What Is A Passport Bro And Why Does It Give Me The Ick?

At last, we can put a name to the kind of people who travel abroad with the primary goal to sleep with or marry foreign women. They call themselves ‘passport bros’, and they may just win the prize for the ultimate ick.

The concept behind passport bros existed way before this particular term gained traction and made the rounds on TikTok. It’s essentially a mail-order bride with more steps: men travel to foreign countries with the intention of sleeping with or marrying women, often driven by the perception that women in their home country have impossibly high standards or different life goals.

The term seems to have gained traction in January this year, according to a subreddit known as r/OutOfTheLoop. One particular passport bro got some serious heat when he made comments about some Brazilian women being “easy” to sleep with. (He ended up having to cut his vacay short when said women caught wind of his antics and made it known he wasn’t welcome.)

What is going on with the passport bros? from OutOfTheLoop

Of course, people on TikTok have had their say, which is how I came across the term. This one made its way back on to Reddit, too, with many commenters pointing out that passport bros don’t seem to be seeking equal partnership, but servitude. To put it as Reddit users do, they’re looking for “bangmaids.”

And that’s where this gets… weird. The act of travelling to another country and sleeping around is far from the problem. Live your best life! But jet-setting across to a different country with the specific goal of locating an “exotic” woman to warm your bed, clean up, and shut up?

There’s so much to unpack here, not least the characterisation of these women, usually from Asian and Latin American countries, as more submissive than their counterparts in countries like the US, Australia, and the UK. But suffice to say there’s something very impressive about how they manage to completely demean both the women they grew up with and the women they’re pursuing in one fell swoop.

While ‘passport bros’ is a new term, this is clearly not a new way of thinking; and there’s a bigger conversation to be had here about where these men fit in relation to incel culture and emerging ‘trad wife‘ trends.

In the meantime, though, here’s this: