Think sex-hungry Craigslist users have it bad in the United States? If you live in a world of salacious headlines, they do. Violent killings and serial murder are associated with the site as often as “great cozy apartment, TONS OF LIGHT” listings. But at least when gays hit the web in the U.S. looking for sex, they don’t have to imagine there’s a very good chance it’s a set up.
Because that’s what gays visiting Ghana have to look forward to. As Internet access ramps up across the West African county, so too do opportunities to find international anonymous sex. Except plenty of the profiles advertising a “cute 18yo boi looking” aren’t just fakes, they’re scams.
Some fuzzy math says 98 percent of man-for-man profiles are set up by straight guys — most with the intent to scam visiting foreigners hunting for love and sex. The scam goes like this: Groups of African teenage boys work the computers at an Internet cafe, posting fake profiles and photos, and when they arrange to meet, they’ve got no plans to sleep with you. Rather, they’ll strip you naked and rob you blind.
Any person who comes at you with instant love is a faker or a scammer. The instant love they feel for you is love for the opportunity that you present and the money you have. The scams sound sincere, but all involve you sending money. Even if you are a poor person in your country, you are a very rich person by comparison to most of your African chat buddies. This disparity in wealth profoundly affects any relationship you develop.
Many of the photos in posted profiles are not true. Guys pass around flash drives full of sexy photos to use for online. Look at the background carefully. Look at the clothing, furnishings or electric outlets. There are many clues, so if your online friend is too beautiful, look carefully. Is he a model copied from some online magazine? How long has the profile existed? Profiles with a long history are generally people who have nothing to hide.
Even more shocking though, there are some Internet cafes that are *completely* devoted to this type of activity. It is truly a business, with finders fees paid for arranging a meeting with a foreigner, and 11 and 12 year old year-old boys watching pornography en masse and learning how to chat ‘gay’. On the Internet, anybody can be anything, so you really do not know who you are chatting with.
Older Western gay men are regarded as being rich and generous and desperate for needing love, so this has become a booming business. There have even been editorials in newspapers questioning whether Ghana is becoming the Thailand of Africa.
How to play it safe, then? Perhaps don’t play at all. The website Global Voices has some tips on what to do if you’re victimized, and how to cruise online more safely. Or, you know, just stay offline: Gay sex is illegal in Ghana, and scammers will use the threat to notify police to get you to pay up.
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Does this mean there’s no way to find the legit gays in Ghana? Of course not. There are semi-underground gay scenes in cities like Accra and Kumasi. But for all the precautions you should take when meeting guys online in the U.S., why not double or triple your wariness level in Ghana. Actually, do that in the U.S., too.
(Pictured: Daniel, who goes by “good_in_one” and “lookingforgood” on various dating sites, and is a known scammer.)
Fitz
The only way to play it safe is to have him let you tie him up- fuck is brains out, then talk.
bill
maybe us gay guys could learn to keep our cocks in our pants for more than 5 minutes at a time?
just a thought.
Zadie
And don’t forget the insane HIV/AIDS rates there, as well as cultural aversion to condoms. It’s the last place I’d go for a casual encounter. But then, I don’t have a death wish.
Fitz
@bill: I have given myself the right to be a sexual person.
AlwaysGay
This stuff has been going on for years. Six years ago an African contacted me through a gay website. He said he was lonely in the first email then in the second email he was asking for things. It was a scam. They try to instill guilt or fear into you to get you to give them whatever they want. I was also contacted by people in Southeast Asia using the same tactics. On AIM and Yahoo Messenger African scammers would hang out trying to guilt people into giving them stuff or rip them off. I haven’t used either service in years so I don’t know if they still are there.
edgyguy1426
something and his money something something parted
Mr. Enemabag Jones
Good luck getting help from the Ghana police. A friend went there five years ago with his wife and kids to visit his wife’s family and was robbed. He grabbed one of the men who robbed him and beat the shit out of him. He dragged the guy to the local police station and was promptly arrested for assault. And of course the guy claimed my friend was looking for sex and tried to rape him and when he resisted, he was beaten up. Of course the police believed the thief. My friend only avoided jail by paying a “fine” of almost $1000 US and leaving his expensive watch and camera as “evidence” for the police chief to check for finger prints
BramNash
“maybe us gay guys could learn to keep our cocks in our pants for more than 5 minutes at a time”?
apparently this suggestion has someone deeply offended. go figure.
schlukitz
@edgyguy1426:
Very true. But what I always wanted to know was, how did the fool and his money get together in the first place? ;o)
schlukitz
@Fitz:
you mean that you haven’t received the $2 million pounds the British Barrister in Kenya says you inherited if you’ll just give him the name of you bank and the account number so he can transfer the funds into it?
WTF?
Why would anyone WANT to go to Ghana? I think there are MAYBE 5 African countries worth visiting. Maybe. I worked with a girl from Nigeria whose aunt rescued her from having her clitoris burned off and her vadge sewn up when she took her out the country and to the US.
Oh boy
@WTF?: Exactly…who in their right mind would go there and get involved with something like that?
As for the other stories on here – it is the third world we are talking about. There is no infrastructure and very little human rights.
This is one of the darker sides of technology.
My mother once got a call from a guy with a Nigerian or Indian accent telling her she won some lottery and all he needed was her checking account number.
She stood there stunned and calmly replied, “If you call me again I am notifying the police.”
He hung up and likely moved on to his list of other phone numbers he got from God knows where.
RainaWeather
@bill: I agree. I know people claim this is just an argument of the “Christian Right” but contrary to some people’s beliefs our sex lives actually do have an effect on the rest of our lives.
MackMichael
Fortunately, my desperation has only led me to the “F’s” thus far. Currently, I’m looking for someone in Finland, but should nothing pan out (after all, the “E’s” proved fruitless, so to speak) I will have to keep this in mind as I head to the “G’s.”
scott ny'er
@MackMichael: LOL.
D-Sun
@RainaWeather:
My sleeping around in no way, shape, or form effects any aspect whatsoever of your life.
RainaWeather
@D-Sun: but it does affect your life. I’m not saying I find it morally wrong, I’m just saying that causes have effects.
BramNash
Don’t you DARE criticize a gay mans choice to free love, you bigot. Just because he’s a stereotypical queer whore at night doesn’t mean he can’t be a “normal” guy, campaigning for gay marriage during the day.
BramNash
Gays really need to come out of the closet. Stop hiding that side that mainstream folks are supposed to believe is just in their bigoted little minds.