Thailand's Prostitution Image Is Embarrassing

[rinteln]

How about Thai people using the sex industry?

Isn't it easier to blame the Farangs rather than to see the whole picture?

In my view us farangs are a bit to blame. We come here with a view "ahh well what harm can it do" "they come with me and I give them money, everyone is happy". "the girl looks happy"

What we don't realise is that this line of work (unless they get lucky and marry or go abroad) after years of doing it will more than likely end up with the girl being mentally and physically in bad shape. Years of having sex with different men, lying, drinking, smoking and then the biggest pyschological problem from years of earning alot of money too easily and for not much effort is never good for the mind. So by their mid 30s they have either been lucky and met their knight or thats it, career over. Now they are mentally and physically ruined, they cant ever go and work in a normal job because after years of getting maybe 30,000+ a month there is no way the mind can work 5 times longer for 5 times less the wage. So the only option is to have a baby girl with a Thai guy who will probably be lazy, not work and eventually leave. And then guess what the whole process starts again.

This is really the process that has been going on since the Vietnam war where most of this all started and wasn't put down ever since. Now Thailand has a generation of girls and women who are unable to break out of the cycle.

So all in all i think the blame is a mixture but ofcourse Isaan in history has always been more neglected by Bangkok so its no surprise I suppose.

As with alot of problems and as proved by the story above Thai people are always more bothered about the exposure of a problem rather than the problem itself. As we all know Thai peole are unable to think long term. The long term benfit to getting rid of prostitution would ofcourse be great but all the time this industry is making an immediate income then Thais will always endorse and allow.

Shame

Hogwash. at least 85% of prostitution in Thailand is a domestic exchange. It's their culture that's to blame. Foreigners did not start this, nor do foreigners account for enough economically to account for growth in the industry.

I believe I said "a bit to blame"..................................... first sentence

Hope your not suggesting we are not to blame at all ?

[anon467367354]

you have to commend this Thai official for standing by his principles and defending yet another illegal activity in Thailand.

[Songhua]

Once upon a time you had to go INSiDE an establishment to partake of Thailand's delights. There was no embarassment to any party (including the nation) and, although it was obvious even to the most naive family tourist what was inside, it was not in their face and it did not become their image of Thailand.

When agogo's are permitted in the open and ladies offering services are to be found lined up along the beach and on every corner, the only ones to blame are the very authorities in the very places it happens.

Personally, It doesn't worry me in the least and I'm aware there are so many other sides to Thailand. But you can't expect it not to be THE lingering picture in the mind of a family who thought they were going for a nice evening market stroll along Sukhumvit.

Thailand, over time you have made your bed through inaction ... now lay in it. if you want a cleaner image, stop whinging about everybody else being to blame for the impression that IS being projected and DO something about it - nobody else is going to do it for you.

[jamhar]

Need to separate personal feelings from business

It hasnt hurt Rio to much.

You dont have to love it (pun intended)

and you dont have to acknowledge it in public

its an asset. Use it, and if you want to effect change

do it in the back ground while slowly starving the business you want to discourage.

TL has a lot more bigger fish to fry than this.

[Tywais]

Guess they missed trying to have this removed from YouTube. But then, maybe they actually think it is about Chess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0Z0CwRDJw

[shawndoc]

Little known fact, prostitution has been completely eradicated in the west. Its not like it's legal in Australia, Germany, Amsterdam, or technically legal in Canada & the UK. In the good moral US of A, its not like walking the strip in Vegas involves having to navigate around hundreds of men handing out "escort cards" or that every city of reasonable size has free magazines/newspapers that advertise "escorts" or offers "happy ending" massage parlors.

Even in Asia, you can't find "beer bars" outside Thailand. Such things don't exist in Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, or the Philippines.

Nope, Thailand and the Dominican Republic are the last places where prostitution is still available.

[MunterHunter]

Chalerm: Its not prostitution if you screw them in bed!

[h90]

LOL.

The author has led a sheltered life. Cute to read.

Anyway, Amsterdam has the same image, also among Thais, yet it doesn't bother too many people.

I strongly suggest that Thai people stop worrying about image, and work on improving life for all Thais. A draconian enforcing of prostitution laws deprives consenting adults from remaining options they do have. That's having it ***backwards.

or start with the bad image about corruption in Thailand...When Thailand is free of corruption start to worry about the prostitution.

Similar are the alcohol laws....how the heck does Chalerm think he can decide when I am allowed to drink a beer and when not....

[graeme64]

My favourite bit is that the Pattaya Daily News mentions Bangkok specifically a few times and only once mentions Pattaya. as for being a large brothel - that is pattaya Not Bangkok. BKK has way more to offer - other than sex - than Pattaya does.

As for "Actions" comment. Italy Claims to be a Catholic country - but still has prossies. England claims to be a Christian country and has prossies. What is your point?

Thai is a Bhuddist country.

G

[rinteln]

Need to separate personal feelings from business

It hasnt hurt Rio to much.

You dont have to love it (pun intended)

and you dont have to acknowledge it in public

its an asset. Use it, and if you want to effect change

do it in the back ground while slowly starving the business you want to discourage.

TL has a lot more bigger fish to fry than this.

I take it you have been to Rio ?

I have and unless its had a huge change over the last 4 years I cant see how anyone can say it hasnt hurt Rio. Only 2/3 kms from Cocobana beach there are slums which house thousands of people in small spaces. I have been to areas only metres from the tourist areas which look terrible. This is where many of the working girls live. Many are using drugs daily and live a life similar to Pattaya bar girls.........drinking, lying, having multiple guys etc etc. With Rio, as with Thailand a generation of unskilled, mentally and physically ruined women are in their society which will be mainly unproductive in the second part of their lives.

Sorry but i cant think of any system in the world where prostitution "wont hurt" .

[technologybytes]

I love the line "On the other side of the coin, a growing trend for male prostitutes is emerging, with people in its inner circles knowing where such services exist."

So only the "inner circle" know about Boyz Town !!!

[technologybytes]

Guess they missed trying to have this removed from YouTube. But then, maybe they actually think it is about Chess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0Z0CwRDJw

Nope... they didn't miss it, they banned it in Thailand. Though, it IS about chess!

[SPIKECM]

There's a joke people used to say around my parts. How are fat girls and mopeds the same? They are both fun to ride until someone sees you! I think is really the same case in Thailand regarding this issue. Nobody has a problem until people on the outside start taking a closer look at Thai society, and there are many facets that the good government representative don't want to face, let alone address.

Namely, the reason why the prostitution game is tolerated in the kingdom is because Thai society is inherently, at its very core, an unequal society. Exploitation in whatever form of the lowly minions by societal members on the top of the sakdina chain is and always has been totally acceptable in Thai society. It only becomes embarrassing when outside viewers see it and actually mock you for it.

Changing the underlying problem would require a sea change which isn't happening anytime soon.

True, but not the whole story. Exploitation in the likes of Pattaya in this paradox of a country, is almost always about Thai girls exploiting foreign men. If you explained this idea of foreign men exploiting the girls in Pattaya to a Pattaya working girl she would fall off her stool laughing.

[bhakta]

I've never been to any city anywhere in the world where there were not plenty of prostitutes. This is not a fair article at all.

[ratcatcher]

Little known fact, prostitution has been completely eradicated in the west. Its not like it's legal in Australia, Germany, Amsterdam, or technically legal in Canada & the UK. In the good moral US of A, its not like walking the strip in Vegas involves having to navigate around hundreds of men handing out "escort cards" or that every city of reasonable size has free magazines/newspapers that advertise "escorts" or offers "happy ending" massage parlors.

Even in Asia, you can't find "beer bars" outside Thailand. Such things don't exist in Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, or the Philippines.

Nope, Thailand and the Dominican Republic are the last places where prostitution is still available.

Excellent. Let's see if we have any biters?

[NongKhaiKid]

This is the most stupid biased and uninformed article i have read in awhile

To the author; wake up moron!!

Another aspect of Thai cultural hypocracy with the right thing to say about a situation that makes a lot of peoplT a lot of money and that does not include the girls involved. Many thai families can only survive of the remittance from daughters working as a " waitress " in Pattaya, Bangkok, Phuket etc. The sex trade also supports taxi drivers, guest houses, restaurants, clothes shops and so much more and many of the people who look down on the girls happily use their services not to mention those rich enough to support a mia noi.

[ashbee]

There's a joke people used to say around my parts. How are fat girls and mopeds the same? They are both fun to ride until someone sees you! I think is really the same case in Thailand regarding this issue. Nobody has a problem until people on the outside start taking a closer look at Thai society, and there are many facets that the good government representative don't want to face, let alone address.

Namely, the reason why the prostitution game is tolerated in the kingdom is because Thai society is inherently, at its very core, an unequal society. Exploitation in whatever form of the lowly minions by societal members on the top of the sakdina chain is and always has been totally acceptable in Thai society. It only becomes embarrassing when outside viewers see it and actually mock you for it.

Changing the underlying problem would require a sea change which isn't happening anytime soon.

True, but not the whole story. Exploitation in the likes of Pattaya in this paradox of a country, is almost always about Thai girls exploiting foreign men. If you explained this idea of foreign men exploiting the girls in Pattaya to a Pattaya working girl she would fall off her stool laughing.

You're slightly missing the point. Johns wouldn't even get a chance to be duped if it wasn't for societal acceptance of the lower classes working as sex workers in the first place. It's almost as if there is no will to address rural poverty because hey, you can always go sell your ass and get a dumb farang for all this loot in the process!

Am I making sense?

[NBD]

It's typical of these articles that the focus is entirely on the embarassment and the damage to Thailand's image. What can be done to fix the image to conform with the frankly childish image many Thais have of their own country, as being a haven of polite respectability and a bastion of decency.

How about focussing instead on why so many thousands of young women feel their best chance of a decent life is to go and sell their bodies? Or the fact that a huge proportion of Thai men feel it's perfectly normal to spend an evening with your mates, having a few drinks and a bite to eat, in a brothel? Do your business and then go home to your wife and kids.

People are pretty perceptive, and if a country is teeming with prostitution, then they will figure it out quite quickly and that will be your "image" as a country. Take some positive steps to actually tackle the problem and you might start to get somewhere. I'm no expert, but a couple of things to try:

Number 1: Actually educate people. If you bring 80% of the country up to believe that you'll waltz through every test in life without putting in any effort, then you're setting them up for a failure. If people are leaving school at 18 knowing nothing more useful than how to stick flowers together, you are setting them up for failure. If people speak English like charicatures from a 19th century comic book, and are basically scared of foreigners, then you are setting them up for failure.

Number 2: Enforce your laws. I don't really see why prostitution in itself should be illegal, but if you choose to make it so then why the hell is there a 5 story, soapy massage parlour on the main road, advertising that it has sao suai, with pictures, and decked out in neon lights? And a massage shop, and a hostess bar. It's hardly hidden away in dark alleys, and seedy bars.

And it isn't the fault of sleazy foreigners or Saturday Night Live. It's there for Thai men to pay to screw Thai women. If a few of those women find they can make some extra, and perhaps be treated a bit better by working with foreigners, then can you blame them?

Finally get over your bizarre national obsession with image over substance at all levels of society, and you might even find that country girls and their families would rather have a modest house and car they have worked for and earned, than a gaudy, kitsch palace they sold their dignity for.

[garzhe]

Prostitution is endemic in Thailand among Thais not just farangs. Many Thai wives/GF's know there partners use prostitutes but like everything else in Thailand its kept quiet to save face. Every small town has prostitution operating from Karioke, bars, brothels, etc but its always reported that its foreigners that are responsible for so many hookers.

[creck]

Just why is this article written/published? Surely, it is common knowledge that nearly all countries either, turn a blind eye, accept whatever happens or control prostitution. Thailand is not unique. Thailand does it in its own way – which admittedly seems rather uncontrolled and widespread. It is not only for foreign customers, the facilities for locals are more wide spread but more discrete.

It is not really strange that we find the service provided in a Buddhist country, as the writer tries to suggest. I have seen just as much available in Indonesia, Spain, Israel and many other counties. If we go by what we see, the dominant religion is not important.

I believe the story that the Vietnam War is at the root of the service being provided for foreigners. Servicemen having a short break from hard conditions and being many months away from their wives and girlfriends were frequent keen customers. I have been told that the provision now is a shadow of what used to be offered in those years.

I believe that the article (intentionally or not) is trying to make the foreign men a scapegoat for what was always regarded as normal service available discreetly for locals.

[manfrommanteo]

• It's an issue that won't go away quickly. Image is important,and so a lot of Thai's are concerned with what this looks like to the world, but at the same time are accepting of corrupt and immoral practices and government. It's an issue of of heart......if the heart of the people is corrupt, the society is corrupt. We see it every day here. People accept corruption, open prostitution, open abuses as "normal", and as long as that's the case, it will continue to be practiced "in your face", "out in the open". When the majority of Thais actually do what they profess to believe (in Buddist practice, abstaining from sexual and other immoral activity) and hold those in postions of power accountable, that's when it will begin to change. That hasn't happened yet, and so it hasn't changed. This fake posturing about being upset about Thailand's image because of a television program that the majority of the world does not view is the Thai equivalent of believing that the four Americans killed in Bengazi is a result of an obsure video about Mohammad....it's just not true!
  

[johnlandy]

Unfortunately a true fact ... I guess if tighter laws against prostitution appear a lot of men wont come to Thailand anymore .... but maybe more families will replace them also . It could be interesting to see how many prostitute female or male are in Thailand.

It was said 15 years ago that there were 2 million prostitutes in Thailand and if anything that figure has likely increased significantly.

Add to that, that in many western countries the main country of supply for demondaines is Thailand.

A couple of years ago the authorities in a Scandinavian capital city stated that of a 100 massage parlours 95 were fronts for prostitution and all of these were staffed by Thais.

Why do you think that Thai women have difficulty getting a visa for the majority of western countries, and then they get a hard time going thru immigration upon arrival.

"WHY? "the world associates Thailand with whores and that's the fact of the matter"

Thailand has virtually no social support services, pension (if not from a government job) is 500 THB / month. so Nong goes to the big smoke where she will spend more time on her back with her pants off

and then wire the proceeds back to 'mom & pop' who will probably either pizz it up or gambe it away. And Nong with the tacit support of both her parents (who know exactly what she is doing) continues in her profession of choice.

Just last week Chalerm publicly stated that it was not a bribe the cops were soliciting for, but 'rather a gift' and it was acceptable because it was tradition.

Well prostitution is a tradition in the realm and it is endemic.

A well known university in the north was well known for the fact that 80 - 90% of the female students were on the game. A female lecturer confirm this belief.

Yet they put more emphasis on the lenght of a studens hair than they do about academic excellence.

Thailand has not yet advanced to where the majority if 'first world' countries were 150 years ago. Nuff Said TiT

[sunshine51]

Guess they missed trying to have this removed from YouTube. But then, maybe they actually think it is about Chess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD0Z0CwRDJw

This song & the video used to be banned here.....perhaps it still is...I don't know

& could care less. However I do like the song!

[kjun12]

Why so prevalent:

1. Good looking Thais.

2. Poor people who need money.

3. Cops for sale.

[Gary A]

It would be difficult to find a brothel or pimp controlled bar girl in the farang areas. The shame comes in where the girls are controlled by brothels and pimps. Unfortunately human trafficking is still happening. Girls are still bought from poor families and the parents are told they will be housekeepers, waitresses, etc.. Most of the parents know better but salve their consciences to make themselves feel better.

[spidermike007]

Prostitution is not embarrassing. It is a fact of life. Deal with it. Buck up, and be a man. What is embarrassing are tiny minded men like Mr. Sonthaya Khunpluem from Thailand’s Ministry of Culture. He is a 13 year old in a man's body, with the mindset of a quaker, from the 17th century. A false puritan. A man without any sense of self. He is simply attempting to but a tiny band aid, on what is essentially a severed artery. I am not saying Thailand is in need of repair. All I am saying is that what he is doing is the opposite of addressing, this, or any other problem. Yak, yak yak. All talk, and no action, which in reality is probably a good thing. LOL.

[wealth]

poorly researched, really.

This kind of business comes in many flavors, more dangerous than presented here.

Until recently 95%(maybe still that high) of the girls and boys were fed drugs and/or involved in trading, big and small through their organized networking. Sometime as statists to fill a space with friends when a trade is coming, sometime as messengers, sometimes as mules and and and and ... most of the Streetwise were and aren't aware of what's going on. They just follow the call of their superiors.

This is going to become explosive and probably on purpose. Mexico would be a safer option than here then.

Here are as many female and male pimps under the protection of (cough)... and (cough cough) ... so far a little to the farang scene

It gets even worse when you dig into the local scene. Money laundering is a huge issue, not just the drugs alone. After a recent few stern warnings the drug issue calmed down just to regroup again. Some escape(d) to the farang scene.

Most of these girls and boys are coming from the local scene, some change, others not.

There was a funny case years ago in Austria. The minister of defense and his arm trader friends built a huge luxury brothel, something like you see here in Ratchada. People were not stupid and soon after that it was turned int a Alco Rehab center and the minister committed suicide. 555 ...

Copy/paste that Thailand. The Way to go.

Rehab centers are most needed here for to combat drugs and alcohol AND ... All here to use. What are you waiting for?

No, you can't wipe it out completely, but reduce it to become bearable.

[Lancelot]

"Some even make jokes about it. But the reality is not that funny for the prostitutes"

Maybe we can ban joke about thiefs as well, 5555.

Seriously, prostitution, drugs, alcohol are all products and services that many people want. When governments declare them illegal, the market takes over and suppliers meet the demand. Better, IMHO, to acknowledge that there is a demand for this stuff, legalize, regulate and tax those business accordingly.

But don't hold your breath

[csroland]

What about those Karaoke bars where only Thais are allowed or a westerner with a Thai guy...so blame Westerners again because they are the source of each problem.

[BrianCR]

On the other side of the coin, a growing trend for male prostitutes is emerging, with people in its inner circles knowing where such services exist.........Guess they haven't checked out the BOY GOGO BARS in the past 30 years or so!

Or the very, very large brightly lit, neon signs found it many areas which read 'BOYS TOWN" - what's that all about I wonder can't be sex, can it??