BangkokReady

I didn't raise any questions. Another user mentioned communism and I simply pointed out that communist economies are not successful. A point that I supported with multiple examples, at your request. I gave multiple examples across two responses. That you choose to bizarrely ignore them, I can't really do much about. You can. Again, a little bizarre and illogical. And good day to you too, chum.

As I said, most countries who attempted communism failed. Just look at any of them. China is a good example, Vietnam too. Both started as communist but spent decades in poverty. Once they admitted that communist economies were incapable of providing a decent standard of living, they switched to capitalism economically and prospered. Then there is the USSR, Cambodia, North Korea, etc.. China is politically communist but they are economically capitalist, due to the failure of communism as an economic system. This failure is the reason that Thailand would not want to have a communist economy. We're talking about economics, politics is not so relevant here. You can pretend that the type of economy is not important when discussing economics, and you can pretend the separation doesn't matter if you want, but there's not much more I can discuss with you if you want to try and deny this simple fact. Nobody is going to take you seriously if you persist in this line of reasoning.

Pretty much any communist economy. China admitted that a communist economy could not function quite a while ago. They only use communism to hold onto political power, they have a capitalist economy. It's a big part of it. In fact, part of the only reason they're not all starving is the secret tolerance of black-markets.

Unfortunately, the constant efforts at promoting "unity" can have some downsides.

You would if it lead to not having enough food to eat like in most communist economies.

True. For a people who constantly complain about their government and claim to want more freedom and democracy, they also demand a lot of government control and subsidisation of prices. I wonder if they realise that if they truly had all the "freedom" and human rights which they demand, they would lose a lot of the heavy protections and benefits that they have.

Easy guy. My irony meter is going crazy over here.

The thing that puzzles me a little, is how you would end up being in the position where you would be hanging around with Thai men who are high-so enough to look down on poor people, but you end up married to a poor person.

Yeah, this guy's quite the "All the other falang are bad and I'm the only good one!" type.

Who's bashing the Thai people and Thailand? Who's said it's "so bad"? And why would you need you leave if there was one small thing you didn't like? Do you think people have to love absolutely every aspect of a place or they have to leave? That seems a slightly odd perspective. You can't must make things up because you don't like people discussing an aspect of Thailand that some might find to be negative.

I'm afraid that's how you come across. E.g. your gym example is simply someone apparently mislabeling themselves as an "old-timer" and you reveling in speaking fluent Thai while he could not. He didn't say anything bad about Thailand, nor about you, but you still feel the need to point out something negative about him. That isn't a positive thing, is it? If you told him you were going to recount the interaction when describing annoying interactions with other foreigners, he would probably be offended.

A lot of anger coming from the two people involved in that conversation. And they call others "bitter". Who worries about what rich Thai people who don't like people brown skin think about anything? And boasting about speaking Thai or how long they've been here... yawn!

And then they wonder why they don't have any Thai male friends! Did you just reply to your own comment? And are you saying that foreigners don't have Thai male friends because they like dark skinned girls... so kind of not very nice people?

If Thailand was different, Thailand would be different. That much I can agree with.

So I should pretend that prostitution is as common in Western countries as it is in Thailand in order to not offend people? Also, I'm not sure that you know what a "slur" is, as I haven't used any.

Doesn't Thailand have the second most dangerous roads in the world?

Are you seriously suggesting that a typical Western country will have the same proportion of women being forced into, or opting to try, prostitution as Thailand?

I'm struggling to see how this comment disagrees with what I have written. The person I responded to claimed that all countries commodify women in the same way when it comes to prostitution. This is not true, in my opinion. You seem to agree with me. What point are you making?

There are plenty of countries where women feel no pressure from their families to enter sex work and where families do not view their daughters as a revenue stream. Whether that is some sort of great moral enlightenment, or merely the fact that they are rich enough to not require it and that changed people's view of women, is another conversation.

I'm not sure what point you're making now. I said prostitution is accepted in Thailand which is why people do it so freely. You said that I only think that because I hear it from people in the sex industry. I responded that I didn't associate with people in the sex industry, but still hear about people selling sex. Now you've responded with this. Did you get lost somewhere? What does this have to do with attitudes towards prostitutes in Thailand? You've put the USA in there. Do you genuinely think people have better or more accepting attitudes to prostitutes in the USA than in Thailand? I would have to say that I very much doubt that.

I try to be realistic. I know that whatever the situation the man needs to earn, unless casual. I know "we all pay for it". If I was divorced with grown children, had a comfortable income and could afford to have a young Thai ex-bar girl as company and to provide sex, perhaps I would. I don't judge anyone for their choices, as long as everyone consents and is completely open. If I talk about stuff like this, I try to be descriptive, rather than prescriptive. There are some obvious flaws in the way we live in the West, not least the fact that the man is expected to work hard and provide pretty much until he dies, while the woman can get fat and lazy and become completely undesirable if she wishes. It used to be that the woman had certain obligations to balance this out, which made things a bit fairer, but that seems to be all but gone now. I haven't even married or had children yet, so I'm possibly at a different stage in life with a different perspective. I certainly intend to find a non-prostitute girl, I would hope that looks and personality can help a little, but I have no doubt that money will factor into it, as it always does. I happily and heartily encourage you to "do you", as you have no one else to answer to.

More acceptable than the culture I come from, and I believe many others. Also, being forbidden by law has nothing to do with how accepted something is by society at large. Someone from the Netherlands might look down on a prostitute more than someone from Thailand. It means girls of 18-24 having sex with men for money while attending university. That's not exactly the relevant bit though, is it? The point is, you don't need to be hanging out with sex workers to hear how common pay for play is in Thailand.

I don't think everyone sees it like that. I think it's OK to have a different perspective and to desire to have a relationship with someone who thinks the same.

I think you're confusing the existence of something with it being a normal and common thing.

It's still way more acceptable in Thailand. You can adjust that to "within my community or social group" if that makes it more applicable for you, but there are way more people getting paid for sex than full-time or part-time semi-pros. I don't associate with anyone in the sex industry, but I've still heard about uni students selling sex, sugar daddies, giks, mia nois, and so on.