Do you respect P4P women?

[pattaya127]

FlyW, JJ, i think you argue about 2 different but both correct ways, and even periods, to look at prostitution.

 

I think the last 30 years of materialism/consumerism and tourism have slowly build a culture where it's OK to think in terms of selling one's felsh or sending one daughter to do that. So you are right when you say, it's not just economics, and maybe even is not anymore maybe, the main reason to think of, nowadays.

 

That culture of lowering the moral threshold which allows prostitution to be a valid occupation has superseded the economic reasons. There are just too many 3rd world countries where prostitution exist of course, but not with that 1+1 =2, simple logic justifying it for so many families and girls.

 

I merely wish to add that often, what brings people to despair or simple make the daughter a cash cow, is maybe not always dire poverty, but indebtment, and the need to repay an investment that may not have born its fruit. Thai people in the lower middle-class and countryside seem to owe an awful lot of money, as i experienced around the few thai people that i know.

 

To Jasmine, i would say that Thailand is actually very new as a unified country, newer than the USA, the pride of nationalism is instilled forcefully, but I sense that, in reality, the central population for a long time have not cared about the people from poorer regions, because they never looked at them as fellow citizens, and more likely as a weight slowing down the country, the Great central Thailand (incl. BKK) in its aspiration to unaltered modernism.

 

Certainly all the anecdotes we all have and read sometimes on NP about how Issan people have been treated or eschewed in certain jobs for others, point to that. A reason why people did not cry foul when the sex industry became more (in)famous. It was them the dirty feet from Issan, the north, second citizens, not us thais.

Any truth to that?

[cardinalblue]

Jasmine,

 

Thanks for sharing your personal stories with us because the rest of us are really just outsiders. All we can do is to observe, watch and listen to what others have to say and then interpret all this but only from the outside looking in...

 

What you say about family and the incredible influence that family has on their children's value system here is something i see and hear every day with the 18 to 22 year old isaan students that composed the vast majority of my students.

 

In a way they are like wet cement when i get them as i can see that they are still forming their values/figuring out the world but still come with a very very strong belief system (but i don't think it is theirs?).

 

My questions are many.... What i see is really nothing but an extension of their family (usually their mother's) and not sure how much of it is their own. One way they communuicate this is when ask them why are they here and why are they pursuing this particular occupation, almost all of them (98%) tell me that is what their family (again usually mother) wants them to be. They really know little about their chosen profession at this time and it seems to me they are trying to fulfill at whatever cost (moral and financial) the desires/goals of their parents and to please them even if they are unhappy/don't like this profession or are clueless about their chosen profession. I wonder if it is the same with BGs?

 

This thread got me going so asked a very good friend of mine who has that classic, poor farming family from isaan profile but did it the way you have described (high school, hard work via menial jobs, discipline and extension of family wishes/values)....

 

I asked her point blank: why do girls go work in the bar and then i asked her why didn't she work in the bar?

 

The first question she kept talking over and over about education is the key. She told me these girls drop-out of school at a very early age. Then i asked her why do they drop out? She gave me a group of answers ranging from they don't like school, poor students, parents don't care about their schooling (which i read as not valuing education), parents pull them from school, etc.

 

The second question i found more interesting. All she talked about was family, family, family. This is what her family wanted her to do meaning get her high school education (father moved to bkk from roi et) to work as a taxi driver while she got her hs education. Then she move to bkk, get a job (factory, sales, other menial jobs in the 4,000 to 8,000 range) to support her younger brother/family through his high and college. Interesting how the family decided who would get the college degree!

 

But what i found most interesting was she said she was completely unaware/never heard of the sex industry until she came to bkk at 20 and it wasn't until she really met me that she has learned the extent of it (falang side of it anyway). She is now 30 years old. She went on to say she knew no one in her village who did what she now sees on nana...

 

My question is this. She comes from a small village in roi et. While roi et is known to produce prostitutes, but what she tells me is accurate which i have absolutely no reason to doubt, then is prostitution is much more cluster or pocket driven and not a general random dispersion throughout areas or regions. What is your take on that? It does make sense from the how she describes how villages function, the immense importance of the family within it combined with that collective/group mentality that i definately see everywhere...

 

Backing up what you said, I also believe economics is definately involved but it is not the deciding factor in whether a girl/boy takes that plunge to works the industry. If it was, why wouldn't 80% opt for it and not the quoted 8%? So other more important variable or variables are driving people not to work in the sex industry. The most plausible answer seems to be the family values and equally important family influence/control......

 

Cardinalblue

[jasmine]

[color:"red"] My question is this. She comes from a small village in roi et. While roi et is known to produce prostitutes, but what she tells me is accurate which i have absolutely no reason to doubt, then is prostitution is much more cluster or pocket driven and not a general random dispersion throughout areas or regions. What is your take on that? It does make sense from the how she describes how villages function, the immense importance of the family within it combined with that collective/group mentality that i definately see everywhere...

 

[/color]

 

The truth is I didn't know much about prostitution except the incidents which happened during the time I was growing up. Exposed to BG during the Vietnam war (1st year at Thammasart) when I was going with my ex-fiancee, an American navigator. I have actually learned quite a bit more at this board. I had a friend, older woman at Thammasart, she was a social worker who taught there part time, who formed groups of people (the TM students) and took us to help the women in Pattaya, Sattaheep and a couple of times in the North provinces-Chiangmai, Lampang. That was how I and people in the group were exposed to prostitution. Some of us shrugged off as the women "Mai rak Dee, Mak gnai" and for the rest of their lives, they just ignored these people. Most of my friends are actually ignorant about the industry and they don't care

 

For me, leaving Thailand on the 2nd year of college, I did not have a chance to associate with people with such background until I got married. I am more interested in them simply because they are human beings who mostly can survive where most of my friends at HS/Thammasart would never could. I have always been interested in human behaviour, that was the main reason why I found this board.

 

I have helped many people with BG background whom sometimes I regret helping them. However, I found the ones who enterred the profession at later age, seem to function much better. With my experience with some of these people, I have found out that if these women come from a fairly decent families (who did not push/sell them into prostitution at young age) all they needed was an opportunity. I still have a contact of an Isaan Thai of 35 who I and a couple of friends chipped in $1,000 each o get her started on a catering service of Thai food. She does well, works in a casino also, but does well.

 

For the ones I met who enterred prostitution at younger age, first work they ever know, I found them a disaster. One woman will do anything, at this time she seems to prime her daughter at age 15 how to fleece a man.

 

The values the families instill at the younger age stay, IMO.

 

Jasmine

[Uthai]

After all the submissions I don't think anyone has made their case.

 

On one side we have JJ's argument....and it?s a good one...Why do we have nearly 20% of Isan girls involved in the P4P industry. His answer.... It?s primarily because of economics brought about by a corrupt government and lack of opportunities.

 

The other side of the argument also makes a strong case about morality/family values. Not every Isan women decides to go into the P4P industry. Eighty percent don't. If it?s primarily about economics then why don't we have a 100% participation.....answer is morality!

 

There are 100's of countries as poor or poorer, as corrupt and more lacking in opportunity than Thailand. All these countries have varying levels of prostitution. Take Mexico, America's neighbor to the South, poor and corrupt with millions of relatively wealthy tourists visiting her every year. They don't supply 20% of their daughters to their P4P scene. For sure there are lots of prostitutes in Mexico but I have never heard of any Mexican town or village that has turned prostitution into a cottage industry. Is it because Mexico and all the other poor and corrupt countries have better values and/or greater morality.....please doesn?t make me laugh.

 

As we all know even Muslim countries have prostitution but I suspect less so than most other countries......it must be that Muslims have better values than the rest of us.....?

 

Muslim countries are very patriarchal societies....so are Latin countries....as well as Westernized countries some more so than others.

 

So what's the answer? What's different about thailand? Is it primarily economics, morality or values? None of those answers fully satisfy the question as to why such an astonishing percentage of Isan women enter the P4P industry.

 

The reason 20% of Isan women are involved in the P4P industry is because Isan is a Matriarchal society. Maybe that's why the elephant is one of Thailand's national symbols.

[Guest]

>>>>So what's the answer? What's different about Thailand?<<<

 

Prostitution is legal, socially acceptable, and extremely

inexpensive. What else do you want to know?

 

Not actually legal, but for all intent, and purposes, it is.

 

It's really as simple as that. Nong Natt, a Thai girl recently exposed as making a Japanese porn film and disgracing her Thai family, is now rich, and famous among the Thai population. She's a star now. Magazine cover girl, and print ad star.

 

Last week, a 10 year old boy got 9 of his friends together to rape a fellow 10 year old school girl on the premises. They did not actually rape her, but exchanged sexual organ contact.

 

The 10 year old kids response???? He watched the Natt porno flick with his parents, and got the idea from that. ::

 

Thailand is a world unto itself. But it is changing very fast. Trying to retain it's culture, while trying to make themselves a world player, is a contridiction that won't be easily sorted out.

 

And all that we are seeing now, is that wanted growth and world acceptance, vs. retention of their cultural values. They are now in the position of trying to mix oil with water. They have a very tough road ahead of them.

 

HT

[JJsushi]

Uthai said:

 

The other side of the argument also makes a strong case about morality/family values. Not every Isan women decides to go into the P4P industry. Eighty percent don't. If it?s primarily about economics then why don't we have a 100% participation.....answer is morality!

 

I don't think morality is the answer as many would contend. I think it has mor to do with fear. Fear of the consequences, fear of being a minority, fear of retribution, fear of being an outcast, fear of social stigma, even a fear of going to hell and having your soul damned.

 

Like I said morality is a luxury. Fear is plentiful. Greed is plentiful. The greatest motivators of man are fear and greed(love sometimes comes into play). Morality is a product of a civiized society, when they have met their basic needs.

 

People ask why does prostitution not flourish in other poor countries? I would not think that it has anything to do with morals. I would maintain that the repercussions from society are too great to overcome the economic incentive offered to a prostitute.

 

I have read of many occassions where women who are suspected of prostitution are stoned, burned and mutilated by their community. That is a hell of an incentive to not enter into P4P.

 

Thailand I have maintained throughout this thread has a huge commercial P4P enterprise that needs poor and uneducated women to supply it. Why does the society allow this? ECONOMICS, pure and simple. The Thai government and it's citizens allow P4P to flourish because it makes money. Why else is the Thaskin government evaluating the regulation of P4P in order to tax it? All of that morality crap goes into the dustbin, from both the girls and the business side. The economic incentive is far to great versus the repurcussions from Thai society.

 

All of that morality stuff makes me chuckle as I remember during the Reagan era's War on Drugs. Nancy Reagan telling inner city kids to "just say no!". I remember one response from a teenage drug dealer, living in the projects. His response was "bitch suck my dick!" His options were working at McDonald's for $4/hr or selling dope for $1000/wk. He didn't care about what society thought. He also knew that he could end up in jail or dead but the greed overcame his fear of those things.

[JJsushi]

HIGH THAIED said:

>>>>So what's the answer? What's different about Thailand?<<<

 

Prostitution is legal, socially acceptable, and extremely

inexpensive. What else do you want to know?

 

Not actually legal, but for all intent, and purposes, it is.

 

It's really as simple as that. Nong Natt, a Thai girl recently exposed as making a Japanese porn film and disgracing her Thai family, is now rich, and famous among the Thai population. She's a star now. Magazine cover girl, and print ad star.

 

 

Glad to see you are modifying your view a little about mainstream Thais not accepting prostitution.

IIt's like I have been saying all along. They may not like it but they sure as hell turn a blind eye to it and reap the economic benefits along the way.

[jasmine]

[color:"red"] There are 100's of countries as poor or poorer, as corrupt and more lacking in opportunity than Thailand. All these countries have varying levels of prostitution. Take Mexico, America's neighbor to the South, poor and corrupt with millions of relatively wealthy tourists visiting her every year. They don't supply 20% of their daughters to their P4P scene. For sure there are lots of prostitutes in Mexico but I have never heard of any Mexican town or village that has turned prostitution into a cottage industry. Is it because Mexico and all the other poor and corrupt countries have better values and/or greater morality.....please doesn?t make me laugh.

 

[/color]

 

Couldn't have said it better, that is why I insist that economics is not the main driving force in Thai prostitution, and still insist that it is more like lacking morale and taking the easiest way presented to them.

 

Jasmine

[Guest]

 

 

Couldn't have said it better, that is why I insist that economics is not the main driving force in Thai prostitution, and still insist that it is more like lacking morale and taking the easiest way presented to them.

 

Jasmine

 

[color:"blue"] [/color] But who's definition of "morale" (morality)? Is it better or worse for the (thai OR farang) female to only date rich men for the money spent on them (in thailand or in europe or anywhere)?

Or to have sex only after an expensive dinner? Look at the music band and athlete groupies? Do they even have the reason (excuse) of doing it to support a poor family?

As far as morale, I have had more "honest" discussions with BG's then many farang girls not in the scene.

[Uthai]

JJ,

 

Your question was not why there is their prostitution in Thailand, your question was why is there is so much prostitution in Thailand. Based on your own estimates of approx. 20% of Isan women entering the P4P scene.

 

I agree with you that economics is the primary reason women in ALL countries enter the P4P scene but why is there so much in Thailand. Mexico is as poor and corrupt as Thailand. Lots of relatively wealth tourists visit Mexico. Why haven?t any poor Mexican villages turned prostitution into a cottage industry??

 

Economics is the primary reason prostitution and morality is secondary but there is a missing ingredient.

 

On this Board I?ve read so many complaints about Thai women, a good example is a current thread titled, ?How to fix a broken relationship with a Thai girl?? here?s an excerpt:

????..

Her parents are teachers and p/t farmers (from the South), who are highly in debt due to failed investments; live 35 kms. away... My fiancee's dad doesn't dislike me, but the mother is the boss in the family!

Also, her mom doesn't want my fiancee to live together with me, as we are not married.

 

My fiancee: 20, very childish, somewhat lazy (her dad does all the housework at home!), studies Human Resources (because her parents want her to)...

???????

 

The guy that wrote the thread above doesn?t know it yet but he?s about to be emasculated by a sweet demure 40 kilo Thai women.

 

Isan women in particular wear the pants. They are for the most part the power centers in the families and the husbands are relegated to a minor peripheral role.

 

I believe that the missing ingredient that makes prostitution more prevalent than other poor countries is because Thailand has a more Matriarchal family structure.