Channel 4 Documentary - Uk

[zzdocxx]

I tried to find the video everyone is discussing but couldn't.

Could someone provide the info needed to see it, if it is available to view on the net?

Thanks! I just wanted to be able to participate in this interesting argume --er I mean discussion.

[girlx]

meemiathai surely you can present your argument without insulting my intelligence. you don't know anything about my situation, and are no more in a position to judge me than you say i am to judge bargirls who complain that they had no choice but to be bargirls. you are welcome to disagree with my opinion however i stand by it.

p.s. what's all this about my neighbors? you mean my complaints that they were volatile drug dealers? how in the world does that relate to this thread?

Edited December 30, 2007 by girlx

[Robski]

Sure he is, we know all about you girlx because you feel so compelled to tell us all the time.

reason for edit; the definition of intelligence is the abillity to comprehend and adapt to new ideas...

Edited December 30, 2007 by Robski

[girlx]

the definition of intelligence is the abillity to comprehend and adapt to new ideas...

well that goes both ways, doesn't it?

Sure he is, we know all about you girlx because you feel so compelled to tell us all the time.

Your situation doesn't really compare to the one faced by poor Thai familys. You have been able to realise the American Dream, unfortunately, for your Thai counterparts the only dream is an impossible one.

again, you have no idea what my situation was (based on a few posts on a message board), so you are not in a position to comment on it. different countries might have different obstacles, but they do exist in every country just the same, and it is not necessarily easier to achieve the "american dream" (which by the way is a house in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and a minivan, nothing like my life) than it is to get on your feet in thailand. it's up to the individual how to do so and whether or not they let the obstacles they have faced become a crutch or an excuse for laziness.

p.s. here you go meemiathai, to make relevant the drug dealers... by your reasoning drug dealers might be forced to deal drugs (an illegal activity just as prostitution is, don't forget) because of their sad financial situation. i say that is the easy (and less intelligent) way out, and there are always alternatives.

Edited December 30, 2007 by girlx

[Robski]

Oh but we do girlx, and oh how we've laughed at your short sighted, stereotypical and narrow minded histronics.

Anyway I'm surprised that this thread is still going and I would assume that those that are still bickering over it are those that haven't actually seen it.

It was really rather good and dissapointingly for many in this thread it portrayed a very balanced and non-sensationalist view of the lives and choices of many rural Thai females.

Edited December 30, 2007 by Robski

[siamamerican]

Just curious, what is your issue with working in a bar?

my issue is not with them working at the bar... if they really want to do so, good for them. my issue is with those who say they have to work the bar because they have no other options.

OK, then I assume you would respect a girl that chooses to work in a bar where she can make 4x what she would make at other jobs. Money is the driving force; not laziness.

Most girls are correct in claiming that working in a bar is the only option to make substantial money. For some, it is the only option available. It takes courage to go to big city with no money and few skills that employers need. Dark skinned Isaan girls aren't in high demand outside of the bar scene.

My wife left her village at 17 with a friend. They arrived in bangkok and left a couple weeks later with nothing gained, except an understanding of how difficult the city was for country girls. I'm glad she left - she probably would have had no other option, but to work in bar. She isn't hard to look at, and very easily could have chosen to work in a bar. The decision was easier for her than most girls: no child or parents to support.

[girlx]

Oh but we do girlx, and oh how we've laughed at your short sighted, stereotypical and narrow minded histronics.

nice to know you are unable to have a balanced debate without resorting to personal attacks, i will make note of it. in case you haven't noticed, i haven't attacked anyone here. insults always give an argument less credibility.

siamamerica, i do agree with you that prostitution is easy money. and like i said, if a girl chooses to do that, works hard, saves her money, and gets herself into a better position with it (like a friend of a friend who worked doing several guys a day assembly-line style at a soapy massage, bought a condo for herself and a house for her parents, and got out of the business after a year and a half)... good for them. but let not kid ourselves, a good many of the girls are pitching their sob stories, spending their cash on cellphones and yaba and hoping to find a farang to milk for all they are worth. a lot of them end up coming out not much better than they went in.

[Robski]

Girlx.. How long have you been in Thailand? Quite a long time and yet you continually show you have no empathy with Thailand or it's people.

You spout your middle class western rhetoric and think that whatever you have done can be done by anyone in a third world rural situation.

These are not insults they are my observations of you, you are unable to accept that you may be wrong ever, and you are incapable of self education, or adapting to the well thought out and well meant advice that has been offered to you in the past. Basically no one in their right mind on here cares about your opinion anymore 'cos it's just a worn out old record.

Edited December 30, 2007 by Robski

[girlx]

thanks for your opinion. next?

[siamamerican]

Oh but we do girlx, and oh how we've laughed at your short sighted, stereotypical and narrow minded histronics.

nice to know you are unable to have a balanced debate without resorting to personal attacks, i will make note of it. in case you haven't noticed, i haven't attacked anyone here. insults always give an argument less credibility.

siamamerica, i do agree with you that prostitution is easy money. and like i said, if a girl chooses to do that, works hard, saves her money, and gets herself into a better position with it (like a friend of a friend who worked doing several guys a day assembly-line style at a soapy massage, bought a condo for herself and a house for her parents, and got out of the business after a year and a half)... good for them. but let not kid ourselves, a good many of the girls are pitching their sob stories, spending their cash on cellphones and yaba and hoping to find a farang to milk for all they are worth. a lot of them end up coming out not much better than they went in.

Agree I read your earlier posts as blanket statements in regards to bar girls. I have no idea how many improve their life in the long run. Remember the majority of these girls are young with limited opportunities. They are spending their money on what makes them happy, just as in the west. Some are savvy enough to save for the future and others aren't. Most deserve respect and have the right to complain about their lack of options. Many people at my work are making six figure incomes and still complain about their situation.

Edited December 30, 2007 by siamamerican

[girlx]

I read your earlier posts as blanket statements in regards to bar girls.

just so you know, my opinion is not relegated to bar girls, or thai people (despite inferences earlier that this is proof of my lack of empathy towards the whole of thailand). i feel the same about people living off the welfare system in the US too... drug dealers in the ghettos, hippies panhandling on the streets, etc. a lot of people blame the past or other people for their sad position in life. some people have bad luck or make stupid choices when they are really young, and might geninely have no other options, and i do feel pity for them- but i do not believe they are the majority, anywhere.

[Robski]

thanks for your opinion. next?

So did you actually watch the documentary?

[ClaytonSeymour]

the definition of intelligence is the abillity to comprehend and adapt to new ideas...

well that goes both ways, doesn't it?

Sure he is, we know all about you girlx because you feel so compelled to tell us all the time.

Your situation doesn't really compare to the one faced by poor Thai familys. You have been able to realise the American Dream, unfortunately, for your Thai counterparts the only dream is an impossible one.

again, you have no idea what my situation was (based on a few posts on a message board), If you're not prepared to share it, stop harping on about it. so you are not in a position to comment on it. different countries might have different obstacles, but they do exist in every country just the same, and it is not necessarily easier to achieve the "american dream" (which by the way is a house in the suburbs with 2.5 kids and a minivan, nothing like my life) Oh excuse me - you're so good you've exceeded the American Dream than it is to get on your feet in thailand. it's up to the individual how to do so and whether or not they let the obstacles they have faced become a crutch or an excuse for laziness.

p.s. here you go meemiathai, to make relevant the drug dealers... by your reasoning drug dealers might be forced to deal drugs (an illegal activity just as prostitution is, don't forget) because of their sad financial situation. i say that is the easy (and less intelligent) way out, and there are always alternatives.

[mrtoad]

Another thread hijacked by girlx, so that she can talk about her life struggles and how those that don't follow her path are just plain lazy.

Time for a tea break in this thread.

[blizzard]

am i the only one who tinks prostituting is not ez munney?

[siamamerican]

I read your earlier posts as blanket statements in regards to bar girls.

just so you know, my opinion is not relegated to bar girls, or thai people (despite inferences earlier that this is proof of my lack of empathy towards the whole of thailand). i feel the same about people living off the welfare system in the US too... drug dealers in the ghettos, hippies panhandling on the streets, etc. a lot of people blame the past or other people for their sad position in life. some people have bad luck or make stupid choices when they are really young, and might geninely have no other options, and i do feel pity for them- but i do not believe they are the majority, anywhere.

I don't think most people would disagree with this post, except the last statement. In Thailand, in my opinion, a majority of poor Thai women have no options to make good money except to work in a bar. There are some that do succeed outside of the bar scene, but the odds are better working at a bar. Right or wrong, this is a reality.

Do you think most bar girls are lazy? If I remember correctly, they only get a couple days off a month and work 10 hour days. Sometimes they work until the sun rises. The occupation chews up many of the women and you could argue that they would be better working at a low paying job in the long run. Your earlier posts, showed a lack of empathy and I think that is why so many posters are criticizing you.

As for people living off the welfare system in the US, drug dealers in the ghettos, hippies panhandling on the streets, etc., I feel empathy for there plight. At the same time I have little respect for them. Unlike bar girls, they aren't attempting to improve their situatiuon. Well, I guess drug dealers are, but...

[siamamerican]

am i the only one who tinks prostituting is not ez munney?

no, sleeping with you would scare the bejesus out of me.

[JetsetBkk]

I tried to find the video everyone is discussing but couldn't.

Could someone provide the info needed to see it, if it is available to view on the net?

Thanks! I just wanted to be able to participate in this interesting argume --er I mean discussion.

I don't know if you can view it "on the net". You can download it if you have bittorrent client s/w. Just Google "LRG My Boyfriend The Sex Tourist PART 2, C4, British Documentary".

[JetsetBkk]

Well when you are strapped with taking care of parents - this burden alone is more than the avg thai salary. Add supporting a child or two and you can see why those who choose the bar profession do this. They can't afford to not to since there is nowhere else they can make that sort of dosh to support families. Now if more than one sibling helped out family obligations then perhaps none would have to enter the profession. However least in thai cases -its normally the eldest lady - supporting everyone. Course there are those that are out for quick dosh, and dont fall in this category, but I'd say majority do so because they financially have to.

As far as the tele program - typical channel 4 rubbish. No merit, just shown for titillation.

I can't believe you wrote that last line! What did you find titillating? I found it true to life and reflecting what you wrote in the first paragraph of your reply. So I thought it was pretty accurate and therefore quite sad.

[girlx]

Another thread hijacked by girlx, so that she can talk about her life struggles and how those that don't follow her path are just plain lazy.

funny, just looked through my history and couldn't find a single example of this topic having come up before.

[qwertz]

I never got to see the documentary as it wasn't aired in Germany.

If it was anything like the stuff they screen here though, I haven't missed much.

You have to learn to accept the things you can't change and Thailand is typical of the "Screw you Jack, I'm doing fine" attitude that is so prevalent in the world today.

Prostitution, along with telephone sales and politics, is one of the few professions that requires little or no brain power, education or moral commitment.

This same rule applies to the willing or the coerced in the case of the vice trade, which will always exist for as long as there are Johns (and Janes) using it.

But it's here to stay so all the disapprovers on this board need a reality check IMO; this is a fact of life that is not going to go away.

[billp]

For those who never saw the documentary - which seems to be at least half of the contributors to this thread - the episode follows two young women from the same Isaan village, who've both decided the only possible way out their situation is to snare a farang husband. In the village, numerous local girls who've married European guys have built big houses and acquired other trappings of wealth... and the marriages seem to be happy.

One of the young women has become a bar-girl at a scuzzy beer bar in Nana Entertainment Plaza, and is having a long-distance relationship with a guy from Birmingham she met there. He has asked her to marry him. The other protagonist hasn't been having much luck with finding a potential mate on Internet contact sites, so she decides to try the bar too, but in the end she can't bring herself to become part of that scene. Both young women are sort of attractive, but could not be described as big beauties. Both are single mothers. None of the western men seen in the bar sequence is the stuff of any girl's dreams, either, and the bar-girl's fiancé (who we never actually see) is portrayed as being an alcoholic.

I thought it was very well-made, although the "My Boyfriend is a Sex Tourist" title was a huge, embarrassing misnomer, probably tacked on there by some programming executive who has the cultural sensitivity of a musk ox.

I thought the Venezuela episode was much more shocking than the Thai one. In the Venezuela piece, it was striking how utterly repulsive the men were and how much the women simply held them in contempt, and how horrid this hotel is where the women are being treated like just another amenity provided for the rooms, like the soap or the ashtrays.

The Thailand episode wasn't like that at all. Obviously, it was carefully researched and (at least seemed to me to be) free of huge cultural gaffs (there are always going to be small slip-ups when someone is portraying a country you know well personally). The videography in both episodes was really brilliant, and the protagonists came through very clearly as strong and vibrant personalities.

[junkofdavid2]

On YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2hgknlsbv0...feature=related

Although I dunno why it is (wrongly) named "Pattaya Documentary" here... when setting is also in Bangkok in this channel 4 actual video.

[katana]

Girlx.. How long have you been in Thailand? Quite a long time and yet you continually show you have no empathy with Thailand or it's people.

You spout your middle class western rhetoric and think that whatever you have done can be done by anyone in a third world rural situation.

These are not insults they are my observations of you, you are unable to accept that you may be wrong ever, and you are incapable of self education, or adapting to the well thought out and well meant advice that has been offered to you in the past. Basically no one in their right mind on here cares about your opinion anymore 'cos it's just a worn out old record.

I thought girlx was Thai? (might be wrong on that though!).

[Spee]

Prostitution, along with telephone sales and politics, is one of the few professions that requires little or no brain power, education or moral commitment.

What is it with the self-righteous morality and judgmentalism? Let's take one example from you (prostitutes) and one example from me (investment bankers). Your statement implies that prostitutes are unintelligent, uneducated and immoral and investment bankers are highly intelligent, educated and moral. Obviously neither case is entirely true. Moral/ethical lapses are rampant through society and across all professions. So what place is it of your's to judge how people choose to make a living? Whatever happened to understanding and empathy for fellow men?

[qwertz]

Put it down to envy on my part.

I'm not attractive enough to be a prostitute, my education was a given, and I'm not pristine enough to make a moral stand.

My rudimentary grasp of mathematics would surely preclude me from investment banking so I'm reduced to fielding my views on a forum.

Sorry we don't see eye to eye but happy new year anyway.

[Citra]

I thought it was very well-made, although the "My Boyfriend is a Sex Tourist" title was a huge, embarrassing misnomer, probably tacked on there by some programming executive who has the cultural sensitivity of a musk ox.

I thought the Venezuela episode was much more shocking than the Thai one. In the Venezuela piece, it was striking how utterly repulsive the men were and how much the women simply held them in contempt, and how horrid this hotel is where the women are being treated like just another amenity provided for the rooms, like the soap or the ashtrays.

The Thailand episode wasn't like that at all. Obviously, it was carefully researched and (at least seemed to me to be) free of huge cultural gaffs (there are always going to be small slip-ups when someone is portraying a country you know well personally). The videography in both episodes was really brilliant, and the protagonists came through very clearly as strong and vibrant personalities.

I agree on all accounts. The Venezuela episode actually made that destination seem like the far better one, from a potential sex tourist's perspective.

Truth be told though, I bet you could do the 'story' for which they picked Thailand as a backdrop just as easily in Venezuela, and in Pattaya there are plenty places that are very similar to the place pictured in Venezuela..

I didn't think all men in the Venezuela episode were utterly repulsive though.. I also wouldn't actually like them, but they broke no law so they can do whatever they please I suppose.

The main thing that was missing from the Thai episode WAS in fact the Western male side of the equation.. Very VERY little of that. That I think is a missed opportunity.

[Huangy]

I thought it was very well-made, although the "My Boyfriend is a Sex Tourist" title was a huge, embarrassing misnomer, probably tacked on there by some programming executive who has the cultural sensitivity of a musk ox.

I thought the Venezuela episode was much more shocking than the Thai one. In the Venezuela piece, it was striking how utterly repulsive the men were and how much the women simply held them in contempt, and how horrid this hotel is where the women are being treated like just another amenity provided for the rooms, like the soap or the ashtrays.

The Thailand episode wasn't like that at all. Obviously, it was carefully researched and (at least seemed to me to be) free of huge cultural gaffs (there are always going to be small slip-ups when someone is portraying a country you know well personally). The videography in both episodes was really brilliant, and the protagonists came through very clearly as strong and vibrant personalities.

I agree on all accounts. The Venezuela episode actually made that destination seem like the far better one, from a potential sex tourist's perspective.

Truth be told though, I bet you could do the 'story' for which they picked Thailand as a backdrop just as easily in Venezuela, and in Pattaya there are plenty places that are very similar to the place pictured in Venezuela..

I didn't think all men in the Venezuela episode were utterly repulsive though.. I also wouldn't actually like them, but they broke no law so they can do whatever they please I suppose.

The main thing that was missing from the Thai episode WAS in fact the Western male side of the equation.. Very VERY little of that. That I think is a missed opportunity.

Likewise agree on all fronts, although meeting meester three bottles of brandy a day man would have been a step into further sensationalism, methinks. It would also have hardly raised an eyebrow if it was more accurately called "Internet lover", or some such.

Admired the quiet dignity of the second lass from Issan who turns her back on the bars.

HG

[BusyB]

The series isn't specifically focussing on thailand but as it does exist quite openly in thialand then they would feature it wouldn't they? They also featured some resort in Venezuala (I think) where sex torist go & pay for a "girlfriend" for a couple of weeks but this place was all in. I suppose it makes them feel less sleazy by calling her a "girlfriend"? Wonder if they really think it legitamised these trips? I hear it a lot in LOS too from guys who buy a girl out of the bar for a week or two & call her his girlfriend but in thailands case the guys aren't all staying in one venue for the whole holiday.

What gets me is the hypocrisy of it all. Some people are selling sexual services and some people are buying sexual services. It can be sold or discussed with any number of different types of spin, but it is what it is.

I watched parts of the show last night on Venezuela, and if I don't fall asleep first, will probably watch parts of the show on Thailand tonite. Even some of the girls in the show commented on the hypocrisy. It's hard to believe that American tourists and American dollars are welcomed in the Chavez anti-American communist dictatorship in which prostitution is technically illegal yet openly practiced and encouraged. It is similar in Thailand where the trade is technically illegal yet openly solicited and encouraged, with all foreign currencies welcomed.

It is also interesting that shows like these tend to focus on the typical stereotypical places like South and Central America and Southeast Asia. At one time (maybe still) there were Amsterdam-type red light window-shopping areas in Japan even though it is technically illegal. Similar cases can be made for Korea and China (both) where the trade is illegal but still openly practiced and even encouraged in business building. Even in prudish America, there has been an explosion of massage joints all over the place in the last 15-20 years. Whether legal or illegal, prostitution is ubiquitous around the world, and is practiced by the rich, not so rich, and downright poor, by both boys and girls, and by members of most races (and probably most creeds too). It is what it is.

In almost all cases like these, the women are ostracized and treated as less than citizens. If it is going to exist (and other than self-righteous moral judgmentalism why shouldn't it?) then let it be legal and let the women have some rights, freedom to choose, access to frequent proper medical care, etc. I doubt the typical stereotypes and moral stigma are going away any time soon, but if it were legal, it would seem the women would have better choices, protection, reduced risk of STD infection, etc.

In Germany it's recognised as a trade - Berlin city council (I read recently but dunno where offhand any more) raises more taxes from registered prostitution than from self-employed electricians 

it also occurs to me that both trades are about plugs and sockets ...

Edited August 9, 2009 by BusyB