One Night in Bangkok: Western Women’s Interactions with Sexualized Spaces in Thailand Erin Sanders Thesis submitted to the University of Nottingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy SEPTEMBER 2010 Abstract Key words: Thailand, sex tourism, sex industry, authenticity, voyeurism, tourist experience Research on sex tourism in Thailand has often focused on western men’s sexual interactions with local women (Cohen, 1982; Enloe, 1989; Brown, 2001), and the sexualized entertainment on offer in eroticized tourist spaces/places is assumed to be aimed at western male tourists (Manderson, 1992; Bowes, 2004). While a number of academics have studied sexualized spaces and venues, little has been written on how and to what extent western women engage with this type of touristic entertainment in the Thai (sex tourism) context (Odzer, 1994; Manderson, 1995; Sikes, 2006). This is despite the fact that the number of female tourists visiting Thailand has increased over the past decade (TAT, 2007), and some evidence suggests that the sex industry in Thailand caters for female tourists (Vorakitphokatorn et al, 1994; Williams et al, 2007). This thesis will argue that western women are curious about the nature of the Thai sex industry, and that some tourist women seek to visually explore sexualized tourist areas as part of their ‘tourist experience’ in Thailand. Sex tourism is a contentious subject area, and investigating the extent to which western women might engage with the sex industry as part of their tourist experience necessitates a critical engagement with theoretical understandings of female sex tourism. The findings suggest that western women’s desire for an authentic tourist experience in Thailand facilitates their entry into sexualized zones. While the history of the sex industry in Thailand has helped to popularize its notoriety, discourses on tourist- oriented sexual spaces suggest that visiting a sexual show is something that is ‘ok’, and further is part of ‘real Thailand’. However, women’s visual engagement with the Others who inhabit these spaces reveals a darker side,and perhaps a voyeuristic desire to visit these venues. While part of their motivation to consume the sex industry stems from their understanding of the sex industry as authentically Thai, their contradictory interpretations of Thai sex workers reveals a darker, more complicated picture. This thesis will examine the lines that divide tourism from sex tourism practices to suggest that consuming difference and the desire to engage with exotic (and erotic) Others underpins all touristic engagements, including tourist interactions with the sex industry. Visual sex tourism practices will be outlined here, and current definitions of sex tourism will be deconstructed to reveal a more complicated picture of tourism/sex tourism practices, which calls for a closer examination of gendered tourism behaviors. 2 Acknowledgements Firstly to my mother, whose love and support has always guided and sustained me. My thanks to my research participants for sharing their stories, and to the many people I met in Thailand who helped me during my fieldwork. To Pi Mo Kosaikanont for all her kindness and help over the years and for her generous hospitality in Thailand. My thanks to Rachel for listening to me and providing a different point of view, and to Kevin for your encouragement and help at the start of this process. Thanks to Elizabeth Murphy for your input and supervision. Your voice has continued to shape my thesis over the past few years. My gracious thanks to Amal Treacher Kabash for your support and encouragement - your reassurance and kind words throughout the last year have been much appreciated. I am grateful for the insights you brought to the thesis, and for your ability to help me keep everything in perspective. And to Julia O’Connell Davidson who has been with me since the start of this journey, encouraging me when I thought I could not do it and inspiring me as ever. I am extremely grateful for your wisdom and guidance throughout the entire process. Thank you so much. And finally my thanks to Darragh for your love and patience, for putting up with me during this process, for giving me the motivation to finish, and for always being there. 3 Table of Contents Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 3 Table of Contents 4 Chapter 1 Introduction 5 Chapter 2 Research Methodology 31 Chapter 3 Understanding Tourism in Thailand: Situating the Sex Industry 80 Chapter 4 Locating Western Women Tourists in Sexual Spaces/Places 131 Chapter 5 The Sex Industry as ‘Already There’: Women Tourists and the Problematic Others of the Sex Industry 172 Chapter 6 The Sadistic Turn: Women’s Voyeuristic Engagement with the Sex Industry 219 Chapter 7 Conclusion 271 Appendix I Survey Template 290 Appendix II Formal Interview Schedule 299 Bibliography 301 4 Chapter One: Introduction Introduction In the summer of 2005 I went to Thailand for the first time to carry out research for a Master’s degree dissertation. I spent some time researching organizations that worked with sex workers interviewing staff members and sex workers affiliated with these groups. This was my first trip to Thailand and my first research fieldwork trip. I remember being overwhelmed by the sheer difference of an Asian country - in particular by the noise and chaos that was part of the Bangkok experience. As I was studying the sex industry as part of my research project, I was also interested in the ways the sex industry was presented in Thailand, and how sex tourism was part of this. I was aware that there were sexualized tourist areas where male tourists were meant to go (Patpong for example, or Soi Cowboy), and I assumed these spaces were off limits to women. However, a weekend trip to Pattaya made me rethink this initial assumption, as I saw large numbers of women in sexualized areas, and noticed many of them were going into venues advertising go-go bars or sex shows. After I finished my research with the Thai sex work organizations, I came back the UK with a slightly confused understanding of what sex tourism was all about, and who might be considered a sex tourist. This confusion was an important starting point for my PhD research, as I began to consider how western women might fit into sex tourism processes more generally, and then decided to explore the Thai sex industry from this different perspective. In October of 2007 I went to Thailand to begin my ethnographic study of the sex industry for my PhD. The aim of my exploration was to try to understand to what extent western women engaged with the sex industry in Thailand, and how they felt about touring a country with such a visible sex-tourist industry. I spent the first month of my visit in Pattaya, a well-known sex tourist coastal city not far from Bangkok. As I started getting acquainted with the city, I spent a good deal of time in the red light areas, trying to get a feel for what kinds of 5 spaces/places tourists were visiting. Female tourists seemed to go everywhere in Pattaya; there were few bars, clubs, or shows that did not host western female guests. One of the challenges I faced as a researcher was deciding how far into these sexualized spaces I should travel. During the first month I visited a number of different types of sexualized venues: open air go-go bars, katheoy 1(or ladyboy) cabaret shows, male and female go-go bars, and discothèques 2. Although the highly sexualized nature of the areas was sometimes overwhelming, I was often able to have positive and friendly exchanges with the customers who were present as well as the staff who were working there, which made interactions in this space more manageable. I was aware that a more overtly sexual form of entertainment existed: the ping pong show. In the few weeks that I had been in Thailand I had heard female tourists talk about the ping pong shows, listening to them describe the various ‘tricks’ and sexual activities they saw at these venues. There were several ping pong shows in the main tourist area of Pattaya, and I had seen groups of tourists (male and female) paying their entrance fee and walking through the heavy red curtains, but this was an area I felt some ambivalence about visiting myself. I knew from conversations and interviews with female tourists that this was considered a Thai tourist spectacle not to be missed, an ‘authentic’ part of Thai culture, but I was also troubled by the graphic images presented in these conversations, and unsure about how I would handle this type of ‘entertainment’. And yet, the western women I spoke to were surprised I had not been and expressed confusion about why I- someone researching the sex industry- would not have visited this important Thai/touristic/sexual space. My decision to visit a ping pong show came about one evening in November, after an interview with two Scandinavian women. So emphatic was their description of the shows they 1 Kathoey is a Thai word that refers to people of the ‘third gender’, usually male-to-female transsexuals who are seen to be somewhat fluid in terms of their sexuality, but often self-identify as gay. See Jackson (2000) or Jackson and Sullivan (1999) for more on Thai sexual identities. 2 An explanation and typology of these various sexual sites/venues will be provided in Chapter Two. 6 had been to, so incredulous was their surprise that I had not been, that I felt it was almost my duty as an ethnographer to finally visit one of these sexualized shows so that I could understand the fascination that they felt, and so I could explore western women’s motivations to visit these sexual shows and their desire to engage with this type of activity.