German documentary reignites sex tourism concerns for Thailand’s Pattaya

[proton]

9 hours ago, WinnieTheKhwai said:

 

You'd think so, but the NDR/DW documentary did the same as all the others before them and mixed it right up.  So a lot of pretty normal guys who agreed to be interviewed now find themselves mixed in with that German guy who took a 15 year old out of a bar.

Anyway I just watched the thing and it's just terrible journalism with a nasty moralizing streak to it.  Let me count the ways: 

1. First up I see it mentioned everywhere that the documentary has been blocked in Thailand.  It's not, and especially not by Thai authorities. You can readily find it on Youtube and other places, it's here; if you turn on captions in English, the translation is very good: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9m2qg1_-Vk    This fake news suggests that Thailand is trying to cover it up, which would be nonsense.   Some covering up does happen on the part of NDR/DW, who have disabled comments on the Youtube video.  They're likely worried about people pointing out all the mistakes and misleading content. 

2. They readily apply 'Pedophilia' to a sex act with a person under 18.  That's potentially illegal in Thailand and in Germany but it's not pedophilia; look it up. They also cut in video of a person walking through Pattaya with a very short bargirl, heavily implying that she's a child and that this is rife.  As we all know there's no shortage of short Thai women and unless you've asked her for ID then you can't just imply she's 12 years old.  Similarly we get video of actual children who are selling stuff on the streets; that's sad but it's not evidence of child sex: it's child labor.  Still bad, but if you cut that footage in with the rest then the audience can really only reach one conclusion: this is a city/country full of child sex slaves and pedophiles. 

3. There was nothing really wrong with the storyline of the bar girl who lived in Germany and had a child with a German man who is refusing to pay child support.  We also get the most coherent description of sex work from this lady.  The makers didn't bother with the man's side of the story, there may well be more to it. From the video call with the kid he didn't look particularly half Western but who knows and the makers didn't really care so ok. 

4. They did care to find the German guy who was arrested by Pattaya police for having sex with or planning to have sex with the underage girl from Cobra bar.   Quite astonishingly the guy agreed to be interviewed AND in the interview readily admitted that he knew the girl was 15.  Yet he feels unfairly treated.  As a result German police have now arrested him.. not the brightest bulb in the tree clearly.  Apparently he feels that as it was just a bar like any other and very out on the open he did not expect it to be illegal. Anyway it happens; some expats seem to think that tourist bars don't have underage girls when clearly they're around.  

5. Now we get to the weird moralizing.. there's a Thai Youtube influencer chick who does videos in which she features bargirls dressed up as sexy French maids in a hotel in South Pattaya, plus some pool parties, etc.  Now guess what they did.. they went to the site of a major German tourism operator and found that this hotel can be booked for a holiday.   WHAT?!    It's now the hotel's fault for one of their guests renting a couple rooms and shooting a youtube vid.. and not only that, this means that the German tourism company is promoting and sponsoring sex tourism..  As a result they got the hotel removed from their site..  Now, this is a totally normal hotel in South Pattaya, not on Walking Street or an obvious red light area and if you check the hotel reviews then you see many families stay there.  🤣  TUI should have told them to get stuffed. 

6. The rest is kind of filler content of gullible idiots agreeing to be interviewed with the usual nonsense about Thai women being more female than German women, while the interviewer asks cringy questions about paying for sex/company and if they're taking advantage of poor Thai women's poverty and desperation.  None of them state the bloody obvious and miss the opportunity to deflect it right back:  go talk to those women and ask if they'd prefer foreign men to stay home, so they can go work on a farm or construction site.  But they don't, so all the men in the video look like schmucks or creeps or both, or trying to cover up what Pattaya is.   They basically look like creeps just for being in a place like that.  Great work. :)

 

If you look at the film at 14.10 you can just catch a glimpse of the girls face, thats a child not a woman and the man holding hands with her is a pedophile, not just a sex tourist. Then there are the stills from the bar, definitely children about 15, splitting hairs about what is actual pedophilia or child abuse is pointless, it's still illegal, exploitative and damaging children. The people behind that bar should be in prison, but they are still doing business.

[WinnieTheKhwai]

6 hours ago, proton said:

 

If you look at the film at 14.10 you can just catch a glimpse of the girls face, thats a child not a woman and the man holding hands with her is a pedophile, not just a sex tourist. 

 

LOL seriously?   That's this one. With the beer bottle.   Yeah, total baby face. 🤣

 

 

She then proceeds to actually drag the guy over towards some bar of the left.  She clearly knows where she's going.    I think she's 30-something at least and I'm being kind.

 

 

BTW no argument on girls that are 15-16-17 should not be in bars, and police rightly take an interest in that.   I wish they then didn't forcibly abduct those girls and place them in a program often against their will, but ok. 

 

 

 

[advancebooking]

On 12/5/2023 at 6:31 PM, newnative said:

If that were the case, the entire city would have shut down during the years of covid.  It didn't.

nonsense comment. It did all basically shut down. All bars closed. It was a spooky ghost town

[newnative]

2 hours ago, advancebooking said:

nonsense comment. It did all basically shut down. All bars closed. It was a spooky ghost town

Yes, of course, the bars closed.  Some touristy areas were largely deserted during the worst parts of the pandemic.  The city as a whole, though, did not 'all basically shut down'--that's the 'nonsense comment'.

[still kicking]

On 12/7/2023 at 5:56 AM, jacko45k said:

Certainly much wrong with it and for people who live here simply blind to reality.... we will never change that. But I found so much to feel negative about after watching it. The fact that a fellow countryman would knowingly make such disgusting a business, that there are people who partake and see nothing wrong with their behavior, and as far as the police are concerned no problem if you pay them off and the sickos can move on and do it again. I felt dirty to be associated with the Pattaya presented. 

It will pass. 

Absolute nonsense I've' bee to Pattaya many times never been to a bar at all, my friend has her own hairdressing salon and son and daughter work at the Hilton.

[jacko45k]

5 hours ago, still kicking said:

Absolute nonsense I've' bee to Pattaya many times never been to a bar at all, my friend has her own hairdressing salon and son and daughter work at the Hilton.

So you know sweet FA. Do not live in Pattaya and I just don't see how my comment is relevant to you....

Jeez this board is getting dimmer!