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Cambodia needs foreign aid, not foreign AIDS

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Oudam’s Comments:

Cambodia needs foreign aid, not foreign AIDS

Not surprisingly much of the homosexual courtship takes place near establishments along the the Tonle Sap riverside.

For those of you who have not visited Cambodia, the riverside is lined with dozens of Western-owned bars, restaurants, nightclubs, shops, hotels and massage parlors. Pubs (as mentioned in the article) did not exist in Cambodia before the Westerners arrived.

The strip is a popular attraction for foreign sex tourists and pedophiles. I once spotted a Western man, who spoke English with an American accent, attempting to pick up a little Khmer girl who was no more than nine or ten years old. She was a street vendor selling books and magazines to tourists. That there were dozens of passers-by watching his sick– not to mention criminal– behavior did not seem to bother the pedophile. The little girl was able to quickly speed away out of his sight that night, but we can only wonder how many poor street kids like she fall victim to sex predators on a daily basis.

Needless to say, as a Khmer I am shocked and embarrassed to learn that 8.7% of Cambodian men have engaged in gay sex. In fact, there is almost a surreal quality about the figures presented in the article. I can only hope that they are not accurate.

The activities of the Western “sexpats” in Cambodia have no doubt contributed to the decline of morality in our society. Before the advent of these foreign sex deviants, Cambodia did not have a homosexuality problem.

To be sure, homosexuality has always existed in Cambodia, as in any other country, but it was not a problem to most Cambodians. Homosexuality was never a problem because (1) it was not nearly as prevalent back then as it is today and (2) Cambodians have been exceptionally tolerant to homosexuals.

In fact, like many other Cambodians I’ve always found homosexuals to be amusing rather than despicable. Much of this acceptance is rooted in our Buddhist principle of tolerance and on the relative rarity of gays in our society. This is in sharp contrast to the much higher prevalence of homosexuals in Western societies and Christianity’s intense repression of homosexuality.

However, the behavior is hardly amusing any more, given its potential to inflict another health crisis in our country. Cambodia already has the highest prevalence of HIV infection in Asia. It is well known that anal sex is many times more likely to spread HIV than heterosexual sex. Moral considerations aside, the acceptance and normalization of homosexuality in Cambodia is indeed a AIDS time-bomb threatening to ravage an already impoverished country.

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