The following blog is intended for mature audiences only. There are moments of crudeness that may offend some of my readers. Reality is often not a fan of manners.
I’ve talked about a lot of social issues and problems that face society. The reality is that there is nothing as blaring and disheartening than the sex trade within in Chiang Mai. Sex tourism is one of the most affluent trades within the tourism sector. If one walks down Loi Kroh road in Chiang Mai you see girls dressed in sluttly clothes and high heels waiting at the bar for some rich foreigner to approach them. Sometime you walk by and you see such a foreigner sitting in the bar with a girl on his lap. Within Chiang Mai it is everywhere and it is why a culture of forced modesty is so important in the country-side. Where girls walk in heels and short skirts on Loi Kroh girls in the country will rarely wear anything above the knee and their shoulders are always covered.
It would be easy to look at these women and see them as victims. Perhaps, many of them are. The reality though is this twisted sense of mutual extortion. The men have their money extorted out them for a night of fun.. and more money is extorted if the women can get them to be their “boyfriend”. While the women’s bodies are extorted in hopes of cashing in big and supporting themselves and their families.
The oldest profession in the world is one of the most lucrative in Thailand. Were I to choose between poverty and providing food, education and a good life for my family I suppose I’d probably have sex for money too. And were I an old man who is lonely and in need of companionship that doesn’t take a load of emotional effort I might settle for the a woman who’s relationship to me is contractual based on nothing more than sex and money. Mutual extortion can suit the needs of a select group in society. But that doesn’t make it acceptable behavior.
The reality though is that such an arrangement means that many women seek out prostitution over education—the money to be had is easier, quicker and steadier in the bars on Loi Kroh than that of an education. And that’s if they could even afford the education to begin with. It keeps the women in an uneducated powerless state. Why improve when there’s no need too? The arrangement means that men who normally might address the emotional issues that come with prostitutes, addiction and family issues at home ignore them completely. Who needs to care about their emotional well being when there’s a cheap prostitute to suck their dick at night? This is REALITY. Why would someone change if they’re made comfortable by the twisted culture?
They wouldn’t change.
There are a few places that are attempting to organize the women and provide them with a sense of stability and safety. Sex workers unions and things like that are still a world away but a few organizations seek to provide education, health care and options for women who are still actively working in the sex industry. Does this make it ok? For me, it does not. Does this ease the destruction and empower the women to do something different if they choose to? Yes it does. In this small, but growing, sector perhaps the destruction of this society is being eased or even rebuilt.
Short term satisfaction is the name of the game here. This contractual mutual extortion happens in many ways and ranges from the “one-night-pay-for-sex” relationships to having thai wives. Now, that’s not to say that some foreigners who retire here don’t have healthy and good relationships with their wives—they often do. I find it rare but there are occasions when the men can actually speak thai and have a relationship with their wife that is healthy and good and actually involves real love. I have several friends who are this way.
But, often, I’ve seen the destruction of this behavior as well. The women in the bars often speak of finding a foreigner to marry then that will take them out of the scene. They have enough money to open a shop or a restaurant and they live the good life happily ever after. Other women who have never worked the bars but live in Chiang Mai seek out such relationships for this exact purpose. Some of these women are all but slaves to the men the marry for fear the men will leave them and they will be back to where they started. They WANT to have children with the men in order to “keep” them and they cook, clean and create the perfect household for their man. In return their man often pays to keep their families afloat or for an education for the younger siblings. For hill tribe people this can mean a new way of life full of wealth and food and education.
I suppose the reality is that I do hate the sex trade. I find it morally offensive. But who am I to judge how man fills his loneliness or how a woman provides for their family? All I can judge is the outcome of such actions and I have seen some benefits but a plethora of negatives consequences to such behaviors. I acknowledge the frustration the problem and the consequences and then I walk away. As a volunteer in Thailand I know what I can change and what kind of lives I can affect-- this is not my calling and this is not something I can change. I can, however, promote the awareness that such a culture exists.
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