The vast majority of the girls (in the farang bars, anyway, which is the only experience I can bring to the table) who do this do it because their material “wants” exceed their ambition to go out and get it in a normal job. They are not willing to start out at the bottom for a shit salary (like ALL the rest of us did) and live off barely nothing as they begin their journey into adulthood. There is no doubt the Thailand is poor relative to the west – but its economy has been booming for years and there is a labor-shortage right now. They could get jobs (and keep them) if they put the effort in and simply got down to the business of building a “normal” life. Just like the rest of us did.

The easy cash, the constant party and dancing (which many truly enjoy, especially when they first arrive and are at the peak of their “party years”), and that most (not all, I am sure) of the farang punters actually treat them well – all this makes it difficult for them to walk away. Over a few years of this it becomes a mental trap (not a physical, or tangible one) where they can’t see how they can walk away from it.

Many do walk away, for a short while, and end up back at the bars to make a fast buck and escape the boredom (their words) of their hometowns.

I do feel true pity for them because I see how it ends up…, they age, their beauty fades, they no longer beleive a “real” love will come their way, they feel shame at what they have become and now feel absolutely no escape is possible. They are left with an ever-declining paycheck as their desireability decreases year by year. But again, it is still a choice… they just choose not to forego the big easy cash to become a Domestic Helper, a waitress in a normal restaurant/bar, or whatever.

They DID IT TO THEMSELVES.., no one forced them. The poverty did not force them… the proof of this is watching how 99% of “normal” Thai girls manage to build a life for themselves without resorting to prostitution. If prostitution was the only way out of the extreme poverty of Thailand why arent the other 30 million Thai women also prostitues?

If you talk to these “normal” Thai girls about it they all have the same basic opinion – the prostitutes are lazy. They’ve taken what they see as the easy way out, and yes, they shun them like the plague.

That said, I am absolutely aware that there is human trafficing going on aswell – with very young Cambodians and Vietnamese girls being sold by their parents, or kidnapped, and forced into this. Yes, this is clearly is happening and is catering to the Thai men primarily, as you NEVER see it in the farang bar scene. This extreme cruelty has no defence and the perpatrators should be castrated and hung.

But this is not the prostitution scene we are talking about and represents a tiny (though barbaric) fraction of the Thailand sex industry.

Those bar girls are only your friends because they don’t speak enough English to realize what a hateful, misogynist douche bag you are. Seriously. I stopped your drivel half-way through because, well, I wasn’t being forced to read it.

I feel sorry for any woman whose choices are scrubbing the loo at 7-11 12 hours a day or listening to–let alone screwing–someone like you. You seem to spend an awful lot of time in go go bars for someone who doesn’t buy women. Can’t you get anyone else to listen to you?

Regarding bar girls:

Most of them don’t consider themselves to be morally corrupt or that they’re doing something bad. To them they’re just doing a job. And, it’s a job that many of them enjoy because it gives them an opportunity for a step up in life. The majority of them are in there because of the demands of their families. Most of them have babies, or children, from some dead beat Thai boyfriend who did a runner when he realised that there was a plate to step up to. A lot of them have worked in some shitty low paying job in a factory, or on a building site, and they’re not interested in going back to those subsistence level wages (and personally, I don’t blame them) Most of them are hoping to meet someone (a foreigner) who will be their financial salvation. The problem is that working as a bargirl (aka prositute) changes them. Over time their attitudes to everything hardens and they become a lot more ruthless. They’re schooled by those more experienced in how to milk a customer for as much as they possibly can. The smarter ones will save their money but most of them blow it on booze, drugs and the leaches that live off them. Getting into a relationship with a bar girl is probably not a good idea because most of them have only one skill set for making cash and, even if they get the opportunity to get out of the industry, the bar life is often so ingrained that they can’t change their hardened, opportunistic mindsets. They have a tendency to look at everything from a short term perspective – what’s in it for me now – and many of them have anything that resembles financial discipline. They have a tendency to waste money and spend far more than girls who don’t work in bars etc. For most farang, this is where the relationship with a bar girl always breaks down. It’s always about the money.

I have my doubts about these two girls working on Soi Cowboy. I’m no longer a regular at the local go-gos but I know enough current and former bar owners/managers around Bangkok to know that few would ever have girls in their clubs against their will. First off, it’s in nobody’s self-interest. The police who protect the bar scene would not want some girl being forced into the business against her will blabbing to some do-gooder foreigner who might shine a spotlight on things which in turn might cause international pressure to crack down which in turn would hurt the police’s income stream.

What I suspect is much closer to the truth is that mom and/or pop got themselves into some hot water either with the local bookie or with drug dealers and the girls are simply doing what they think they need to do to help the family. The reason they have no idea when their obligation will end is that people with gambling and drug problems don’t tend to get well on their own if someone else is paying the consequences for them so they’re probably getting themselves deeper into debt.

Now, if we were talking about Thai oriented brothels I might be more inclined to believe they were there totally against their will. But for girls working in the tourist red light districts my guess is they’re spinning the stories a bit. Sympathy = money. None of these girls wants to admit they have a choice. Even the ones who voluntarily go will always try to tell a version of their life story which makes it seem as if this was their only choice.

http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/sex/Sex-Trafficking-in-Burma-and-Thailand.html#_1_18

I know of two girls on Soi Cowboy who are in this situation right now. In 14 and 16 months I’ve seen the slow destruction of their personality with no definite time where they will be cut loose. Very sad. This situation exists only for a minority of the workers in the red light districts, but even so it’s an institutionalized part of the business and the agents and bar owners make a pile of money off these girls.

In the west, generally speaking, the importance of social class, skin color, and financial status have diminshed from their high levels to a lower level and to a much lower level than in Thailand.

I did get to know a few rich Thai men and they even took me to “their” hot spots which was totally different than the farang’s “hot spots”. At one time, I did ask one of my closest Thai friend (he is well off) what do Thai people, especially Thai women, think of the bar girls. His immediate answer was that most Thai women are ok with it some tolerate and it is a fact of life. Thai men like Thai bar girls but may not like Farang bar girls . Now, I know him pretty well and I think his answer was honest but it is also possible that he may have added some “face saving” flavour to it to keep my opinion of Thailand at a higher level?

I have lived in a few countries so far, and believe me, it would be feutal (sp?) to try to understand any other culture in a mind set of a western culture. For me, I like to try to think and feel as a local person and try to understand the culture. Of course it will be very difficult to be Thai in heart and soul, but it will be easier to understand the dynamics of the Thai society.

It does seem to me that the budhisit religion may have some thing to do with the way Thais look at the bar girl and at sex in genral while economical status adds to the complexity of life here. A prostitute in the west is not looked at well by her society. A bar girl here, if she carries her self well and dresses well may be acceptable to most thais (do you guys see it the same?). I know of one bar girl who speakes excellent English, well dressed, behaves like a middle class lady and is not ashamed to say she works at a bar. We were friends only, and one of my thai friends met her and really liked her and treated her very well indeed.

I did date a girl who worked at a cloth store in one of the malls, and she worked hard and made little. While she did not ask for money at any time, she did confide in me that her family needed money. May be she was a con artist, I do no know any more here but she never asked for money from me. Of course I paid when we went out and I bought her some cloth. I guess what I am trying to say is that even the regular girl will almost always need some sort of financial help form the farang.

May be some one can shed some light on this “face saving” thing that seems to be a huge part of the social structure and in some cases confusing and misleading to farangs. (may be a new thread about it will be better?)

Anyway, she got to looking down her nose at the dark skinned girl and even though they spoke in Thai I caught enough and could read enough body language that she was sizing the girl up. But the dark skinned gal held her ground and I guess impressed her with her schooling and such that she started acting friendly with her (to a degree since she was pretty bitchy with everyone).

Had the dark skinned girl been a hooker . . . sparks would have been flying. There’s no way she would have sat across from a bar girl the entire night and not started a fight.

So while there is certainly racism amongst the Thais to say that they don’t reserve an extra level of contempt for bar girls is a tad of an understatement. If a dark skinned girl can prove that she’s got something going on she can at least hold her own.