Inverted

After a couple of days with Justus in the Sukhumvit neighborhood of Bangkok, I'm officially bored to tears by girl bars. The whole concept is more interesting for me in concept than in practice. It's a significant element of Bangkok culture, and I've been trying to sort out what exactly is going on there. Don't mistake the term "girl bar" for the commonly-known term, "whorehouse". There's certainly a functional overlap, but it's not the same thing. These are bars and they hire attractive young women to be there, to come up and chat you up, get you to buy them a drink, of which they get a cut. And often that's it. You are guaranteed to be spoken to and smiled at by attractive women at any bar in Bangkok. We, the farang men, are the hot blondes with the big tits in Bangkok's bar scene. It's american bars turned on their heads, in that, if you see a woman that you'd like to chat with, you just step right up and say hello, and it's almost guaranteed that you'll be given the time of day at the very least. The lines are hazy and indistinct to me. Things seem to work muc hthe same even in bars that don't hire girls to hang around. Lots of girls also go to bars who don't work there, even bringing their male friends. And they're not necessarily prostitutes, but it is a status symbol to be a farang's girlfriend. Conversely, as I've been learning, there is less of the social stigma around prostitution here than in America, where there is an absolute sharp line in the sand that is not crossed. Good girls don't screw guys for money. But here, apparently, sometimes they do. Even if it's not what they do full-time, it's extremely common for a girl to have spent some time being swanned around by a farang with some disposable income, taken out, maybe had some presents bought for her, and presumably, screwed by him as well. In my book, that's a lot like being a hooker. Or is it? What do I do back home with a woman I like? I generally buy a fair number of drinks and dinners, last I checked.

I was chatting with a friend of Justus' last night, a Thai woman named Miao who owns a bar. She was explaining to me about Thai marriage customs. The routine goes like this:
1. The girl takes you to meet her parents
2. You buy stuff for the girl
3. If Mum thinks you're ok, you then proceed to buy stuff for Mom and Dad.
4.You pay for things like doctor's appointments and other necessities for Mom and Dad or other family members.
5.You buy lots more stuff for the girl. Suggested items are gold and jewelry.
6.If you've made it this far and have been around for a while, you pay an actual cash dowry, 500,000 baht to 1,000,000 baht was the number she mentioned. (about 37 baht to the dollar)
7.Go for it. Get married.
8.You may now have sex with the bride.
Miao said that these rules apply to Thai or farang men equally. She said that the notion is that if you really love someone, the money doesn't really matter so you won't mind dropping a lot of loot. But I asked her what the divorce rate was, and she said that it's quite high. Pushing half. Miao herself is divorced.

So the background concept of gender relations is that the man is expected to be the provider, and in return he gets to be the boss. Thus, maybe it's not such a leap to render the whole affair more casual and rapid, which is what we see in the girl bars.

I wonder how all these young stunningly handsome Thai men feel about the massive sexual currency that is brought by being white. They hang out in lots of the same places as the young women, so it's not a tourist-bar only thing we're talking about here. I've seen plenty of totally unattractive white guys with some stunners on their arms.

Part of me is completely repulsed by this whole materialist model of gender relations, it being so contrary to all of my liberal training, but people have been urging me to understand that it's a bit more nuanced than it might seem.

I think it's time for me to get out of Bangkok.

The woman pictured here is not at all what I am talking about. Her name's Bom and she's on of several actual bona-fide American-definition hookers whom I photographed.