A few months ago I worked with a local NGO and the Thai police to help remove a minor girl from a local sex club where she danced nude to sell herself to foreign sex customers. On Saturday I returned to that sad location to check if there were any more minors being prostituted. I immediately noticed a young woman dancing half-heartedly and barely showing a weak smile. I asked her to come talk with me, and learned that she was 21 years old and had been working in the club for a month and 10 days, figures she repeated several times to me, clearly showing that she didn't really want to be there. "Ying" is from Isaan, the poorest part of rural Thailand, and at the recommendation of a friend had come to Bangkok to dance and strip and sell herself since she had no better job. So she performs 6-7 nights a week, humiliating herself by dancing nude in front of a crowd, often being sold to foreign men for the night. It’s a brutal, destructive way to make a living.
Ying and I could barely communicate in our broken Thai-English, but I told her that I could help her leave the bar and that I had friends who employ women who want to get out of working in bars and clubs. I might not be the most convincing undercover sex tourist, so when it became obvious to Ying’s pimp/mamasan that Ying was not making a sale with me she was forced to return to dancing. A few minutes later, an American man at the bar had Ying come over and sit next to him, and judging by his aggressive pawing at her he was obviously not there for Ying’s good. After a few minutes, I had the mamasan bring Ying over to me again, and Ying told me that she didn’t like that man, didn’t want to go out with him, but knew that he had just paid the bar-fine to take her back to his hotel for the night.
Ying went upstairs in the club to change clothes before leaving with the man, so I went to talk to him. After a moment of small talk he was caught off guard when I said that the real reason I was talking to him was because I knew the girl he had just purchased and that she did not want to go out with him. He was confused, and I explained my conversation with Ying. Then he got offended, saying that I was making assumptions, jumping to conclusions, or didn’t understand what was going on. I assured him that I did understand, and that I had just talked to Ying and that she didn’t want to go with him. He became upset, and went to talk to the mamasan to ensure his sale. I tried to appeal to his sense of decency, telling him that to be kind and respectful he should not force a young woman to go have sex with him if she really didn’t want to go. In the back of my mind I realized how strange it was to try to appeal to a sex tourist’s sense of sexual mores and decency, but I tried nonetheless - to no avail. He wanted his sex on demand, and didn’t want Ying’s reluctance to get in the way of his pleasure. He kept on pushing for the sale.
By this time, Ying had returned and was getting upset. The mamasan started yelling at her, and I realized that Ying’s safety and/or job was now at risk since I had thrust myself into this situation. The mamasan was mad, thinking that a sale was at risk; the man was angry that his sex victim for the night might not come along (she was actually one of two women he had purchased – at first he wondered aloud to me if Ying didn’t want to come with him because the other girl in his proposed threesome was, he said, a lesbian); and I was angry that such an exploitative situation existed at all. In retrospect I should have offered to pay Ying’s bar fine and taken her to a friend’s home for the night, but I didn’t think of that right then. Ying, likely worried about her job, reassured me and the mamasan and the man that she was happy to go with him. Her emerging tears said otherwise, but she had little choice. So off she went with the brazen sex tourist whose sexual desires were more important to him than treating a young woman with dignity. They walked away to his hotel, another American man joining the steady stream of western sex tourists sporting the caddish, self-satisfied smile of men so bereft of honor that they travel to Thailand to force themselves on girls young enough to be their daughter.
(A brief aside. The bar where this happened is not a good place for men to be on their own. Every time I go there it is with a partner, with a specific mission in mind, or with the accountability of a team of people who know that I am there. No man is immune from the visual bombardment that assaults the senses in these types of clubs, and they are not great places to hang out. I have a friend who has worked on these issues who, first thing upon meeting a bar girl, shows her a picture of his wife and children, assuring himself that he will treat her as a daughter and not let his mind go to darker places. I have friends who pray regularly for the protection of men who work in these dark areas. And not all men should be there at all, regardless of their best motivations. But the fact is also that certain places only allow certain access, and being a white, western man has allowed me to investigate brothels in India and Thailand and beyond. But we have to be careful and accountable.)
I understand that these issues are, at one level, quite complex. Poverty and culture, economics and religion, combine to create a conflicted stew of opinions on sex tourism in Nana, Patpong and other red-light areas which cater to western men in Thailand. What’s probably most needed are jobs and education for women so they don’t have to enter prostitution in the first place. It’s a situation that requires more than mere moralizing – it’s a situation needing talented and creative people who work for real solutions.
But it is still a moral issue, one that demands a clear accounting of right and wrong. And it’s a matter of honor and dignity and choice. Men can choose to treat women with respect, and at the bare minimum not pay for sex. All the lame excuses (“boys will be boys”) and dishonest rationalizations (“prostitution is the world’s oldest profession and will always be with us”) and outright lies (“I’m actually helping her since she needs the work and money”) cannot hide the fact that men who buy women are lazy, selfish cowards. Where we should work to woo and court a woman to date and marry, we instead take the lazy man’s route of using our money to get what we want cheaply and easily. Where we should use our strength to honor and uphold the dignity of women, we instead use our power to pursue our own temporary pleasure, the fantasy of orgasm on demand with no commitment or attachment. And where we should use our power to fight the evil and injustice that consume our world, we instead hide behind lies and half-truths and meekly defer tackling the pressing issues of our day, focusing instead on our narrow, petty desires. I don’t know if there is a better definition for cowardice than buying and exploiting young women rather than using your power for broader good in the world.
Many sex tourists are sympathetic in their own right, perhaps suffering their own shame and brokenness that does demand a loving response, and I am thankful for those people who are trying to reach out to the customers who deserve more than just our anger. Those agents of mercy are better men than me. But the extension of mercy to commercial sex customers should not make cloudy our understanding of certain moral truth: it is a cowardly and morally repugnant thing to buy a vulnerable woman for sex, and the men who do so are not acting like men at all. They have made their choices, and their actions deserve our deepest indignation. Men can choose something better than their basest, primal instincts; it is animals that cannot.
In a world of deep need and desperation, with so many places begging for men to stand up and be men, our world often celebrates and empowers men who act like animals. On Saturday night, I saw another example of this, and did my meager best to intervene. I passed Ying’s information on to a female friend who I hope can help Ying get out of the bar. It would be great to use some of my money to provide her a real job, and I dream of running a business where I could hire thousands of young women to empower them and allow them to escape or avoid a life of prostitution. I don’t know where all this will lead. But I do know that as I struggle to be a man of integrity and courage, to be a man who serves the world rather than feeds his own desires, it is both morally painful and joyfully inspiring to try to help one young woman in need.
We need men and women of courage and conviction in Nana and Patpong and Soi Cowboy and in red-light districts all across Thailand and Asia and beyond. God knows there are enough cowards.
