Girls for Sale. Cheap.

So I was looking at a blog today and happened to notice one of the ads placed by Google at the top of the page. This is what it read:

Vietnam Girls
Save on Vietnam Girls. Bargain Prices. Smart Deals.

Even though I'm not a fan of the buying and selling of human beings (or the troubling sex trade innuendos that this advertisement seemed to reek of...or the idea of "bargain prices" being applied to any of the above), my inquisitive nature, which I usually manage to repress in such potentially unsavory territory, won out. I boosted Google's sales revenue and clicked the link.

I found myself looking at the shopzilla.com search results for "Vietnam girls." The actual results were, to my relief, quite tame. There were three art.com posters depicting daily life in Vietnam. But then, below what shopzilla.com had to show me, was...another collection of sponsored links. And these, of course, were targeted at the very type of person who would normally be drawn in by the words "Vietnam Girls" in proximity to the words "Bargain Prices." Again, not usually me.

You know what I'm about to describe. The kinds of advertisements that conjure up a story reminiscent of Lolita taking place in Vietnam. Only with a more pathetic, less sympathetic version of Humbert Humbert. The kind of guy who can't make it with American girls because he's a huge social failure, but who hopes that some Asian girl with visions of coming to the U.S. will tolerate his advances long enough for him to get laid. How's that for a cliché?* Politically incorrect enough? I think it helps that I once saw something like that playing out on a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery. Except that the girl in question was Russian.

Anyway, the ads on the page I ended up at on an advertising site because of the ads on another web site (meta-ads?) made my skin crawl. A sampling:

Exotic Thai Women
Meet hundreds of Thai women During our 10 day tours to Bangkok

Thai women seeking men
beautiful sincere Thai women Looking for love, dating & marriage

Thai Dating And Singles
Meet Sexy Thai Singles Now! 308,000+ Members. Join 100% Free

Apparently, shopzilla.com thinks a Thai girl is the same as a Vietnamese girl. But dammit, when I clicked this link, I was expecting to find Vietnamese girls to purchase at "Bargain Prices!

Well, to a lot of Americans, I guess they probably are the same. And I don't know about you, but when I travel to countries on the other side of the world, I'm mostly just interested in meeting people of the opposite sex, rather than this experiencing another culture business.

The best worst part of these placed ads was the headline of "Stores Selling Artwork & Posters" placed above these advertisements. As if shopzilla.com could deny responsibility for the advertising of access to nubile Asian women by labeling them as advertisements for wall hangings.

I don't want Google ads to start censoring its content any more than I want books like Heather Has Two Mommies to be yanked from public libraries. But, unlike Heather Has Two Mommies, I see the advertisement "Save on Vietnam Girls" as a sad reflection on our society. Shall I try to compose a complete list of all of the negative aspects of our society that it highlights?

Consumerism. We like spending money and are obsessed with having the "right" things. Including girls purchased over the internet, apparently.

Orientalism. As it pertains to postcolonial attitudes, mainly, but the whole concept is a slippery slope.

Sex as a marketing tool. It really does sell, and that makes me sad, because that cheapens it. Especially when it's at Bargain Prices.

The "fast food effect." We are lazy bastards who can't even be troubled to get out of our cars and walk into a restaurant. Yes, I use the drive thru, too, though not often. Yes, I don't always have time/energy to cook/walk into a restaurant. Still, the prevailing attitude is, "I want it cheap, easy, and right now, dammit!" This also makes me sad.

Unwillingness to pay for quality/high priority items. Americans use a smaller percentage of their budgets for food than most of the rest of the world and have a greater variety of choices...some good, many bad...than much of the rest of the world, yet can justify spending more on unnecessary luxury items like leather upholstery in cars - see "fast food effect."

The implication that "Vietnam Girls" are somehow the bargain equivalent of...what? White girls? American girls? Insert category here. Or that there's a surplus, which causes the price to drop. I'm probably wandering too far in the economics here.

I'm out of thoughts for now. What do you think?


*I know this is certainly not always the case with couples of mixed nationalities, and I in fact know some very happy ones, but I think you get my unsettling point here.