Sex trade on Phuket and Thailand

Posted by admin on April 15th, 2008 filed in Uncategorized

Probably not that many like Pattaya, but Phuket with Patong’s naughty nightlife and the bustling Bangla Road attract plenty of sex tourists as well. Most of the main cities and popular travel destinations in Thailand such as Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket, and of course Pattaya have their own red light districts. The sex trade in Thailand is still a hot issue, often discussed in the printed media, on the internet and once in a while even in a small pub on Phuket…

Sometimes, when I feel like socialising and going to the city for a cold beer, I meet this Thai middle-aged dude in my favourite pub, always starting this discussion about the sex trade on Phuket, while furiously attacking the farangs, from which too many only visit Phuket looking for sex. He’s convinced that most of us simply pay a considerable amount of cash for our beautiful young girlfriends or wives and only look down on Thai cultural traditions.

I always try to make him understand that his generalising point of view certainly does many foreigners a huge wrong. No doubt about it! This kind of traveller does exist and a certain amount of Japanese, Chinese, European, and American visitors do come regularly to Phuket only for getting their sexual kicks. Sex tourist is the name what we collectively give them and to the majority of the common travellers they are trash.

Who firstly appeared, the sex tourist or the bar lady? They dually evolve via demand and supply. In Thailand as well as in other South East Asian countries such as Cambodia and the Philippines there is an enormous contrast between poverty and wealth, providing the standard hotbed for developing a sex industry along with an influx of its customers.

So now you might think that getting rid of extreme poverty will probably solve the problem as all the ladies could quit their disrespectful jobs in the bars and once there aren’t any bar girl anymore there also won’t be any sex tourists. Phuket nighlife scene online

After looking at numerous of the sex industry workers’ family backgrounds, It became very clear that most of them certainly weren’t gamblers, alcoholics, drug addicts or members of broken and troubled families at the time they started to work. Some of these girls got involved with alcohol and drugs at a later date.

I’ve told the Thai guy in my favourite little pub that he not should blame the sex tourists but instead better trying to figure out the economic and social situation, providing the availability of these young girls. Finding the correct answers isn’t easy. Could it be the lack of honest jobs, low self-esteem, lack of decent education, laziness, not knowing how to plan the future or acceptance of fate.

All of you who are planning to meet a bar lady in a Phuket night spot, I would like you to ask her one simple question. Would she give up her present life style for a job at McDonalds, making about 4,500 baht per month? Perhaps I may not be right, but probably a bar girl who just started would prefer frying hamburgers all day and the more experienced lady would rather keep her present job…

Comprehensive Bangkok evening entertainment guide