About Prostitution in Thaialnd

This question was one question in the context of a longer image report for every country where a well known hotel group runs hotels and resorts.

Question:
Prostitution exists everywhere in the world but why Thailand is (one of) the most well-known?

Thailand has been infamous to be the destination of having cheap sex for long time. It's time to wipe out. Any idea?

Replies:

1)
"Prostitution is illegal in Thailand - a blind eye is turned towards it by the officials, but still... It is illegal.

Thailand is a very beautiful country with a lot to offer for tourism. I think that since its such a desired destination it gets a lot of attention - and the media picks up on it. Also, it seems that people who go there for the sex trade don't feel the need to be very discreet about it.

I don't want people to get the wrong idea and think that it's so prominent that it can't be avoided. You can holiday in Thailand and not see any of it. Just like having vacations anywhere in the world you want to make sure you aren't staying in the bad section of town... Do a little research and you'll have a great time.

I was able to avoid it when having vacations in Pattaya where it is probably the most prominent in Thailand. Even in Pattaya there are lots of other things to do than hang out in beer bars, brothels, and go-gos...

As for putting a stop to it... I think there are bigger world problems that need to be solved first before any solution to prostitution can take hold.

I've noticed a few people who are incessantly saying not to go to Thailand because "blah blah blah"... What Thailand needs is more people going there not for the sex trade - not these idiotic people trying to convince the 'normal' tourists to avoid the place like the plague."

2)
"Prostitution was commercialized among foreigners in Thailand during the Vietnam war. Prostitutes found an easier way to get ahead in life through GIs as back then they were never made a partner in life by any Thai man. The promotion of tourism in Thailand for the past two decades, combined with the low cost of living have made it easier for tourists to travel in Thailand as compared to many Asian countries. Foreigners found Thai people easy going, prostitutes found foreigners an easy target. Many foreigners never get out of tourist areas so their experience in Thailand is only with prostitutes as they are the type to approach tourists, some even think most Thai women are prostitutes (I have run into people who think that!). Tourists go home tell friends about the misled information. More tourists come to Thailand mainly for sex. So Thailand means sex for many especially desparate men whose life is miserable back home but found himself popular among the pretty young things who sell their body for any fat stinky Farang."

3)
"It is well known not because of how cheap but "quality". You will never feel easy to fall in love with prostitutes anywhere except Thailand. They are really tender and offer. I don't wanna support them but as long as there is not much ways for them to earn a lot of money....... this thing will keep going .... so sad, isn't it? However, Thailand got many things to represent, try this website and you will see how nice of Thailand without sexxx

http://www.discovery-thailand.com"

4)
"Blame the male tourists who go to Thailand, enjoy themselves and go back branding Thailand as such. In fact many new visitors do not know the truth, only hearsay and that Thailand is just one big Bangkok.

Sad for them."

5)
"I reject your premise. Prostitution is well known world wide. Thailand is not special. In fact I would guess that LEGAL prostitution in Nevada is more widely known in the Western hemisphere."

Some more replies? Why so many persons point a finger at Thailand, especially?

In Thailand it's not 'Rule of Law' but 'Law of Rule', Thailand would be a dry and barren land without there women not in escorting business only but its way far till reach Parliament.
am sorry but i want to strongly disagree regarding the sex part, sex price for long time could be almost the same on east asia, for my opinion i think the low budget and the price for everything is cheap and that is high light point and could be the top reason why thai famous 2ndly the beautiful nature of Thailand . nice post.

every body can think what they want but I will teach you some things

- make sex legal not work anyway. Most of these countries girls here go to work they dont come back any more rich than they leave. I have had so many offers from men to go work with him in England or austrailia or amsterdam or malayasia or japan. They men who just dont want to work and live on selling a girls pussy. no girl win that way and I dont care what they tell you. if it were true why aint all prostitute rich?

- per capita both taiwan and philippines have more sex workers than thailand

- Pay for sex in thailand came long long time before vietnam. The chinese start it here. It did become much better known because of vietnam.

- there are many girl who ONLY do it cause they poor but that is true in the usa too. If you read all of the girls profiles here some even say they hope to make enough money to stop.....well if that true it mean they not giving you sex cause they like it but because they have to. It is true many guy pay for girl in bar sex her until he fall asleep then she cry in bathroom. A man handsome or not fat or not rich or not can see in a girl eye if she really want sex or not. if you can sex a girl like that then up to you. of cause pitty her but that is life.

- not EVERY girl has sex only for money. some do find it exciting and dont sex every man put money in her face. Trust me many men have been angry I say no and say money is money I pay you take me. no no no. If I take you you pay me and you must sed me a picture before I evn agree to see you, if the picture is not real when we meet I will turn around go home.

- not every man who pay for sex is a desperate old ugly man who can not get laid at home. Many business man come here for meetings and want a girl and not go to a bar and play games. I have met business owners, dentist, lawyer, pilot, professor, embassy officials, and even ceo of companys in singapore germany and dubai. Some very handsome men and very nice body.

- there are 2 separate worlds. most of those ugly old fat men or complainers of life. they sit in bars and complain the day away and just looking for any hole for sex and it shows. Those are the men give it bad name. they liv eon small income and use net groups and word of mouth to try to keep girls cheap. any time they see an ad of a girl doing well they will call her a cheat or man faking he girl make money. they not do it cause they believe it. they do cause they scared one day it all above what they have to pay.

I do agree with you kitty good points .

Well, allow me at this place to forward some points of view which I received from a friend when we discussed the topic of legalization of prostitution in Thailand.

He has let me know that legalization of prostitution was seriously discussed in Thai politics about five years ago for the last time.
The less or more official statements against a legalization can be summarized as follows:

[Start]
"Experiences have shown that legalization will not help women in prostitution; rather, it will put more money and power in the hands of the procurers, pimps, and brothel owners. Legalization will also put women at risk of increased sexual harassment, contribute to further family breakdown, and lead to younger and younger girls becoming involved. It must be believed that the legalization of prostitution says to men, "Go ahead - it is OK to sexually abuse women."

Research from countries that have already legalized prostitution shows that the legalization or discriminalization of prostitution does not empower the women in prostitution but does everything to strengthen the sex industry. Research conducted proves that:

Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry in Thailand promotes sex trafficking.

Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry in Thailand increases child prostitution.

Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry in Thailand does not protect the women in prostitution and does not promote women's health.

Legalization/decriminalization of prostitution and the sex industry in Thailand does not control the sex industry - it expands it. It boosts the motivation of men to buy women for sex in a much wider and more permissible range of socially acceptable setting.

Women in systems of prostitution do not want the sex industry legalized or decriminalized."
[End]

I personally think legalization of prostitution in Thailand must not be discussed from the privileged point of view of adult, independent, and educated escorts, only. We have to take the complete range of issues into consideration. There are without any doubt persons who are working in this business against their free wills and under conditions which are not acceptable. There is human trafficking and the complete range of crimes related to this business.
Furthermore it must be seen that Thai police and public officials are often involved with Mafia who run drug and sex trafficking operations. Establishment owners pay regular protection fees to the police. The combination of the widespread corruption among public officials and the lax enforcement of laws pertaining to the sex industry mean that sex workers are often doubly exploited by their employers and by the police. Make it legal, might mean loosing control completely.

I agree with Kitty that there are other countries where the situation is not "better" and even "worse". I hope to have time to come back to the original topic, soon. Why persons point a finger at Thailand?

men point the finger where it is convenient. A big part of pointing the finger is cause they DONT want it to change.

There are farang here who come because of their job or business and do very well. BUT that is not the majority.....the majority come here hoping to find a job or try to retire on less. This majority part is your reason for the finger pointers. Men you are sent here from their company have good jobs men who come here to hope stay and find a job DONT it is that simple

Think about it. I am not saying well off men spend they money foolish or they would not be well off but those are far a few between living here although many come from time to time for meetings. Most are here to get by and expect a cheap life with the girl of they dreams waiting on them. When she gets boring or old they can trade her for a new model.

these men
Dont make enough money to live the way they want never mind support a girl and her family

they have learned to use thai culture against thai but saying a girl should have her own job and pay her own way in a relationship. They dont say this cause they believe it....they say it cause they dont have the money to say different.

they use the fact they are westerners to meet a girl in the first place. This is working less and less every year though. No con is as good as a man with no money. I once went out with a western man here who every time he money came he had me hold it. hahahahahaha why did he do that? but after the perception wear off and I see he pay who he owe and for his place to stay he barely have enough money to eat.

The best ones can even get thai girl on line to talk against each other. He know what he doing but again it all based on he not have money and in the end his house of card will fall. Example. just the other day a man in pattaya was caught by police with MANY thai porn movies and making money on the net with words like every thai girl will do anythng you ask for money. You can imagine how the police loved reading this and now he in jail waiting court likely to get a ten year sentence serve 2 and get Kings pardon and deported. BUT how did he get caught? HIS girl friend and him have a fight so she went to the police and told them. You see these men can play all they want but it on borrowed time.

so what most do now is to marry some old ugly thai lady who is just happy to eat and then when they can find a desperate girl within they budget.

not sure it enough to make you understand but these men are the finger pointers. they spend much time on the net in chat and news groups attacking any man who would pay what they have set as the price. They do it cause they have to. they sit in bars and rare if ever tip and look upon any who do with great distain. Their whole life is to not be priced out of what they disillusionally believe is their right. I have wasted my time argue with a few of these men and their response is I am making it too difficult and they will move to philippines and thailand will no more have their money. Oh I wish it was face to face so they can see me laughing.

So in the end it not really the tourist pointing the finger. it is the very people who compain about the finger doing it. A very clever game men with a limited income live on and are desperate to keep.

Prostitution in Thailand: Facing Hard Facts
By Donald Wilson and David Henley, in Bangkok Post,
25 December, 1994

Bangkok, the capital or Thailand ... often mentioned as a place where there are a lot of prostitutes.

When this admittedly off-beat description of the humid, grid-locked, vibrant hell that is Thailand's capital city appeared in the 1993 edition of Longman's English Language and Culture Dictionary, most Thais were incensed.

Demonstrations were held outside the British Embassy, copies of the book were publicly burned, and the publishers rapidly agreed to withdraw the edition from circulation.

When, a few weeks later, `Time' featured a lurid cover shot of a half- naked Thai bar girl next to the caption "Sex for Sale", Thais were even angrier.

More recently -- in March, 1994 -- the United States placed Thailand at the top of a list of countries accused of violating women and children's rights. According to US Secretary of State for Human Rights John Shattuck, about 800,000 women under the age of 18 are employed in Thailand's sex trade -- a charge which the Thai authorities were quick to condemn as "grossly exaggerated".

A tradition of prostitution?

Of course, it is easy to understand why Thais become irritated -- nobody enjoys having their dirty linen washed in public. The Thais, a people renowned for their good humour, hospitality and sense of fun, are genuinely distressed. Surely, they ask, there are prostitutes in Europe and America?

Sex is for sale just about everywhere except (perhaps) in North Korea, so why does Thailand always get singled out for more than its fair share of the blame?

The trouble, is, Thailand really does have a larger sex entertainment industry than most other countries. A lot of Thais simply don't know this -- relatively few travel abroad -- and the idea that Patpong is larger, more vibrant and more user-friendly than London's dingy Soho or San Francisco's sleazy and dangerous Tenderloin may not occur to them. But it is also a fact that a lot of Thais simply don't want to know.

Today, of course, faced with the reality of Aids (figures released by the Public Health Ministry in April this year indicate Thailand has as many as 1.3 million HlV-positive people, or about 2.1% of the total population) Thais -- like people everywhere -- are having to rethink their ways.

And, as a matter of fact, they are not doing badly at all. Thai Aids awareness campaigns are carefully implemented throughout the country, from Bangkok to the remotest hill tribe village. Condoms are universally available and increasingly widely used, so that unusually for Asia -- population growth is well under control. Even so, it is plain that the implications of an unchecked Aids epidemic for Thailand remain truly frightening, especially in the North.

Blaming Uncle Sam

In the meantime, under the scrutiny of the outside world and faced with the unwelcome moral dilemma of explaining just why this country has attained international notoriety as a sex centre, many Thais perhaps understandably try to place the blame on the outside world, and more particularly on the USA.

To give just one example, Sappasit Kumprapan, a committee member of the Children's Foundation and a well-known human rights activist, claimed in an interview earlier this year that "American soldiers created the prostitution boom in Thailand some 20 years ago and now America has brought a consumer view to the Thai mind".

One effect of this new view, Sappasit suggests, is "looking at every thing with speculator's eyes, looking at people as if they are sex objects, buying sex, selling sex until there's just a lot of sex and violence everywhere".

To be sure, there is come truth in this view -- a conception which seems to be shared by the great majority of Thais. The American presence in Bangkok and the larger cities of Northeast Thailand during the Vietnam War certainly affected Thailand's sex industry, diversifying it, making it more raunchy and more obvious, while at the same time bringing it to the attention of the outside world.

This process has been continued by sex tourism and the emergence of lurid night life centres like Patpong, Pattaya and Phuket's Patong Beach -- all well-known in the West. Other areas, too, have tarnished Thailand's image elsewhere in the world. The southern cities of Sungai Golok and Hat Yai are notorious throughout Malaysia and Indonesia, Bangkok's Thaniya Road is flooded with Japanese sex tourists and businessmen, while the capital's Sutthisan Road area is a popular destination for visiting Singaporeans and Taiwanese seeking a slice of "Thailand by Night".

This, then, is the noisier, better-publicised aspect of Thai night life. But it is also just the tip of an iceberg. For the Thai men themselves have long been inveterate brothel users. Estimates vary as to the number of prostitutes in the country, with the Public Health Department pitching in at a low 200,000 and others, such as Sappasit Kumprapan, putting the figure nearer two million.

In reality, there seems little point in arguing about numbers. It is a simple fact that Thailand has far too many establishments offering commercial sex, from the "member clubs" and massage parlours of uptown Bangkok, through the seedy tea houses of Chinatown, to the dingy and dangerous brothels which can be found in small country towns throughout the country.

American "R&R;" and international sex tourism can hardly be held responsible for this state of affairs. Clearly, a large part of the problem must be domestic. To bear this out, the Public Health Ministry recently released figures showing that 75 per cent of Thai men sleep regularly with prostitutes, while 44 per cent of teenage boys pay for their first sexual experience.

Today most informed Thais would probably agree that the domestic sex industry is big, dangerous, corrupt and responsible for seriously damaging Thailand's image abroad. Fewer, perhaps, realise just how old Thailand's tradition of prostitution is, how deeply grained and therefore how difficult to reform.

Times past

The Chinese voyager Ma Huan, writing in 1433, records that in Siam:

If a married woman is very intimate with one of our men from China, wine and food are provided, and they drink and sit and sleep together. The husband is quite calm and takes no exception to it; indeed, he says "My wife is beautiful, and the man from China is delighted with her".

Despite Ma's whimsical style, readers should be assured that this is not, and never has been, a traditional Thai custom. While there are no direct indications that the "men of China" paid for the privilege, one can fairly assume that this is an early record of prostitution (and of procurers) in Thailand.

When, some 200 years later, European vessels began regularly to visit Siam, prostitution certainly existed. A Dutchman called Van Neck, who visited Pattani in 1604, reports that "when foreigners come there from other lands to do their business ... men come and ask them whether they do not desire a woman" -- an approach that any single male who has landed at Bangkok's Don Muang International Airport will instantly recognise. Another Dutchman, Gisbert Heeck, referring to the conditions in which the VOC staff lived at Ayutthaya, the Siamese capital, in 1655, notes that:

Most of them had concubines or mistresses, in order (so they said) to avoid the common whores, and they maintained them with all necessities, buying or building houses for them... (though) they rarely refer to them other than as whores, sluts, trollops and the like, up to and including the director, for hardly anybody was free of this failing. Anybody who earned enough to keep such trollop had to have one, even if it meant they had not a penny to their name afterwards -- indeed, some were deep In debts, as I saw for myself.

Quoting further passages of this kind is really not necessary. The point is not that medieval Siam was to blame for having prostitutes -- London, Amsterdam, and indeed any port in Europe were undoubtedly much the same. Rather, what is significant is that Thai society has long had a tradition of prostitution, and it is both misleading and ultimately self-defeating to blame this exclusively on the West.

To bear this out from an early Thai source, we know that in the 1680s a particular Thai official was licensed by the state to run a monopoly of the prostitution business in Ayutthaya, using 600 women bought or enslaved for various offences. As Anthony Reid, a distinguished Australian scholar of Southeast Asian history has indicated, this appears to have been the origin of Thai tradition of deriving significant state revenue from prostitution. By the mid-19th century -- still well over 100 years before the US involvement in Vietnam -- Bangkok's extensive prostitution industry was centred on the Chinese district of Sampeng Lane, where green lights instead of the usual red signalled houses of ill repute.

Times recent

Turning to the 20th century, Western soldiers first came to Thailand in serious numbers in the wake of the Japanese surrender at the end of the Second World War. In 1945 one such young American was Jorges Orgibet, at that time a press officer with the US Office of War Information. Later Orgibet would go on to become a distinguished Bangkok-based journalist and co-founder of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand. He remained in Thailand for 37 years and was, at all times, an exceptionally good friend of this country.

Orgibet remembers his arrival in Bangkok, one of only 50 Americans in the country at the time, with affection. There were 85 cabarets scattered across the city with names like Great World, Happy World, Venus Club and (shades of Sampeng) Green Lantern. The greatest concentration was on one block of Nares Road, "with something like 2,000 `hostesses' for the asking".

Other attractions of the time included "a nine-storey building on Yaowarat Road, reputedly the world's largest whorehouse", plus a plethora of stripclubs, dance halls, tea houses, etc.

Bangkok in the late 40s even had the reputation of being one of the blue movie capitals of the world ... one top-floor loft on Ban Moh houses a Thai film studio devoted entirely to blue movie production. In explaining the number and range of such establishments in Thailand, Orgibet comments:

"Cabarets were a direct descendant of the Thai ramwong dances found in almost every town and at every fair. Live shows, blue movies, young virgins were touted by rickshaw pullers and bicycle samlor drivers long before the touts of Patpong and Petchburi came into existence ... It was 300,0000 Japanese troops during World War II ... and the 30,000 British and Indian troops who followed them that helped fill Bangkok's cabarets. The majority of the patrons, after all, were Siamese and Chinese.

Times present... and future?

In summary, it seems clear that US marines on R&R; together with sex tourists cannot be held solely responsible for corrupting Thailand's morals and spreading prostitution in the country -- only for making things uglier, more obvious and worse. Nor will cleaning up the tourist sex scene put matters right, though it would certainly help.

Instead, it has to be recognised that the reasons for Thailand's development as a centre of the sex trade older and deeper, lying buried -- it might be argued -- in an easygoing, often commercial attitude toward sex which may have been appropriate to a pre-Aids society, but which now requires urgent rethinking.

Unfortunately, it may prove difficult to break this link between sex and commerce. Thailand is no longer a poor country, and its new found prosperity, combined with a genuine embarrassment at the country's reputation overseas, has caused the Government of Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai to take action. To date, moves have been made against child prostitution and against police corruption and involvement in the sex trade. The authorities are also actively trying to discourage Thai women from working in the red light areas of Japan, where some 70,000 are employed in the sexual entertainment business, usually under the heel of Yakuza gangsters.

Yet, even as these measures begin to bear fruit, thousands of young, uneducated and impoverished females from Burma and South China are streaming across the borders to "man" the brothels of Bangkok and the provinces. The draw of Bangkok's booming economy is powerful magnet, and Thailand, in attending NIC status, has also become a net importer of sexually-exploitable women. Under such circumstances, breaking a prostitution habit that goes back many centuries will undoubtedly prove hard. For many Thais, and especially for many Thai men, openly recognising that such a tradition exists must be a positive albeit painful, first step.

A Response
by Ajarn Samart Srijumnong at UIUC,
written for the soc.culture.thai group

From: ssg9328@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Samart Srijumnong) )
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Re: Prostitution: Facing Hard Facts
Date: 28 Dec 1994 18:43:24 GMT

Very illuminating article on the issue that I have ever read. I was going to say that Bangkok Post is not widely read by the public but maybe this is the way to make things work. The prostitution problem roots in the fact that it has not yet been recognized as problem or at least not a "significant" problem. When Supatra first moved Chuan government to act on child prostitution, many dump MPs comments he got the wrong move. He should have, these MPs said, taken economic problems first. When the British dictionary added prostitution into the characteristics of Bangkok in its definition of the city which is surely selective, I was mad but thought on the other hand it would be good to make most people realize the problem is well documented, almost institutionalized. My hope does not seem to stay as nothing serious had been done to tackle the problem.

Sometimes we are mad when farangs point at the problems which otherwise could have been felt first by us. The truth is they (the farangs) are the margin of the society when they enter or simply intellectually counter the society. They are from other societies. Hence they see things from OTHER moral standards which may sound both good and bad. The good thing is they could help making us realize in how immoral some things which have long been taken for granted, prostitution is for one. I am not going to talk about the bad side of it as we all can find many good reasons to qualify it.

Tell you the truth, friends, as a Thai, it been such painful to see the country being publicized in this bad way but to shut them up is not going to help a thing, not to mention those who struggle in such problems. It's time for us to make it even more publicized. A patient who deny his/her disease and refuse to go to see a doctor would surely die. We are dying. The prostitutes are dying (because of AIDS and other STDs). The prostitution customers are dying (because of AIDS and other STSs). The infants who fathers carry with them the disease are dying. The mothers whose husbands carry with them the disease are dying. Most patients who need blood transfussioni are dying....who else live....

Some may comment on my remarks as too sentimental but that how things are. Isn't it because Sitthatha developed some sentiments when he saw the four "normal" things: birth, aging, illness, and death, that moved him to begin to question about human lives and ultimately human morality. Sentiment is the high form of problem recognition. We need it to push us forward in the direction of problem recognition if not solving.

We all love our country. No one denies that. We are mad when the country is adversely portrayed. The love of the country alone may not count for such anger. Deep down in our mind, IMO, we are EMBARRASSED that where on earth we have been during these days. Why haven't we done anything to alleviate the problem if not get rid of it. That's probably why we are angry. Go ahead keeping angry up but don't simply point it the those who firstly brought the issue up. Point at yourselves!

I am angry again...

Regards, Samart.

boring. when anyone who wrote any of that work this then you listen to them. It has been said so many times fo rmany years that 60% or more thai sex girls have hiv. RIDICULOUS SO MUCH. they have said this for more then 20 year now. if it is true why are not 60% of us dead by now? Propaganda is all it is just liek in politics or any thing else.

YOU can get a prostitute in almost every american city but when I see shows about america they are very ugly girls and many fat and have not all they teeth. hahahahaah of cause beautiful thai girls will get more attention. I am sure usa have beaufitl prostitue too but one I see on HBO are UGLY and out men look better then them. The usa just have to hide it more cause they will put you in jail there. do you think for one second if New york city enforced as little as bangkok it would be different? If you do you are crazy.

One of the biggest idiots is the man call himself stickman in Bangkok. He thinks cause he lives here he knows all about thai and can teach you. it is crap and he uses it to make money from you. he makes fools of you when you think you laughing with him. Just another farang who make moeny to live off sex idea. some of you even fool enough to pay him to watch your gf and report what she doing. ANd once again this is all men with average hour paying jobs who long to stay here but can barely if at all pay they bills at home. I have seen so many farang cheat other farang here becasue of his foolish dream of finding a wife in 2 hours or 1 week. When I listen to man talk to man all I here is I have , I have , I have but when I meet these men where is it? Start believing what can be proved and not what you want or hope and maybe if you lucky you will get some where.

kitty do you have full teeth set ? ;)

--------------------

waw i didn't know that you have in your pussy too, that's dangerous :)

when you grow a pussy then talk to me about it. until then you just read and spread what you want to believe. just like anyone who thik they know some one else life.

boring man. style who want to teach me my own country. wste my time I not read it.