April 16th onward - An article in several
parts composed of the following headings and subheadings:-
Historical/Cultural Perspective.
Thai's don't hide sex - but we do.
Thai acceptance of gay and transexual people.
What effect does media depiction have on Thailand?
What effect does media depiction have on The Industry?
Are foreign female journalists simply neurotic about
sex?
Kidnapped Children bonded in Slavery
Profile of Typical Sex Tourist
Description of Sex Venues
Patpong
Nana Plaza
Pattaya
The Sex Market - who works it and why.
Industry Economics.
Does anybody make the money?
Does the government make the money?
Do the workers make the money?
The Police, the Army and the Thai "Mafia".
p> The Americans
The Europeans
The British
Farang Cultural Perceptions - The Good Wife.
Sex and drugs and rock'n'roll. Life on the darker side
of
the street.
AIDS, Hepatitis, VDs - Old Friends of The Industry
Guns, death and bodybags - Old Friends of The Industry
Conclusion.
Preface
This is the inside story of a very controversial topic.
The
writer has no affiliation with any newspaper groups or
political parties and so can write freely without editorial
pressure to "not mention that part please".
The writers opinion is just that - opinion. But
remember,
there are no facts in the world, just illusions and
opinions. Nobody is right - Nobody is wrong. This is just
the writers point of view. And it would not hurt you to
adopt it.
First thing that happened:-
I sent an Email to a friend the other day asking if,
during
his forthcoming visit to Europe, he was going to stop over
in Thailand on his way from Australia and visit me. If you
could turn up your nose in Email - he would have done so.
He replied "I don't just want to hang out in bars with
prostitutes you know, I want something interesting when I
go for my holiday so I am sticking to Europe".
Yeah! - well!... No, I don't speak to him anymore. But
his
attitude is common. His total ignorance is common. Ask most
Westerners what they know of Thailand and they will
answer "lots of girls over there, lots of go-go bars and
brothels, massage parlours, so on and so forth..."
Second thing that happened:-
I asked Rod, the publisher of Generator 21 Online if
there
were any particular stories he'd like me to write for the
magazine. Rod said "yeah, why's Thailand always depicted as
a sex destination by the media?" This came just a day after
my friends Email. It all tied in.
What I want to do here is just hand over another
perspective. I hope it is a more impartial and clearer view
of why Thailand is depicted thusly - why Thailand kind of
IS a place where you can "get laid" easily.
But there is far, far more to Thailand than fast and
easy
sex.
Ask most Westerners where the best sex destination is
and
they will tell you "Thailand of course".
Why do Westerners have this perception of Thailand
being
nothing much more than a place for cheap sex? Is the
perception correct? Why have the media persisted in
depicting Thailand in this manner? What effect has this
perception on Thailand and it's people? These and other
related questions are what I want to deal with in this
series of articles. For starters let's get back to the
beginning.
Historical/Cultural Perspective.
Thai's don't hide sex - but we do.
Long before Westerners (Farangs) came to Thailand the
country and the culture embraced sex as simply another
required bodily function. Sex was not "dirty" or "foul"
or "shamefull". Yet this is what I was taught as a child in
Australia. Have no doubt, I was taught literally that sex
was a thing of horror, filthy, something to hide away
behind locked doors. Sex was violence, blood, bad smells
and big troubles.
In Thailand past and today, they do not teach that to
children, they do not indoctrinate their population with
creeds of sin and shame. More than 90% of Thailand's people
are Buddhists. Buddhism is a philosophy of acceptance of
life. Christianity is a socio-political control perversion.
Sex in Thailand is not something to be ashamed of. Sex
is
like eating, breathing, shitting and sleeping. It's just
one of those things that your body has to do now and then.
There are rules, there are social mores. But no Thai I've
ever met has any perception of shame in sex.
Long before Farangs arrived here the houses of comfort
were
doing a good trade. Father's took their young sons to be
educated about life and sex. Business people went to forget
their worries. Workers saved their meagre wages and
attended for fun or relief. The houses were attended by
both male, female and cross-gender staff. These houses of
comfort have existed in Thailand for hundreds of years.
And unlike Western countries, Thailand had no cultural
mores that said "do that shit behind closed and locked
doors". Oh no! Thailand's sex industry has always been
right out front. On the street. Open. Visible. Accessible.
Per capita equiv of prostitutes in Australia, the
Americas
and the EEC
I feel that I can speak with some small authority. I
have
friends who work in the sex industry in Australia.
Pornography shop workers, Prostitutes, Bouncers, Madams. My
own mother ran several girls from a mining town hotel in
the 50's when she got sick of being harrassed by horny
miners in a no-girl town. I have worked the industry there
myself redecorating and renovating one of Melbourne's more
popular parlours. And yes, I have even taken some comfort
in such houses when I was lost and lonely.
Although no research body (to my knowledge) has
actually
counted the amount of prostitutes per capita in Australia,
the Americas or the EEC - I feel that I KNOW that there are
as many if not more prostitutes per capita in Australia
than in Thailand.
I think I can fairly assume that the same goes for the
AMERICAS and EEC. More prostitution than Thailand and a
cultural more that says "put it behind the door, lock the
door, don't let anybody see that filthy shite!".
Child Prostitution - More in Australia, the Americas
and
the EEC.
I worked for several years for Save The Children Fund
in
Melbourne, Australia. I took care of a large group
of "turnkey" children (parents not home until late at
night - kids left alone). Two of these kids, around age 12,
worked as prostitutes to get money for their parents drug
habits. I know their story from the street level. I met
their friends, all involved in selling sex to old farts. I
could not believe how many of them worked the streets.
Large parks were their main venu, but some told me of clubs
too. Fancy clubs with Mercs and Limos out front and dying
old men inside.
King's Cross in Sydney literally crawls with sub-teens.
One
of the world's biggest child-prostitution rings was run
from the central computer of Melbourne University until
they caught red-handed the creep running it. Then something
odd happened. The news was suppressed - it never made the
papers. The creep was not prosecuted. The information was
removed by the police and nothing was ever heard about it
again.
I met one of the police officers involved with the
case. He
informed me that on that computer system was a list of
names. BIG names. Famous people, politicians, TV folk,
judges and lawyers. Names of men and women involved in a
world-wide distribution network/club for old farts with too
much money who like to tamper with children.
A friend of mine is serving life in prison. He shot his
girlfriend in the head with a shotgun, right in her office
in front of her father. My friend had discovered that they
were involved with the distribution of child pornography.
He told her and her father to stop it. But they made a lot
of money out of the business and did not want to stop it.
He took some heavy drugs one day, freaked out, took his gun
and killed her. He got life, nobody gets life for murder in
Australia but he got life. The family's involvement in
child pornography came out in court of course. The father
was not prosecuted. Why not? And why did my friend get
life? Because the judge was one of the family's best
customers.
Child prostitution is accepted by the Australian
authorities by way of their total lack of commitment to end
this business. Child prostitution is backed up and
supported by the same people who make the laws against it.
It's just like the marijuana industry in Australia - do
what we say, not what we do. Same people make the laws
profit on the black market.
Thai government, people and culture do not now and have
never supported child prostitution. Yes there are child
prostitutes in Asia. In Thailand, The Phillipines, Japan
and elsewhere. Yes it happens here too. But it is far more
insidious and broad-spread in Western countries. Look, the
kids ARE here in Thailand if you want them. The kids are
all over the world. The customers are the problem - and the
customers are not Thai. So how about the world cleaining up
their own back yards before they point the finger at
Thailand?
All I know is that if you ask me right now to take you
to a
place where you can tamper with kids, I'd have to send you
to Melbourne or Sydney because after years of street-life
here, I still don't know and have never heard of any
central point for such activities in Thailand. But I can
tell you EXACTLY where to go in Australia if you want to
mess up a kids life.
Again, I think I can fairly assume that the situation
is
the same in the AMERICAS and EEC. What? You going to try to
tell me there are no child prostitutes on the streets of
New York, Amsterdam, Brazil? Are you serious? No way!
Thai acceptance of gay and transexual people in Thailand
Sex and sexual issues are simply more acceptable in the
culture and society of Thailand than in any Western
countries that I know of. Gays, Cross-Dressers,
Transvestites and others who deviate from the sexual norm
walk proud and free of fear in Thailand.
A pretty gay boy is more likely to be worshipped than
beaten in Thailand.
A pretty gay boy is most certainly going to wind up
beaten
to a bloody pulp in Australia by some homophobe. Homophobia
is something I am yet to see in Thai people.
Up-country in the village, if a household has four boys
and
no girls and one of the boys displays even the slightest
effeminate characteristics, he will be allowed to grow up
as if a girl. This is also common in South Pacific
cultures. Mum needs help around the house, all the kids are
boys, so what? Bring one of the boys up as a girl and she
can help mum out.
Thais simply DO NOT freak out about sex. Farangs simply
DO
freak out about sex. Herein lies a major point in the
search for an answer as to why the world appears to think
that Thailand is one big brothel.
I guess that from a Farang perspective Thailand is, in
some
ways, a great big brothel. "Disneyland for Grownups" I have
heard said.
A society that does not besmirch the act of sexual
congress
with images of filth, dirt, horror, blood and foul stench
is likely as not to be targeted by the more "hung-up"
societies as a "country of perversion" or a "sex
destination".
Even if all this was true, I would not care less. So
what
if it was true? It is NOT true, but what if it was? Are you
really THAT strung out about sex?
What if I tell you here that people only go to
restaurants
to drink coffee and that coffee is a dangerous drug?
What if I told you that restaurants represent a threat
to
society as I perceive it should be. I should try to
convince you that people only go to restaurants to drink
coffee.
Never mind the food, the newspapers, the toilets, the
people working there. Never mind meeting your fiends there
for a quick meal and a chat.
The only thing that matters is that they are unethical
houses of ill repute because THE ONLY THING THEY DO IS SELL
COFFEE!
Same attitude. Same absurdity. Same ignorance.