This was originally a series of posts but they have been collapsed into one post here.
Hat tip to the Pattaya Rag for this one.
In a piece titled “PBS´ Carrier: Why Didn´t They Film the Rape-Stops?” on the American Spectator Suki Falconberg makes the following statement.
I notice that during this 2005 six-month deployment of the Nimitz which PBS filmed, the ship docked in Thailand. When our navy visits this country, they dock off of Pattaya, a prostitution city created for the military. About a third of the girls trafficked to meet the sailors´ sexual needs are underage. Numerous eyewitnesses have told me that the first thing the U.S. sailors do, when they hop off the boats that ferry them in, is head straight for the sex-for-sale enslaved girls. Why didn´t the film crew document the men going with prostituted, enslaved women and girls and girl children in Pattaya? (My sources are military men themselves who have told me about what the fleet does in Thailand.)
I guess if you read enough about Thailand you get used to ignorant writing like this. What really shocked me was the rest of the article that the Pattaya Rag didn’t quote. Here’s some winners:
In its homeport, San Diego, sailors from the Nimitz rape the prostituted bodies of girls in that city and in Tijuana. These girls are subject to the harshness of the sex industry which treats women like modern-day slaves; girls are held in debt bondage, pimp-controlled, trafficked. Tijuana is in fact a ´corridor´ city: girls are ´broken´ there before being shipped to U.S. markets. To make them submissive, the girls are subjected to gang rapes, beatings, starvation, being filming for porn to degrade them, along with psychological terror tactics. This is the norm of what happens to prostituted beings. These are the broken bodies sailors buy and use.
She goes on to say:
During this 2005 deployment, the Nimitz also stopped at Dubai, a major trafficking destination in that part of the world. Large numbers of girls from Russia, the Ukraine, and Moldova are trafficked into this ´sex playground´ by the Russian mafia. The girls are broken at nearby Pakistani labor camps where the pimps let a different man in every 15 minutes to mount the enslaved body. This goes on for days or even weeks until her spirit is gone. Until she is docile enough to accept rape by 30 or more men on a daily basis. These broken women and girls are the ones our sailors are using. The men see only the end product—the girl who must smile to survive even though she is no longer alive as a human being.
I don’t know enough about what goes on in Dubai or Tijuana but if the part about Pattaya is any indication Falconberg is about as honest as a bar girl asking for money for the sick water buffalo. She refers to the Pattaya girls as “enslaved” twice but other than an odd case here or there you might read about in the papers I’ve never known any bar girl to be working against her will. In fact, all too often is the case where these girls are getting guys to send them money to stay out of the bars and they keep going back.
She also makes a point of using the phrase “enslaved women and girls and girl children” which is certainly meant to imply that the sailors are engaging in child prostitution. Yet, again, as has been pointed out numerous times on numerous other blogs . . . you find very little child prostitution in the farang prostitution scene. That honor goes to the Thai men.
Hell, while we’re at it, let’s just call things for what they are and say that what human trafficking for the benefit of prostitution that occurs in Thailand also happens almost exclusively in the Thai prostitution scene. That’s where you hear the stories of Lao or Burmese girls being confined in some brothel back room. The prostitutes that service farangs are free to come and go as they please.
So right off the bat you either have someone retardedly ignorant or someone with an agenda. So I looked her up on the old interwebs and discovered Falconberg is a former prostitute herself. Ahhh, now it’s making some sense. I caught another piece of her’s where she makes the following statement regarding the Elliot Spitzer prostitution scandal.
As an ex-prostitute, I read with dismay the initial coverage of the Governor Spitzer sex scandal. “Romp with a high-priced call girl” was the racy way the press stated it. All the focus was on family values, betrayal of middle-class morality, apologies from him for not living up to his own high standards.
The focus should have been on the prostitute herself rather than all the narrow, prudish marriage-and-family garbage and the puritanical rhetoric attached to it. Maybe what was wrong was that he bought another human being.
As you read more and more of what she’s written it becomes obvious that she regularly equates prostitution with rape. Even in this piece she keeps hinting that this high priced call girl that Spitzer spent time between the sheets with might have been forced into the business. Of course, it’s hard to say that Kristen of any sort of victim based on what has been written about her but Falconberg makes veiled hints all the same.
I found some more of her bullshit in a debate about legalizing prostitution in the US:
As an ex-prostitute, I am adamantly opposed to legalizing prostitution. In countries where it has been tried (Germany, the Netherlands, Australia) trafficking has skyrocketed because legalizing makes it easier for men to procure, pimp, and buy bodies: it does nothing to protect the women. Similarly, in ‘legal’ Nevada brothels, many girls are trafficked in by their pimps, who take the money. Setting aside a space called ‘brothel’ where women are confined and gang raped on a daily basis promotes the notion that we women are there to serve men, the superior ones. Any situation that involves a buyer (usually male, the one with power) and a bought (usually female, destitute and disempowered) is rape and sexual slavery. The whole notion that men can buy bodies for their pleasure (ours does not matter) is degrading. It devalues our humanity and dignity and turns us into disposable bodies with one important part—the sex organ.
Mr. Moubayed looks at this only from a very selfish male point of view. He does not consider the physical and psychological misery of prostitution. From my own time in it, I still have physical damage. The sex act felt like rape. No one considers the consequences to the girl’s body—how overuse means swollen, often bleeding genitals, pain in the bladder, bruises from how heavy men are. No one considers how disgusting it is to actually have sex with men you don’t know. The only way to survive is to numb out—this protects a small space inside where you are so vulnerable, you will die if someone touches this spot. The long-term damage to the soul simply cannot be put into words.
I would like to see Mr. Maoubeyed penetrated by strange men 10 or 20 times a night. Then maybe he won’t be so eager to espouse prostitution.
In fact, I would like to see every man who uses a prostitute penetrated as many time a night as she is. I think fewer men would buy bodies if men had to suffer this intolerable cruelty—rape, over and over again. Prostitution is rape disguised as a financial transaction. The sexual selfishness of the male keeps it going.
I’m beginning to wonder how many letters she’s started off with the phrase “As an ex-prostitute . . .”
But more interesting in in the piece on Elliot Spitzer she says:
I am fine with Governor Spitzer (or ex-Governor, as the case may be) buying a girl if he treats her well, as he seems to have done. Kristen says she liked him. And I am fine with this if the girl is not exploited in any way.
And in her anti-prostitution rant she says the complete opposite:
In fact, I would like to see every man who uses a prostitute penetrated as many time a night as she is.
Unfortunately, for someone who bills herself as an expert on prostitution she, like so many high-minded farangs, can’t see the forest for the trees. She does enslaved prostitutes a disservice with her shrill rhetoric. Yes, there are girls being forced into this profession against their will but when someone starts making claims about Thai bar girls being enslaved anybody who has ever been to Pattaya can only laugh. That person’s voice loses credibility. In losing credibility she ensures that any other claims she makes fall on deaf ears.
What a shame.
—- That was the end of the first post. Suki responded in the comments which I deconstruct in this post.
My Response to Suki Falconberg
I recently commented on the deplorably misinformed article written by Suki Falconberg. Suki decided to respond in my comments and I wanted to respond in a much more appropriate fashion.
Hello, this is Suki, the ‘hooker’:–Since you guys in Pattaya picked up on my Nimitz article, I’ve been reading your comments on it—and on me. One man mentioned that many of the bar girls in Pattaya are there due to husbands having deserted them, and they have children and no education and no alternative ways to make a living. And he says they are ‘free’ to leave at any time.
If they have no other ways to make a living, then how does ‘freedom’ enter in in any way? A girl can only ‘choose’ prostitution if she is not economically desperate.
How hard is it for uneducated women and girls to find work other than sex work in Thailand?
First off, Suki, I don’t live in Pattaya. In fact I have never even been to Pattaya. Not because of the prostitution but because of my own personal belief is that Pattaya lures the worst types of farang (foreigners) and the worst type of Thai girl.
As to your question as to what kind of opportunities are provided to uneducated women in Thailand I can tell you from personal experience that it is not a binary choice. Every woman behind the counter of a 7-11 had a choice. Every woman who works in cleaning, laundry, etc had a choice. I personally know women who are so amazingly attractive that they would be the star performer in any naughty nightlife venue but chose to keep their dignity and work for 6000 baht a month when bar girls can earn up to 100,000 baht a month.
Selling your body is a choice. These girls made a choice. They decided that the potential to earn 100,000 baht a month was worth throwing away their dignity rather than take a job at 6,000 baht a month which would have put food in their stomachs, paid the rent, and maybe even send a little home to their families.
I find one man saying that the bar girls in Pattaya are sleaze and trash. So, that’s a second perspective I’m getting from your part of the world. (If you have a lot of different men use you, by the way, it tends to inevitably turn a girl into sleaze and trash. Hard to hold onto sweetness and innocence after a while.)
We actually agree on some level. I don’t think of these girls as trash but I do admit that it is hard to hold onto sweetness and innocence after being too long in the industry. I have kept in contact with several girls that I have met through the bar scene in Bangkok and Phuket and whenever they’ve had the choice of going legit or staying in the bar scene I’ve pleaded with them to go legit.
In fact, I just had a IM chat with a girl last night who I met via the bar scene in Phuket who had a chance out with a English guy who took her back to his country. They broke up and she ended up back in her impoverished town. I pleaded with her over weeks not to go back to the Phuket bar scene. She told me heart-wrenching stories of her economic plight but I kept encouraging her to just stick it out and look for legitimate work. She is now earning a third of what she made working the bars but is very happy she made the choice she did. She knows how it would have impacted her emotionally to keep doing what she did and she is willing to trade her well-being for over the money she could be making.
I am trying to understand your point of view—as I have been trying to understand the point of view of sailors I’ve talked to for several decades now.
I am well aware that sex tourists are also there—not just militaries, but I focus on the US military since it has a personal angle for me—having worked as a prostitute near a US base. I am also well aware of the huge use of prostitutes by local men in Thailand and how they’ve used the Burmese girls trafficked into brothels, etc. and how the brothels are coercive and use the typical debt bondage, etc.—at least dozens upon dozens upon dozens of sources say this, so there must be some truth in it.
Actually the military is such a small part of the overall prostitution scene in Thailand that the fact that you highlighted it discredits everything else you say afterwards.
And you are way, way, way wrong on your even partial acknowledgement of the Thai prostitution scene. The most conservative estimate is that only 10% of prostitution in Thailand is farang/Thai oriented. That means 90% of girls hooking in Thailand are shagging other Thais.
As for the figure that a third of the girls in prostitution in Thailand are under 18, that comes from various sources and government agencies, and NGO’s and articles and also a show called the New Heroes, another PBS one about the increasing sale of younger and younger girls into the sex trade due to AIDS. This particular show had ample footage of very, very, very young girls—12 and 13 yr. olds–standing in front of the Patpong establishments. In that footage, I’d say the majority looked as if they were under 15. I would define ‘child prostitute,’ as anyone under the age of 18. This is a ‘legal’ definition, by the way.
Is Bangkok full of much younger prostitutes than Pattaya or Phuket?
Well, you are woefully misinformed. Part of that is that NGOs tend to blow things out of proportion so they can continue receiving funding. For instance there was a recent post about pedophilia in Cambodia and the author of the piece basically discovered that the vast, vast, vast majority of pedophilia cases in Cambodia were Cambodian on Cambodian. The NGO’s even have billboards up in Cambodia – in English – proudly announcing that over 2000 pedophiles have been caught in the last 5 years in Cambodia. Only problem is that only 10 or so foreigners per year are actually caught engaging in such activity. The other 1950 pedophiles that the NGO’s trumpet are actually Cambodians.
The same holds true in Thailand. As a farang if you begged to have sex with a 12 year old you would have an almost zero chance. It’s not that it’s impossible but I don’t even know who would begin to ask. And I know a lot of freaky people in Thailand. If you’re talking about Thai on Thai (or Thai on Lao, or Thai on Burmese) . . . you can probably find it for enough money.
When there is underage sex between farang and Thai it is usually because the girl has a faked ID card and she’s actually 17 instead of 18.
Most farangs count on the bars to verify that the girls working there are of legal age. The criminal repercussions for having sex with someone under age are pretty severe in Thailand for both the bar and the customer so both are very careful to stay on the right side of the law. Oh, and on top of that the guy’s hotel usually take the girl’s ID card when he brings her back to his room to make sure she doesn’t rip off the guest and few, if any, hotels would let an underage girl go to a guy’s room.
As for my comment on ‘brothel town for the military,’ I know all of you guys over there are aware of the background of sex tourism in Thailand—how it grew out of the heavy US military presence during the Vietnam era—damn, I’ve probably read that in about 200 sources—how this huge sex tourism industry that reigns there now and is a major attraction of the country–was jump-started by our presence—that’s what I meant by that phrase. Now, of course, in terms of numbers, sex tourists and local men outnumber the militaries that visit. Back during the Vietnam era, the stats were huge as for how many guys took R & R there!
What is the background of the prostitute, bar girl or not? That is really crucial. She may smile and smile and smile but how did she get to this bar, selling herself to this man? What kind of poverty, hardening, ‘seasoning,’ lets her do this?
It is very difficult, selling your body. You may not want to hear this but sex with drunk rough Marines is chilling and terrifying—until your body and every thing else numbs out. You smile and smile and smile. But he doesn’t see what’s happening inside. You’re small and he’s big and he could really hurt you.
It still doesn’t excuse the inaccuracy of your statement. It’s like saying that America is a trading post for slavery. It has a hint of truth to it – 200 years ago – but it’s absurdly inaccurate.
Again, you display your ignorance with your statement about how these girls get here. Most are dirt poor rice farmer daughters. The government shits on these people so there are no social services like there are in the West. When you get too old to work . . . well, you’re screwed. So Thai farmers have lots of kids and send them off to Bangkok and other big cities to go make money to send back to mom and dad. These girls hit Bangkok and can either find work legitimately in factories or retail shops or if they are pretty someone will suggest that they can work the go-go bars making 3 or 4 times as much.
These girls all make the choice for the easy money over working hard. Nobody is forced into what they do. There are no pimps or anything like that in the Thailand naughty nightlife. The only pimp they may have is a Thai boyfriend who decides he doesn’t want to work and he lets his girlfriend fuck foreigners for cash so he can go out and get drunk every day.
Chances are her father or mother has either or a gambling or a drinking problem . . . or both. Any money she sends back to her boyfriend or her parents goes to paying off those vices.
But the strange part, which I’m sure you won’t understand, is if some Westerner walked up to any of these bar girls and shoved 100,000 baht in her hand to get out of the life . . . she would be back hooking before his plane even taxied off the runway.
In fact, I’ve read about way too many farang business owners in Thailand who try to offer these girls a way out. Again and again they see the same situation of girls too lazy to even take his offer of free computer courses. The girls are making far more in the bars than they can make in an office job and so they gravitate back to the bars even when helping hands are extended to them.
Sure, when they first hit the nightlife scene they dream of meeting their prince charming and having him erase all of her financial needs but the guys who come don’t want whores for wives or girlfriends so they have sex with them and then go back home. A few unfortunate souls do fall in love and quickly learn that a hardened Thai girl can strip a farang clean of his net worth faster than vultures can clean a carcase.
You have no idea how frightening 5000 drunk Marines are to a small girl.
Hell, 5000 drunk Marines would scare the crap out of me too and I’m ex-US military. There’s a reason they’re scary. They’re trained killers. But, much like you do elsewhere, you completely distort things. No single girl is banging 5000 drunk Marines (probably not even in her entire career). In fact, the more likely scenario is that she meets up with one Marine and spends the next 4 or 5 days of his shore leave with him. And just as likely she ends up stripping him of all of the money he’s saved up while out at sea.
See the thing most Western women don’t understand about Thai prostitution is that it’s not like paying some girl $50 to give you a blow job. You’re hiring a girlfriend. It’s not the cheap and tawdry act it is in the Western world.
Seasoned expats call it the GFE (Girl Friend Experience). She’ll stay with you for a quick bang, a night, a week, a month or even longer. She’ll be your girlfriend for however long you want. As long as you have the money to pay they are willing to pretend to be in love with you. They’re like rent-a-girlfriends. You go to dinner with them. Eat breakfast with them. Take them out shopping. Everything you would do with a normal girl.
The funny part about your ignorance is that many of these guys end up falling in love because these girls are so charming. Many of these girls have 4, 5, or 6 dumb Westerners sending them money so they can get out of the prostitution life and they take their money and still work in the bars. Far from the enslavement you claim. Literally, some of these girls are pulling down more cash per month than someone with a Masters degree. How’s that for a simple farmer’s daughter?
Don’t believe me? Go do a search on private eyes in Thailand. The vast majority of cases they handle are checking up on girls who are making 3 or 4 times the average wage in their country for simply staying out of the bars. Yet 80%+ of the girls are still working the bar scene.
I smiled all the time when I sold sex. And flirted and came on to the men and smiled and smiled and smiled—and got very, very hard inside due to misery, humiliation, and pain. You guys never see what is inside us.
I don’t doubt it. And anybody who frequents the bar scene knows that the longer she’s been working the bar the more fucked up she’ll be. But, again, probably surprising to only you, they get fucked up from their fellow Thais who coax them into drugs or other things that completely screw them up.
Sure part of that may be the desire to ease the pain of having to sell their bodies but trust me, these girls incur much more damage at the hands of their fellow Thais than they do from their farang customers. Most farangs are well meaning, get confused about the whole girl friend experience, and actually end up having feelings for some of these girls. The girl’s Thai boyfriend probably beats the crap out of her, steals her money, and sleeps around on her. And if she comes from a family with gambling and drinking problems you can rest assured that the pressure on her to keep the money coming in is very high.
How many of the bar girls in Pattaya are pimped? That is another crucial question. How much of the money is hers? How does that bar fine system work? I have read a lot about it but still don’t understand it completely.
Very few . . . if any. Read what I’ve written above and you’ll know that the only girls getting pimped are those with a completely fucked up Thai boyfriend who is taking all of her money to buy drugs or booze. Most either send the money back home to momma and papa or become caught up in lifestyle and waste all of their money on the latest mobile phones or other useless gadgetry.
Instead of saying degrading things about me on your Pattaya magazines and blogs, please give me some space to have my say—and to ask you about your point of view. I really do want to know how you think about all this.
You have been given a forum and you still prove to be ignorant of the topic matter of which you profess to be an expert.
Another point: I have actually talked to military men who’ve visited prostitutes in Pattaya, Phuket, Korea, Okinawa who have been more of my mind—they think there is exploitation involved. That poverty and force and desperation feed this sex trade that you men so liberally take advantage of. He has the money. She doesn’t. Women with some financial equality rarely turn to sex with strangers as a ‘choice.’
Your comments were not about Korea or Okinawa so I can only comment on your ignorance about prostitution in Thailand. Obviously poverty plays a part in most prostitution. The difference is whether these ladies are being forced to do something against their will. In Thailand that is certainly not the case. In fact, a Thai woman who I often disagree with posted about a television show in Thailand that talked about how most young women in the poor rural areas of the country specifically want to meet a foreign man and get married to one. A lot of these girls get into hooking because they’re hoping to meet their farang prince charming who will deliver them from their current life. They obviously have a choice. They can decide to do like the other 90% of the women in their country do or they can take the quick cash and fast track to meeting their prince charming.
Unfortunately, like everyplace else in the world, most people choose the quick path.
Another thing is that, if you read a lot of my articles, you will see I am not a prude and I am not coming at this from a religious moral standpoint. If prostitution were all fun and joy for the girl, I would support it wholeheartedly! I am not at all for condemning girls who sell sex. But I don’t think that sex for survival is much fun for the girl.
I don’t suggest you are a moralistic idiot. What I do suggest is that you speak without knowing even the most basic aspects of which you speak. You made some pretty damning accusations in your article which don’t stand up to even the slightest hint of scrutiny. You obviously know nothing about prostitution in Thailand yet you tried to pass yourself off as some sort of expert simply because you whored yourself out in the past. As if your short career hooking suddenly puts you inside the head of some Thai girl. As if your time taking money for sex suddenly grants you infinite knowledge about prostitution world wide.
I offer you this challenge: Go try to save some of these girls from the 5000 sex starved Marines. Half would turn you down outright. The other half might consider it and take whatever money you offered and as soon as you left would be hooking regardless if you gave them a year’s salary or a lifetime’s salary. There’s a saying in Thailand that is meant to educate dumb Western guys from doing something too stupid; you can take the girl out of the bar but you can’t take the bar out of the girl. Once they acquire a taste for the easy money and lazy lifestyle they are simply beyond being helped.
Contrary to what you might read into my message, I don’t look down on these girls. In fact, I have tried to help many of them get out of the business before they become too hardened. Even the hardened ones are amongst my friends. I understand them, treat them as fellow human beings, and relate to them. To say that your article was the purest form of pontificating, patronizing, crap I’ve ever read is a compliment.
Thai culture, Thai thinking, does not work how it does in the West. That is why I love this country. Not because of the prostitutes or any of that. It’s because their way of thinking is so at odds with Western accepted norms that it forces you to examine who you are and why you believe what you believe.
Believe it or not, I don’t frequent Thai prostitutes very often. I do travel there quite often though. I love so many aspects of the culture that the good outweighs the bad. But I do know girls who work in the go-go scene. I also know girls from the highest levels of Thai society. And I know girls from every layer in between. Your comments and your article show a complete lack of understanding of any level of Thai society.
The funny part is that I know girls who are supposed to be considered “good girls” who wouldn’t even think twice if a man Thai or Westerner offered to pay all of their expenses in exchange for sex whenever he wanted it. Do you even know the term “mia noi”? Many Thai men have a first wife and a second wife. The first wife is the Madonna and the second wife is the whore if you want to get into the Madonna/Whore complex thing. Not only that but if he’s got big enough cahones he can move his mia noi (second wife) into his home and the first wife often accepts that. This is common enough that it’s part of Thai soap operas.
Have you heard any of this before? Do you actually know ANYTHING about Thai culture?
Another point: in a discussion, it is wise to attack the ideas of the person, not the person herself. Opens up conversation, instead of dissuading it.
Cordially, Suki, ex-hooker (as you guys in Pattaya call me)
Please feel free to print the above on any of your blogs or Pattaya magazines–
I don’t think I’ve attacked you personally other than to point out your prejudice, inconsistencies, and your frequent liberties with the truth. I’m not really open to conversation with you on this topic because you’ve demonstrated not once but twice that you have no clue what you’re talking about. What good would a conversation do? If you want something meaningful to come out of this exchange you should do more listening than talking.
I’ll offer you a challenge. Come with me to Thailand. I’ll take you to the absolute worst places that Thailand has to offer in terms of prostitution. If you can spot one underage girl or one girl who is “enslaved” I’ll shout about it at the top of my lungs here. In fact, I’ll invite you to meet some girls – friends of mine – who’ve been in the game for a few years and you can ask them how much money you would have to give them to go back home and never to return . . . chances are you and I put together don’t have that kind of money.
The challenge is there. If you can’t wait for my next trip (currently planned for Dec) then I can introduce you to half a dozen guys who can show you the same thing as I’ve promised.
—- The concluded the second post in the Suki Falconberg debate. She responded and what follows is the third and final exchange.
Last Chapter on Suki Falconberg (Hopefully)
After the second post Suki emailed me directly with a multi-page response to what I had written. She said she was referencing some personal details about herself and thus did not want me to post the emails nor did she want to respond on the website. I respected that wish though she said very little in the email that I haven’t seen her post herself on other websites.
I responded back to her pointing out not only the multitude of things she was factually incorrect about but also flaming her for her victim attitude. I explained to her how claiming that every time she had sex as a prostitute was rape was an insult to every woman who has actually been physically forced to have sex against her will. She readily admits that she was not pimped nor was she a blow job in the alley type prostitute. She often dined with her customers first and always had the ability to walk away from any guy she didn’t want to have sex with.
To keep calling that rape in every single post she does about prostitution is only self-serving. Perhaps she thinks way down deep inside that she can justify a poor life decision by equating it with forced sex. Perhaps she feels that the need to make money was her coercion. Personally it sickens me that she insists on using such an emotionally charged word to describe her decision to have sex with men for money.
On that topic, one of the points she’s made in the past and she made yet again in her email was that prostitution is designed only to give the man benefits while the prostitute gets nothing. It’s a clever trick she plays because your first thought is to think about the fact that the guy is getting his kicks while most could care less if the prostitute finds the experience enjoyable. But then you remember, oh year, he’s paying her for this. If we use Suki’s victim-like thinking then my employer is the only one who benefits from my hard work. Everybody can be a victim if we discount the fact that we’re paid to perform our jobs. Suki’s job was to have sex with men. I’m sorry she found it unfulfilling physically and emotionally but she was paid a fair wage for her services. If she’s unhappy with her career choice then she can change jobs. But to claim that she received nothing out of her hooking experience is disingenuous much like everything else that comes out of her mouth.
After my email response to her she sent me another multi-page email which I chose not to respond to. I decided not to respond to her emails any more because it’s quite obvious she has no desire to be educated. Her emails ask leading questions and when you correct her she simply re-phrases the same misinformation. How can you continue to have an intellectually honest conversation with someone who’s logic works like this?
Yes, we are victims. Most definitely we are victims. I am not ashamed of being a victim. I am many other things–a writer, a professional, a good friend to those who need me, a compassionate person. But I am also a victim–and I am not ashamed of this. I am not ashamed either to acknowledge that prostitution is rape of the female body. I will admit the rape is far, far worse with the imprisoned brothel girl than with the girl who has some ‘choice,’ but it is still rape.
And then in the same emails says:
I need to add that I don’t think there is anything wrong with prostitution if it benefits the girl and she is not hurt by it. But many prostitutes also report a lot of physical violence by customers. And a lot of psychological damage. If we can change prostitution so that it is kind to the girl, and good for her, I would be all for it. But attitudes that she is ‘dirt’ are never going to help change this for her–and her ‘kind.’
All prostitutes are victims and prostitution is rape of the female body but she’s okay with it if it benefits the girl and she is not hurt by it?!??!?! What’s even better is that she admits that she was more of the escort type of hooker and not someone who was forced to have sex so by definition she was engaging in the type of prostitution that she says is okay but then she claims that every time she had sex with a customer she was raped.
This Suki gal is really fucked in the head. She’s a pathological liar and as manipulative as a Patpong lifer. My best read on her is that her crusade is to convince the world that she is a victim. Her decision to sell her body for money was not her fault. She seems to want to remove any accountability for her poor career choice by making it seems as if she had no choice. She latches onto sensationalistic accounts of severe mistreatment of women and then hopes some of the pity for them will brush off onto her if she can associate herself with them closely enough by making sure everyone knows she’s an ex-prostitute. In fact, that’s is her only expertise on the subject matter. Everything else she knows comes from watching documentary films (which is how she came up with all of her accusations about the enslaved Pattaya girls).
What a waste.
There is so much more to Thailand and Pattaya than the sex industry.
well, why such vitriol over her article? human trafficking is a major problem, and many many of these girls/women/ children are forced into it, or duped under false pretenses. sure some of the ones you frequent may smile and giggle and joke with you, but after all that’s their job, not to say they are “slaves” in the old fashioned sense, but they are there to make money and help their families, do you think they would really want to be prostitutes if they access to real careers and occupations? Would you go to Thailand for sex if it was anything like the U.S or Britian. Let’s be honest here.
The vitriol is because she’s wrong. Human trafficking is a major problem but it’s not a huge problem in the Pattaya farang sex scene. And the girls are NOT FORCED INTO IT. Would people please get that into their heads? There’s currently a labor shortage in Thailand. These girls choose it over getting real jobs because they’re lazy and want to make a lot of money. The only difference is that in Thailand prostitution is not seen as much of a sin against morality as it is by western countries.
Tia, I assume that you’ve never hired the services of these girls so you don’t know many and have not heard from their own mouths what their life is like. They love to tell the “I’m a poor girl” story at first because that opens up people’s wallets but if you get to know them you start to hear the real story behind how they got to where they are and it’s a lifetime of poor choices looking for the easy way out. Prostitution is usually just the latest poor decision.
All this is about culture. Unless your thi you will never understand this culture. If your poor dirt poor you do what you have to do and the result the word becomes HARD CORE.
All you’ve got to do is ask yourself this when one is considering the way in which the majority of bar girls (prostitutes) become emotional basket cases once they’ve been in the industry for sometime: what does fucking a different guy every night do to ones psychological state after a few years? Besides that their mindset becomes totally focused on making money (that’s how they deal with the inner disgust they feel when having to fuck some guy they don’t want to be with). The punter is seen, most of the time, as a walking ATM and any kind of intimacy is repressed. It’s their job and, for the most part, liking someone doesn’t even enter into the eqaution. I used to go with bar girls (prostitutes) before but I don’t now. And it’s not because of some kind of moral awakening, it’s just my belief that most of them aren’t really good to be around unless one is drunk. After a few years in the industry I firmly believe that they’re not capable of having a proper loving relationship ever again, they’re just too fucked up inside. And that, I firmly believe, is the real difference between a bargirl and a good girl; a good girl is capable of having real love in her heart where as a bargirl, eventually, only has the grasping addiction to money in her heart.
@Megalithic: I agree on a certain level but I think that they get messed up not just because they are having sex with punters they don’t want to be with. I think they become messed up because their entire lives begin to revolve around the bar scene. All of their friends are bar girls because other Thais look down on what they do. Their entire existence begins to revolve around a very unhealthy and, at it’s core, sociopathic lifestyle.
They know they can only survive in a world of other bar girls. Most don’t have any friends who work legit jobs. All they know is the bar girl world. And they know that they’ll never fool other Thais. Thais know a bar girl a mile away. Try bringing a bar girl to a dinner party or somewhere where she will be the one and only bar girl in the room. She’ll stick out like a sore thumb. She won’t own any clothing that isn’t sluty. She won’t know to talk with polite Thais.
This only reenforces her reliance on her bar girl network of friends since they are all looked down upon by other Thais. She can only feel good about herself when she’s around other Thais who dress like her, talk like her (rude Thai), and think like her.
And you have to keep in mind that these girls enter the profession at a very impressionable age. They leave the farm and come to Bangkok and they immediately immerse themselves in the prostitute lifestyle of all night partying, scamming, and irresponsible behavior.
That’s why it’s impossible for them to have a real relationship. They don’t even know what one is. All of their friends are bar girls so all her attitudes about relationships, men, foreigners, etc is completely shaped by what she’s learned about from other bar girls.
I think the lifestyle and their world of friends have a lot more to do with their inability to become involved in a real relationship than does having sex for money.
Many good points there Billy.
I guess that’s why they focus so much on money; if they can somehow become rich, it will give them some kind of face amongst the rest of the Thai population.
I wish I could be rich.
Kidding.
You think you are qualified to comment when you have never been a prostitute nor know how it feels to be one. You also think that in Thai society women are free to choose when the choices are limited – why are the choices limited in the first place? Because of patriarchal society. You are not fit to comment on these girls sufferings (or non-sufferings as is your OPINION). You are disgusting.
loved it ! i went to pattaya for the first time in april this year and am headed back in august . i must admit this place is confusing i did gfe and short time the girls were very sure of them selves and almost cocky . no enslaven girls did i see not one . i wish i was as happy . question nevermind i think i already know the answer again great article BOBBY
Suki may lack coherence in addressing her point but personally I tend to believe there is some reason for it, which may be her experience in prostitution where some level of consciousness could not identify with the consent for paid sex she came into and identified it as abuse. I had an aunt who was a prostitute so I witnessed some of the attitudes towards her and while it is true about the lethargy in self-improvement or break bad habits, there is a double standard enforced in society where one may despise the whore but the customer is afforded more respect. Prostitutes are on the lowest denomination of human beings for satisfying a desire uncontained. That is the part I cannot be reconciled to, if I were to take up the case.
@ap: I think the author’s point is more about people who distort facts in order to make their point. It detracts from solving the real problem because when people start playing loose with the facts they usually highlight a problem that is not a problem.
For instance, if someone were to believe Suki and go down to Pattaya bent on saving underage girls from these savage US Marines they would spend a lot of time and effort on a problem that doesn’t really exist.
So the question(s) that leaves us with is whether or not that time, effort, and money could have been spent on less shocking and sensational problems in the prostitution scene and does this type of reaction cause more harm than good?
The underage thing is the funny part since so many of the beer bar women are 40+.
The comment about being given 100k and still working is true. I know of 2 women who had just such a thing happen. One even received a lot of property with the money, after her husband went back home. One is in her 30s now and still working today. 1 in NANA, the other in soi 6 patts.
Another thing I’m not sure was mentioned is that a very high percentage of girls only work 1 day then quit, deciding this is not for them. Any mamasan can testify to that.
All this talk of Pattaya and no mention of all the ladyboys, and gay prostitutes? Are they enslaved? It’s funny I wish I had the choice to be prostitute now, but after a few years gay/bi men lose all their customers and have to give it away free.