Many Thai brothels force the girls to live and work on the premises so it’s easier for them to exert that kind of control. Girls working Cowboy and Nana are generally free to come and go as they please and I’m sure they would add needing to buy her freedom as another way to get money if the premise was even believable.

Poverty and demands of the family….the worst being older sisters. Its hard for us farang to imagine the servile status an Isan girl suffers in her family.

A failed relationship with a Thai man, and being shunned by Thai men after a failed relationship. A lonely loveless existence.

A child or more up home in need of support; even a more shameful being is such a girl.

Seeing successful bar girls up at home..as often as not relatives…with farang husbands houses, cars etc. and their families and parents enjoying an elevated hi-so status….while they and their own family languish.

Certainly being “bought out” by human traffickers. Often they come to work in pairs or groups, recruited by the same person. Their parents are paid an “advance” which they must pay off to escape the employ of their recruiter.

But I don’t think that many of them do it because they love it or find it fun. Dancing for 9 hours isn’t that easy a job….and getting bar-fined and screwed certainly must have its ups and downs.

I guess the same could be said for the mafia. People have been stealing and enforcing their own for of justice since the dawn of man but the phrase to “go legit” also applies to getting out of that lifestyle.

I’m not sure what you feel is “tepid” about the story. Should I have spiced it up by making things up? It was what it was.

The rest I think you and I agree. It was certainly her choice.

@George: How do you explain “I could never do this” going to “I could make good money doing this” in the span of 20 min? The friend definitely sold her up on the benefits without mentioning the downsides which I’m sure she’s well aware. To me, that’s called lying. If I sell you my car and tell you how sweet it handles and how the engine purrs but leave out that the transmission is in need of a major overhaul am I or am I not lying to you? If you think I’m not then we’re just going to have to agree to disagree.

The framing story is tepid, but the final analysis is very much on the mark: the vast majority of the girls are on the game simply for a better payday rather than any specific instance of victimization. This is the classic profile of the never-married and no kids Thai sex-worker in fact, although a fair amount of browbeating about unforthcoming financial support from “mare and poor” (pointed transliteration my own) back home can play into it. It’s not at all uncommon for them to decide it’s time to go casual once a daughter is old enough to be put into service in Bangkok or Pattaya.