I can’t talk of Thailand (except that I recently heard that prices have gone up a lot last year, but that is just hearsay); but I can say that before any of these questions can be answered a whole lot definitions need to be given to have any chance of answering.
Official reports are often biased, example of which is the Dutch discussion that is entirely based on the experiences of a single former prostitute… who it later turned out, made everything up; and they still assume what she wrote was true (look for miss Pequin if you want more info).
There are plenty shady sides to this business, but mostly different kinds of grey and very little black.
One to think about: if a girl is really doing this against her will, do you think moving on to some other girl is really helping her?
You could always move on to a girl who isn’t a sex worker. Novel, I know, but it really helps minimize the chances of potentially raping, or contributing to the rape of, a person forced into sex slavery.
No, based on the girls, bar owners and brothel owners/managers I personally know, they’ve gone up a bit in recent years but I don’t think so last year.
You must be conflating me with other poster(s). I am trying only to relate my own knowledge and experience objectively, letting others draw conclusions.
For the record, one can find many posts on expat sites discussing how Thai bargirls exploit Farang customers. While they have some validity, it is laughable and contemptible to focus on exploitation in that direction as many Farangs do.
If I were to offer one generalization about Thai sex business it would be: Generalizations are difficult. These’s just too many different types of story and too much ambiguity.
That’s fantastic and all, but the list in the OP isn’t all about Thailand. And even if it was, I have a hard time mustering up buckets of sympathy that somebody got fleeced by a sex worker (who may or may not be there freely). There is, incidentally, an easy way to avoid that, ya know-- you get to keep your money and not risk contributing to a truly vile underbelly of humanity.
You are calling me pretentious, septimus? That is truly, truly hilarious.
I consider the anonymously-chronicled personal experiences of Western men who apparently consider themselves sophisticated connoisseurs of paying for sex with prostitutes in the developing world to be quite solid evidence for the proposition that those gentlemen do, in fact, very much enjoy paying for sex with prostitutes in the developing world.
Beyond that, no, I really can’t say that I afford them much significance. Why in the world should I?
I wonder why you Reply with this to me. Read my posts more carefully and I think you’ll see that (subject to some awareness of nuance) I’m largely on your side.
(I do realize that the distinction between banning forced prostitution and banning all prostitution is a difficult and important controversy. It’s been discussed in prior threads, and may merit another thread. But to inject that issue into all threads on prostitution can be distractive.)
You can tell because once when a Thai bargirl told him that lots of her friends aren’t allowed by the bordello administrators to turn down sex from customers, he frowned and furrowed his brow a little. Eat your heart out, Susan B. Anthony!
And anyway, discussing the social effects of illegal but implicitly tolerated prostitution in developing nations is for some other thread. This thread is only for talking about how dreadfully fun it all is!
Because we’re having a discussion on a discussion board. You said something and I was responding to it, in context of the rest of the greater discussion that’s being had.
First the folks who disagree with you- again, all female- have their panties in a twist and now they’re shrill. K. But again, other than us just not “getting it” I’d love to see some evidence that sex trafficking and forced sex slavery is not an actual problem in the places on your lovely little list. Everything I’ve seen very clearly states the contrary, so my initial requests were genuine. And if sex trafficking is a serious problem in these places, it’s perfectly appropriate to discuss when presented with such a list.
You appear completely unprepared for any response to your aimlessly meandering sex show anecdotes that does not incorporate a slap on the back and an assurance that you’re the greatest.
How about if I slip you a twenty? Will that entice you to present me with some verifiable, substantive information? Or is that just not something you feel comfortable doing for me this early in our friendship?
You two start out saying you know very little of the subject matter and in turn respond with hostility against anyone who does, it doesn’t really invite anyone to go into the issues brought up.
OK. I don’t want to prolong an irrelevant subthread, but reread your #65 and my comment it replied to. Aren’t we in agreement there? What comments by me in this thread have you found offensive?
We say we’ve never had sex with prostitutes or visited these types of sex clubs or brothels, that doesn’t mean we don’t know anything about the subject.
Again, I get your first hand experience and that you guys really like hiring sex workers. That’s fine. I’m still curious how you reconcile that with the reality of sex trafficking. For me, there’s no way I’d be able to be comfortable enough with the odds that I’m not schlepping someone who is forced to be there, so I couldn’t do it.
Now, up until this point, the only counter points to sex trafficking have been that we don’t get it because we’re not in Thailand, which doesn’t make sense because 1: the thread isn’t just about Thailand and 2: while Thailand has improved over the years, the nation still has tremendous issues with trafficking and child sex workers. It’s been said that you guys have conversations with prostitutes and they’ve told you they like be there, so it’s true-- surely you see the problem there. It’s been said that in Denmark, all stats were made up by some lady— I’ll accept that possibility, actually (I don’t know any different, so I’ll take your word for it). That said, even if we accept that as true, that doesn’t change the reality in other places-- and unless you’re arguing that trafficking isn’t really a problem, it still doesn’t get to the heart of the matter either.
Fun strawman, but that’s not was being discussed and you know it. It’s very clear from the posting history of several guys here that they love prostitutes in various places. That’s fine. My question is and remains how they reconcile their activities with the reality of sex trafficking.
It’s all fun and games until 40% of the prostitutes are kids.
I just brought up the Dutch (this is Amsterdam right) example because it illustrates how ideology driven (or at least preconception driven) much of the debate is. Using the book of a single women as your prime source of information; even when it is proven it was a sham!! I never realized this until I started reading the blog of a Dutch prostitute (http://zondares.blogspot.nl/) who keeps track of this stuff, she even has some academics helping her with the numbers in the reports.
The thing with trafficking is, that it still depends on who you who define it. I’m pretty sure that in Europe most girls move to Germany, Holland or Spain just for the job… if they don’t buy the ticket/getting lodging/getting a place to work themselves (girls who typically have no money at all), that is traficking under many definitions. Hell, under the dutch definition it is traficking if a girl pitches in for gas when you drive from one place for another.
If you think this happening is problematic, that’s fine… but it doesn’t mean all these girls are ‘sexslaves’ or working against their will. So again, what defines ‘working against their will’. If she hands of half the money she makes (which is disgusting of course)? Does it matter whether it is a family member or husband? What if she thinks she still has enough left? I’m just trying to point out how tricky this discussion is.
On the general thread subject, one does scratch his head at an otherwise very traditionalist society being so tolerant of the “vice” trade. But that’s probably an artifact of our Western expectations.