The faces of Asia’s ‘dirty old white men’ are being plastered online. I have no sympathy for them – but this disturbing new trend isn’t the answer: JANA HOCKING

There is a new type of tourists in Southeast Asia.

No, not the middle -aged men with sweaty sweaty and wallet wedding rings, but also something that serves their own interests: the camera moral fighter.

This week, the travel phenomenon Duncan McNaught was viral because he published a video that embarrassed elderly Western men in Cambodia, filmed them while walking on the streets and implying that they were there for sex tourism without any evidence.

The title aroused disgust and his followers applauded his ‘courage’.

However, many people ‘calling for exploitation’ while patting his back, I could not get myself from a feeling of discomfort. Because most of the time I do not think that the tendency to embarrass this new and bright society, which is made by privileged people, is actually beneficial for anyone. It only changes a kind of exploitation with the other.

When I was 16, I went to a school trip to the United States and Mexico. We crossed the Tijuana border and was a shock for this system.

Our bus driver insisted on passing us through the back streets so that we can see how life was actually beyond the tourist lane, a gentle, local, worn -out man named Jorge. We passed by families living in corrugated iron sheds, children playing bare feet alongside the garbage stacks, and stray dogs that travel in traffic to search for scrap.

I still remember the burning plastic and sweat -smelling air. This short journey changed me. For the first time, I really understood what privilege means; In my new clothes I bought for travel and travel insurance, I was looking at people who could never leave those dusty streets through a colorful window.

In the afternoon, I entered a small shop to get a pair of imitation sunglasses. The man behind the counter suddenly caught my arm and forced me to stay there until he agreed to buy them. For the first time, I remember the panic and shock created by a man’s physical conquest.

It was harmless compared to what some women endured every day, but left a mark. Therefore, when I see a phenomenon that sells local women or elderly men without consent in Cambodia, I think of that moment. Because if a 16 -year -old blonde tourist can be afraid of a single encounter, imagine what life is for women who have no choice but to trust the same men to survive.

Let’s be open, sex tourism is predator. According to a 2023 report of the United Nations Drug and Crime Office, Southeast Asia continues to be an important center for sexual exploitation; At estimated, 250,000 women and girls are trapped in trade. Demand is largely due to the fact that Western men cannot find or meet at home. This is exploitative, raising from humanity and extremely sad.

Personally, I will never understand how they can do it.

Does a viral Instagram reel correct this? Tough. People like Duncan do not collapse a system when random men passing through red -lit areas to the film. They create a clicked anger. These videos do not stop the abuse, but also direct attention from the victims to the owner.

However, the worst part of the travel phenomena that removed their cameras in the neighborhoods is that young women who do something just publish their faces. What do they need to survive? These women already overcome violence, poverty and stigmatization. Now they are also supporters of someone else’s heroism narrative.

I’m noting that Duncan has made some efforts to avoid filming women – but I still saw a handful of faces while walking the camera on the streets of Phnom Penh.

For decades, Southeast Asia has attracted the attention of older men who pursued the youth and submission, which the local people call the ‘beer bar Romeo’.

Women working in the Nie’s bar in the Hua Hin region of Thailand can expect to win about 300 Thai Bhat (about $ 14,50 Australian dollars) each night.

They deserve to be examined. Just last week, a man who said he thought modern women were orally and they think they were ‘too good’ for men contacted me on the internet. So he was jumping on the plane to find a good Thai wife.

I replied: ‘No, you are jumping on the plane to hunt a socio-economically disadvantaged woman. And you benefit from it. ‘

Yes, you didn’t like this answer, but where is the lie?

However, there is a new type of traveler that blocks Tuk-Tuks recently: virtuous tourist.

A unmanned aerial vehicle and a moral compass calibrated according to the measurements of engagement comes with armed. He films poverty, teachs foreigners and label it as ‘awareness’.

Some of them, of course, good intentions – and I don’t claim that Duncan is a fake or act as if he cares about the engagement – but this trend still sounds to me..

There is also a deeper ethical problem. Shame on the public rarely changes behavior. A study at the University of Cambridge revealed that online humiliation tends to consolidate the embarrassed people rather than reform.

They fold in two, go to defense, and often shift to their cycle in places where it is more difficult to monitor their behavior. In other words, the problem of moral police makes it worse.

The same applies to social media anger. The ‘call of a phenomenon’ can receive half a million likes, but it does not reduce sex tourism.

So what does it do? Financing safe home programs, supporting girls’ education and providing local communities to create alternatives for sex trade.

I watched Duncan’s virtuous video dozens of times. It certainly seems angry about it; However, it would not be wrong to give a connection to a charity, help line or social assistance program in the title. Imagine that all this digital anger is directed to a useful place.

What makes me the most annoying is the lack of emotions of both sides. Men who fly to these countries and buy sincerity are treated as disposable souvenirs for women. However, the impressive intervening to embarrass themselves often show the same lack of empathy from a different angle.

The HBO series The White Lotus (Aimee Lou Wood starring) has previously referred to the tendency of ‘bald white men’ with local women in Thailand.

Neither of them can fully see the human picture; Trauma, economy, helplessness. One buys a body, the other wants attention. And they both fly home, feeling satisfied later.

During my travels, I talked to local women who entered sex work, not because of their desire, but because it was the only valid income. Many of them support their families or pay for their brothers to go to school. They deserve compassion, not exhibition.

It is possible to condemn sex tourism without transforming pain into show. I want Duncans in the world to continue to talk about exploitation, but maybe to talk to people involved in the event instead of filming them. Use your platform to strengthen local sounds, not to drown in the background noise.

To men who think that Southeast Asia is an erotic playground: Your behavior cannot be defended. If you need to buy love, what you pursue is not love, it is power. Nevertheless, I cannot get rid of the idea that humiliation before society cannot heal it. Clearly embarrassment rarely creates accountability; It just creates anger.

Years ago, my trip to Mexico taught me something that no viral pastry could teach. The privilege is not just about money; This is about the ability to leave the discomfort behind. I could jump on a bus and return to my safe hotel. Those who passed by could not do. The situation in Cambodia today is the same. The impressive person gets a taxi and returns to his villa; Women are staying.

So yes, shout the exploitation, but do it with empathy, not with the ego. Because if you’re really trying to help you, you don’t need a selfies to prove it.