Associating myself somewhat with the naughty nightlife business, I was always trying to figure out where and how the exploitation of girls working in the biz comes from. Honestly if you were to ask me who exploits the bargirls the most I would say their families do. Mothers being the worst of them but all of this is based on the fact that any experience I have with the scene leads me to believe that the girls themselves join the scene voluntarily.
Sure some social or family issue(the mother) coupled with poverty leads a girl to the bar/massage/hostess industry. Granted - if Thailand did not have such a ready made scene for girls to enter then maybe it would not happen as much. Thailand has been selling sexual services within their country since as long as the history books have been written. Given the ready-access and the size of the scene I have always wondered where the shady side of the scene is. What I mean is I hear about the trafficking, I hear about girls forced to work in massage parlors and I hear about forced work in general but I have never come across it.
I have not met a girl in a massage parlor who admits that she is not working there under anything but her own free will. Girls would come in off the streets and just ask for a job in the Mango. Nobody brought them in. A few times we would get these weird older women coming in and bring us 2 or 3 girls to work but it did not seem coerced or forced - just seemed like grandma wanted a new car and wanted to get her girls earning. Usually we would always say no because we did not want to deal with the old women hanging around the bar.
I am not going to say exploitation does not exist and for sure it should be dealt with but where is it? I also want to state for the record that any form of exploitation is bad - period. I argue that because of the country setup with how men are elevated higher than women, coupled with overall status issues and a desire for earning money quickly - many girls turn to the trade because it is easier than working and earning wealth the normal way. This post had one small example of what I am talking about.
I was cruising through my online reads today and came across this article about an experiment in running a beer-bar where the ownership of the bar is a co-op of sex workers. Interesting indeed and deserves some attention but I was finding some of the details awkward.
One example:
Before sex work, she said, she worked long hours in a beauty salon for a small salary. Working in bars has given her the freedom to do other things, and the money to pay for her daughters’ schooling, although she hasn’t always enjoyed such comfortable working conditions.
So right off this lady is saying I used to do normal work and it was hard and did not pay enough. So she went into the customer biz to make more money. Plain and simple. Not really much to exploit here other than lonely men’s wallets.
So here is where it gets to the “bad stuff”:
The majority of women working in these bars face unfair and, in some cases, degrading conditions, with long hours and few days off. Often, they must persuade customers to buy them a certain number of “lady’s drinks” to make money for the bar, or meet a quota of “bar fines” paid by customers wanting to take the women to bed. They may be pressured to sleep with customers, and if they don’t, their salaries may be cut.
Trying to understand the unfair and degrading. Most office girls I know work more than the bargirls. Many office girls work a 6 day work week with a very regimented schedule. Sure maybe they get more of the free for all Thailand holidays but generally my guess is they are working more hours. This whole drink thing - if a bar did not have a drink quota most girls would sit on their ass and not engage the customers. Let’s be clear - these girls are getting a salary. Many times the base salary is pretty competitive given that there are many bars competing for talent. The drink quota that the bar sets is there to keep the girls engaged in the customer activity at the bar. Just that simple. Otherwise the girls would sit there all day talking to each other. Most bars pay more or the same if the girls drink non-alcoholic ladydrinks so it is not like they have to get drunk unless they want to. Pressure to sleep with the customers? If a girl is going into the bargirl business she knows she is there to try and meet customers because she wants to make money. Otherwise she would keep working at Pizza Hut.
I know the media is always hunting for a story here and I am sure there must be some cases of the exploitation out there but any time I see references to it I usually find that they are reporting on the normal part of the industry but portraying it as something it is not. The numbers of girls in the biz must be huge - so huge that I have a hard time believing they got this big through coercion or exploitation.
Estimates of how many prostitutes there are in Thailand range from around 150,000 to a whopping two million, out of a population of 65 million. The figures are difficult to calculate because many prostitutes work part-time or only occasionally, and move around the country.
Some food for thought.
Anyway found some tasty fried chicken yesterday. Will give directions soon.
Very nice post. Beside the fact that I cannot understand your point but I do get a nice view of your way of thinking and some of your personality.
“I have not met a girl in a massage parlor who admits that she is not working there under anything but her own free will.”- have you met a few?, have you been looking for? asking the right way?
Sure most girls want to have a 15000b phone and easy money but does that mean there are none that are there or entered there after sold/leased? (if it is done by their family, does this makes it better???
“Often, they must persuade customers to buy them a certain number of “lady’s drinks” to make money for the bar, or meet a quota of “bar fines” paid by customers wanting to take the women to bed. They may be pressured to sleep with customers” - ok the lady drink pressure but the bar fine, pushing a girl , yes even a bar girl to sleep with a customer when she doesn’t want to….
But again, T.I.T and this is who you are. no one is going to change it so why hide, take a pride in your position and be a proud pimp. nothing wrong with being a pimp, someone should do the job.
There is however something wrong in Hypocrisy.
View all comments by Reader
reader - nice handle.
Not sure I was making a point as much as highlighting a article that I thought was interesting but also trying to understand why so much in the media talks about the coercion and exploitation but around the scene here I have never really seen it.
I have been to a few massage places. I am sure a lot of the readers have to. If they have examples of the forced girls I would think people will mention it here. All I was saying is I have not.
If it is done by their family it is bad. Either way. I highlighted right at the top of my post that many times it is the family. At the top of that is the country itself that creates an environment where families do this and seem to think it is acceptable. At the mango I saw plenty of the family pressure but never in the form of the girls being sold/leased but in the form of the girl needing money - with tons of pressure from the family also asking for money.
Having run the mango for 2 years I can never recall pushing a girl into the barfine. Something we would never do. My point was most girls get into the job knowing what it is and knowing why they want to be there. The money.
Where is the hypocrisy?
View all comments by smitty
This is an age old debate here. i.e. How do you define “force”, or “coerce”, or “pressure”, or “choice”, whether it be an economic definition, familial or otherwise. Too much of a gray zone for me to debate about accurately really, as each girl’s case is different, although there are common themes as to why they are in the P4P scene.
I just make sure that the girl I am with is having a good time, just as I am. Not much more I can do than that.
View all comments by John Brown
Are you condoning exploitation in any way just because it appears that, they are a small percentage of the total number of working girls in Thailand?
Am sure you are aware that kids are still being sold off to traders all over Asia and end up in the backstreets of PP, Calcutta and maybe even Chiang Rai for fckuing Paedo’s to abuse and the media should not let up on reporting or exposing these subhumans.
Don’t think you are an apologist but am confused by your statement: ‘trying to figure out where and how the exploitation of girls working in the biz comes from’.
Surely it is simpler to look at the economics of it ‘prima facie’, than look towards their families, and mothers in particular for the reasons why they may end hugging a pole in NEP, Cowboy or Ppong.
What about the issue of demand and supply?
‘Zonalised’ prostitution in SEA exist in places like Pattaya, Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base in the Philippines exist because there is demand for it and because it was institutionalised by the arrival of US servicemen with ‘needs’ and dollars to spend.
Would the women have been exploited elsewhere regardless… By local chieftains / flesh traders and sold off as maids, concubines to the rich Chinese traders?
Would that be termed as exploitation, or simply the way things are for the underclass in SEA.
Maybe we are sometimes too pre-occupied with not getting ‘exploited’ or ripped off ourselves by BG’s etc, that we are blinkered into thinking that, this is the more economically viable choice for them relative to 52 hours a week in the office or a factory, and that we are doing them a favour…
Why not spend 4 minutes, get 5 thousand baht and be threatened by a Japanese man dressed in latex instead?
Are we then condoning exploitation by thinking that this is the only way they can earn a living and support their families?
Judging by the great many hirsute and unwashed blubbers walking up and down the Suk everyday of the week with a stunning Isaan local, think it easier to see who is being exploited…
View all comments by kalon man
It is a gray zone indeed - hence i did not put forth any answers. I was just discussing it really.
k - u make great points. I am actually one of the only people I know to have read the history of prostitution in Thailand cover to cover. Big ass book full of facts. Was quite intriguing. Actually discusses how the scene being so big here tends to ensure that the forced aspect of the scene is much smaller here than in places like a pp, china and so on where they suppress the scene. Think neon. I was only discussing Thailand here and my experiences with it.
I also was bringing the subject up as a way of discussing it. It is strange to me that the elite forces that be within thailand are the ones most responsible for creating this harsh world where poverty drives the girls to the biz.
What is most amazing is that guys like Thaksin who have made an enormous amount of money since the asian crash have also overseen the fact that the marginal rate of poverty in places like THailand has actually gotten worse.
Condoning it all - I guess anyone who ever partakes in the scene is. My only personal experience is that I have not come in touch with the what some would call the exploitive aspect of the scene. Other than when mamasans beg me for drinks. I was also highlighting that the media tends to focus on the non-exploitive areas as examples of exploitation. I would think they should actually try to show the exploitive stuff for real and help to suss it out rather than drum up attention where there does not seem to be a story.
View all comments by smitty
they are forced by economics. But then aren’t we all! They sell their body. I sell my soul to my job as I graft at this job I hate. Of course I am exploited. I would much rather being doing something else. But then I wouldnt be able to get the latest Nokia N Series.
View all comments by m
I simply ran this thread by my Missus, smitty.
She says that she began working at 20 because in spite of her being an athletic, hard working, sexy smart “alpha” as life is structured in the villages (18 years ago?) she could never have hoped to meet a husband and start a life.
The family were honest but they were dirt poor.
I’ve known them for years and I have known their story as it happened.
There’s no fabrication here.
(my wife has never lied to me)
There was a crush on a local boy but they had a farm and he was told in certain terms by his parents that he could shag this young woman but she was not for marrying. It was to this boy and this girl’s credit that since they couldn’t do the one they did not do the obvious. They, I believe, probably actually loved one another and the situation must have broken both their hearts.
There WAS no sex between them.
See, I had the guy pointed out to me from a distance at our daughter’s school function. He had been a monk (Forest, brown robes - 5,6 years) was now married with kids but any fool could see still “had the face for her”. And I’m sure she “had a moment” when she saw him across the field.
There are good people up there. They were a good young man and a good young woman who at the time were unable to “make a family”
They respected each other so they stopped seeing each other. I heard this from several reliable sources one of them being my wife.
In the village she had a “cousin” of sorts who had been treated badly like a servant or a field hand (not sexually) and in 1998 or so this cousin went to Nana to work in one of the smaller bars on the second floor.)
Within six months, my current wife
a) got the low down on what was required
b) decided she could handle it
c) hopped on the bus
d) ‘opened’ with a farang
e) became the queen whore of that bar
She just laughs when the topic of exploitation comes up.
BTW I realize I am taking a chance here but I would appreciate the board perhaps holding off on the usual comments about having probably fukced my wife at some point. Comments like this are stupid and add little to the thread.
I’m gonna press “submit” now.
View all comments by thongsuk
I’m shocked, shocked to find that exploitation is going on in here!
View all comments by Seven
m - true. but their own country continues to keep the economic situation as it is. yes - it is all about money.
t - ahhhh. thank you. I never started this thread to say exploitation does not happen. Or to say it does not exist. I am sure that it does but I think many of the girls in the scene have a similar story to the one u laid out. They choose it.
I also find - the book talked about this that external forces from their own families and friends pushed a lot of girls to bkk. these forces were not sexual ones but lack of opportunity, being treated badly and lack of a suitable partner for marriage made some girls think that going to the city to join the trade was better. They can make money and meet possible marriage partners. The book also said that some women feel empowered for being able to charge for something that many thai guys think they have a right to TAKE for free. Weird way of looking at it but it does make some sense.
ANyway. controversial thread. I have no answers but thought it could be discussed. I am going to buy some dinner for my girl. She might sleep with me later. I hope these are not connected events.
View all comments by smitty
On my first trip to Thailand, 17 years ago, I met a girl in Bangkok in a massage parlor. She told me that she wasn’t free to come and go as she wanted. There was a guard that took her back and forth to her room. As far as I could understand her basic English, her room was guarded day and night.I didn’t know what to make of her story because I was able to take her back to my hotel after paying a huge barfine. Maybe I should have taken her to a policestation instead.
View all comments by hanuman
h - see - the first the first time I have heard something like this firsthand. I wonder if taking her to the police station would have helped given back then they were probably in on it all anyway but I see your point. bummer stuff. I am sure it is only about money so the only way to free her would be paying off her debts whatever but getting involved at all might also get your ass kicked. strange stuff
View all comments by smitty
I’ll probably get shot down for saying this, but there is a lot of girls who fucking love it. I sometimes ask them about there first day or how they heard about it. It’s normally from a friend or friend of friend. They say the first time there nervous and after a month its really ok. I even had one girl I met online ask me to take her to some gogo bars to have a chat with some mamasans. She lasted a day and now does the Q-bar type things but doesn’t charge as far as I know. Interestingly she said she heard from some of the other girls that if you leave they will try to kill you (I won’t mention the name of that colourful bar, NEP). I told her that was bollocks.
I have only met one girl who told me the only reason her parents had her was to sell her. She was sold and doesn’t even have any contact with her parents or know who they are. She was one of those slightly crazy Thai girls and I can see why. So one lump some and nothing to send back to the family. Thats fucked up.
I wonder what percentage of the scene is the Farang scene in Thailand, I’m guessing under 10%. Anyone?
“This whole drink thing - if a bar did not have a drink quota most girls would sit on their ass and not engage the customers.” I’m waiting for JD’s comment on that one.
View all comments by Young Royal
Smitty,
I’ve just had a thought…are’nt we all being exploited by an entity or person: boss, country, missus, foreigners, immigrants, government blah, blah, blah at some stage of our lives and fool ourselves in thinking that it is socially acceptable / force of habit / the done thing (delete as required) so it does not appear inappropriate to the great and good?
Fcuk it…I actually enjoy the mutual exploitation that happen Bangkok style…I finally got the irony.
Thanks Smitty.
View all comments by kalon man
Forgot to add that I’ve been to a lot of countries (50+) and I just don’t see Thailand as that poor a country. They have choices.
View all comments by Young Royal
If you want to feel sorry for someone feel sorry for the girl in 7/11. Sorry for triple posting.
View all comments by Young Royal
The “exploitation” argument is almost always bullshit. When I have(very rarely) told people about my escapades in Thailand, there have been one or two of the “aren’t you taking advantage of the women?” responses. My response to those is the same as my response to the post: sex between consenting adults is probably the most natural thing there is - so as it is the women who go to the bank with the money, it seems to me that it is the women who are taking advantage of men. The “exploitation” argument is based on the feminist/Judao/Christian premise that women are “sugar and spice and all things innocent.” That premise, based on my own experience, is a lie. Women constantly use sex to dominate and control men, and usually then claim innocence. Unfortunately, women are more attractive if they are considered unblemished (usually); therefore, women often lie about their sexual behavior and usually claim to be the innocent party if their sexual behavior is revealed. This is my experience.
View all comments by Tim Oakland, CA
Oddly, I just emailed a contribution for the Blog that relates directly to this question.
Hopefully it will posted later today.
I agree with Young Royal and Thongsuk.
There is no exploitation and what is going on is not just financial. It is also spiritual and emotional.
Because of Thai culture and the disparities in income between farang and TG any socializing/banging/dating/marriage is going to require the farang giving the TG money.
Hanging around places where you can meet farangs requires money TG’s just don’t have and can’t generate from their normal jobs.
This does not make it prostitution or exploitation.
It is just dating Thai Style.
That is why I think the Thailand Girl Scene is a more accurate moniker to describe what happens in Thailand than P4P, prostitution, sex tourism. etc.
BigBabyKenny
View all comments by BigBabyKenny
BBK,
Surely there has to be some coming together of minds, interests, ambition and maybe even age, and the slightest amount of physical attraction from the female side for it to be more accurately descibed as ‘Thailand Girl Scene’, Else, it is purely a one dimensional trade from either party - flesh for fantasy, which is essentially P4P.
View all comments by Kalon man
I agree with those who said everyone is exploited to a certain extent. From our bosses, our countries or our own spouses and friends. Survival is generally geared towards finding niches to exploit to get the advantage. People don’t mind sweatshop conditions in China to buy new cell phones but it suddenly becomes an issue when people of different economic and beauty stratas convene for sex. Prostitution is a wide and complex arena. Some of it is truly heinous but what is generally available to the Farang in Thailand is what GW Bush might call ‘The coalition of the willing.’ I’m not saying there aren’t some sad stories but simply shutting down the bars won’t help anyone. In fact the general openness and laissez faire attitude of the government in Thailand probably makes it safer for the girls. It would be even safer if it was legalized and cops and mafia didn’t try to dip their hands in it.
View all comments by Very well hung
I once had a massage girl in BKK, can’t remember the name of the massage place, but it was located down by SUK soi 31, and they had a website.
Anyway, the girl gave a good massage and spoke some English. I asked about her massage experience and how long she had been doing massages and if she had gone to the famous WomPat massage school, probably not spelling that right.
Anyway, she told me that she had gone to school to become a dental assistant/hygienist, and after graduation had worked in a dental office as receptionist, hygienist and assistant, but that there was not enough money in it to buy “nice things”. Apparently she had seen massage girls and BGs walking the streets of BKK with nice clothes and phones and handbags, and wanted the same.
So she went into the massage business.
I guess the only exploitation here was by the dentist office or the medical system in Thailand not paying too well.
View all comments by Stewie
I think it’s fair to say that for many the girls, the sense of duty to their parents is huge and, irrespective of whether the parents ’sell’ or request or desire their daughter to enter the industry, will do so anyway in order to pay back some of this emotional debt financially. Particularly if the parents are caught in the typical rural debt cycle. How can you leave your parents in poverty when you have the means, albeit shameful, to help them.
Other girls enjoy the money and the camaraderie of their peers. Others just enjoy the money. My own girlfriend has (variously) friends with different motivations. One girl…
- has a baby to support but loves drinking
- has 2 million baht in the bank but juggles farangs and rarely sends any money home. Shopoholic.
- had both her (middle class doctor) parents die, leaving her plenty of money, but turned to the scene for emotional support and to build further upon her cash reserves. How retired and running various businesses, she’s being milked for cash by a Thai DJ
- is a businesswoman who freelances in Singapore and Hong Kong when she needs cash for her businesses. Loves her drugs and enjoys the party scene as much as the money.
- (several actually) just want to meet a nice farang. Short term money totally secondary. Long term security the main objective.
etc etc
So many different stories. No exploitation I see in this group, or in fact in any of the groups I’ve known over the years.
View all comments by Combover
And I would add that I think this cash flowing directly to the rural poor is hugely empowering for the women concerned and to a lesser degree to the families, who are able to escape the punitive rural lending systems and start helping themselves with a bit of seed money of their own. Rich Thais and local bigshots hate this, because their pool of slaves are finally helping themselves.
View all comments by Combover
One of the worst stains on these gentle, smiling people the Thai apologists love to swoon over is their treatment of their own children.
Whether they are unsophisticated rural folks who pimp out their kids at the earliest possible opportunity or sophisticated city folk who simply demand that their children give up their own lives to serve the parents every whim, most Thais view children very differently from the way westerners view children. As opposed to the common western view that having children creates a life-long responsibility for the parents, the Thai view is more often that it is the child who has the life-long responsibility to serve the parents. On the whole, the very purpose of having children in Thailand is for the parents to exploit them for personal gain and, being the passive little buggers most Thais are, the children generally accept their lot in life without complaint.
It breaks your heart badly enough to see a lovely, sweet-tempered young girl servicing a half dozen men a day and then sending most of her money back to support her drunken, primitive, worthless parents living in some shithole village. But it really breaks your heart when she shrugs at your western incredulousness and tells you that it is simply her duty. Fucking savages, Thai parents generally are.
View all comments by Old Asia Hand
@BBK: Out of the mouths of babes
This does not make it prostitution or exploitation.
It is just dating Thai Style.
As well BBK can you slip me the name of your new editor? My “deathless” could use a but of chopping and channeling as well.
Thanks to all for your forbearance.
View all comments by thongsuk
IMHO: Just re-read this entire thread. There’s more well researched and measured commentary on this subject in this thread than in the string of books I’ve read on the subject. Or, for that matter, the string of websites I’ve logged into.
OHA: In an attempt to expand and perhaps inject an element of universality to this discussion, I’d have to say that the entire Western consumer society does much the same thing to its young as Thai parents (in your admittedly vast and real experience) have done. Now, of course, the Thai kids get the big ole double whammy of both societies. (that’s an Al Capp term
Wonder if things’ll change after the election (irony alert 
co: As usual, right on the money. although perhaps, to accommodate OHA’s experience we might suggest that different tastes in women probably bring us into contact with different family members and backgrounds - too much of a stretch perhaps?
-It’s occurred to me often that “the look” you get from so-called straight Thais when “escorting” (aside from the obvious, poorly- -thought-out “pas de deux” with the clownishly dressed,) is in fact a look of contempt for your having so flagrantly pissed on their precious sakdina structure. Slave pool. Right on. I love doin’ this. Sometimes the looks on some faces at the airport is worth the cost of the ticket alone
kalon man: It’s the Thais, so careful to starve us for irony in every aspect of what I’ve come to see as a highly imitative and derivative culture have, in permitting and condoning women’s projection of uber-femininity through EVERY aspect of female (and sometimes male?) behavior have left us Mired in irony when it come to this subject.
Apologies to all for this second run to the bowls.
View all comments by thongsuk
Geez, I kept wanting to comment/question/answer but I kept getting beaten to the punch. Nice.
First off, From TimOakland: “The “exploitation” argument is based on the feminist/Judao/Christian premise that women are “sugar and spice and all things innocent.” That premise, based on my own experience, is a lie”
Bravo! So true.
I also had a question for the room about the so-called “Thai P4P Scene” I have not branched out too much myself so don’t know but I do know that it’s out there and way bigger than the farang scene. Anybody know, and I use the word “know” over the word “hear”, of any kind of exploitation in that world or do things run similar to farangworld?
Overall, I haven’t seen the exploitation personally. I’ve seen some shit mamasans abuse the heck out of the girls, and I’ve seen some owner’s take advantage of the girls (not me, I swear) but I don’t see the girls getting together and forming a Working Girls Unite group to stem the evil forces of prostitution and sex slavery. I think individually and with the friends and family they have locally these girls take care of themselves and avoid being exploited to serious degress.
View all comments by pmmp
wow. the thread came alive. I was hoping it could all be discussed rationally since it is real. I don’t buy that it never happens or that since we get took now and then it is all even. I think some form of real exploitation happens and it is sad. I have just not seen it but I have seen firsthand how the families force the issue.
We had a service girl working in our bar who had a sister already on the pole. Remember Chris Rock’s words of wisdom? Keep your daughters off the pole. Seems the Thais could take that to heart more than they do. Anyway. Our service girl would get hounded nonstop by mom. U don’t send enough money home - not like your sister does. Eventually she broke and went to the pole. We all tried to talk her out of it but her mom would not shut up. Ruined the girl really - she use to be nice and innocent. I know if mother had shut up she would not have done it. Given easy access to the scene and the constant bitching from mom she caved. Bummer.
anyway. great discussion.
View all comments by smitty
Thai rural folk do not have pension plans or a social welfare system to fall back on so folks who do not have children to take care of them when they are old will be pretty miserable in their retirement age. I think the cultural tradition of children taking care of their parents when they become too old to work makes perfect sense. It is a tragedy however when parents abuse this tradition to exploit their own children.
When I first came to Thailand I “rescued” a girl out of a bar in Soi Zero. Her uncle owned the bar, her mother had sent her there when she was 16 to earn mommy some money. Lived with this girl for about a year and I refused to give her any money to send to her despicable evil cunt of a mother. Eventually I caught her doing short times behind my back. When I caught her she was unapologetic and explained she had no choice because I wasn’t sending money to her mother. She explained the money was very important to her mother because she had gambling debts and would get into a lot of trouble without the money.
No amount of reasoning or logic convinced her that there was anything wrong about a mother pimping out her 16 yr old daughter.
And back to the bar she went…
View all comments by Orion
I have to say that I’ve enjoyed reading this thread more than anything I’ve seen on the site for several weeks. The obviously heartfelt story from Thongsuk, for example, was written in a totally different style. The contributions from many others who I often disagree with have been thoughtful.
I can add very little to what has been said.
I have never personally met a bargirl who has been exploited or coerced by anything other than circumstance or greed. Many who have been in the life for a while are addicted to it and don’t actually have any desire to leave it.
My guess is that the readers of this site travel in a sphere where we don’t come into contact with women or children who are being exploited in the very truest sense of the word.
It’s clear though, that criminal exploitation exists. It shouldn’t. Slavery and poedophelia are criminal. I doubt anyone here disagrees with that.
I think smitty is correct that journalists have the right theme — exposing and destroying criminal exploitation — but they end up pointing at a fairly innocuos part of the sex for cash scene in Asia and wrongly identifying it as the place where criminal exploitation is taking place.
View all comments by werewolf
Hmmm… re-reading my post I want to add that I am don’t mean to minimize or trivialize the intense pressure from families in Thailand (a la Orion’s comment among others). It’s real, and it’s engrained culturally.
View all comments by werewolf
Personally the only exploitation I see is that of the girls exploiting the assets they have to make some coin - and all power to them.
There are bad places in Thailand. Don’t know if they are still there, but Mae Sai used to have its “chicken farms”, and in Bangkok there have been the chained in a whorehouse stories that come out now and again - relates to the 200 Baht a pop kind of places that construction/taxi workers use. These types of joints are far out of the realm of farangland.
What happens in the scene in Bangkok is culturally unknown to the great unwashed of the West and hence makes for good press - ie. it sells. Doesn’t matter that it’s bullshit.
View all comments by psi100th
Reader sounds like some acquaintances I know who have ’saved’ a girl from the bar life, and currently resent those who enable the system. Reminds me the most adamant cigarette foes are often former smokers. Hopefully, Reader will provide a follow-up to support the point he was trying to make.
Combover provides a good summary of why girls work the farang bars. Each girl has her own individual motivation(s).
The exploitation that concerns me the most are the Khmer and Vietnamese children trafficked in to sell flowers, gum, and shoeshines in the bar areas into the early morning hours. Even though this is done very openly, you don’t see the media nor the Thai authorities addressing this exploitation.
Friday night I was mildly surprised to see one of the Khmer shoeshine girls playing a video game in the Absolute Bar about 02:30. You would think the bar owners would not permit such a risky situation.
View all comments by dj