After talking to dozens of tango tourists from North America and Europe - informal interviews conducted over the 12 months I've had the pleasure of living in this fine city - I have come to the realization that the tango industry in Buenos Aires is an important, effective and highly beneficial form of sex tourism. I would like to take this moment to thank the Argentinian people, especially the men, for making this service possible.
The love market in the northern hemisphere is in a state of pathological disequilibrium. Smart, strong, successful women are often ignored by culturally-bred shallow men chasing Paris Hilton wannabes with nonthreatening IQs. As a result, the market doesn't clear properly and too many single people in the north, especially mid-career professionals, live empty, unsatisfied lives. Women are overlooked precisely because of their virtues of strength and wisdom, while men, living off one cotton-candy romance after another, are starved for the reality of true love without even realizing it. Loneliness and regret are common characteristics of northerners, and it all comes from the fact that our market for love does not effectively match buyers and sellers.
But thankfully the great nation of Argentina has risen to the occasion, giving the women of the northern hemisphere a way to find true love - albeit short term true love - while correcting a serious market imbalance that threatens the happiness of all. I suppose we should probably thank Argentina's disastrous economic policy for this gift, since the regular economic meltdowns in this country are what makes tango tourism, as opposed to, say, flamenco tourism, an attractive option.
Handsome, free-range, beef-fed Argentinian studs, posing as tango instructors, have committed their lives to meeting the emotional and physical needs of successful but forlorn gringas passing through Buenos Aires on extended tourist visas. They dance, they romance, they love, and, yes, they fuck. It's like water running downhill. Every single tango tourist I have met in Argentina has had an affair with her instructor. Every last one! This may be a statistical anomaly. Maybe just my female tango tourist friends are hooking up with their instructors - they're certainly not hooking up with me. Perhaps someone, anyone, in the BAExpat community knows of a women who has not danced in the sack with her teacher. But at this point the data seem overwhelming: unspoken sex tourism is the throbbing heart of the Buenos Aires tango business, and possibly the tourism industry here as a whole.
The trend is so pervasive that you should change the motto of this wonderful city to "Buenos Aires: Come for the tango, stay for the multiple orgasms" or "Buenos Aires: Tango will change your life if you just let it come inside you" or "Relax, it's not sex tourism if you call it a dance lesson." I've often wondered how long it would take me to learn tango, and then get so good at it that I can offer services as a professional "dance" instructor, one with a very private studio in Almagro. What a great life that must be. Do you have to apply for some kind of license first? Is it like a pilot's license, where you have to log thousands of training hours before you can legally service paying customers? How many northern women do you have to sleep with before you become an officially certified dance professional?
So kudos to Argentina! Seriously. In a globalized economy you are stepping up to provide a service that American and European men are too pathetic to perform themselves. It's embarrassing to me that American women must travel to Argentina to find a real man to take them seriously, but that's the reality of our pathological love market back home. You can't expect these girls to sit still in their leather office chairs while we're chasing bimbos around the mail room. Besides, the globalization of love is good for tango students - it's obviously good for tango instructors - and most importantly it's good for the Argentine economy. Everybody wins!
PS - One thing I have learned in the course of my conversations is that whatever you say, don't call tango sex tourism. Apparently, saying what it is takes the romance out of the experience, kind of like touching while tangoing, and most women don't like to think of themselves as sex tourists in any case, especially while they're doing it. I consider this the first and perhaps most important lesson on my path to becoming a professional tango instructor.
The love market in the northern hemisphere is in a state of pathological disequilibrium. Smart, strong, successful women are often ignored by culturally-bred shallow men chasing Paris Hilton wannabes with nonthreatening IQs. As a result, the market doesn't clear properly and too many single people in the north, especially mid-career professionals, live empty, unsatisfied lives. Women are overlooked precisely because of their virtues of strength and wisdom, while men, living off one cotton-candy romance after another, are starved for the reality of true love without even realizing it. Loneliness and regret are common characteristics of northerners, and it all comes from the fact that our market for love does not effectively match buyers and sellers.
But thankfully the great nation of Argentina has risen to the occasion, giving the women of the northern hemisphere a way to find true love - albeit short term true love - while correcting a serious market imbalance that threatens the happiness of all. I suppose we should probably thank Argentina's disastrous economic policy for this gift, since the regular economic meltdowns in this country are what makes tango tourism, as opposed to, say, flamenco tourism, an attractive option.
Handsome, free-range, beef-fed Argentinian studs, posing as tango instructors, have committed their lives to meeting the emotional and physical needs of successful but forlorn gringas passing through Buenos Aires on extended tourist visas. They dance, they romance, they love, and, yes, they fuck. It's like water running downhill. Every single tango tourist I have met in Argentina has had an affair with her instructor. Every last one! This may be a statistical anomaly. Maybe just my female tango tourist friends are hooking up with their instructors - they're certainly not hooking up with me. Perhaps someone, anyone, in the BAExpat community knows of a women who has not danced in the sack with her teacher. But at this point the data seem overwhelming: unspoken sex tourism is the throbbing heart of the Buenos Aires tango business, and possibly the tourism industry here as a whole.
The trend is so pervasive that you should change the motto of this wonderful city to "Buenos Aires: Come for the tango, stay for the multiple orgasms" or "Buenos Aires: Tango will change your life if you just let it come inside you" or "Relax, it's not sex tourism if you call it a dance lesson." I've often wondered how long it would take me to learn tango, and then get so good at it that I can offer services as a professional "dance" instructor, one with a very private studio in Almagro. What a great life that must be. Do you have to apply for some kind of license first? Is it like a pilot's license, where you have to log thousands of training hours before you can legally service paying customers? How many northern women do you have to sleep with before you become an officially certified dance professional?
So kudos to Argentina! Seriously. In a globalized economy you are stepping up to provide a service that American and European men are too pathetic to perform themselves. It's embarrassing to me that American women must travel to Argentina to find a real man to take them seriously, but that's the reality of our pathological love market back home. You can't expect these girls to sit still in their leather office chairs while we're chasing bimbos around the mail room. Besides, the globalization of love is good for tango students - it's obviously good for tango instructors - and most importantly it's good for the Argentine economy. Everybody wins!
PS - One thing I have learned in the course of my conversations is that whatever you say, don't call tango sex tourism. Apparently, saying what it is takes the romance out of the experience, kind of like touching while tangoing, and most women don't like to think of themselves as sex tourists in any case, especially while they're doing it. I consider this the first and perhaps most important lesson on my path to becoming a professional tango instructor.
