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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to go of a friend who has just been on a sex tourist trip to Thailand?

457 replies

Hairyjumper · 29/01/2011 01:18

Single male friend, just been on 2 weeks holiday where he paid women to fuck him.
Have had quite a cerebral discussion with him about it.
He says it is not seedy , no pimps blah blah.

I thought I was open minded but it just seems wrong.

OP posts:
TyraG · 29/01/2011 08:43

monkeyflippers I agree. If you're going to engage in that kind of activity and not be careful about it, you deserve what you get.

monkey9237 · 29/01/2011 08:48

I could never retain a friendship with someone who abused already exploited and desperate women and saw nothing wrong with it to boot. Has he been living under a rock for a decade? Trafficking, drugs trade, gangs of pimps, child slavery... At the least he is a deluded naive fool. At the most, just doesnt bear thinking about. He might have a daughter of his own one day.

LostInTransmogrification · 29/01/2011 08:48

I have been to Bangkok on holiday and it was really depressing seeing all the grey-haired, fat, ugly Western men hand in hand with delicate little Thai girls. The Thai people must think we are a horrible lot based on what they see happening in their country, I'm surprised they let us in at all.

Btw I'm not against grey-haired, fat, ugly people having sex per se, god knows I'll be there one day, just not dragging a 14 year old behind me.

TragicallyHip · 29/01/2011 08:49

I have spent a few months in Thailand and actually spent a night drinking with some prostitutes and lady boys.

They had a couple of guys at the bar who had bought them bottles of whiskey which they were topping our drinks up with!

They were lovely and it's a shame that this kinda thing goes on and unfortunately it's fairly common Sad

VivaLeBeaver · 29/01/2011 08:51

I used to live in Thailand and got to know a lot of "rentals" as they're called quite well. Believe me she will have had a pimp, quite possibly a female "madam" pimp but there will have been one. The pimps aren't visable so he will have convinced himself she didn't have one and she will have said there wasn't one if asked. But the sex trade in Thailand is controlled by Mafia type gangs and she wouldn't be able to work without one.

Itsa very seedy trade and the girls do not enjoy their work. I've sat with them while they've been crying and slagging off the Westeners who've rented them. One poor girl had been hired by some fat German for the week and he made her give him blow jobs while he was having a shit on the loo. She was so depressed about her life but when she was with him she was smiles and laughter, letting him think she was having a good time.

A lot of the girls come from the country to the tourist areas as they want to earm money to support their families. They're convinced they'll get a reputable bar job or waitressing but then can't find jobs, etc. Someone offers them somewhere to live and after a couple of weeks turns nasty and say that they owe him money for the room and food, etc and they must sleep with this man. So suddendly they're a prostitute. A lot of the girls have young children back home who are cared for by Grandparents, they only get to see their kids a few times a year and send all their money back home for them.

Tell your friend this and see if he still thinks its an OK thing to do.

TragicallyHip · 29/01/2011 08:54

"One poor girl had been hired by some fat German for the week and he made her give him blow jobs while he was having a shit on the loo. She was so depressed about her life but when she was with him she was smiles and laughter, letting him think she was having a good time"

That's disgusting, that poor poor girl!

EricNorthmansMistress · 29/01/2011 08:55

The sex trade in Thailand is fuelled by child rape and drug abuse. Children are conditioned through rape to the reality of sexual exploitation and by the time they reach the age of 30 (if they reach it and don't get beaten to death, contract a deadly STI or die of drug addiction) are completely innured to the reality of sexual exploitation. By that point it's all they know how to do and there is no shock value in it, hence why they can be charming and 'adorable' and give a very good impression of being perfectly happy - because they probably are, as long as the john isn't beating them and tips well. Because that the best they have learnt to expect

Of course she had a pimp. Your friend is deluding himself. She probably also started in the sex trade as a child and will certainly have been raped more than once during her working life, probably when she was a child or young teen.

I would lose respect for a man who did this. I could no longer be his friend.

IWantToBeAFairyWhenIGrowUp · 29/01/2011 08:56

"Itsa very seedy trade and the girls do not enjoy their work. I've sat with them while they've been crying and slagging off the Westeners who've rented them. One poor girl had been hired by some fat German for the week and he made her give him blow jobs while he was having a shit on the loo. She was so depressed about her life but when she was with him she was smiles and laughter, letting him think she was having a good time."

Shock at that. Sad

Why did he chose that type of holiday when he could have sex with girls here (most likely for free).

I don't understand it myself so YANBU. I'm not sure I could look at my friend in the same way if they told me they did that.

ThePosieParker · 29/01/2011 09:00

Abject poverty brings with it an abundance of desperate behaviour, prostitution being one of them. As a person that has been to Pattaya, possibly the worst place in Thailand for exploitation of women and children by Thai, Russian and Western men.

The exploitation is tangible, make no mistake, I can barely describe how it felt walking past the bars with countless women and punters. DH and I were with children and so found ourselves feeling very vulnerable and pretty disgusted most of the time, turning the dcs away from the shots of children in pornographic DVDs on sale at the side of the road.

Anyone that truly believes this is a choice for these girls and they enjoy it is as arrogant as they are ignorant.

I met an expat who really thought the girl that he hired for two days really liked him and thoroughly enjoyed sex with him, he didn't consider that his western dollars and potential taking her away may have made her 'enjoy' it all the more.....twat.

Butterbur · 29/01/2011 09:01

I could never respect a man who I knew had paid for sex. Ever.

It is the ultimate in dehumanising women: to buy their cunts so that you don't have to deal with them as people. And far too many men don't see women as actual people anyway.

On the other hand, I have no problem with casual sex between consenting adults who meet as equals.

saffy85 · 29/01/2011 09:01

Of course there are pimps Hmm who does your friend think buys these women, often off of their own families?

YANBU to feel a bit off about this. A friend of my DP has recently gone off to do the same thing. He's single too split up from his ex not long ago. Personally I think he should be sticking around in the UK to help look after his 3 DC wh really need him right now. Instead he's buggered off on holiday for god knows how many months. It's none of my business but I still feel sorry for his children.

FabbyChic · 29/01/2011 09:02

They can go to Thailand and fuck a 14 year old, they can't do that here.

AlistairSim · 29/01/2011 09:03

Your friend is a cunt.

I've spent lots and lots of time in Bangkok over the years, I have family there.

My cousin-in-law is an ex-bar girl.

I agree with SunCottage.

2rebecca · 29/01/2011 09:06

I wouldn't want to sicalise with a man who viewed women as commodities for his pleasure. If a "friend" told me he used prostitutes in the UK I'd feel the same.
Unethical and yukky.

MrsMooo · 29/01/2011 09:06

I have never been to SE Asia but deffer to all the other posters knowledge and agree that he is deluding himself if he thinks it was consentual and she was not trafficed at some point in her life.

I have no issue with the sex trade, and know a few prostitutes who have enjoyed their careers in the UK, however I am not naive and I also know that there is a much darker side involving trafficed women, gangs an drug abuse

If he went specifically to Thailand for sex then I would no longer be his friend - if you want to be a sex tourist go to Amsterdam where teh industry is regulated and policed FFS.

I know a few blokes who have paid for sex in amsterdam and think no differently because of it

IMO men who go to places like Thailand purely for the sex are doing so because they want to get something that is either illegal and/or too degrading to get in the UK/Netherlands and on that basis I would at the very least distance myself and make it very clear to him why

2rebecca · 29/01/2011 09:07

socialise

monkeyflippers · 29/01/2011 09:07

Tell him everything VivaLeBeaver said.

Why do you want to be friends with this man?!

MrsChemist · 29/01/2011 09:20

I'd think a lot less about any friend who thought it was ok to buy women as if they are commodities. It would make me wonder as well, how they viewed me as a woman.

Psammead · 29/01/2011 09:33

OP wrt your hypothetical situation of no pimp, happy 30 year old having sex for money - I have no problem with that. Hypothetically, the exchange of sex for money doesn't bother me one bit.

However, the hypothetical 'ideal' (can't think of the word I need, hope you see what I mean) doesn't really exsist.

I don't think your friend is awful for doing what he did - but he is very definitely deluded. I think you are right to argue with him.

ISNT · 29/01/2011 09:38

The stories on here are so upsetting.

Personally I would not be able to view someone in the same way at all if they had done this. Whether I would still be friends with them or not - I don't know it's hard to say when you haven't been in that position. I think what he did was terribly, terribly wrong though.

Am pretty aghast as well that people have likened paying for the services of a prostitute, to activities like group sex. That is an utterly wrong comparison in my view and very offensive frankly.

serendipity16 · 29/01/2011 09:40

I used to work at my local sorting office & a group of the blokes there go to Thailand every year for sex.
I haven't worked there for a few years but my husband who also used to work there was speaking to someone who still works there & he was saying that the blokes, about 7 of them are going Thailand again.
They purely go there for the sex & they don't care who knows about it either.
What i find disgusting is that a few of them have girlfriends Hmm .
Surely the girlfriends must wonder what their boyfriends are up to on a lads holiday to Thailand.

hairyfairylights · 29/01/2011 09:40

It's really naive to say " they wanted to fuck him for money". Watch some of the documentaries
about Thai prostitutes.

Lamorna · 29/01/2011 09:48

I would cross him off my list. It is appalling that he can buy a human being because he has more money. Exploitation of the worst kind. Does he have problems with relationships? He sounds a very sad individual.

togarama · 29/01/2011 09:57

I'm with ButterBur and 2Rebecca.

I couldn't look at someone in the same way if they did this. It isn't a completely voluntary reaction. I couldn't pretend to be friends with someone whose behaviour made my skin crawl.

LadyBiscuit · 29/01/2011 10:00

There is no way any of my friends would do that in the first place.

It's exploitation and slavery and people who think it isn't are beyond naive

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