Foreign sexual exchange

[sfinkz]

Time once again to sharpen your pencils. Warning, this is a sexual problem, to be worked backwards or frontwards, short-or-long-time, with scant verifiable data requiring, in some cases, speculative guesstimates.

 

 

 

The question is: How much money changes hands from farang to sex worker? (We all know that fatherly advice of 'it ain't gettin' it, it's chasin' it', so this does not involve the whole tourist industry, just direct hand-to-hand contact.)

 

 

 

To get started, yesterday we learned 3.333 million farangs/yr

 

Of this, guessing 70% male = 2.333 million male farangs/yr

 

700,000 of these perhaps are escorted among the 1 million females (yes, I know some of these are getting it on the side but) that leaves 1.633 million single male farangs/yr

 

 

 

Here's where it gets tricky, 60% of these are hardcore?

 

That would leave 1 million partakers in the sex trade/yr

 

 

 

We also learned yesterday average stay was 7-8 days.

 

What is the average number of encounters in this week? Five?

 

OK, then, 5 million farang sexual transactions per year in LOS.

 

Average price? 1200B? That's 6 billion baht per year.

 

(about US$140 million)

 

 

 

That 5 million acts per year is about 14,000 per day.

 

What kind of army do you need to keep these 14,000 happy? (and, just as importantly, for a similar number only looking, going home alone)

 

60,000 sex workers in the farang market?

 

That works out to 100,000B per year per sex worker average

 

Or about 8,500 baht per sex worker per month (or US$200, remember, on average, with some making many times more and others stuck with their lady drink chits)

 

 

 

Any quibbling? (Residents with tourist visas are included and, in some cases, upping the average if not for transactions for average stay which may have a net effect of lowballing these estimates). Where do you rate your experience among that 5 million? (Really only interested in the top five, for that one-in-a-million, the rest take a number).

 

 

 

 

[Guest]

Post deleted by DoxyBlue

[Guest]

I wonder which percentage was honest when filling in the Purpose of Visit-form

 

 

[sayjann]

isn't about time they changed the immigration form?.

 

 

 

purpose of visit?.

 

 

 

1-to f*** 1-5 ladies?

 

2-to f*** 6-10 ladies?

 

3-to f*** 11-20 ladies?

 

4-oh f*** it,do as many as you like/can but please leave no diseases when you go and spoil the wonderful LOS and their beautiful people.

[gobbledonk]

Dude,

 

 

 

I initially laughed at your spreadsheet, thinking 'This guy has way too much time on his hands !', but then it occurred to me that what you have attempted to do is probably not far off what a lot of 'official' sources do when trying to quantify something like this. They just have the advantage of 'proven' staistical methods behind them, and I take it all with a grain of salt.

 

 

 

Your figures would provide one of our Sunday tabloids with all the 'research' they'd deem necessary to splash photos of a BG and a punter across the page, together with a headline like 'Aussies kickstart Thai economy'. Large numbers of Australians visit Thailand every year - it wouldn't take long for them to conclude that 80% of the males MUST be patronising the sex industry, and we've got a whole page of 'news'. My question is : how much of the industry's earnings are returned to the Thai people via taxes etc ? There is no question that everyone in a place like Pattaya benefits from the money we spend, but I'd like to think that our money helped people other than corrupt cops and politicians. You'd better fire up Excel - this is gonna be tough :}

[Guest]

I took academic interest in the question a few years ago, but no-one seemed to want to touch it with a pole. I still think that there is room for someone to write a great treatise on globalisation and sexwork in SEA. the only thing that comes near is a postmodern feminist work by Jo Dozema and kemala Kempadoo, which is surprisingly a good read given the theoretical bent of the authors. Needless to say tho, the answer to your question is undoubtably "shitloads".

 

 

 

Cheers

 

 

 

Jaga

[sfinkz]

Af'ernoom Cap'm:

 

 

 

I was hoping you'd be able to shine a little numerical light on the nocturnal doings. Thanks.

 

 

 

Now, the stats you furnished us on a recent thread included a breakdown of visitors from Western countries, amounting to 3.3 million (33%) of the 10 million total.

 

 

 

I'm surprised, actually, it was this small of a percentage for farangs. Of course farangs, by definition, are burrs in the fabric, standing out and not blending into the mosaic as easily as foreign Asiatics, Indians or Arabs.

 

 

 

Anyway, using this 3.3 mill number, I assumed a gender breakdown for farangs of 70% male/30% female. For this to be true, however, it would have to mean the gender breakdown for all non-farang groups would have to be 55% male (3.67 mill)/45% female (3 mill).

 

 

 

I'm still prepared, without the hard data, to defend this assumption (70% male for farangs and 55% male for non-farangs) sociologically explaining it primarily because of the fact that LOS is still the best available option for farang sex tourists whereas for non-farangs attractive options exist in their native countries but is effectively reserved for the local market.

 

 

 

Also factoring into this would be greater independence and mobility of farang males and also with a higher incidence of both divorce and misogamy and a weaker family structure in comparison to non-farangs.

 

 

 

What also impressed me about your spreadsheet was the 88% holiday merry-makers. I thought business travelers would account for a higher percentage. This really has no bearing on the task at hand, however, as this group, in addition to being predominately single male, are some of the biggest horndogs I know.

 

 

 

And that 0.5% "official" category? I bet they're getting the cream of the crop.

[Guest]

Post deleted by DoxyBlue

[Guest]

Hi DB,

 

 

 

I'm not good at math. But say 5.5 million adult males visit per year. They stay average 8 days.

 

 

 

If you multiply number visiters by days stayed, and the divide by 365 days in a year......will that give you average number of guys in LOS on a given day? (which is 120,500 approx.)

 

 

 

Seems low. Obviously high season will have higher proportion than low.

[Guest]

Post deleted by DoxyBlue