The first time I visited Bangkok, I was barely 18yo and completely green to the world of travel and especially backpacking. Turning the corner onto Sukhumvit Soi 4, aka Nana Plaza, looking from the window when I saw her/him/her. My first kathoey, Thai ladyboy. I didn't fully comprehend it at the time, Nana plaza is one of Bangkok's many red-light districts. And ironically, for a young 18yo American, it is also the red-light district that predominantly caters to Western and American sex tourists.
After that trip, Nana was not a place I sought out on following trips to Bangkok. However, having returned for the sixth time and also the first time in almost six years, I find myself revisiting old haunts.
I came to Bangkok to link up with a friend who was in town. The idea of seeing a familiar face seemed fun (can you really blame me given the influx of German couples in Sri Lanka?). I walked along Sukhumvit (a major avenue in downtown Bangkok) to meet him at his hotel on Soi 4 : The Woraburi. Of course, I found myself recognizing shops, restaurants, and bits. The 711 where I first bought disposable underwear and discovered the anomaly of deodorant with whiting agents in it (Cathay Pacific lost our baggage on this particular occasion). The bars where sad looking middle aged men (okay, some younger... others much older ugh) vied and ponied up for the attention of young Thai waitresses and sex workers. Back in 2005, I think I didn't get it or was too naive to fully form my opinions on the bars and brothels lining this street. But in 2013, on I walked. Completely aware that this strip represents such a minute aspect of the sex industry in this country (it's said that western men represent less than 2% of 'Johns' in Thailand. I have a hard time believing this figure which was only recently given to me. Also, data on the sex industry is unreliable at best).
As I pass the vast majority of the strip, I knew my hotel from back in 2005 had to be coming up soon. I thought I saw it. Yellow, open air restaurant... they'd made some changes but it seemed right. I laughed. And 200 yards on, as I approached the Woraburi, I laughed harder. They hadn't made changes, not one. The Woraburi, where I was to meet my friend in 2013, was the exact hotel I had stayed in back in 2005. The exact location I first saw a 60-something man ascend the stairs with not one but two paid companions. My skin crawled then. But evolved, 2013 me, still seemed to be lacking empathy or any emotional response.
Obviously, I didn't hit up the bars back in '05. A freshman at Fordham, I don't think the idea would have crossed my mind even if drinking on the Global Outreach trip was allowed. '13 Denise, in the company of two grown men (one un-interested in the scene, the other an admitted frequenter) decided it was time to get to the bottom of Nana. This shouldn't have been a big deal. I've been to the clubs of Patpong, inside brothels in Thailand and Cambodia was skeezier than anything that exists even on Soi Cowboy. But the idea still fascinated me because this is where looking around the bar, the men could be my uncle, my dad, my brother, a boyfriend, a co-worker. Plucked from the streets of mainstream America, I wanted to "get it".
I'm not saying I condone the sex tourism/prostitution industry. I'm just saying that even after years of traveling in Asia (not to say its the only place in the world with high occurrences of sex tourism) and writing an entire undergraduate thesis on it, I'm still fascinated. But the fascination has shifted. Younger Denise was fascinated by the girls : how to help them. Initiatives to combat trafficking by focusing on these 'poor helpless young women'. How patronizingly American of me. This approach is called supply side solutions; an idea and mindset I had completely abandoned before the ink dried on my bullshit thesis I submitted for graduation.
Demand, that's where it's at. That's what fascinates me. Not the girls. There will always be women in Thailand, South Korea, Macedonia, the US or really any country willing to sell their bodies voluntarily or not. Demand, the men. They're the fuel. They're what keeps it going. They're why I found myself drawn into some stupid social experiment of hanging out in a bar where American men go to pick up sex workers for the night. And on a practical level, their prosecution is thought to be one of the only ways to truly combat illegal sex tourism and trafficking.
I think going to a bar in Nana falls into the train-wreck mentality. As abhorrent, disgusting or unsettling as it seems at first glance, you can't seem to draw yourself away because there is something all encompassing and fascinating about a sixty-something man paying for the companionship of a younger woman. We played "what's his story." Watching guys passing by, or sipping beers. We'd guess : married? career? nationality? kids? Performance anxiety? Kinky fantasy his wife would never fulfill? ED? Socially inept?
The list of pretend identities and traits could go on in my imagination and would surely cross into something dark and inappropriate. But what it really comes down to, what I think I'll never fully comprehend is what drives men to seek out and pay for sex. Can you really get off knowing that likely somewhere in her, she despises you? Are you really gratified by this business transaction? Is your life that lack-luster that you resort to paying for companionship and sex?
Again, it's all a very narrow representation of a multi-billion dollar industry. An industry I wrote 90+ pages of bullshit on to graduate from my elite undergraduate university. Ridden with minute nuances, numerous economic actors, and a plethora of experiences and stories.
But walking down Soi 'Memory', I'm just stuck on that one idea : what drives these guys. Someone should write a book on it. A psychological analysis of male mind and sex tourism. Perhaps it's already out there. But I can promise you, if it's not, it won't be me writing it.
After that trip, Nana was not a place I sought out on following trips to Bangkok. However, having returned for the sixth time and also the first time in almost six years, I find myself revisiting old haunts.
I came to Bangkok to link up with a friend who was in town. The idea of seeing a familiar face seemed fun (can you really blame me given the influx of German couples in Sri Lanka?). I walked along Sukhumvit (a major avenue in downtown Bangkok) to meet him at his hotel on Soi 4 : The Woraburi. Of course, I found myself recognizing shops, restaurants, and bits. The 711 where I first bought disposable underwear and discovered the anomaly of deodorant with whiting agents in it (Cathay Pacific lost our baggage on this particular occasion). The bars where sad looking middle aged men (okay, some younger... others much older ugh) vied and ponied up for the attention of young Thai waitresses and sex workers. Back in 2005, I think I didn't get it or was too naive to fully form my opinions on the bars and brothels lining this street. But in 2013, on I walked. Completely aware that this strip represents such a minute aspect of the sex industry in this country (it's said that western men represent less than 2% of 'Johns' in Thailand. I have a hard time believing this figure which was only recently given to me. Also, data on the sex industry is unreliable at best).
As I pass the vast majority of the strip, I knew my hotel from back in 2005 had to be coming up soon. I thought I saw it. Yellow, open air restaurant... they'd made some changes but it seemed right. I laughed. And 200 yards on, as I approached the Woraburi, I laughed harder. They hadn't made changes, not one. The Woraburi, where I was to meet my friend in 2013, was the exact hotel I had stayed in back in 2005. The exact location I first saw a 60-something man ascend the stairs with not one but two paid companions. My skin crawled then. But evolved, 2013 me, still seemed to be lacking empathy or any emotional response.
Obviously, I didn't hit up the bars back in '05. A freshman at Fordham, I don't think the idea would have crossed my mind even if drinking on the Global Outreach trip was allowed. '13 Denise, in the company of two grown men (one un-interested in the scene, the other an admitted frequenter) decided it was time to get to the bottom of Nana. This shouldn't have been a big deal. I've been to the clubs of Patpong, inside brothels in Thailand and Cambodia was skeezier than anything that exists even on Soi Cowboy. But the idea still fascinated me because this is where looking around the bar, the men could be my uncle, my dad, my brother, a boyfriend, a co-worker. Plucked from the streets of mainstream America, I wanted to "get it".
I'm not saying I condone the sex tourism/prostitution industry. I'm just saying that even after years of traveling in Asia (not to say its the only place in the world with high occurrences of sex tourism) and writing an entire undergraduate thesis on it, I'm still fascinated. But the fascination has shifted. Younger Denise was fascinated by the girls : how to help them. Initiatives to combat trafficking by focusing on these 'poor helpless young women'. How patronizingly American of me. This approach is called supply side solutions; an idea and mindset I had completely abandoned before the ink dried on my bullshit thesis I submitted for graduation.
Demand, that's where it's at. That's what fascinates me. Not the girls. There will always be women in Thailand, South Korea, Macedonia, the US or really any country willing to sell their bodies voluntarily or not. Demand, the men. They're the fuel. They're what keeps it going. They're why I found myself drawn into some stupid social experiment of hanging out in a bar where American men go to pick up sex workers for the night. And on a practical level, their prosecution is thought to be one of the only ways to truly combat illegal sex tourism and trafficking.
I think going to a bar in Nana falls into the train-wreck mentality. As abhorrent, disgusting or unsettling as it seems at first glance, you can't seem to draw yourself away because there is something all encompassing and fascinating about a sixty-something man paying for the companionship of a younger woman. We played "what's his story." Watching guys passing by, or sipping beers. We'd guess : married? career? nationality? kids? Performance anxiety? Kinky fantasy his wife would never fulfill? ED? Socially inept?
The list of pretend identities and traits could go on in my imagination and would surely cross into something dark and inappropriate. But what it really comes down to, what I think I'll never fully comprehend is what drives men to seek out and pay for sex. Can you really get off knowing that likely somewhere in her, she despises you? Are you really gratified by this business transaction? Is your life that lack-luster that you resort to paying for companionship and sex?
Again, it's all a very narrow representation of a multi-billion dollar industry. An industry I wrote 90+ pages of bullshit on to graduate from my elite undergraduate university. Ridden with minute nuances, numerous economic actors, and a plethora of experiences and stories.
But walking down Soi 'Memory', I'm just stuck on that one idea : what drives these guys. Someone should write a book on it. A psychological analysis of male mind and sex tourism. Perhaps it's already out there. But I can promise you, if it's not, it won't be me writing it.
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