In assuming most men going on holiday alone to Thailand, are going to have sex with prostituted women or men?

[Grennie]

It is estimated that about 1% of Thailand's GDP is earned through sexual exploitation tourism.

In 2003 (the last year for which full figures are available) some 545,000 British residents arrived on visits. If you remove the children, and the British citizens visiting for business or reasons other than a holiday, you arrive at about 489,000—314,000 men and 175,000 women. That is 139,000 more British men than women coming to Thailand for a holiday—a gap of 28 per cent.

In no other international holiday destination, is there such a big difference in the number of women and men travelling there. There is no obvious reason for this apart from prostitution.

Or a group of male divers going on a diving trip?

Beachcombers husband is a prime example where he could easily prove he's on business. Yet he could be going out at night doing all sorts of despicable stuff.

Yes of course he could have. It would have been very very easy to go and act like a dick - because he was far away and in a culture where prostituted women are ten a penny and it is very very normal to pay for sex. And where it is considered a 'cultural attraction' to watch women push ping pong balls (and worse) out of their vaginas. The only thing stopping him was him. Just like the only thing making him act like a misogynistic rapist dick, if he decided to, would be him.

I don't have a son. But if I did, and he was going backpacking in Thailand, both I and his father would talk to him about sexual exploitation and the role that he must choose to take or not take within it., and why it matters to address these things.

(Does that come under Flora's Journal of The Fucking Obvious? It does mine...)

Why the insult?

It is possible to have a discussion without an insult.

I was thinking how that would relate to policing and exit visas.

Talking to children is vital. I'm sure any good parent would do that.

But that's also part of bringing up a child to respect women anyway.

Is that directed at me? If so what insult?

You asked Would you stop your son from going on a backpacking trip to Thailand?

I answered - and it seems pretty fucking obvious to me that I would speak to any son of mine about something so important.

What would you do? Why don't you provide some comments and solutions rather than firing off questions...?

I've suggested the economic aspects. Look at the cheap clothes we buy and think about how the West exploits the poor.

Put pressure on the Thai Government. Especially with regards to the abuse of children.

Arrest child abusers over there - if the Thai police actually did something, then that would make it less acceptable.

Make it unacceptable for men to use women and children. But how that happens is really hard as it's not really worked in this country with regards to the sex trade.

And I think education is really important. I don't know the education of the typical sex worker but it's well established that female education is absolutely vital to lifting people out of poverty and in providing job opportunities.

Providing alternatives has to be a good thing.

I thought we had child sex tourism laws. Wasn't that how Gary Glitter was caught?

Maybe we and the Thai authorities should act together? Maybe other countries like Japan and China should also get involved?

You can think about how your actions keep countries in Asia poor. Why a t-shirt from Vietnam costs £2?

From a legal point of view, I don't think you can stop people going abroad to do something that is legal in another country even if your country thinks it's wrong and immoral.

Otherwise, Saudi authorities could ban a woman from going abroad to do things that are perfectly legal in our country but banned in their country from a "moral" point of view.

So yes -making it unacceptable to go abroad for sex tourism is important. But it's still seen as acceptable by many to go to lap dancing clubs so it's a massive hill to climb

I'm surprised we don't have child sex tourism laws. We should have.
And the Thai authorities should use their laws properly. I've been to Thailand and the police really scared me. But I guess that's an institutional attitude that needs to be addressed much like we have in the UK with the attitude some of our police have towards certain groups and issues,

" which requires them to be served up to the racist, sexual fantasies of western men. "

I think the reality is not's mainly Western men. I think if you look at that study Beach quoted that it's more often local Thai men, Japanese and Chinese. A whole cultural attitude towards women. Look at the treatment of women by the Japanese in WW2.

A big ask

I was quite enjoying this thread until you started posting in the way that you are, Justanother.

Your incessant comments are the forum equivalent of Men Who Take Up Too Much Space On The Train.

Did you n/c for this thread or join especially? You were asked this a while back.

What's wrong with my comments?

I think that the Thai authorities need to take responsibility.
I think we need child sex laws.
I think it's really hard to change attitudes.

What's wrong with that?

We do have sex tourism laws but they are very poorly enforced. In my view, we need to be more proactive about dealing with the problem (demand) at source (here). We have to focus on what we can do here, not say we shouldn't take actions here because other people aren't doing anything about it elsewhere. Of course, it's bad that Thai, Japanese and Chinese men are also raping women and children this but there's only moderately more than fuck all we can do about that.

Just you're obviously not a lawyer so I don't know why you think a sovereign nation could not impose travel restrictions on what its citizens does abroad and enforce those via passport and border controls. Saudi could do exactly as you suggest, if they choose. Our sex tourism laws don't take into account whether the activity is legal abroad. When these laws were being introduced there was a huge hoo hah because those laws (along with football hooliganism and war crimes laws) were going against centuries of legal tradition that a country could only legislate within its sovereign borders. Although there have been only a tiny number of convictions, it's been clearly established that this is legally possible.

Border agencies could report to the police on people making repeated trips to designed sex tourism areas or for suspicious reasons or trying to circumvent the visa requirements (e.g. if an incoming tourist has entered Thailand without an exit visa, there will be a Thai stamp on the passport). Police could investigate further and, if there is evidence of sex traffic use (e.g. computer searches), the case could go to court and a judge or jury would make a decision. Of course some people will get off, as they always do, some innocent people will be tried and, hopefully, found not guilty but it's all very basic law enforcement / criminal justice system stuff.

There's also a lot of low hanging fruit among agencies who advertise what they are doing and men who put reviews on TripAdvisor and the like. A lot of men who do this also like to talk about it. It's all there happening in plain sight. The problem is us and those around us, doing nothing about it.