OPEN-ENDED PROSTITUTION AS A SKILLFUL
GAME OF LUCK:
OPPORTUNITY, RISK AND SECURITY AMONG TOURIST-ORIENTED
PROSTITUTES IN BANGKOK
Erik Cohen Department of
Sociology and Social-Anthropology Hebrew University of Jerusalem
http://www.pattayapages.com/girls/academic.html
INTRODUCTION
Rural to urban migrants from depressed areas of Thailand, and
particularly the Northeast (Isaan), move into Bangkok in ever-greater
numbers in search of employment and income for their own subsistence or
for the support of their relatives back home. Prominent among these are
large numbers of young women, many of whom hope to make enough money in
the city to be able to support not only themselves, but also their
parents, siblings and children. They soon realize that the employment
opportunities for uneducated and unskilled workers are severely limited.
In fact, it appears that in recent years the opportunity structure
facing unskilled in-migrant women in Bangkok has even contracted.
As the price level
of basic necessities rose continually in the metropolis, wages on the
depressed labor market remained low, even as many recent in-migrants
were unable to secure a job. Moreover, even if they can find employment
as domestics or in a factory, the earnings of unskilled laborers will
usually not even reach the 1996 legal minimum wage of 150B (approx. US$
4.00) a day. Indeed, many of those who work earn less than Baht 1,000
(US$ 50.00) a month. This is hardly sufficient for their own upkeep, not
to speak of support for dependents. Many of the women, finding
employment opportunities unsatisfactory, turn to hawking and peddling, a
sector which is notorious for its apparent ability to absorb practically
unlimited numbers of self-employed sellers (Geertz; 1963 : 29). But even
here it becomes increasingly more difficult to establish oneself, and
marginal hawkers are frequently driven out of business.
Many migrants are
thus caught in a predicament from which there is apparently no exit.
Under such conditions, prostitution provides one of the few ways out.
Despite the very large number of women in Bangkok engaging in
prostitution in its various forms, conservatively estimated at 300,000 (Phongpaichit:
1981: 14-15), this occupation still offers to most women an income
considerably greater than anything they could hope to earn in another
line of work. Massage girls, for example, according to Phongpaichit
(1981: 19) reported incomes which "range from $75 to $750 a month, with
over half earning $150 to $300, and another quarter earning more than
that." Brothel girls probably earn less, but even those -- insofar as
they are not "bonded" (Phongpaichit, 19~1: 1T) -- earn more than they
could make elsewhere.
Prostitution existed
in Thailand long before the country became a popular destination of
sex-tourism. Tourism, however, had a crucial impact on the trade. Not
only did the number of girls engaging in prostitution grow considerably,
but the nature of the occupation changed with the emergence of the new
clientele. The interaction with white, foreign, male tourists farangs
(Cohen, 19~2) engendered a new subculture of prostitution. It is this
which I seek to capture in the concept of "open-ended" prostitution and
analyze on the basis of my study of an urban lane (soi) in the
hinterland of one of the principal tourist areas of Bangkok, conducted
as part of an ongoing longitudinal urban anthropological study.
I lived in a slum in
the soi for two months at a time, and conducted observations and
in-depth interviews with inhabitants and informants. In the soi life,
several hundred Thai women derive their livelihood from tourists and
other foreigners, mainly as bar and coffee shop girls. Many of these
girls have rooms in the slum. I conducted extended conversations with
several dozen girls and collected some biographies. Family background,
education, work-experience in and outside of prostitution, and attitudes
and relationships with farangs were the principal topics of
investigation. I also talked to a large number of farangs in and outside
the soi (Cohen, forthcoming a and b). Despite the reputation of Bangkok
as a world center of sex-tourism, most prostitutes work in brothels and
massage parlors with a predominantly local clientele.
Tourist-oriented
prostitutes, operating from bars and coffee shops constitute a small
portion of the total number of women in the trade, but one of
considerable economic importance. They are in no small degree
responsible for tourist spending, thus contributing to national foreign
currency earnings. They are, in a sense, the elite of the trade: their
life-chances, work conditions and income are incomparably better than
those of most girls working with a local clientele. Indeed, the
circumstances of their work enable them to deny that they are
"prostitutes" (sophenee) and to define themselves as "working with
foreigners" (tham ngan gahp farang) or with "guests" (tham ngan gahp
khaek). These occupational self-conceptions closely resemble the
designation "hospitality girls", by which their counterparts in Manila
are known (Neumann, 19~9; van der Velden, 1982). The girls profess to be
insulted when they are called "prostitutes"; some of their farang
customers and boyfriends also vehemently oppose that designation.
The girls do not
differ much in background and education from those working with a local
clientele, but are, on the average, older than those working in
brothels. They are mostly in their twenties or early thirties, of rural
background, predominantly from the Northeast. Most have children from an
earlier, disrupted marriage or cohabitation with a Thai man. They have
usually already lived in Bangkok for a few years, having worked as
domestics, factory workers or hawkers prior to turning to their present
occupation. They have not generally worked as prostitutes with a local
clientele prior to engaging in tourist-oriented prostitution. Those I
talked to worked in bars and coffee shops for a couple of days up to --
mostly intermittently -- a few years. They are a highly mobile group,
frequently changing their habitation and moving in and out of the trade.
Some of this mobility is related to the special character of "open
ended" prostitution, to be explained below.
The girls usually
live alone or with another girl in a rented room. Several houses in the
soi cater exclusively to the girls. Most of their free time interaction
is with other girls in the trade. They tend to form closely-knit
peer-groups of girls living in the same house or yard and working in the
same bar or coffee shop (in recent years, the bar and coffee shop group
also hang out in the popular discos and nightclubs). Members of such
groups assist and support one another in times of need or crisis,
financial or emotional. They often claim to be "sisters", even if they
are not really related. Peers are their main reference group and much of
their conduct, attire, and aspirations can be understood in terms of
their relations and competition with peers. However, despite the mutual
dependency, the girls are also suspicious of one another -- an ambiguity
which runs through many kinds of primary relations in Thai society.
Some girls have Thai
boyfriends who live with them when they are not in the company of a
farang customer. These Thai men leech on the girls, but do not usually
control them, protect them or hustle customers, and hence cannot be
described as pimps. They often take a large share of the girls' earnings
which they spend towards their own subsistence, oftentimes on alcohol or
gambling, which creates an additional strain to an already fragile
"relationship." Most girls work in a few dozen bars and several big
coffee shops not far from the soi. With the exception of those who serve
as go-go dancers in bars, the girls are not employed by the
establishments, but operate on their own. Bar-girls, however, are not
free to leave the premises at will.
Customers who take
out a girl from a bar (but not from a coffee shop) have to pay a "barfine"
to the bar. The girls are however, free to keep any money they receive
from their customers. The bar and coffee-shop girls thus differ from
prostitutes working in brothels, massage parlors and similar
establishments, who frequently receive only a fraction of their
customers' payments -- the bulk of it going to the owners, procurers,
taxi-drivers, etc. (Khin Thitsa, 1980). Bar and coffee shop girls are
thus essentially independent operators or freelancers. Their
independence is a crucial precondition for open-ended prostitution,
increasing both the chances and the hazards of their trade.
The girls who work
in bars derive their income from three principal sources: go-go dancing,
for which they are paid a fixed sum of about 6,000 B (US$150) a month;
drinks with customers, of which their cut is usually Baht 20-40 B
(U5$0.50-1.00) per drink; and prostitution, which usually pays about
Baht 500-1000 for a "short time" and Baht 1000+ for a night; but being
"open-ended" the relationship may be extended beyond that, and
eventually bring in many times more. Of the three sources of income,
prostitution is the one the girls are most interested in; go-go dancing
and hustling for drinks, though in themselves financially not
unimportant, seem secondary sources of income -- a stabilizing
counterpart to the uncertainty of prostitution. They are also ways to
attract customers and start a liaison. Coffee-shop girls, in contrast,
on occasion drink with the customers, but derive their income
exclusively from prostitution. Still, their trade is considered more
lucrative and convenient, and many bar-girls switch after some time to a
coffee shop, or move to coffee shops after the bars close for the night.
The girls use the
various services in the soi which cater to their needs, such as general
stores, stalls, restaurants, seamstress shops and beauty parlors. Those
living in the slum rarely depart beyond its limits except for work. They
live seemingly frugally, and indeed spend little on food and other basic
necessities. But, once they have money, it passes quickly through their
hands on clothing, cosmetics, drinks, gambling, and, in some cases,
drugs. Almost all have family obligations and support their children,
parents or younger siblings from their income -- although the actual
remittances seem to be smaller than they claim. Few girls remain in
tourist-oriented prostitution long enough to make a career out of it.
However, many girls do stay in the trade longer than they had originally
intended (cf. Phongpaichit, 1981: 18-19). A few are in their
mid-thirties, an age which is considered old for a prostitute in
Thailand (Khin Thitsa, 1980: 14). While I have not systematically
examined their patterns of mobility and the factors influencing their
eventual success or failure in the trade, the latter seems to depend
essentially on their ability to exploit changing opportunities, while at
the same time building for themselves a basis of economic and emotional
security, which will enable them to overcome the uncertainties inherent
in their situation.
THE DYNAMICS OF
OPEN-ENDED PROSTITUTION
Prostitution has been conceived of by sociologists as an emotionally
neutral, indiscriminate, specifically remunerated sexual service (Lamert,
1951: 238; Gagnon, 19G8: 592-3). Prostitutes were pictured as meeting
their customers in temporarily limited, usually brief, well-defined
encounters. Even though a prostitute may build up a permanent clientele,
each encounter is typically a discrete, separately remunerated affair,
during which a specific sexual act is performed. Repetitive encounters
with the same customer are ordinarily not supposed to create a
continuous relationship, nor to lead to any emotional involvement on the
part of the woman; indeed, professional prostitutes develop
psychological defense mechanisms which control such involvement
(Rasmussen and Kuhn, 19T6: 2T9).
Though prostitutes
may differ considerably in their income, depending upon the nature of
the establishment in which they work, the class of their customers,
their attractiveness and the kinds of services they provide,
remuneration is routine and usually fixed or agreed upon in advance.
There are few uncertainties in the situation, and if there are, these
relate primarily to the dangers of AIDS, venereal infection or physical
attack upon the prostitutes, rather than any extraordinary rewards or
benefits which may accrue from their customers. I suggest the term
"open-ended" prostitution to characterize a kind of relationship between
a prostitute and her customer which, though it may start as a specific
neutral service, rendered more or less indiscriminately to any customer,
may be extended into a more protracted, diffused and personalized
liaison, involving both emotional attachment and economic interest. The
tourist-oriented bar and coffee-shop girls living in the soi illustrate
such "open-ended" prostitution, but the concept is also applicable to
tourist-oriented prostitutes in some other developing countries, and
especially the "hospitality girls" of Manila (van der Velden, 1982).
My analysis departs
from the difference between the opportunity structure facing the
tourist-oriented prostitute in bars and coffee shops and that facing
brothel and massage parlor girls working with a local clientele.
Whatever the size and distribution of the earnings of brothel and
massage-parlor girls, they derive from essentially routinized and brief
encounters with clients; hence, given the type of establishment in which
they work, their earnings depend primarily on the number of customers
they serve. Bar and coffee-shop girls probably earn, on the average,
less than massage parlor girls in the first-class establishments, but
more than girls working in brothels. They operate on a buyer's market --
the number of girls in bars and coffee shops usually much exceeds the
number of prospective customers. There is also less turnover of
customers: while a brothel or massage parlor girl may have intercourse
with several men a night, bar or coffee shop girls rarely have it with
more than one, and in off-season periods, they may go for days without a
customer. The important point to note, however, is that their
opportunities are differently structured than those of brothel and
massage parlor girls, owing to the much less routinized character of
their relations with customers.
The range of their
incomes is considerably greater than that found in other types of
prostitution. The earnings of a girl may also fluctuate widely ---
between utter pennilessness one day and considerable riches the other.
It is this extreme variability and uncertainty, which endows the
occupational culture of open-ended prostitution with some of its
distinguishing features. The girl who meets a customer in a bar or
coffee shop in most cases retires with him initially for a "short-time",
usually one act of sexual intercourse, or "longtime", a single night.
That initial encounter is normally of a purely mercenary character
(Cohen, 1982: ~15); but it is significant that the girl frequently
underplays the commercial side (cf. van der Velden, 1982) and often
"stages" affection for the customer (Cohen, 19~i2:415-16). Such an
approach facilitates the extension of the initial brief encounter into a
more permanent liaison.
If the customer
desires the girl to stay, and he is agreeable to her, she may simply
stay on; the customer then continues to pay the bar money. The
relationship in such a case often changes from a purely mercenary one
into a mixed liaison, consisting, on the part of the girl, of both
economic interests and emotional involvement; in some cases, it may even
be transformed into a love relationship (Cohen, 1982: 416-I7). If the
couple stays together for more than a week or two, the girl usually
leaves her job in the bar or coffee shop for the length of her partner's
stay. In some cases she returns to the bar, but abstains from relations
with other men and she usually demands the same of her partner. The fact
that she does not "work", however, can be used by her to put moral
pressure upon her partner to reimburse her for her losses.
It is important to
note that most short liaisons are generally not purely contractual
economic relationships. Khin Thitsa (1980; 15) writes that "one woman
costs for the night about $40; for a week's rental (i.e.: seven days and
seven nights service) the bargain price of $100 is offered"; while
correct in substance, this statement is somewhat misleading. In some
instances the couple may agree that the girl will receive a given sum a
day. But the girl's reward is rarely stated in such fixed, commercial
terms. Rather, it depends on and fluctuates with many factors, such as
the farang's wealth and generosity and the girl's skill and willingness
to extricate money from him.
If the partner is a
well-to-do, short-term tourist, the girl may "give it up" during his
stay, move with him into a luxurious hotel, eat in the best restaurants,
receive expensive gifts of clothing or jewelry and enjoy a holiday in a
fashionable seaside resort, such as Phuket or Ko Samui. Upon his
departure, she may receive a considerable amount of money. If he is less
wealthy, she may just savor the agreeable relationship as long as it
lasts. In any case, the girl tends to become tense prior to her
partner's departure, both in anticipation of the size of her
remuneration and of the emotional impact of the rupture of her liaison
and of the return to her ordinary routine in the bar or coffee shop.
In fact, in many
cases the liaison does not explicitly terminate with the farang's
departure, but is expected to continue even after separation. Addresses
are exchanged, promises of continual love and of return and renewal of
the liaison are made. Afterwards, letters are exchanged, through which
the relationship lingers on for a while, but then usually peters out as
both partners get otherwise involved. Some liaisons, however, continue
intermittently for years, the farang returning regularly to see his
girlfriend. Some girls get invited for a visit abroad -- indeed, a
surprisingly large number of those in the soi have visited various
European countries. A smaller number of girls get married; some of these
remain abroad and get out of prostitution altogether. Others, however,
return after a short while as their marriage breaks up, and resume their
previous occupation. Still others go abroad, and either willingly or
unwillingly engage in prostitution there.
The prolongation of
a liaison beyond the actual departure of her partner has both an
economic and an emotional significance for the girl. It gives her the
feeling that there is someone who cares for her and on whom she may
depend in times of need, in her insecure and frequently changing
predicament. A Thai boyfriend, is thus a haven of emotional security,
even as the girl passes from one temporary liaison to another, a process
which she frequently finds emotionally taxing (Cohen, 1982: 421). Many
girls therefore maintain a lively correspondence with their past
boyfriends, telling them of their problems and often asking for
financial support to help them out of real or contrived troubles. Some,
indeed, have developed considerable dexterity in corresponding with a
number of men, from whom they solicit, and receive, support (Cohen,
forthcoming a). Indeed, one way for a girl past her prime to insure her
future, is to build up a coterie of boyfriends who visit her regularly
and to all of whom she serves intermittently as a mistress.
THE CULTURE OF
SEXUALITY AND OPEN ENDED PROSTITUTION
Traditional Thai culture emits contradictory messages, which facilitate
conflicting interpretations of the nature of Thai society and the extent
of change in contemporary Thailand (Cohen, 1984). This generalization is
well illustrated in the current debate surrounding the status of women
in Theravada Buddhist ideology. Khin Thitsa (1980), taking up a theme
first developed by Kirach (1975), argued that the inferior position of
women in Buddhism preconditions them to become prostitutes: "With the
low value attached to the female body and the female spirit by Buddhism,
woman has been sufficiently degraded already to enter prostitution. If
historically woman has served men helping him as wife, minor wife or
mistress, it is not such a big step to become an actual prostitute.
Indeed, the traditional emphasis on polygamy in Buddhist society
encourages the widespread practice of prostitution in modern Thailand (Khin
Thitsa, 1980: 23). This position has recently been severely criticized
by Keyes (forthcoming), who emphasized the elevated position of women in
Buddhism, and argued that the urban secularized image of woman as sex
symbol is a completely new cultural pattern, "unallocated with any
tempering Buddhist message". It follows that impoverished rural-to-urban
migrant girls are forced, under the pressure of circumstances and
against their better cultural convictions, to adopt this novel image, as
they enter prostitution in their struggle for survival. If Kirsch and
Khin Thitsa's position is adopted, prostitution is thus just a
contemporary form of an ingrained cultural pattern. If one adopts Keyes'
position, however, it is a novel form of sexual relations, based on an
essentially Western "market mentality", which tends to commercialize
everything, including sex.
My material on
open-ended prostitution holds forth the possibility of mediating between
the conflicting views of Kirsch and Khin Thitsa on the one hand, and
Keyes on the other. Whatever the Buddhist ideal of womanhood, there is
little doubt that the actual standing of women in the traditional Thai
social hierarchy is fairly low. This lowly standing may well inculcate
young rural Thai women with a diffuse service-orientation, which
facilitates their acceptance of such inferior roles as prostitution. At
the same time, however, the fact that they fail to realize the cultural
ideal of womanhood, as described by Keyes, fills them with shame and a
feeling of "loss of face", particularly in cases where women who had
been married before feel forced by circumstances to enter prostitution.
This sensation, however, is tempered by another cultural principle, that
of individual freedom of mobility: as Kirsch (1975) pointed out, the
fact that Thai women are in daily life less subject to religiously
inspired restrictions facilitates their involvement in entrepreneurial
activities.
I suggest that
open-ended prostitution is one area in which such entrepreneurs find
expression. It demands no initial capital, and, if one is willing to
take risks and dare one's "luck", holds forth the promise of
considerable opportunities. One way to interpret the girls engaging in
open-ended prostitution then is to see them as risk-taking, small-scale,
entrepreneurs. The culturally patterned role of the girls as daring
entrepreneurs, relieved from some restrictions incumbent upon men, fits
remarkably well into the structure of opportunities in open-ended
prostitution. However, the uncertainty, insecurity and impermanence
involved in the trade, call into play the contrary cultural theme of
hierarchical dependency of a lower status person on a higher status
person or patron (Hanks, 1975: 198-200). In the context of open-ended
prostitution, this means that the girl will seek to establish a
permanent relationship with a man toward whom she could play the role of
a mistress. While the attitude of individualistic entrepreneurial
opportunism induces in the girls a tendency to trade-off sexual
attraction for money, the contrary attitude of hierarchical dependency
induces a tendency to combine the quest for emotional attachment and
material benefits in a master/mistress relationship. In my earlier work
(Cohen, 1982) I have conceptualized four types of relationships between
the girls and farangs, based on the mix of economic interests and
emotional involvement which they embody:
1. Mercenary --
based on an emotionless "economic exchange". 2. Staged -- also based on
"economic exchange", but accompanied by faked or staged emotions on the
part of the girl. 3. Mixed -- based on both "economic exchange", as well
as emotional involvement on part of the girl. 4. Emotional -- based
primarily or exclusively on emotional involvement or "love" (Cohen,
1982: 414-17).
This is an
essentially etic typology, i.e., one constructed by an external observer
with the help of general theoretical concepts taken from Blau's (1967)
exchange theory. Whatever its adequacy, it disregards the emic
conception of the Thai girl-farang man relationships, i.e. the manner in
which it is interpreted in the Thai culture. I shall now attempt such an
emic reinterpretation of the typology. Such an analysis is intended to
examine to what extent the prevailing conception of tourism-oriented
prostitution is essentially a Western or also a Thai one: i.e. whether,
under the impact of exogenous factors, the girls adopted a Western view
of their trade and their relationships with their customers; or whether
they reinterpreted the traditional Thai cultural codes in a new context.
An analysis of the
girls' own conceptions and attitudes to the four relationships indicates
that each is the subject, for different girls, and perhaps even on
different occasions for the same girl, of both a Western and a Thai "emic"
interpretation.
1) Mercenary: This
type comes closest to the kind of prostitution prevalent in the modern
West (Gagnol, 1968: 592-3). Indeed, many of the girls interpret this
type of relationship in essentially Western terms, as a clear-cut
economic exchange in which a specific sexual service is provided for
money. However, this type of relationship is frequently factiously
assimilated to the culturally more acceptable gift-relationship. The
girl refuses to quote her price explicitly, preferring to leave
remuneration to the generosity of her customer (Cohen, 1982: 411). Her
remuneration thus becomes a kind of gratuity. Though remaining an
essentially economic transaction, its implicit character has several
advantages for the girl. It enables her to disassociate herself from the
ordinary prostitute and thus to enhance her self-image as one who "works
with guests". Simultaneously, it is also a display of Thai opportunism
by appealing to her customer's generosity, she may extricate from him a
much larger sum than she would ever dare to ask for explicitly. Finally,
it also helps to "open up" the initial brief encounter into a more
protracted liaison.
2) Staged: While the
purely mercenary relationship is a purely sexual affair, without any
display of emotions, in the "staged" relationship, the girl fakes
feelings, emotions or sexual attraction to the customer, which she does
not, in fact, experience. Staging, however, may also be easily
understood from two contrasting perspectives. From a Western perspective
as a trick played upon the customer as a means to attract him, bolster
his ego and attach him sexually to the girl, thereby enhancing her
material rewards (cf. Rasmussen and Kuhn, 1976: 279); or from a Thai
cultural perspective as a playful display of personalized service (cf.
de Gallo and Alzate, 1976), expressing a culturally induced motive to
please her sexual partner, as she would a Thai man to whom she is wife
or mistress. While like Amittatapana in the story quoted by Keyes
(forthcoming), she may do so in order to receive greater material
benefits from an emotionally unrewarding relationship, she thus also
acts out a Thai cultural theme -- an obligation of those lower in the
social hierarchy to please those higher up on it.
3). Mixed: This
type, involving both material interests and a genuine emotional
attachment on the part of the girl, is also subject to both emic
perspectives. It may be approached from a Western perspective -- in
which case it will be based on the assumption, generally taken for
granted in Western cultures, that economic remuneration and emotional
attachment are substitutive (hence the maxim that "love cannot be
bought"). In that case, the greater the girls involvement, the less she
will look for material rewards from her partner as an inducement to
continue the relationship. From the Thai cultural perspective, however,
economic remuneration and emotional attachment are often seen as
additive; girls tend to assimilate their "mixed" relationships with
farangs to the cultural model of the relationship of a Thai mistress to
her master. Such a perspective induces the girl to react emotionally to
her partner in accordance with the amount of material benefits she
receives from him, interpreting these as a token of her value,
attractiveness and desirability to him, as well as of his generosity.
The girl in such cases is in a state of emotional dependence with her
partner, rather than in love, in the Western sense -- but her feelings
cannot be said to be faked.
4). Emotional: In
this type, material benefits cease to be a significant factor in the
relationship, which depends primarily or exclusively on the mutual
infatuation of the partners. Here too, however, two emic perspectives
can be distinguished. From a Western perspective, the girl may well
perceive such a relationship as an instance of the imported cultural
model of "romantic" love. But she may also view it from a Thai
perspective as an acting out of the culturally approved pattern of
selfless devotion of the wife to her husband. While my materials
indicate that each of the various types of relationships is, indeed,
emically interpreted differently by different girls and on various
occasions by the same girl according to each of the two cultural models,
I have no precise data on the relative incidence of each interpretation.
My hunch, however, is that the traditional Thai interpretation is more
ingrained and more common than the modern Western one, especially among
recent arrivals on the scene.
Relationships
between Thai girls and farang men are thus a fertile area for
cross-cultural misunderstanding. A relationship which appears to a
Westerner highly westernized, may be acceptable to the girl because it
fits a Thai cultural pattern. Precisely in the more protracted and
intimate relationships, the differential interpretation may suddenly
lead to an acute crisis, as the cultural gap separating the partners
dawns upon them. Moreover, it is doubtful whether the alternative emic
models of interpretation of the various types of relationships penetrate
the consciousness of the girls themselves, or that they distinguish them
clearly. There are cases in which they interpret a relationship
equivocally in terms of both models, switching precipitately, in moments
of conflict, from one emic perspective to the other. Such ambiguity adds
to the bewilderment of their uncomprehending farang partners.
Their lifestyle also
creates many situations of conflicting interests, wherein the girl must
create a complex system of stories and lies to protect herself from the
realities of having numerous boyfriends, and accommodating each of them
when their visits overlap. When this occurs, girls often use the excuse
that they must return to their villages to see their families, a story
the farang cannot usually confirm, but which sounds both reasonable and
safe from his perspective. Lying about where she goes and who she sees
also covers the time she spends away from her customer, during which the
girl sees her Thai boyfriend or takes an occasional offer that she
cannot refuse. The deception factor therefore becomes an integral part
of the womans lifestyle and often becomes too complex a system to
remember, leading to more and more contradictions that become evident to
her farang boyfriend over time. This aspect of deceit is interpreted by
the girl as less of a moral sin than as do Westeners, who value honesty
as the cornerstone of any kind of relationship. Whereas in Thai culture,
such deception, on all levels, is linked to the Thai cultural notion
that what one does not know cannot hurt them.
RISK AND LUCK: THE
GAME ELEMENT IN OPEN-ENDED PROSTITUTION
Open-ended prostitution is a non-routine occupation. By the same token
it involves a strong element of chance -- in the sense of both risk of
life and limb and opportunity for success and riches, which is
significantly greater than in more routine forms of prostitution, such
as brothels or massage parlors. As a side note, open ended prostitutes
have a higher incidence of suicide, attempted suicide and substance
abuse than brothel and massage parlor girls, seemingly due to the
transitory nature of their lifestyle and the economic and emotional
instability that brings about.
This element of
chance, which cannot be completely reduced and mastered through
knowledge and skill, takes on emically the character of "luck" (chok)
(Cf. Mosel, 1966: 193-5; also Zulaika, 19-i1). Work in open-ended
prostitution thus becomes a skilled game of hazard or "luck". This forms
an important ingredient in the motivation and attitude of the girls
toward their trade. Safety and security is one of the reasons for
prostitutes to work in establishments or to attach themselves to pimps.
The open-ended prostitution of bar and coffee-shop girls is devoid of
any of the safety-arrangements found in other establishments. The girls
are on their own, and once they depart with a customer, they are
essentially at his mercy.
In this situation,
they face three kinds of risk: a. Material: the most common risk is that
the customer may exploit the girl, i.e. make use of her sexual services
and then abandon her or refuse to remunerate her most girls are helpless
against such exploitation, and routinely take it in stride as part of
their job. A more devious risk is the demand for payments, made by
corrupt policemen, in exchange for the girls liberty. This risk is faced
especially by coffee-shop girls. The coffee-shops are frequently raided
by police, mostly in token attempts to erase nominally illegal
prostitution (Hail, 19~0: 14). Instead of going to jail, many girls
prefer to pay off the police, usually to the tune of 500B (about U.S.
$15.00). The girls, scared of being arrested, therefore carry with them
to work a sum of money -- but then they are exposed to another kind of
risk, that of theft: Cases are known in which farang men took girls to
remote locations, and after intercourse, robbed them of their money.
Physical safety: the
girls are defenseless against attack by disturbed or dissatisfied
customers. They may suffer physical attack, and, in extreme cases, even
pay with their lifves, as did one girl in a hotel room in the summer of
1996 -- a case which provoked widespread apprehension and fear among the
girls in the soi.
Health: AIDS and
venereal disease are widespread among prostitutes in Bangkok (Khin
Thitsa, 1980: 13; Suthaporn, 19E~3), although it is apparently lower
among those oriented to tourists than among those working with a local
clientele. Still, many tourists do infect themselves during their
sojourn and transmit the disease from one girl to another. Girls who are
new to the trade are often terrified of V.D., whereas the older ones
take it as part of their occupational risk. Many girls go regularly for
V.D. check-ups, and carry "V.D. cards". Some bars actually demand such
regular checks. Still, the checks are not wholly dependable and infected
girls continue to engage in the trade, thus contributing to the spread
of such diseases.
The challenge facing
a girl engaged in open-ended prostitution, is to develop those skills
which enable her to maximize her opportunities, while minimizing these
and similar risks. These consist primarily of the ability to
discriminate dangerous and unpromising from safe and generous clients.
The skill to attract the latter; the capacity to create the most
advantageous relationship with them often means transforming a single
encounter into a more permanent liaison.
Skill and chance are
obviously in an inverted relationship: the greater one's skill, the more
control one has over the situation, and hence the smaller the element
of' chance. However, whatever the degree of skill, an irreducible
element of chance always remains (Mosel, 1955 : 195; cf. also Zulaika,
1981). This is greater for the less skillful, smaller for the more
skillful girls. It is this element which is emically conceived of as
"luck" and plays a prominent role in the occupational culture of the
girls. In comparison, the development of skills, through not
unimportant, plays a secondary role. Many girls depend in their work on
their natural endowment, for which, indeed, they are appreciated by
their customers. There is none of the professional training, found in
American prostitution (Neyl, 197T). To the extent that there is some
development of skills, it is distinctly amateurish and informal. It
comes mostly from contact with more experienced girls, who advise the
newly arrived ones on how to deal with customers.
The principal area
of skill in which the need for training is most often perceived by the
girls is that of foreign languages, which in practice means English, the
lingua franca of the trade. Many girls profess a desire to learn
English, which, they claim, will enable them to find more and better
customers. Many indeed begin to teach themselves the language, mostly
with the aid of Thai text books for self-instruction. Few, however,
persist in their study, finding that it overtaxes their learning
capacity, which was stunted by their inadequate and limited rural
education. None of the girls attended the English conversation club in
the soi, a medium of instruction very popular among the young Thai
middle class. Most girls after some time in the trade do acquire a basic
sprinkling of English, but their conversation is severely limited to a
few routine topics. Indeed, communication with customers is usually
conducted in a simplified "foreigner talk" (Him no speak). An additional
constraint is the visiting non-Anglophone farang's incompetence in
English. The point to note is that the girls are aware of the importance
of English for their job, but are still unable or unwilling to study it
systematically and persistently.
Another area of
skill, in which the girls are more proficient, is the care of their
attire and general appearance. Even a casual observer will notice the
fast transformation in the appearance of a newly arrived girl in the
first week or two after her arrival on the scene. Girls, especially if
they came recently from their village, usually start work in their rural
finery, use little make up and do their hair in a rural or provincial
style. Soon, upon earning some money, they acquire the working outfit of
tourist-oriented prostitutes: tight jeans, T-shirts (often imprinted
with some English word, such as "Yes") and high-heeled shoes. They put
on make-up and paint their nails. Later on, gold jewelry, frequently
received as a present from their boyfriends, is added, and constitutes
the most conspicuous symbol of their occupational success. More
recently, material possessions such as mobile telephones have added
further illusions of status to the garb. On the whole, however, the
appearance of most girls resembles that of the urban Thai lower-middle
class, but is a shade louder. Older women, who have experience in the
trade, but whose charms have suffered with age, develop considerable
dexterity in improving their appearance when preparing for work -- so
much so that they are hard to recognize in their nocturnal work attire,
for one who knew them in their diurnal leisure appearance in the soi.
Girls who specialize
in late night work in the discos or coffee shops often put on fancy or
outlandish attire -- such as provocative clothing, complex hairdos or
fingernails painted in a variety of colors. However, it is important to
note that though such attires are purportedly intended to enhance a
girl's attractiveness to prospective customers, they also tend to become
part of a game which the girls play among themselves. Clothing and
hairdos, and especially gold jewelry, are a subject of much interest and
concern for the girls. Self-care takes up much of their free time and is
a principal subject of conversation in the small, tightly-knit groups in
which most girls spend their leisure time. I suggest that, in their
endeavor to outdo one another, a tendency to wear outlandish clothing,
tattooing and piercing develops, which may well be detrimental to the
chances of a girl's success with farang customers, but serves the game
of one-upmanship which the girls play with one another.
In contrast to
brothel and massage parlor prostitution, the girls in open-ended
prostitution enjoy considerable discretion in the choice of their
customers. Since open-ended prostitution is both risky and promising,
the girls' skill in the selection of the right customer seems to be
crucial for their success. As far as can be established, the girls are
in fact motivated by two kinds of consideration in this respect: the
attractiveness of the customer, and his seeming affluence and
generosity. Pecuniary considerations, however, in many instances take
precedence over sexual ones, and the girls frequently decline to stay
with a customer who is sexually gratifying but fails to remunerate them
sufficiently. If they dislike a customer, however, they may decline to
go out with him, even if promised a considerable amount of money. They
therefore tend to prefer pleasant, affluent-looking, recently arrived
tourists, who are known to be safe and generous with money.
Owing to the
open-ended character of the form of prostitution practiced by the girls,
their success depends on their skill at a "soft sell"; rather than
hustling the customer to buy a more expensive service -- a skill taught
to American brothel prostitutes (Iieyl, l9TT) -- the girl learns how to
extricate money from her customer by appealing to his generosity and
compassion, rather than by outright demands for payment, and to attach
him to her by subserviently attaching herself to him.
The girls develop a
great dexterity in keying (Goffman, 1~T1~) their personal stories so as
to stress their poverty and financial problems -- e.g. their need for
money to pay the rent or hospital bills for themselves or their
relatives, or to support their children, parents or younger siblings.
Some indeed straightforwardly fabricate nonexistent financial needs,
rather than ask their farang boyfriends expressly for remuneration.
Entreaties for help, indeed, do not stop with the departure of the
farang, but usually constitute the principal raison-d'etre of the girls'
correspondence with ex-boyfriends (Cohen, forthcoming a).
There are certainly
considerable differences between the girls in their skills in attracting
customers and profiting from the relationship. These find expression in
the wide discrepancies in the economic and personal success of similarly
endowed girls, some of whom have accumulated significant amounts of
money in their bank accounts, enjoy a steady stream of support from
ex-boyfriends or marry rich and attractive foreigners, while others
remained poor and lacking any security for the future.
The importance of
skills is generally perceived by the girls themselves, who say
appreciatively that a girl is keng (clever, skillful) at doing this or
that. Still, they are even more aware of the fact that skillfulness in
itself is not a sufficient guarantee of success, owing to the
irreducible element of chance in the trade -- "luck" (chok). Open-ended
prostitution is thus, from the emic perspective of the girls,
essentially a "skillful game of luck", for success in which one has to
be both keng and have chok. I suggest that in open ended prostitution in
Thailand, a greater emphasis is given to luck than in the more
professional prostitution in the West. If this is correct, then the
readiness of the Thai girls, trusting their luck, to take incalculable
risks becomes more comprehensible.
While Theravada
Buddhism is lenient towards prostitution (Keyes, forthcoming), it does
not approve of it, nor does luck have a place in orthodox Theravada
theology. Still, in Thai folk religion, Buddha (and other supernatural
beings) is frequently supplicated for luck and good fortune (cf. Piker,
7,968: 387). Indeed, the girls working in open-ended prostitution are
not only frequently devout, but regularly supplicate Buddha prior to
going to work, for good luck, success and protection -- whether at their
house altar or at an altar erected in the bars. Though they might be
ashamed of their trade, they certainly do not see it as so radical a
deviation that it places them outside the fold of religion and denies
them religious succor and protection. Indeed, as McDowell (1982: 504)
commented, "In Thailand, the prim and the prurient meet and merge, and
Buddhist monks may be invited to extend their benediction to a girlie
bar" (ibid: 500).
To enhance their
luck, the girls also appear to employ a good deal of love magic (sanee)
(Thongthew-Ratarasarn, 1~T9), though precise information on the subject
was difficult to get hold of. While the quest for luck in open-ended
prostitution, by means of religious ritual, is an indicator of a
perceived absence of disruption with tradition, if not of continuation,
it does not yet explain the source of the game element in the trade and
the playful willingness to take risks. Theravada Buddhism certainly does
not approve of games of luck and gambling. Whatever the standing of
gambling in official Buddhist ideology, however, it is a fact that Thais
are enthusiastic gamblers -- as illustrated by the popularity of the
national lottery and in the widespread betting common in the traditional
Thai sports of cock-fighting and Thai-boxing (muay). Indeed, many girls
in the trade are inveterate gamblers: card playing sessions in the soi
are a favorite pastime and sometimes last for several days, involving
considerable sums of money. The girls' profligacy in gambling stands in
sharp contrast to the frugality of their daily life-styles. They
frequently risk all their money in a single gambling session, after
which they have to sell or pawn their jewelry and other possessions, or
borrow money from their friends to meet basic necessities.
The attitude of many
girls to their job also resembles that to a gamble. Most girls claim
that they dislike their job, and complain of "boredom" (beua). Rather
than relating to it neutrally as "work", whose reward is in the
earnings, they seek to make it an enjoyable, gratifying activity (sanuk);
Phillips, 1~65: 59-61). They prefer partners with whom they have a
satisfying, enjoyable relationship--a "good time". Their attitude to
their job also includes an element of excitement and indefinite hope,
characteristic of that found with gamblers. There is always, in the
background, a vague expectation of winning the big prize or making a
killing -- whether by catching a wealthy and generous customer, becoming
a mistress to a permanent boyfriend, or even finding a husband who will
take the girl away from the prostitution scene altogether. The highest
prizes in this game of luck are those which enable the player eventually
to leave the game.
For most who leave,
however, the departure proves to be merely temporary: lovers go away and
marriages disintegrate, and the girls return to their previous job,
recognizing, as Keyes (forthcoming) pointed out, "through their own
experience of the loss of lovers ... the truth of Buddha's teaching
about suffering". Still others, though economically secure, cannot
permanently forego the excitement of the game itself -- and when they
have the opportunity, e.g. during a visit from abroad or the absence of
their boyfriend, they return to their old haunts, to "butterfly" (jouchu
). It is neither the quest of money nor sex which brings them there, but
rather the excitement of the game itself: particularly the desire to
find out whether they are still attractive to farangs and capable of
making a killing. More than anything else, such girls exemplify the
character of open-ended prostitution as not just "work", but as a
"skillful game of luck", played for excitement and not only merely for
gain.
CONCLUSIONS: THE
STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS OF OPEN-ENDED PROSTITUITION
The preceding presentation and analysis leads to three significant
conclusions concerning the structure and dynamics of the occupational
culture of open-ended prostitution -- as practiced by tourist-oriented
prostitutes in Bangkok:There exists a high degree of fit between the
opportunity structure facing the girls who work in bars and
coffee-shops, and their occupational culture. In contrast to the more
limited but also more evenly distributed opportunities in brothel or
massage parlor prostitution, these girls face greater but much more
uneven and fluctuating opportunities. The difference ensues from
differences in the institutional structure of brothels and massage
parlors as compared to bars and coffee-shops, the different position of
the girls in these establishments and the differences in the nature of
the customers:
A Brothels and
massage parlors are closed institutions, and the girls are prohibited
from leaving with their customers, at least during work hours; hence
they are limited to routine, mostly short-time sexual intercourse, and
consequently are also more routinely remunerated than the more
independently operating bar and coffee-shop girls;
b. Bar and
coffee-shop girls, owing to their relative independence do not have to
share their income with the establishment and various intermediaries;
however, they also do not enjoy the protection which such establishments
provide to their employees;
c. Bar and coffee
shop girls work most with farang customers, who, being predominantly on
vacation and free from normal obligations and impediments, are more
willing to spend money and to get involved in an adventure than the more
sedate customers of brothels or massage parlors, who are either locals
or resident farangs, encumbered with various obligations or impediments.
The number of vacationing farangs, however, fluctuates owing to seasonal
and global economic factors, a circumstance which causes considerable
fluctuation in the girls' income.
d. The work
situation of the girls thus features both considerable opportunities as
well as much uncertainty, and even risk. It is this combination of
opportunity and risk which poses a series of dilemmas for the girls; the
occupational culture of the girls can be seen largely as an attempt to
resolve these dilemmas:
Opportunism vs.
security: the highly skewed and fluctuating opportunity structure facing
bar and coffee-shop girls induces in them a marked opportunism; but such
opportunism increases the risks of their trade and induces its opposite
-- a search for security through protracted liaisons. The great majority
of these are temporary -- they last at most for the length of a tourist'
s stay; some, however are more protracted, extending through
correspondence and repeat visits, for several years, and leading, in
some cases, to a master-mistress relationship. Open ended prostitution
is thus an optimizing strategy which combines opportunism with the quest
for security under conditions of a highly skewed and fluctuating
opportunity structure.
It should be noted,
however, that these two concerns, unaximal exploitation of opportunities
and achievement of security reflect in a concrete, localized form the
two poles of one of the principal pair of contradictory Thai cultural
codes: the emphasis on individual independence, on the one hand, and on
structural hierarchy on the other (Cohen, 1984)5. Opportunism in
open-ended prostitution is the girls' version of the wider cultural
tendency to individualism, while the emphasis on security is their
version of integration into a social hierarchy, their waiving of
insecure independence for secure dependence, finding its fullest
expression in the wider Thai society in the diatic kinship or
patron-client relationship, and in the concrete case of the girls, in
the establishment of a mistress-master relationship. The hierarchical
principal characteristic of much of Thai society is thus extended to the
farang, who comes to play the patron's role and finds himself burdened,
often to his uncomprehending astonishment and dismay, with a series of
social obligations which automatically fall to his part. While even Thai
patron-client relations are frequently unstable, relations with farang
clients are even more so --since the impermanency of the patron's
presence facilitates the girl's involvement in new relationships during
his absences.
(2) Work and Game:
etically seen, open ended prostitution, like all full time prostitution,
is work -- the girl has to attend daily to her job, wait long hours for
a customer, conduct repetitive and boring conversations with
unattractive and often uncomprehending foreigners; emically, however, it
is more of a game in which the girls compete, with skill and daring, and
what they consider "luck", for the prizes which the prospective
customers offer. While such an attitude may be foreign to the neutral,
professional, Western prostitutes, it very much reflects in the concrete
area of prostitution, a wider Thai cultural attitude emphasizing
preference for activities which are pleasurable or fun (sanuk)
(Phillips, 1965: 59-61), and an aversion to purely neutral,
reward-oriented "work".
(3) Economic
Interest and Emotional Involvement: open ended prostitution is
predicated upon an extension of the initial mercenary encounter between
the girl and her customer into a more protracted relationship. Thereby,
however, the nature of the relationship is frequently changed into a
"mixed" one, involving on the part of the girl both economic interests
and emotional involvement; though such a development agrees with the
girl's tendency to assimilate the relationship to a patron-client one,
it also generates, from the farang's point of view, considerable
ambiguity and leads to misunderstandings and conflicts.
This review of the
contrary tendencies in open-ended prostitution leads to our concluding
question: the extent to which open-ended, tourist-oriented prostitution
signifies social change in Thailand, as Keyes recently argued, or,
contrariwise, is just another novel expression of pervasive and
persevering Thai cultural trends.
The concept of
change is thus not an absolute, but depends on one' s frame of
reference. Open-ended prostitution at first view involves considerable
change; a more detailed analysis, however, reveals a surprising degree
of cultural continuity -- though it could be claimed that the balance
between the traditional cultural codes has, in open-ended prostitution,
shifted so much to the individualistic (though opportunistic pole, and
structural hierarchical checks have been so weakened), that Thai culture
has been distorted out of recognition. Moreover, a clear break with the
past and a definite, indisputable "change" has taken place in those
cases where the girls themselves substituted a modern Western emic
perspective on their job for the Thai one· that such a substitution
exists has been shown by our analysis of their differential emic
interpretations of the various types of relationships with farangs. Our
data, however, is insufficient to determine whether the shift to a
Western perspective dominates the scene of open-ended prostitution, or
whether the majority of the girls still interpret their relationships
with farangs in terms of a more traditional Thai emic perspective.
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