyone was laughing and singing along, just as we had all night.

What’s going on here? The men in the rest of Southeast Asia have avoided me like the plague, yet this guy is serenading me as if I’m the only girl in the room.

Seeing that his territory was in danger of encroachment, J* asked me to step closer to the river and have a talk with him.  We had spent that day escaping the Sunday karaoke by visiting a secluded river elsewhere in the jungle and napping in a tiny open-air tree house above the water.  To me, it had been friendly.  How silly that assumption had been.

“I really like you,” he said.  Perplexed, as I had honestly napped most of the day while he was off swimming, I asked how he could possibly like someone he barely knew.
“I like Western girls,” was his response. I told him it was time to go back to the song circle and shortly thereafter called it a night, heading back, solo, to my room.

Then there was the guy who gave me a lift on his motorbike.  He followed me back to the other side of the river saying he wanted to go ‘swimming.’ What was lost in translation is he really meant, ‘shower.’  In my room.  What?

It took a few days in Sumatra to dawn on me that I was seeing the local boys constantly flirting with the Western girls – a phenomena that was the exact opposite of what I had been seeing in Thailand.  The longer I stayed in Bukit Lawang, the more I learned.  Nearly every guest-house in the area was owned by a couple consisting of a Western woman and Indonesian man.  Many girls came to visit who, it turned out, were girlfriends of the local guys.  At first I didn’t understand the fascination.  There are so many things working against these couples; distance, cultural differences, not to mention a huge language barrier. Sure, many of them know all the words to popular Western songs, but sitting down and having a conversation is often rather difficult.

The next night I decided to observe with new eyes, watching the guys work their magic on girls they had taken trekking that day.  I have to admit, there’s something about them.  The way they laugh freely and just enjoy life’s simple pleasures is refreshing.  What’s more, they give more undivided attention to these girls than they may ever get back home.

The flirtation didn’t end in Sumatra, though.  There was the time on a public bus to Bima (a town on the island next to Lombok) where the teenage kid seated next to me, after exchanging maybe two words, put his hand on my thigh.  Once I got over the initial shock I squirmed uncomfortably and he quickly removed it.
Then there were the guys on Gili Trawangan who kept inviting me to hang out ‘upstairs’ with them, even offering me free drugs.  I politely declined.

Trying to wrap my head around it, I told a Western girlfriend who had been living in Indonesia for a while about all the odd things that had been happening.  She laughed knowingly and recommended a documentary to me that would help explain things: Cowboys in Paradise.  The documentary followed what can only be described as gigolos in Kuta, Bali, who seek out Western women who they believe may have money.  They woo them, sometimes get into relationships with them, and develop a bond. Though money isn’t directly exchanged for sex, they become kept men.


It seemed no different to me than some relationships between Thai women and Western men.  The Westerners often support these guys financially, buying all of the food and paying for lodging while in Indonesia, then sending money over every now and then after returning home.  It’s so cheap for these women to buy a meal, a T-shirt, or pay for the room for the week, why not foot the bill in exchange for a good lover?  What they don’t know is they are often one of many girlfriends, and fidelity is not a given.
Some of my favorite quotes from the documentary were, “I score within three days.  If not, don’t stand by me.  Many girls on the beach.”
Or, “what’s important is the money’s good. Not the face.”

Even better was the guy who was willing to explain the process: first he showers the girl with attention, then goes out and shows her a good time. It’s key to be non-agressive, always be smiling, and appear to care.
The most shocking part of all to me was that some of these men are married.  I had read the same about Thai prostitutes in a fairly riveting memior.  It’s insane to think about, but the wives are usually fully aware.  They need the money so badly, they put up with it.  To make the pressure even stronger, these guys have an important role in giving back to their communities as well.

Of course, like any trade where sex is on the table, the older they get, the harder it is to make money like they used to.
I can’t help but think back to an American guy I was chatting with in Thailand, asking him, “don’t you resent being used the way you are by these women?” to which he replied, “No, it’s mutual using, so who cares?”  I suppose it’s the same in Indonesia.

Gigolos on the Beach

Muscular, bronzed Indonesian men with big smiles and long, wavy hair have been seducing foreign women along the white-sand beaches of Bali for more than three decades now. Known as "Kuta cowboys," after Bali's popular Kuta Beach, these men often hold low-paying beach jobs renting snorkeling gear or selling sodas, but what they are really peddling is romance. Many call them gigolos — a term they reject — but for years, they've been flirting with foreigners without causing a fuss. That is, until now. Local police raided the beach on April 26 after the trailer for a new documentary on the Kuta cowboys went viral on the Internet. Indonesian authorities detained 28 men — described by the head of Kuta's beach security as "young, fit-looking and tanned" — on suspicion of selling sex. Could this be the beginning of the end for Bali's famed Kuta cowboys?

The film that triggered the crackdown, Cowboys in Paradise by Singapore resident Amit Virmani, contains
candid interviews with Kuta cowboys in which they describe not only their strategies for wooing foreign women but also their hopes and heartbreaks on the beach. Virmani says his film, which intended to explore what motivates these men, has been grossly misunderstood and isn't an exposé on male sex work. Before making the film, Virmani says, he assumed, like others, that Kuta cowboys were merely male prostitutes. But after making the movie, that stereotype "was royally shattered," he says. "Love happens."

Though the cowboys do not receive money directly for sex, women do typically pay for their meals and often lavish them with gifts. Some cowboys ride scooters, listen to nice stereos and live in apartments paid for by foreign women. The men sing love songs to women on the beach, escort them to the island's dance clubs and will often take the women home. In the film, they treat seduction as a job, referring to finding women as "fishing" and text-messaging lovers as "work." One cowboy says that if he goes shopping with a woman who only buys him a T-shirt, he will leave her immediately and go after a woman who'll shell out more. They're adamant, though, that while they receive money, they never ask for it and that they are emotionally attached to the women. "I am not a gigolo," says Agung, a former cowboy, in the film. "The gigolos don't speak from the heart. They speak from the mind. But I speak from the heart."

Women come from all over the world to find sex and romance in Bali. In Cowboys in Paradise, Rudi, a handsome 31-year-old cowboy, stands shirtless in his modest apartment and points to German, Dutch and Australian flags hanging on his walls, each one sent to him by a different girlfriend (one of whom he momentarily forgets the name of). The two most common places where people come from are Japan and Australia, but Virmani says that increasingly, Bali is "the United Nations of love." The cowboys market themselves to foreign women as the keys to unlocking the "true" Bali; one Bali expat in the film says the cowboys "try to sell paradise" and "posit themselves as being the intermediaries."

A life of surf, sun and sex, however, has its perils. With per capita annual income only about $2,200 in 
Indonesia, many cowboys consider marrying a foreigner and moving away to the bright lights of the developed world the ultimate goal. In the film, Agung marries a Japanese tourist and is whisked away to Japan, but after six months of working what Agung thought was an unpaid job to learn a craft, he finds out that his wife has been secretly taking his wages. When he confronts her, she takes out a stack of receipts recording every cent she spent on him and informs him that he is in debt to her. Agung escapes to Bali only after seducing another Japanese woman who pays for his plane ticket home. Still, Agung insists, he didn't go to Japan just for the money. "[She] truly loved me, and I loved her," he says.

Men don't just risk heartache as a Kuta cowboy. Even though the cowboys don't think of themselves as gigolos, they should "be considered part of the male sex trade," says Virmani, and as such, they are a high-risk group for HIV. Statistics on the HIV rate among Bali's beach boys don't exist, but HIV is a real threat: the HIV rate in Bali is 84 times that of Australia, according to the film. Wayan, a Kuta cowboy, says that though he usually uses condoms, "a lot of those who do yoga" don't want to use condoms since "they trust their intuition that my energy is good." Wayan isn't too worried about spreading diseases — even though he's never been tested — because, he says, "the Europeans ought to be healthier."

Despite the film's attempt to push past the image of the cowboys as paid-for-use boy toys, local authorities are afraid that spotlighting the island's romance trade will hurt Bali's image. The Kuta cowboys have ostensibly been tolerated for decades even though — unlike in some parts of Indonesia — prostitution is illegal on the island of Bali. Nyoman Suwidjana, vice chairman of the Bali Tourism Board, says he is "very uneasy" with the film, fearing it could encourage more sex tourism and create a "community quite separate from the mainstream." Already, Suwidjana says, "[foreign] women have become less friendly to [local men]"; because they are approached by cowboys so often, they assume all sociable locals have ulterior motives. In reality, says Suwidjana, most cowboys come from elsewhere in Indonesia and assume Balinese names. "The beach has been taken over by outsiders," he says.

Globe. Bali police say they have even contacted Interpol "to track him down in Singapore." The police say they are serious about ridding the beach of cowboys, telling the Globe the raids will continue. At the moment, though, the Kuta cowboys are risking arrest and continuing to stroll the beach, which for Virmani, at least, is where they belong. Says the filmmaker: "The beach would be a very dull place without them."
Suwidjana is not the only person upset with the film and the cowboys. Virmani has been receiving anonymous death threats for months from people who he suspects haven't seen the full movie and think he's tarnishing Bali's reputation. He shrugs them off, but he worries about the people who appeared in the movie. As soon as Virmani heard about the beach raids, he took down the trailer from his website, leaving a note saying, "We are aghast at the recent raids in Kuta. This is not the point of the film." But it was too late; his film had hit a nerve. Now authorities in Bali have accused Virmani of fraud and working without the proper permits. If found guilty, he could be arrested and face up to four years in an Indonesian prison, according to the Jakarta Globe. Bali police say they have even contacted Interpol "to track him down in Singapore." The police say they are serious about ridding the beach of cowboys, telling the Globe the raids will continue. At the moment, though, the Kuta cowboys are risking arrest and continuing to stroll the beach, which for Virmani, at least, is where they belong. Says the filmmaker: "The beach would be a very dull place without them."

Japanese Women With Bali's Gigolos

You might be surprised to discover that Japanese magazine is reporting that Japanese women are heading to Bali because they like what they see – Gigolos – yes that’s right. Bali beach boys are serving Japanese women and making a very comfortable living making love to them.
For one-time encounter, Japanese women are spending 584k Rupiah or about 5.000 Yen. It does go as cheap as 233k Rupiah or 2.000 yen and as high as 1.1 million Rupiah or 10.000 yen for a full day, which is one of the most popular services offered.

As a tourist destination, Bali has become a very popular getaway. For years, this little gem was a well kept secret, but not anymore. It’s not only become a popular getaway for couples, it’s becoming increasingly popular as a getaway for sexy encounters and the massage industry is the gateway into finding the adventure you want.
It’s quite common for the Japanese woman to ask the beach boy to do a very exotic massage from top to bottom. Then at some point during that massage, the woman asks how much it’s going to cost to for the ‘full’ service.

You might be surprised to discover that there are more than 200 gigolos working in Bali that are known and likely many more that no one is aware of. Many of these gigolos actually take the time to get special training on how to satisfy a woman. According to one magazine report they are even trained with techniques for licking a woman’s body, including the female organs to ensure the client is highly aroused prior to the real fun.
These gigolos really are looking for repeat business and with the disposable income of these Japanese women on the rise the demand is likely to continue to grow, especially as the practice becomes more open and awareness increases.

It was back in 2005, that Japanese women who were stressed from working too hard in Japanese stores and having fun rarely or not at all, found their relief in Bali where they would come and hire the boys. It was considered embarrassing and taboo so it was seldom talked about until just recently where there is a much more open dialogue about the practice.
Bali beach boys are just one sexual adventure in Bali. It’s not just Japanese women who can have some fun with the beach boys, women from all around the world can enjoy this experience if that’s the vacation they are looking for.

It’s a well-known fact that Bali is a popular vacation destination, but what many don’t know is that it is one of the most desired vacation destinations for female sex tourists, thanks to the Kuta cowboys. Each year thousands of women make their way to Bali looking for paradise. And what many find are the open arms of the Kuta cowboys. In fact, these muscular, bronzed beach bodies have made Bali the world’s leading vacation destination for female sex tourists.

According to “Cowboys in Paradise” Bali is the hottest destination for those women looking for a little holiday romance. Now you might think that these guys are just your typical gigolos, but they claim to be much more than this. How one would find out the difference will have to be left to the imaginations of the female sex tourists, who may not even care.

While this colourful tourist market isn’t talked about much, at least not openly, the reality is that it is a huge economic boost for Bali, and for adult women looking for a sex vacation this is absolutely the place to go. Book one of the many luxurious and spacious villas where you can enjoy your own private parties, entertain who you want when you want, or take advantage of your own cook who can make you decadent meals to enjoy in your villa, while enjoying breathtaking views that mother nature has to offer – and of course the occasional great view from inside is welcomed as well.

Villas are available throughout Bali including Seminyak, Ubud, Legian, Sanur and much more. If you are looking for a romantic getaway, no strings attached, it appears Bali is the place you want to go – Cowboys in Paradise await you.

If you combine women who are looking for a vacation where they can heal their mind, body, and soul with women who are looking for a safe vacation destination, you would come up with the brainchild of entrepreneur Zoe Watson, who opened Bliss Sanctuary for Women in 2010 in Bali.
Watson, who was scared to fly, left the corporate office for Bali in order to let her body recover after a bad car accident. In a world, including Bali, that offers all kinds of retreat vacations for women. According to Watson, what most don’t focus on is the actual travel experience. And this is something Watson knows personally.

“At the time, I said to my boss, ‘I need a month off or you need to get someone to help me’. He said, ‘You can’t do either or those; you can take next week’,” Watson recalls. She took what she could get and travelled to Bali – an option she thought wasn’t ideal at the time, but relatively simple, inexpensive and appeared to offer the safe, solo-travelling experience she was after.
But it only took Watson two weeks after returning home from her Bali break to come up with the idea for Bliss Sanctuary. In just four weeks, she was on her way back to Bali. What she wanted to do was create a sanctuary where those women who were travelling alone could take a safe, simple, and carefree break. There are all kinds of packages offered at the Bliss Sanctuary to make it easy for women to choose what’s right for you.


Success was fast. Within the first month of opening the doors she was half full, and just a couple of months later she was 90% booked to capacity. There’s no question that Watson had a great idea that’s been a success from the beginning.

For women that are looking for safe accommodations outside of sanctuary balinese villas are a great idea.