Sex in Thailand Paperback – September 15, 2013

Good

America and Europe at their beginning exploited humans, most girls/women/boys...The leering bait of cheap booze, beer and drugs do exist in Thailand. And in all SE Asia, as artifacts of more precarious times over there. Over there? Such enterprises existed in America in our beginning days. I don'know the statistics, but most every country started that way in Europe, South America and around the world.There are things these sex writer boys don't reveal.Like most prostitutes there aren't Thai. Many if not most come from the Hill Tribes, which roam east and west across SE Asia, passing Thailand's northern borders. Many pause there to acquire the opium, heroin or these days, Asian versions of methamphetamines and the signs of Western progress, 'designer' drugs. Only they're cooked up in native camps under some really scabrous conditions.Sad girls are often sold by fathers, brothers, even mothers, to support their needle habits. These arenot Thai's. The Hmong, Lisu and Anka, among other tribes, roam through SE Asia. Imagine the threatof SDT's and so many deadly diseases.I was in Bangkok in the 80's. There was a growing concern STD/AIDS risks by the Myramar (formerly Burma) government. The news stories were pretty horrific: The visiting 'working girls' were sent back to Myramar. At the Burmese border the guards stopped them, detouring then to camps where thousands were tested for diseases. Again, I don't have the statistics, but thousands wereinfected. Those girls were ushered out of the med test camps and killed to avoid epidemics.I was in Pattaya in the 80's. Right on the Gulf of Thailand. Beautiful views, girls, cheap prices and very few government regulations. And corruption, of course. I stopped at a bar, curious about the sign FOXY BOXING. The bar was square. Two girls were matched, winner take all, in the bar's square. I sipped m'Singha Beer and watched. Petite young girls bashing one another, desperate for the winner's purse. I flinched more than once.At some point I looked down at m'beer's foam. It was flecked with blood. I left. Gargled with some thai whiskey and went beach walking. There were many stories like that back then; probably less today, but still, the risks are still around.You want more images? How about a Bangkok Post front page with pictures of a bar fire. The bar girls lived in a dorm over the bar. About 20 or 30 of them. All handcuffed to their beds, charred. Thai newspapers are famous for their extraordinary gory pictures.Want more to rethink the risks and human costs? How about 'ladyboys', really beautiful young men in drag. If hapless tourist party animals don't get rolled (maybe killed) or bring AIDS or some disease back home it's rare. Does this book tell of them?( I didn't see any mention. I 'looked inside' For so many reasons they get drunk/high, get laid for a handful of bahts is so dangerous to tourists and demeaning, maybe deadly for the bar girls - (quote now: 100 baht = U$3.22). Very expensive for anything except money.