I read your guide and it is very good and it is to your credit that you make it clear that western men can often get very sexy wives 20 or more years their junior and that often the women will actually initiate sex very quickly. But you then follow that with the fact that they then expect that this is a serious relationship leading to marriage and that to not respect this is taking advantage of the woman and potentially ruin her life by making her unwanted by other men. You also mention that with so many available women in China why would a man risk HIV and disrespect by going to a hooker. If the ONLY option is no sex or a committed relationship then a hooker sounds preferable to either of those. BUT what is more realistic is an honest look at finding how to find the more modern girls who are open to casual dating.

In a culture where older western men are desirable being able to find non professional women open to casual dating is VERY important for many middle-aged men and while your guide explicitly states that doesn't exist, reading between the lines, it is obvious that between the single mothers, divorced women, ex-hookers, women already "sullied" by foreign men etc. there are MANY sexy young Chinese women, especially in the bigger cities, for whom a causal relationship with an educated, in shape, attractive 40's western guy would work just fine. But your guide seems to leave the only option as a SERIOUS GIRLFRIEND with MARRIAGE POTENTIAL or the right hand.

If I wanted to get married I'd stay in the USA. And I have to say that the dom attitude of the the Asian women as defined by you, makes them my last choice for marriage. That attitude gets them shown the door and since there are so many more waiting in the wings there is no reason to put up with any of that bull. Again, if I wanted a bitchy overbearing woman I can stay in the USA.

I thank you for this fair and intelligent criticism of my section on Dating, Sex, and Relationships.

As you state, one could view the overall gestalt as suggesting that a foreign man’s only options in China are to get married or remain celibate. Although that entire section is oriented towards Western men looking for serious relationships, it was not my intention to suggest that casual sexual relationships do not exist at all in China: they do.

While I do make a few scattered comments throughout those eight chapters about Chinese women who might be looking to date casually, one shouldn’t have to conduct a search of the entire Guide or “read between the lines” to learn of other alternatives, so I will be revising that section in the near future to include a specific heading devoted to casual dating.

Thank you so much for your response and your willingness to do that.

As a guy in the USA where most women ignore all but the best-looking and/or smoothest talking guys, with it only getting worse as you head into your 40's, to find very attractive young women who respond to you with a simple hello and respectful conversation at first makes you feel like you are through the looking glass and you just pounce. But having traveled a bit now I have come to realize that these girls are NOT Western women and you do need to make sure that they aren't expecting more than you are planning to give them. The problem is that between the language and cultural barriers it is often hard to tell what they really expect and want. Plus, you have the gold digger factor of the girls who are simply out to use Western guys and to me casual still means mutual respect and a girl who is playing you for every dime she can scam is not someone I want to be with.

A hooker would be far better as at least she is honest and we both know the deal. If you can use your superior experience in China and possibly offer some guidelines and options for the guys who want to be respectful casual daters, showing their ladies great times, without expecting the relationships to necessarily last, yet not using them or getting used themselves, that would be great. I think often times guys end up acting like heels because they feel it is either go with the woman who are out to use them or accept the sincere affection from a girl who likes them even though they know they may not really be as serious as she is. It seems that the one HUGE advantage of all the available women in China would be that guys can actually hold out for exactly what they want without feeling pressured to mislead.

To further complicate matters, prostitution in China is very different and a lot more complex than it is in the United States.

Just yesterday I decided to go for a full body massage because we are in the process of changing apartments and I pulled a muscle in my lower back (which is ever so easy to do when you’re 54 years old and porting around a belly that's suggestive of a second trimester pregnancy). I decided to try a new place that, in fact, my wife had pointed out to me, just a couple of blocks from our apartment.

The prices seemed a little high, even for Guangzhou (138 yuan for a 90-minute Thai massage), but that included a buffet lunch and I could quickly see that this was an upscale place. It’s one of these establishments, reminiscent of the plush bath houses in the north of China, where you are assigned a locker, completely disrobe, take a shower, are given a pair of loose shorts and shirt to wear, and then have the option of eating, moving into the lounge and falling asleep on a cushy recliner, or going directly upstairs for the massage.

I was there for a massage so I went upstairs immediately. The masseuse, I would later learn, was 24-years old and, I would say, very pretty (from Hunan province). The massage wasn’t the greatest that I’ve received in China but it did the trick. During the course of the massage, there was some occasional banter in which the girl asked me about my age, where I hailed from, whether I was married, and what I did for a living.

About 15 minutes before it was time for the massage to end, the girl abruptly stopped what she was doing, sat down next to me, took my hand in both of hers, and—with all the earnestness and tenderness she could muster—told me how much she liked me and asked if I would be willing to take her on as a “second wife” (ernai). If I hadn’t already been lying down, I would have fallen over from shock.

First of all, there was absolutely nothing sexual about the massage so I was taken completely by surprise: It was quite professional from beginning to end and I could tell from the atmosphere that this was an entirely legitimate place. Second, although no one has ever become physically ill from my appearance (to the best of my knowledge), I am no Brad Pitt either and, as stated earlier, I am not exactly in the best shape of my life right now.

This girl was looking to be loved and supported by a “good” man and clearly felt she was no longer competitive for an “excellent” Chinese man (she also indicted that, generally speaking, she didn’t like Chinese men for reasons I couldn’t fully understand due to my limited Chinese language skills). Based on her brief proposal, I believe she would have been willing to accept anything I was able to provide her with, no matter how relatively little that might have been. There are some, especially in China, who wouldn’t even define this type of relationship as a straightforward sex for hire arrangement, i.e., prostitution, because she was clearly looking for someone who would sincerely care about and nourish her. Of course, I begged off as I am happily married and I won’t be returning back to that establishment as, if I were assigned to her again, it would send the wrong message.

This type of arrangement would probably be ideal for you and it’s one that you can find anywhere in China. Of course, it does require that you speak at least some Chinese as these girls have not spent 12 years learning English (not that everyone who does can speak any English either, including quite a few “English majors”).

PS.

I have some additional thoughts I want to share with you and I think they also further clarify the main points I have made throughout the section on dating, sex, and relationships.

One of the main reasons average (or worse) looking Western middle-aged men can find a suitable companion in Asian women is because they value security and dependability far more than they do physical attraction. It’s not that they wouldn’t prefer to be with a man they personally find attractive, it’s just that it doesn’t rank very high as a priority when they have not only their futures, but those of their parents and other family members to worry about.

There is a necessary corollary of this fact that warrants mentioning: Any Asian girl who is not particularly interested in security and dependability, such that she is only looking to have a “good time” (friends with benefits so to speak) is most likely going to apply criteria similar to those employed by Western women with the same goals: Good looks and/or money.

There are a relative handful of young, well-educated, upwardly mobile Chinese women (Chuppies), especially in Shanghai and Beijing, who are not marriage-minded and might consider a mutually satisfying short-term relationship but, by and large, they are not going to select a balding middle-aged man with a paunch as the object of their affection. In fact, generally speaking, these are the very girls who tend to be the least interested in Western men, irrespective of physical appearance. Chinese men who speak their language and come from the same culture will do just fine.

As I reflected back on this aforementioned girl’s proposal to become my second wife, after the initial sense of flattery waned, I felt very sorry for her and her set of circumstances. If a girl this pretty had, for example, been an American-born Chinese, she wouldn’t have looked even once at me, let alone twice. Life is most definitely not fair.

Unfortunately, we can’t have our cake and eat it too. We can’t refuse to offer long-term security or cash and then hope that somehow, miraculously, girls who wouldn’t give us a second thought back home will somehow be willing to meet our short-term needs for companionship in an Asian country simply because the location happens to be halfway around the world.

Short of aging KTV girls, divorced women with children, gold diggers, visa hunters, terribly bored middle-aged women with money who happen to be married to absentee businessmen, and poor girls who are looking to improve their quality of life for as long as it lasts, particularly in the absence of a long-term commitment, it is unlikely that Western men will find women in China who would be interested in them if they are not otherwise competitive for women of the same age and relative appearance in their own countries.

VERY well said. That should go into your section on dating.

I will have to see how it goes. I am actually a trim, fit, tall, 6'2" guy, 46, but with thick long hair and blue eyes. Asian and Latin women seem to like me and I have managed a few sexy US girls in my time, but what I really lack is that steel confidence that really hot girls in the USA demand. They want you to NOT be intimidated by their beauty while they do everything they can to make you feel like nothing.

I was not raised to be confident so I always seem to crack. When in Asian and South Central America I find beautiful girls do not try to bust your balls. Most are genuinely polite and open. Plus, I have a certain exoticness to them which gives me a mystique I DON'T have in the USA and I know that and it adds to my confidence. All that said it is worth noting that the girls interested in casual relationships in China are mostly interested in guys who speak Chinese.

I guess in the end I see how tempting it can be for a guy who really wants to be fair to be tempted into leading a beautiful Chinese girl on when he realizes that by simply doing so he can have a very sexy girlfriend, even though he knows he doesn't want a wife. I guess US girls have no problem promising sex and taking free dinners and theater tickets etc. for many dates and then go off and have a one-nighter with some stud they just meet at a bar and never give the guy they are "dating" any sex at all. It isn't right to turn that on Chinese girls as they have nothing to do with that, except that IF, they were US born, they would probably be doing the same thing.

You mentioned that that girl, if she had been US born wouldn't have given you a 2nd look, but isn't that the point? A Chinese girl I met in LA, who jerked me around and never ended up giving me sex, told me that the USA is WAY BETTER for WOMEN than it is for men. She got it right off. The game in the west is rigged for women and rich, confident good looking men, because that is the way the men want it. In LA women would rather go home and use a dildo than have sex with some guy who is less than rich, confident or good looking. Thank god for China and other countries where guys still have a shot at amazing women. As I tell friends going overseas, it is like Superman leaving Krypton. There he is average -- on Earth he is Superman. When I go overseas I feel this way and I'm sure in addition to how I am perceived by women my attitude is MUCH better and that helps me as well.