BERMUDA is catering to female tourists' lusty need for sex. That's according to a recent article in the which claims that thousands of female visitors flock to the Caribbean and Bermuda every winter to spend a week or two sleeping with local "beach boys" and paying them back in drinks, meals, gifts and even cash.

"And it is Quebec women ? with reputations as financially generous and uninhibited ? who are among the best established in the island flesh trade," the article quoted.

Also referred to as "sex tourists", or as some prefer "romance travellers looking for love and a little tenderness in the tropics", it is estimated that some 600,000 Western women have engaged in travel sex some time over the last 25 years ? many of them as repeat customers, returning to the tropics every winter for some sun and action.

The article quoted a global sex-trade expert, Kamala Kempadoo, who teaches at York University in Toronto.

"It's not just women on the beaches, it's the nightlife. You go to a party and see couple after couple of older, quite substantial ? I mean overweight ? white women with very young, very little black men," Ms Kempadoo said.

She added that the root of it isn't purely carnal, but companionship. The women wanted someone to show them around, romance them, make them feel special and needed ? something they perhaps didn't feel at home.

Some researchers suggest that the names given to these tourists belie the true nature of the "transaction".

The men go by many monikers". In Jamaica and other former British colonies, they're called rent-o-gents, rent-a-Rastas, rent-a-tutes, the Foreign Service and in the Dominican Republic, they're "sanky pankys" (a play on "hanky panky".

In Bermuda these women are apparently referred to as "longtails" or "yellowtails".