Firebrand Chuwit says GI’s in Vietnam war left "legacy of sex culture" in Thailand

[webfact]

File photo: Daily News

 

Firebrand former politician and TV presenter Chuwit Kamolwisit went online - apropos of nothing - to give the Thai public the benefit of his years of experience in Thailand's huge sex industry.

 

He explained how GI's in the Vietnam war days on R and R in Thailand had left behind what he called a "legacy of sex culture". 

 

From this came other sex industry varieties that ultimately led to the Ap-Op-Nuat - soapy massage of today with its huge corruption over licences. 

 

"I'm taking you on a more than 50 year journey", said Chuwit, whose most famous picture is him in a jacuzzi with a large number of naked women. He also served time in jail and has often called out corruption in high places and the police.

 

He began by explaining the Vietnam War days when many airmen were stationed in places like U-Tapao and Udon Thani. 

 

They might be in Thailand for two months before going back to an uncertain future on the front lines. Where they could be here one day and dead the next.

 

They spawned the bar, A-Go-Go and nightclub style in their "farang image".

 

The quest for the soldiers' dollars led to the rise of Pattaya, Patpong in Bangkok and establishments on New Petchaburi Road. 

 

They were not interested in short time sex, he claimed. They wanted what he called "mia chao" (wives for rent).

 

They preferred to get a Thai woman to look after them for the duration of their stay in Thailand while they did their well known R and R.

 

This ASEAN NOW notes, was variously known as Rest and Recuperation and Rest and Relaxation or time off from the battles raging in Vietnam. 

 

Meanwhile a Japanese style of massage based on the Onsen (hot springs or hot bath) was taking hold. Women in white robes would massage customers in hot tubs but would not join their male clients. This was one of the forerunners of the Ap-Op-Nuat industry.

 

This means wash or shower, dry and massage in Thai but the whole expression refers to the style of sex industry massage where clients pick a woman in a glass bowl, take her to a room and have a bath or frolic on a rubber bed and then engage in sex.

 

When the GI’s left after the Vietnam war concluded in the 1970s they left behind a legacy of sex culture that further led to today's soapy scene, he claimed.

 

Then he talked about the area called Wisukasat and Jaran Sanitwong in Bangkok where there were establishments called "number hotels".

 

These vast emporia to sex were known only by numbers like 44, 55, 66, or 99. Customers would usually arrive by their own transport and curtains were pulled across as women were offered in rooms. 

 

Chuwit said that many of these were owned by a wealthy man of Chinese descent called Sa-art (the Thai word for clean).

 

He became known as Mr Clean and became dizzyingly rich. 

 

Chuwit continued his foray into the pay-for-play Thai sex industry with stories about massage joints on New Petchaburi Road that began as massage only but morphed into the soapy industry in places like the Chao Phraya and (Chaophyraya 2) and others on Ratchadaphisek Road.

 

They changed after Thais tried to negotiate sex with masseuses cutting out the owners. Once the owners realized this they put in an all encompassing "fee" for massage and sex paying the women out of that.

 

That's how Ap-OoNuat works.

 

These days he concluded soapy massages are euphemistically referred to as "sathan borigan" - service establishments.

 

The reality is that they are involved in sex, bars and nightclubs all rolled into one.

 

They need multiple licences that can run into tens of millions of baht each.

 

This leads to familiar corruption between the owners of the establishments, often state or senior officials themselves, and registrars whereby laws are often flouted or circumvented depending on who knows who. 

 

ASEAN NOW notes that Chuwit should know what he is talking about. And admittedly he was talking about only the last 50/55 years or so.

 

But Thailand had a big sex industry long before the GI's and foreigners ever set foot in the country to which he did not refer. 

 

The seeds of sex culture in Thailand were set in the days of old Siam when the GI's were but gleams in the eyes of their American mothers - and actually many, many decades or even centuries before that. 

 

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[clivebaxter]

Expect the 'but 90% of the sex industry is for Thais' posts, as if that were some sort of justification, Chewit should write a book nobody knows more than he does.

Edited October 22, 2021 by clivebaxter

[bigupandchill]

but 90% of the sex industry is for Thais

[jaltsc]

"But Thailand had a big sex industry long before the GI's and foreigners ever set foot in the country..."

 

And way before then. It has always been a matter of supply and demand. Eve had something Adam wanted and he was willing to give something in return (Rumor has it that he would take care of her sick water buffalo). If there is no demand, then the supply of a product or service disappears. What Chuwit is talking about is nothing more than what particular form that service takes.

[connda]

Well written.  With that title, I was expecting a morality piece.  For a second I though maybe Chawit had "found Buddha" or something and gone all "Prayut" on us and started preaching an ingenuous, forced two-tier 'morality.'
One tier for the commoners - no drinking, no marijuana, no sex, no night-entertainment, no massage, no fun;
...and another parallel 'morality' for the masters - 'Do as thy will is the whole of the law.'

Ended up with a history lesson instead.  Kudos 

Edited October 22, 2021 by connda

[ChrisY1]

Thailand opened their arms for the Viet military for their R&R......maybe he forgot that!

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

The fam and I have been doing some driving around during my October school break. We've passed countless shuttered businesses and factories, with collapsing walls and rusty old gates, a level of decay to suggest they'd been this way long before Covid.

 

If something were to be done to get those going again, as well as generate more, perhaps many young ladies might have alternatives to what largely becomes their inevitable path.

 

Not to mention this "no fail" education system. I only end up giving only about 20% of my students good or decent scores. Nothing's done about those who choose to do less, with many doing next to nothing. They do this knowing of the lack of consequences, as well as what's available to them out there upon graduation.

[BangkokReady]

Sounds like a more accurate description would be something like: "over time, 10% of Thailand's long established sex industry adapted itself a little to target the foreign market".

[VocalNeal]

9 minutes ago, CrunchWrapSupreme said:

perhaps many young ladies might have alternatives to what largely becomes their inevitable path.

Social media.

[Bluespunk]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

He explained how GI's in the Vietnam war days on R and R in Thailand had left behind what he called a "legacy of sex culture". 

Pesky foreigners eh. 
 

The hypocrisy of this creature is nauseating. 

[thaibeachlovers]

54 minutes ago, clivebaxter said:

Expect the 'but 90% of the sex industry is for Thais' posts, as if that were some sort of justification, Chewit should write a book nobody knows more than he does.

Sex needs no justification, and it's hugely enjoyable, as proven by so much money to be made by providing it to men that can't get it from women in their own country, including many married men.

If you want to point the finger, point it at married women that won't.

[JonnyF]

A Thai pimp blaming "Farang" for the sex culture in Thailand. How surprising.

 

Obviously there was no prostitution in Thailand before the Vietnam war, and these white devils lured and tricked these innocent Thai damsels into giving up their body for money ????.

 

It's never their fault, is it?

[thaibeachlovers]

29 minutes ago, CrunchWrapSupreme said:

The fam and I have been doing some driving around during my October school break. We've passed countless shuttered businesses and factories, with collapsing walls and rusty old gates, a level of decay to suggest they'd been this way long before Covid.

 

If something were to be done to get those going again, as well as generate more, perhaps many young ladies might have alternatives to what largely becomes their inevitable path.

 

Not to mention this "no fail" education system. I only end up giving only about 20% of my students good or decent scores. Nothing's done about those who choose to do less, with many doing next to nothing. They do this knowing of the lack of consequences, as well as what's available to them out there upon graduation.

Sure, sure. I've no doubt every young woman from a poor family in school dreams of working in a sweat shop for a pittance, and would never ever take the easy way to riches by engaging in sex with farangs.

[clivebaxter]

2 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Sex needs no justification, and it's hugely enjoyable, as proven by so much money to be made by providing it to men that can't get it from women in their own country, including many married men.

If you want to point the finger, point it at married women that won't.

It's not about sex but the illegal trade in it with it's accompanying problems of health, exploitation, drugs, tafficking and corruption. Of course this does not bother some, as long as they can get their end away with a girl sporting a fake smile for as little cost as possible.

[petedk]

3 minutes ago, thaibeachlovers said:

Sure, sure. I've no doubt every young woman from a poor family in school dreams of working in a sweat shop for a pittance, and would never ever take the easy way to riches by engaging in sex with farangs.

 

Or from a HiSo Thai.

 

There is a house near us where beautiful girls arrive every almost every evening in their Mercedes and Audi (in red plates). Over the next couple of hours men turn up in all sorts cars. The party starts, everyone is happy (I assume). No need for soapy massage places. This is far more discrete.

[Walker88]

Yes, before those GIs, Thailand had no sex outside of intentional procreation between married adults. It was Paradise, Shangri-la, Heaven and Valhalla all rolled into one.

 

Prostitution was unknown in Thailand until 1965, and of course doesn't exist today.

 

I bet it was also those GIs who established Bangkok's Thaniya Street, too: "Irasshaimase"

 

His comments were thinly veiled tribalism.

 

Perhaps he could have been more honest and said, "Thailand has always had a vibrant sex industry, but with the arrival of GIs in the 1960s, a portion of it began to target the new foreign market".

[Nojohndoe]

IMO this guy's account of his experiences and involvement is quite honest. He has no reason to refute the fact Thailand has had a sex industry predating the era of the Vietnam war because he was giving his definition of how it changed the style and presentation of it into what it has become. There is no tone of "blame"  nor could he justify it if there was because it provided lucrative opportunity.

It is likely that he was prompted into giving this personal account in recognition of the impact the pandemic has had and probably will never recover from due to the "industry" rapidly adopting and adapting to the use of the internet. That in itself has in a sense returned it to a more discreet activity but to the demise of many blatantly public venues.

[KarenBravo]

If he and his ilk object to this, why has nothing been done in 46 years?

[Gottfrid]

1 hour ago, clivebaxter said:

Expect the 'but 90% of the sex industry is for Thais' posts, as if that were some sort of justification, Chewit should write a book nobody knows more than he does.

No, it does not stand as a justification. It stands there as a fact.

[ThailandRyan]

2 hours ago, clivebaxter said:

Expect the 'but 90% of the sex industry is for Thais' posts, as if that were some sort of justification, Chewit should write a book nobody knows more than he does.

A tell all Expose would have to be written under a pseudonym as if he named names he would find himself in deep feces.

[Will B Good]

Just the consequences of a free market economy where supply is structured to meet demand I guess.

 

If the supply or the demand is missing nothing is going to happen.

[spidermike007]

Just another know it all, who is lost in space. Yes, the GI's no doubt had an influence, and created demand. But, it is likely the local sex industry existed for decades, if not centuries before the Americans came. The already thriving sex industry simply took on a different face, once the GI's came.

 

And just think. Without the industry here, the game of golf would have never been the same. Tiger Wood's father would never have met his mother in a Pattaya bar, while serving in Vietnam!

[thaibeachlovers]

1 hour ago, clivebaxter said:

It's not about sex but the illegal trade in it with it's accompanying problems of health, exploitation, drugs, tafficking and corruption. Of course this does not bother some, as long as they can get their end away with a girl sporting a fake smile for as little cost as possible.

I can only surmise that you actually know sod all about the farang nite scene in Thailand, as IMO what you write bears little if any resemblance to reality. After all, a man with your opinion would surely never actually go near a Thai bar scene to know.

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by thaibeachlovers

[Gecko123]

3 hours ago, webfact said:

They were not interested in short time sex, he claimed. They wanted what he called "mia chao" (wives for rent).

 

They preferred to get a Thai woman to look after them for the duration of their stay in Thailand while they did their well known R and R.

This was quite surprising to read, and radically changes my impression of what GI's on shore leave during the Vietnam war were like. Always imagined them as having been all about getting as much poontang as possible, but this makes it sound like many were lonely, homesick, and valued making an emotional and psychological bond with the woman.

 

People who condemn prostitution as a hedonistic evil forget that satisfying emotional and psychological needs, and the need for human touch often eclipse sexual gratification, per se, as the motivating factor behind why people seek out the services of prostitutes.

 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Gecko123

[ftpjtm]

1 hour ago, Walker88 said:

 

Perhaps he could have been more honest and said, "Thailand has always had a vibrant sex industry, but with the arrival of GIs in the 1960s, a portion of it began to target the new foreign market".

And a good portion of the farang clients treated the girls better than the locals. Some actually marrying them as a real wife, not a mia noi. All while turning a blind eye to their locally socially unacceptable "dark skin".

[The Hammer2021]

Pretty accurate but missed out the short time hotel scene and didn't enlarge on the 'number' hotels as 'locked brothels' with mainly Thai customers, and pale skinned, possibly underage girls. It's unclear if these still exist or if and why they faded out. The article finishes pointing out that P4P exited hundreds of years before GI RnR but doesn't really enlarge on its origins.

[Walker88]

1 hour ago, spidermike007 said:

 

 

And just think. Without the industry here, the game of golf would have never been the same. Tiger Wood's father would never have met his mother in a Pattaya bar, while serving in Vietnam!

More important, one could make a strong argument that Thailand's economic development owes a debt of thanks to the bargirls.

 

How many project and facilities managers came scouting for locations for a new regional plant, had a great time in Patpong or Nana or a soapie, and that influenced their recommendation for their parent company to set up in Thailand? I think things like tax incentives look good on paper, but a pleasant memory is likely a lot more influential.

 

How many young financial analysts working for Western investment banks came to scout out 'emerging markets', had a similarly great time in Bangkok or Pattaya, and wrote glowingly of Thailand's prospects, even upping it's 'recommended weighting' in an emerging markets' index?

 

Males are easily influenced by female affections, real or imagined. Business has a very human element to it, despite what biz schools might teach.

 

Rather than try to pretend the industry doesn't or never existed, there ought to be a statue or postage stamp reflecting the valuable contribution bargirls have made far beyond the tourism industry. Without FDI and portfolio weighting, Thailand might still be a sleepy backwater nation with a fraction of its current GDP. It might be attractive as a sleepy, Laos-like backwater land, but most Thai people probably prefer what investment and tech transfer brought it.

[KarenBravo]

2 hours ago, clivebaxter said:

It's not about sex but the illegal trade in it with it's accompanying problems of health, exploitation, drugs, tafficking and corruption. Of course this does not bother some, as long as they can get their end away with a girl sporting a fake smile for as little cost as possible.

Yeah.......I agree. It's about time some one did something about the girls exploiting their customers.

[Enzian]

Second hand, guys have told me the rent-a-wife thing has always been more common in the Philippines; be it as it may, that's been my own progression. 

The free wheeling attitude of many Thai females towards the activity could not be more different than the typical American woman's. Maybe Buddhism has something to do with it but I think the real origin of it all is to be found in the Sakdina system, in other words feudalism, there's the legacy. 

I've been reading the early Roman comic dramatist Plautus, and the courtesan system in second century BC Greco-Roman culture is amazingly similar to the way Thailand still is. For better or worse, the West has moved on.

 

 

[Tropicalevo]

I just love this guy.

Says what he thinks and always entertaining. (Not necessarily 100% accurate though.)

If one ever wanted to see what a real pimp looks like - you would show this guy's face.

Edited October 22, 2021 by Tropicalevo
Fat fingers