Update From Bangkok and Thoughts On the Sex Trade

Well, after 3 months of traveling around varying degrees of the 1st and 2nd world, I am now back in Thailand. I spent nearly 2 weeks in the northern part of the country in Chiang Mai, which is a relatively quiet and peaceful city. In fact, as major cities go, Chiang Mai, of all the cities I've been, best encapsulates the Zen quietude one would expect from a nation of Buddhists. My 2 week reprieve there was a much needed rest before coming back to Bangkok. And oh, Bangkok, what a sordid little world this is. Bangkok is something like a cross between Vegas, a sewage plant, a flea market, and what I sometimes imagine the 2nd or 3rd level of Hell to feel like (though, in this, our 2nd time through, we've come across some pretty temperate weather). But Bangkok is not all bad. In small doses it can be a decent place to spend time when en route to elsewhere. The food, once your stomach learns the right kind of bacterial defense, and once your palette adjusts to the nuclear grade chili sauces, is some of the best I've had. And cheap, like $3.00 will get you a hearty plate of chicken pad-tai, some spring rolls, and an ice-cold 20oz. Beer Chang. Likewise, as a post-prandial treat, you can walk yourself around any street corner in the city and lay down a measly $4.00 for an hour-long massage - with supplemental services offered for just a nominal surcharge (though, of course, I only know this from second-hand sources – excuse the pun). But while we're on the topic, this is as a good a time as any to talk about the whole Bangkok sex scene.

A lot has been made of Thailand's reputation, and from what I've seen here, the stereotypes are pretty accurate; sexual modesty is not a virtue of Thai culture. That is, the kinds of taboos and hush-hush attitudes about strippers and prostitution and pornography and all those kinds of things, that we in the Western World seem very eager to enforce, simply do not exist here. It's not that, let's call it "sex recreation", is ubiquitously flaunted here, but it operates in a very accessible and acceptable way. Going to the strip clubs or a brothel is just something someone chooses to do over a night at the movies or bowling. But be careful once you enter that world; sex recreation is not some leisurely game. It's composed of the same shady elements as the sex trade anywhere else, but of course with it's own local flavor. Take, for example, Patpong or Nana Square, two areas in the heart of Bangkok where the girls attack Western boys like swarms of jungle mosquitoes. To be white and stinking of vacationer's money, in Bangkok, is to be loved. Thai girls most definitely have Western tastes, are enthralled by the light eyes and hairy bodies, and are easily blinded by the assumption of our wealth. And those girls are relentless – clutching at loose limbs, shedding their clothes one enticing bit at a time, whispering unspeakable promises into our drunken ears, and all in all, calling out to the lonesome streetwalker like an oasis to the desert-stricken soul. But beware of the lady-boys, who can be some of the best looking broads out there to be sure, but whose honey jars between their legs are not honey-jars at all, but get snugged tightly under a pair of panties and wrapped around the backside so to be almost imperceptible as viewed in after-midnight swirly-vision. Plus, the lady-boys, for whatever reason, have proven to take a disproportionate liking to me, and I often find myself resorting to old MOL days, dodging and juking at every turn. And they're strong enough that once 2 or 3 of them have a firm hold on your arm, it's all you can do to break free. "You have gilfriend?" "You want girlfiend?" "You want boom-boom?" "Mmmm, kissy, kissy. Me no lady-boy. You feel. No lady-boy. Mmmmm, kissy, kissy." Like some debauched meditative mantra, looped until the dawnlight sends them all back into hiding.

Despite all the grabbing, suggestive petting, and the left-shoulder imp demanding otherwise, sometimes it's probably best just to watch. For a viewing experience you will not soon forget, grab a beer and sidle your way into just about any side-street bar you see. While the choices are seemingly endless, my recommendation would have to be either "Super Pussy" or "Kiss My Middle Face", a pair of go-go bars which each make for the quintessential Patpong experience, and where the subtlety and refinement of the evening's entertainment is matched only by the gaudy neon banners bearing the establishments' names. Once inside, at the cost of 2 beers and any claims to innocence, you'll see strippers doing ordinary stripper things of course, but you'll also see some just flat-out f'd-up exotic shit, like girls playing ping-pong with paddles stuffed inside their honey jars. (I'm really sorry, but there is just no way to do this tastefully.) If anyone tries to hand you a balloon, either refuse it or duck, darts will soon be flying, and those girls are not throwing the darts with their hands. Yes, they are legitimate honey-jar virtuosos; they'll draw face caricatures, uncork wine bottles, not just play ping-pong but swallow the things up whole and spit them back out at happy-to-oblige first-row oglers, remove bottle caps, play the harmonica, and could probably even do some engine repair with the right set of tools. It's a scene, man. No doubt.

To be fair though, as implied above, Thailand's reputation is not just on account of the strip-clubs, and hookers, lady-boys, porn outlets, and "massage" parlors (all that exists of course, and in droves), but what struck me especially in Bangkok, and is true to no less a degree on the islands or up north, is people's self-possessed attitudes about sex in general, regular non-sex-industry people, their lack of hang-ups and neuroses which tend to make the whole enterprise (sex, that is) somewhat confusing and often ridiculous in a different cultural context. From what I have gleaned in my short time here, it's not that sex is held in a simplistic light as some utilitarian undertaking, an animalistic routine devoid of any mystery or of the seductive interplay between two people making eyes across a barroom. Neither is it, obviously, that Thais hold up sex to some pristine light of the divine. Sex is neither glamorous nor purely carnal, but if managed correctly, can at worst be not ugly, and at best is nothing more or less than just fun. How, culturally, Thais have managed to get to this point, to strip sex of all the things that make American men put their heads down in shame when they walk out of the movie store with a bag full of porn (assuming he's even assured enough to make it that far), is a mystery. But whatever the case, I think it is a fine way to approach the whole mess.