Pattaya: Las Vegas of sex seeks family friendliness
After harsh crackdown tourists stayed in hotels scared to venture out, economy tumbled so softer "Happy Zone" idea to change Pattaya's image launched.
After harsh crackdown tourists stayed in hotels scared to venture out, economy tumbled so softer "Happy Zone" idea to change Pattaya's image launched.
SEX, TOURISM & THE TRUTH
Las Vegas of sex Pattaya seeks family friendliness
27/03/2017
Reuters News Agency
PATTAYA - With mascots dressed as smiling fish and a police rock band, Thai authorities launched a "Happy Zone" this weekend to improve the image of a city notorious the world over for sex for sale.
Stung by foreign headlines portraying the seaside resort of Pattaya as "Sin City" and "The World's Sex Capital", Thailand's government has begun a new effort to re-brand the resort town and cultivate a more wholesome image.
Police and local government officials participating in Happy Zone image rebranding campaign (Source: Reuters).
SEX MEANS MONEY AND MONEY MEANS POOR PEOPLE CAN FEED THEIR FAMILIES
But the contradictions in Pattaya highlight Thailand's challenge in tackling one part of its tourist industry that remains economically vital while being officially excoriated.
"I want people to see that we are not like what they say. We are not allowing prostitution in these entertainment places," provincial governor Pakkaratorn Teianchai told reporters on the infamous Walking Street in Pattaya, southeast of Bangkok.
Less than 10 metres away, women accosted foreign men to offer sex for 2,000 baht (US$60).
Others lined up with numbers so customers could take their pick.
Masseuses in miniskirts offered "happy ending" massages whose euphemistic title has nothing to do with the Happy Zone of the authorities.
A woman stands inside a go-go bar before they open for customers in Pattaya, Thailand March 25, 2017. Picture taken March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
UPWARD SOCIAL MOBILITY: IF I WAS ONLY A WAITRESS, I COULD NOT PROVIDE MY CHILDREN WITH BETTER FUTURE THAN I HAD
"Everyone is here to make a living," said one 35-year-old woman who came originally from a village in central Thailand.
Tagged with the number "136", she declined to give her name.
"I would rather be a waitress, but then I couldn't send my children to school and I want them to have a better future than this," she said.
A tourist poses with a snake in a Muay Thai ring in Pattaya, Thailand March 25, 2017. Picture taken March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
TOURISM IS ONLY BRIGHT SPOT IN THAI ECONOMY
Thailand's tourist industry is the only bright spot for an economy whose expansion has been by far the slowest among major Southeast Asian economies since the 2014 coup.
No official figures show the scale of sex as part of the tourism industry.
But there is an indication in the balance of male to female tourists traveling to Thailand.
In 2012, there were nearly 6 men for every 4 women.
In 2015, the numbers were pretty much even, according to figures provided to Reuters by the tourism ministry.
INTER-CULTURAL RELATIONS VS. SEX TOURISTS
It is also worth noting that the very word "sex tourism" does not quite capture what happens in reality.
Many of Thailand's "tourists" are retirees or expats who stay in Thailand for a long time, even for their whole lives, and live with or marry a Thai woman.
Unlike western countries, no matter how long one of these long-stay tourists stay in Thailand they will always be a "tourist".
Unlike Asians living in western countries, westerners only rarely can find a way to become an Asian.
There are few naturalized western citizens or permanent residents of Thailand.
The Israeli anthropologist Erik Cohen researching Thailand's sex industry in the 1990s came up with the phrase "open prostitution" to describe how prostitution in places like Pattaya often served as a sort of exploratory mode of dating service before deciding on deeper relationships or marriage, a sort of dating app before dating apps existed.
(Read his research Open-ended Prostitution as a Skilful Game of Luck: Opportunity, Risk and Security Among Tourist-oriented Prostitutes in a Bangkok Soi here & also see list of publications here & overview of his work here).
A woman promotes a go-go dance bar in Pattaya, Thailand March 25, 2017. Picture taken March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
PATTAYA'S HISTORY AS R&R CENTER FOR US SOLDIERS IN VIETNAM WAR
The rise of Pattaya dates back to the Vietnam war days when US troops stationed in Thailand used it as an R&R (rest and recreation) spot, though prostitution is just as evident in parts of Bangkok and other resorts.
The number of female sex workers in Thailand was put at over 120,000 in a 2014 UNAids report.
Some estimates run to double that and not all the women who get paid for sex are full-time prostitutes.
Given a 305 baht (US$8.80) a day minimum wage, the chance of earning several times more is an obvious lure, particularly in poorer rural regions.
PATTAYA CRACKDOWNS
The latest of many crackdowns in Pattaya happened after foreign newspaper reports last month, which drew an angry response from Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, for whom bringing order is a mantra.
A handful of bars were raided.
Bar owners and working women were fined.
Scared to venture out, tourists looking for sex stayed in hotels.
Street vendors and shops saw sales tumble.
The money which flows to all levels in the city - including law enforcement agencies - fell off.
Policemen dance during the launch of the "Happy Zone" program aiming to improve the image of the city in Pattaya, Thailand March 25, 2017. Picture taken March 25, 2017. REUTERS/Jorge Silva
THE SOFT TOUCH 'HAPPY ZONE' APPROACH
The Happy Zone approach is a softer way to try to show that something is being done.
If it works on Walking Street, the idea will be spread to the less sanitised sois.
Businesses in the Happy Zone are asked to make the area feel safer, there are increased security patrols, police launched a mobile phone app for visitors to summon them in emergency.
"This is a pioneer project to organise a tourist destination and elevate it to promote Thailand's quality tourism," Apichai Krobpetch, chief of Pattaya city police, told Reuters. "We will also stamp out prostitution in the area."
There was no sign of that at the weekend.
CHINESE SEX TOURISTS?
In fact, Pattaya's sex industry has become an attraction in its own right for the millions of Chinese who make up about one in three visitors to Thailand.
Led by tourist guides with pennants, the Chinese tour groups thread quickly along Walking Street, past the go-go bars and the beer bars where young Thai women sit down with foreign men.
They only pause to take pictures.
"We just came here to see. That's all," claims saleswoman Linda Sieng in a group of 11 tourists from Guaghzhou in southern China.
Erik Cohen's publications on anthropology of tourism in Thailand:
Open-ended Prostitution as a Skilful Game of Luck: Opportunity, Risk and Security Among Tourist-oriented Prostitutes in a Bangkok Soi
Lovelorn Farangs: The Correspondence Between Foreign Men and Thai Girls.
The Dropout Expatriates: A Study of Marginal Farangs in Bangkok.
Tiger Tourism: From Shooting to Petting.
Sex and Tourism, Journeys of Romance, Love,
and Lust.
Pilgrimage and Prostitution: Contrasting Modes of BorderTourism in Lower South Thailand.
Sensuality and Venality in Bangkok: The Dynamics of Cross Cultural Mapping of Prostitution
Explorations in Thai Tourism; Collected Case Studies
http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/general/1221678/pattaya-tries-again-to-become-family-friendly
http://core.roehampton.ac.uk/repository2/content2/subs/d.steedman/d.steedman1887/Cohen%20(1993)%20Open%20ended%20prostitution%20as%20a%20skilful%20game%20of%20luck.pdf
https://www.academia.edu/3618046/A_portrait_of_Erik_Cohen
http://sociology.huji.ac.il/sites/default/files/sociology/files/cohen_cv.pdf
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