A bargirl's standing in the village

[pattaya127]

Some Isaan people told me of girls going for prostitution ask for monks' blessing so they can make lots of money from customer!!!

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Well, PMs, senators, ministers, rich people do that too, for votes or family businesses. Monks get paid for that service, they can sell anything, and some people are trying to make us believe that thais get up only to fleece farangs. they'll fleece a dozen thais before they even have a thought about us.

[MaiLuk]

 

This stigma thing is what confuses me about the monks blessing the girls. Putting aside the ban jan ceremony (which sounds like an anomaly), if its such a horrible stigma, then how could monks be involved blessing the "evil harlot" and still maintain his standing in the community?

 

Seems to me there is a dual way of thinking by thais (in general) about BGs and the trade, which enables them to stigmatize and accept at the same time(tho i don't claim to know what they are thinking back in the village ). It enables some thai men to be married to a bg, and some thai families to send their daughters off for the "good" of the family. It enables the PM to say the scene is not so good, so just make sure you close at 2am. And it enables the monks to bless BGs without losing their own moral standing.

 

One could argue "its the money stupid", but even if money is the moving force, it doesn't change the fact that there is a dual way of thinking/acceptance. And money does not explain the tradition and motivation of thai men for visiting brothels/bar girls (i only hear about this, so if there is no such tradition somebody correct me).

 

If it were possible to completely wipe out the sex trade industry (which is a tradition in thailand? correct me again), and the PM did it, would the thai public be happy? Is that something they want? Or do they want the girls to keep bringing in the money and stigmatize the girls at the same time.

 

The thought occurs to me that BGs are exploited and reviled at the same time, which puts them lower than the lowest rung on the ladder. There are a few that i know that give no shit what ever about all of this and are completely at ease with themselves. Thinking about them brings a gleam into my eye, their like beatniks who while travelling on the bottom found their release in their own disorderly way.

 

Just me rambling here, carry on

[DocThai]

Ok here goes...I have been to Ban Jan but did not know the story about it at the time. For three months I was with a girl from Seraphum. She went to Switzerland three times and when I met her was still "in debt" to her father for 300,000 baht for money used to get her there in the first place.

She has three kids and when her husband left her she was in Switzerland two months later.

I saw the houses there, fancy dwellings surrounded by typical village shacks. All I knew about it was that she told me if I wanted to marry her there was a 300,000 sinsot. I never knew what that was about until yesterday.

After reading BKKGrey's post, I thought about it a lot. It has been three weeks since I have spoken to my former girlfriend (she is now back in a bar) but she messaged me yesterday just to ask how I was. I called her and said I was curious what she could tell me about Ban Jan. She seemed surprised and asked me how I knew about that name. I told her someobody I know had mentioned ti to me. She asked if I really wanted to know everything and I said yes.

We met for dinner last night and we both wound up spending two hours openly weeping as she told me the full story of how she had to go to Switzerland.

It was the ugliest story I have ever heard. Her father was even a school teacher in Seraphum for 30 years and still ahd no problem shipping her off. She was told she would be like a girlfriend to some nice older Swiss man... yeah right. She had never had sex with anyone other than her husband when she went there, and she was already 29.

For three months she spent 16 hours a day on her back, doing as many as 20 short times. When the 90 day veisa expired she came back home for a month and then repeated the trip two more times. She said she became totally numb to feeling a man inside her.

After three trips she could not get a fourth visa so good old dad sent her to Bangkok where she now works in a short time bar. She doesnt leave with customers. They have to use the room upstairs. When she had told me I was the first man she had ever left with back in September I didn't believe her. Now I know it's true.

I don't think she will break the cycle. She feels totally indebted to her parents.

I came home last night with a sick feeling. Yes, many girls here choose to do what they do of free will, but if you are ever with a girl and she tells you that she is from Serpahum near Roi Et, have some compassion for her...

[Guest]

In reference to original post, here's a twist: What about the standing of the BOYS that go and work the gay places? Especially if they aren't really gay?

 

Is family support a factor in any of those cases? And would the village look on it differently for a male than a female? Or be more likely to buy the idea that the guy landed a good-paying "legitimate" job?

 

I really don't know, but my hunch is that the families are more likely to send the daughters off to the bars and use them as cash cows (as they'll have to be married off one day, anyway, most likely), and be more protective and admonishing with the sons.

[pattaya127]

which enables them to stigmatize and accept at the same time

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Well to stay on topic, talking about the village, i also think we should understand that so many girls go into prostitution for mainly 2 or 3 reasons, often together: poor, uneducated/unskilled, and single-mother. Still, This is not really a life of perdition, whatever the unsavoriness and undesirability of many aspects and the toll on the individual.

 

Again, i will attract wrath on me, but i think for many thais at village level, without still seeing it a great, smart life choice, the causes of entering the trade are blatant for all to see, and moreover, useful to bring cash into impoverished families. To help the family is no shame in itself. helps a bit there for face-saving, especially if the girl's occupation and income are not flaunted all over the village.

 

That may not prevent looking down, but I think in a measured way, a thai way to put it simply: who's to tell them how they should help their families, and that they should stay poor and work 12 hours in a factory for peanuts.

Let's face it, all of us, let's think of the girls we've known in Thailand, and compare to the druggies, pimped, vulgar whores we see in some of our cities back home (for me, Paris and SF tenderloin) who fuck behind a porch door or inside a car, wherever.... I mean the ones whose social status are best compared to poor Issan girls, I am sorry but I see a difference and i think that difference is to be brought in the discussion to show more acceptance if not total approval of BGs.

 

Thais very simply accept prostitution in their midst, any town with a few thousand souls in the Kingdom has well know brothels, and no one is organizing marches to have them closed so far. More the case when it's the father or Mom who send the girls. just think how a small hometown back home, would react if learning of that in its midst.

 

 

There are so many ways people can ostracize someone for, for village women it could be that in a BG, they see the women that their men visit once in a while. I mean, yes, the profession can elicit a lot of emotion, judgement and reaction, anywhere, but it all depends on a lot of factors too, it's rather complex, and the way thais inter-act socially with each other makes it even more so. One behaviour towards a BG in one village may not be the same in another....

[MaiLuk]

Great post. I hope you can elaborate on how it came to be that Dad paid 300,000 baht to get her to switzerland. Why would dad pay anything to get her there? Shouldn't the guys running the operation pay Dad?

[MaiLuk]

And would the village look on it differently for a male than a female?

 

Good question. I can only talk about the reactions I have seen from two bargirls on separate occassions when we saw a young thai man with an older farang. Big time disapproval from both girls, so i think the thai guys are really leaving their old lives behind when they enter the trade. Marriage to a TG might be a real difficulty for them.

[MaiLuk]

for village women it could be that in a BG, they see the women that their men visit once in a while.

 

And are considered a real threat to the village woman's relationship with her boyfriend or husband. Who knows when the thai man might decide he likes the BG he is fucking and leave his wife. So the village woman (all woman worldwide) fear BG/prostitutes and therefore get together and talk about them in not so kind terms. Even other BGs fear that their bf might be taken away by another bg

 

Maybe woman are the source of prostitution being frowned upon. Their hypervigilance and vitriole spreads into the society as a whole

 

OK just joking, the facts pointed out by dthomasss is nothing to joke about. Maybe the swiss authorities are similar to potted plants. Do they ever move and break up those operations?

[MaiLuk]

I re-read your post, you didn't say Dad spent money to get her there, you said 300,000 baht was "used" to get her there. The guys running the operation may have paid Dad 300,000 baht. If she does not finish out her contract Dad will have to pay it back hence the need for that amount. Since she can't get back to switzerland she has to work at the bar until the guys are paid back.

 

Just conjecture, but i'm certain dad never paid anybody any baht to take his daughter, that would be poor salesmanship on his part. I wonder if he has any of the 300,000 left and would be willing to use it to pay down her debt.

 

There should be some sort of preventative education campaign explaining to people that it is not a good idea to sell your children

[Guest]

Hi dthomasss,

 

I don't doubt your story at all, but her version does not make sense, or there is something missing to the story.

 

Her story is very simlar to indundured sex trade in Japan, and elsewhere, but how could she work three - 90 day stints, and not have the debt paid off, no matter who needed to be reimbersed. Anything near 20 short times a day for 9 months would have paid off a lot more than US$ 7,700.

 

They way it usually works is that family is paid an amount to sell daughter up front, and she must work off debt. If she is telling you she worked for 9 months, and still is in debt for the same amount, something is wrong. And it is doubtfull that her school teacher dad could be coming up with $7,700 for his daughters trips. And why would he? Even if she is doing only 10 a day, that is still 2,700 sessions. Only making a few dollars a session would have the debt erased in full.

 

HT