A Night out with the Boys
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A NIGHT OUT WITH THE BOYS The discursive and sexual practices surrounding bar-based male sex work in Bangkok, Thailand Graeme Storer Thesis submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Sociology, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales, Australia. December 1999 U N S W 2 0 SEP M LIBRARY In loving memory of my mother, Moreen, and my Aunty, Joy. CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge it contains no materials previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at UNSW or any other educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis. Any contribution made to the research by others, with whom I have worked at UNSW or elsewhere is explicitly acknowledged in the thesis. I also declare that the intellectual content of this thesis is the product of my own work, except to the extent that assistance from others in the project’s design and conception or in style, prese cknowledged. (Signed^ Abstract Set against a backdrop of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Thailand and the recent Asian economic crisis, this study focuses attention on the discursive and sexual interactions among bar-based male sex workers in Bangkok, the management of the bars in which they work and regular male customers of the workers. A premise underpinning the study is that despite the boldness of the Thai Government’s public health campaign, a shift in the response to HIV/AIDS is timely in order to effectively address changing modes of HIV transmission. A second premise is that discussions about gender/sexuality have been dominated by a medicalised discourse, and that homosexuality has been largely removed from public health campaigns and from public purview. Drawing on ethnographic and social science research methodologies and critical discourse analysis, the study sets out to learn more about the complex interplay between homosexual and heterosexual contexts and, more generally, to broaden understandings of male sexuality. At a macro level, the study asks: What are the traditions and discourses that contribute to constructions of gender in Thailand? How do these institutionalised practices constitute and regulate public discussions of sexuality? How are the discourses of male-male sex and male sex work shaped by medical and scientific literature, by the media and the arts? At a local level, the research focuses on how these discourses are displayed in talk and how they frame the interactions between Thai male bar workers and their customers. In laying open the boundaries where these global and local representations of gender intersect and where meanings are reassigned, the study considers the significance male sex workers and their customers attach to their homosexual encounters, illustrates how notions of identity and identity maintenance affect behavioural norms and group identification and describes a set of correlates that intersect with the negotiation of sexual practice. Drawing on the research findings, the author concludes that gender categories are best understood as contingent and context- dependent practices, situated within a dynamic sexual ecology, and argues that this insight has equal significance for understanding heterosexual and homosexual, commercial and non-commercial and Thai and non-Thai socio-sexual contexts. Table of contents Abstract Table of Contents ii-iv Acknowledgements v List of figures and tables vii List of abbreviations viii Notes on terminology ix Chapters One Setting the Context 1 Background to the study 1 Assumptions 6 Boom and bust economics 8 The extent of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Thailand 13 Bar-based male sex work 17 Meeting the research participants 21 Men who sell sex to men 23 Men who buy sex from men 31 The bar operators 33 The shape of things to come 35 Two Approaching the Research 38 Multiple perspectives in research 38 Carrying out the interviews 40 Notes on transcription 42 Interrogating the research process 44 Secondary and mediated data 45 Politicising the research interview 46 Who speaks? 50 Methodological framework for integrated data analysis 52 Language as social practice 56 Discourse communities 58 Critical sociolinguistics 59 Three Shaping a Discourse 65 Public voices/private lives 65 Tracking HIV/AIDS in Thailand 66 Shaping sexuality 68 Looking for the man 72 Why focus attention on homosexually active men? 75 Finding the man 81 Recruiting male commercial sex in Bangkok 81 Sexual networks for homosexually active men 83 Working with homosexually active men 88 Concluding remarks 91 Four Performing Masculinity 93 Sexual difference and the Thai context 93 A pragmatic view of sexuality 96 Doing the right thing 99 Representing the gay subject 104 Unsettling boundaries 106 A schema of oppositions 111 Writing sex work 113 Looking for community 117 Concluding remarks 121 Five Working the bars 123 Do you see anyone you like? 123 Entry into bar work 126 Learning the ropes 130 Managing impressions 137 Naming the bars 141 The work of the kaptan 146 An experienced hand 150 Who speaks to whom? 153 Concluding remarks 155 Six Talk about the Bars 157 Negotiating desire 157 Get the boy out of the bar 159 Oh no, I don’t kiss 162 Not all farang are good 165 Avoiding risk 167 Looking good 167 Use a condom every time 170 What’s love got to do with it? 173 Managing risk 177 They're all the same (the bar go-go) 178 Just like everyone else (the bar nang) 179 Reflecting on experience 181 Concluding remarks 184 Seven Bordering on Desire 186 A landscape of talk 186 Factors that interact with negotiation of the off 189 Language and negotiation 189 Perceived risk and prior experience 193 A clash of values 195 Identity performance and management 197 Intimacy 201 The protocol of service 204 Beyond the bars - a changing sexual ecology 208 Taking care of the self 212 Shifting focus 215 Reflexivity and the research economy 217 Final remarks 220 Appendices I Notes on the Thai alphabet 222 II Glossary of Thai terms used 225 III Guideline focus questions for in-depthinterviews 230 IV Actions, interactions, decision making points 232 References 236 iv Acknowledgments Without the supervision of Professor Susan Kippax (Director of the National Centre for HIV Social Research, University of New South Wales, Sydney) and Dr David M Halperin (School of Sociology, University of New South Wales, Sydney) this project might have lost all sense of direction. Professor Kippax’ insights into socio-sexuality and Dr Halperin’s comments on the historical constructions of male sexuality gave me the courage to think outside the box in which I had become wedged. I am indebted further to them both for their thoughtful suggestions during the final stages of the writing process. Throughout the course of the research, Dr Anthony Pramualaratana (Executive Director of the Thai Business Coalition of AIDS, Bangkok) acted as external supervisor. I sincerely thank him for the role he played as mentor and for his continual encouragement and advice on my reading of Thai social contexts. This work would not have been possible without the knowledge and experiences provided by the research participants, and I extend my sincerest gratitude to the male sex workers and other homosexually active men who so generously informed the study and who entrusted me with their life stories. I am indebted to a number of Thai academics and researchers with whom I was able to discuss the research data. In particular, I thank Ajarn Suntaree Komin (Deputy Director, Training Centre, Thai National Institute for Development), for her explication of the Thai value system; Dr Usa Doungsaa (Director of AIDSNet, Chiang Mai) for sharing her field experience and understandings of gender-based relations; Ajarn Yothin Sawangdee (Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University), for his clarification of the nexus between migration, sex work and filial responsibility; Ajarn Wassana Im-em (Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University) for arranging for me to speak at the Institute’s round table; Ajarn Sorani Wongbiasaj (Faculty of Humanities, Chiang Mai University) for her reading and interpretation of power and language in Thai social interactions; and Khun Chawalit Tantinimitkul (Planning and Evaluation Section, AIDS Division, Thai Ministry of Public Health) for assisting me with the epidemiological data and arranging access to the Division’s library. I also benefited from discussions with non-government organizations in Thailand, and I take this opportunity to thank Khun Anjana (Taeng) Suvarnananda from Anjaree; the late Khun Thawat Chaimongkol from the Prasaan Jai Rak Nong beats project in Chiang Mai; Khun Promboon Panitchthakdi and staff of the Rak Thai Foundation; Dr Scott Bamber from the AIDS Network Development Foundation (Northeast Thailand); Khun Jon Ungpakorn from ACCESS; Greg Carl of the Thai Red Cross; and Mr Paul L Toh (Community Mobilisation Advisor for UNAIDS, Bangkok). I began this research while a student at Macquarie University under the joint supervision of Professor C N Candlin and Dr Guenter Plum. I earnestly thank Professor Candlin for guiding me through the initial stages of the study and shaping my understanding of critical discourse analysis. I am ever grateful to Guenter for his important comments on methodology and narrative structure and for his editorial comments. I also profited from numerous discussions with Australian academics working in the field of Thai studies. Dr Peter A Jackson (Research Fellow, School of Pacific and Asian Studies, Australian National University, Canberra) brought a body of knowledge on Thai historical contexts and Asian sexualities. Dr Chris Lyttleton (Anthroplogy Department, Macquarie University, Sydney) provided considerable insight into the discursive formations surrounding HIV/AIDS in Thailand and on the changing ecology of the Thai AIDS epidemic; and Dr Malcolm McCamish (Department of Chemistry, Queensland University) offered advice on the contexts of male sex work and collaborated on the development of the sexual network diagrams.