This is a paper that I wrote in May 1994 for my Politics of South and Southeast Asia class. While it may not be the hottest thing I've ever written, it made for a useful exercise in hyper-texting a research paper, full with footnotes, font styles etc. I think I shied away from analysis in this paper, and retreated into research. I had a lot of sources though!
Prostitution in Thailand and Southeast Asia
How to keep millions of good women down
The twentieth century has seen the rise of the world marketplace. In this new world market, Thailand and the Philippines have recently stepped in to play the role of whorehouse to the world. This is facilitated by developing agents having disregarded the development of women's opportunities for economic independence, leaving prostitution as the highest paying job available to many of the women of Southeast Asia.
While these countries have benefited from the tourist presence and the resulting foreign exchange, the women who actually put themselves out for their countries development process are to a large extent victims of threefold oppression on the basis of gender, class and the particular role of their homeland in the games of international political economy.
International Political Economics
"Ja, I like Bangkok very much. It's the last place in the world where you can still be a white man." - a German Bar Owner1
The idea of creating designated areas for sex tourism in Asia dates back at least as far as pre-Communist China, where "[b]rothel trains, given the euphemism of 'comfort waggons' were a long accepted part of social life... . Once lusty Europeans could book a ticket to erotic pleasure on some of the specially chartered trains out of Shanghai."2
But it was to be the Japanese who set up the most comprehensive network of "comfort waggons" staffed by forced prostitutes, or "comfort women." Many women "lived as captives of the military beginning in 1932, when Japan invaded China, to the end of the war in 1945."3 Forced to have sex with Japanese soldiers, the women were drawn from the Asian countries conquered by Japan, and included "Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, as well as Dutch women captured in Indonesia, then a Dutch colony."4
While the Japanese had fostered prostitution on a limited scale to serve their own needs, "the boom in Southeast Asia started with the U.S. presence in Vietnam. There were 20,000 prostitutes in Thailand in 1957; by 1964, after the United States established seven bases in the country, that number had skyrocketed to 400,000."5 It was this boom, and the resulting slack after the war that was taken up by tourism, that introduced prostitution as a large-scale business to the region.
This whole process was overseen by the governments of both countries. In 1967, Thailand agreed to provide "rest and recreation" services to American servicemen during the Vietnam War, which the soldiers themselves called, "I&I, ... intercourse and intoxication."6 How did the governments of these countries respond to becoming, in the words of Senator J. William Fulbright, "an American brothel"? One South Vietnamese government official responded, "The Americans need girls; we need dollars. Why should we refrain from the exchange? It's an inexhaustible source of U.S. dollars for the State."7 In fact, the Vietnam war was responsible for "[injecting] some $16 million into the Thai economy annually, money that tourism would have to replace after the war was over."8
Whereas traditionally, the military forces of foreign powers have utilized women of Southeast Asia as prostitutes, or "comfort women," now the soldiers of the countries themselves have taken over. In a survey of Thai students, soldiers, store clerks and labourers, "[a]mong the respondents who have ever patronized prostitutes, the soldiers are the most likely to have visited a prostitute recently: 81% respond that they have visited a prostitute within the past six months."9 In addition, "[t]he median number of visits during the past six months ranges from two for the students to five for the soldiers..."10 A survey of military conscripts from the north of Thailand yielded that "73% of them lost their virginity with a prostitute and 97% regularly visit prostitutes."11
Current government complicity in the "illegal" trade of prostitution can be seen on many fronts. From the soldiers to the politicians, the tourism bureau officials to the police forces, every sector of the powers-that-be have a vested interest in the continuation of prostitution; "many politicians, officials and policemen invest in the sex trade or benefit from it. In the northern province of Phrae, a senior Thai official says, policemen own some of the brothels. Thai newspapers sometimes suggest that certain politicians own chains of brothels."12 Indeed, in a pernicious twist to the idea of official complicity, taken to the point of collusion, "there are several recorded instances in which police, especially in rural areas, have handed escaping girls back to their abusers."13 One story in particular illustrates the forces arrayed against women caught up in this enterprise:
When a group of prostitutes managed to escape from a brothel in Thailand earlier this year, they were reportedly caught by the police in Burma, lock up, assaulted and raped, and then released. They were almost immediately picked up again by the racketeers and returned to Thailand.14
In Thailand, the official position on prostitution is that "prostitution does not exist because it is illegal,"15 which is explained by the fact that "massage parlours, restaurants, motels and tea houses may well offer sexual as well as other services, but they do not count as brothels."16 This side-stepping the issue "is a severe handicap to campaigns that seek to provide safeguards for prostitutes and to limit the spread of AIDS."17 But this doublespeak is vital to maintain a supposed clean bill of health for foreigners considering Thailand for their next sexcapade.
Ultimately, much of official complacency with prostitution is tied to the view of prostitutes as a national resource. During a South Korean orientation session for prostitutes, the women were told: "You girls must take pride in your devotion to your country. Your carnal conversations with foreign tourists do not prostitute either yourself or the nation, but express your heroic patriotism."18 These women play a vital role in the tourism industry which, "including group sex tours, is Thailand's largest single source of foreign exchange."19 Ultimately, what it comes down to, is that "young Thai country women are just another kind of crop."20
During the Vietnam war, the World Bank recommended that Thailand pursue mass tourism as an economic strategy; and theeconomic initiatives consequent on the bank's report led to what is routinely described today as a $4-billion-a-year business involving fraternal relationships among airlines, tours operators and the masters of the sex industry. In this sense, sex tourism is like any other multinational industry, extracting enormous profits from grotesquely underpaid local labour and situating the immediate experience of the individual worker - what happens to the body of a 15-year-old from a village in Northeast Thailand - in the context of global economic policy.21
Looking at the problem of prostitution from the perspective of class yields a dichotomy between the wealth and opportunity available to the city-dwellers and the poverty that is the legacy of the rural sector, the source of the vast majority of prostitutes in Southeast Asia ("One study of 1000 Bangkok massage girls found that seventy percent came from farming families"22). This is reinforced on multiple levels, including education, rate of development, development resources allocated and economic statistics: while "only 15% of the population of Thailand lives in the Bangkok area, [it] accounts for half of GDP. Income levels in Bangkok are nine times higher than in the north-eastern part of Thailand, where one-third of the population lives."23 The example of Thailand's development strategy serves best to illustrate this phenomena:the burden of Thailand urban industrial growth has been borne by the peasantry. In the first place, the much needed foreign exchange earnings for Thailand's initial industrial development were derived from agricultural exports, particularly rice. Secondly, Thailand's ability to attract foreign investors has depended upon its ability to guarantee low labor costs.24
This policy of artificially lowering the price of rice to encourage exports, and maintain low food costs for urban labourers, "...operates to transfer income from the countryside to the city..."25 Thus the perpetuated poverty of the rural areas encouraged migration to cities; and "[w]ith this migration process, the peasantry made its third contribution to Thailand's industrial development. It was now sending its sons and daughters to comprise Bangkok's swelling labor force."26 In the 1950s, these immigrants were men, but "comparison of the 1960 and 1970 census data on migration shows that the most notable change has been the increased proportion of females migrating to Bangkok, especially single migrants 10-19 years old."27
These women, once in the city, are then cajoled, coerced and condemned to take up prostitution as the highest paying job available. Then, once they have begun to make some money, in most cases, they send large portions of those earning home. An International Labour Organization study "found that of fifty prostitutes interviewed, all but four send money home. Most remit one-third to one-half their earnings, sums essential to their rural families' survival."28 That, or the women start off indentured to prostitute themselves to pay off loans their families accept from their daughters's future employers.
It has been established that "access to education is an important indicator for establishing the extent to which a community is benefiting from the changes that accompany economic development."29 In the case of rural Thai women, that access has been severely limited, due in part, it seems, to their rural placement and not their gender. At a very basic level,
[w]here countries such as the Philippines and Malaysia have concentrated on a quantitative expansion of education to expand and meet human capital requirements, Thailand has maintained a strong tradition of making educational opportunity highly competitive and taken an elitist approach to higher education.30
Not only does this attitude translate into fewer schools, but also "this emphasis on quality, up until the 1980s at least, saw Thailand concentrate the bulk of its higher educational institutions within and around Bangkok. By implication, this saw educational opportunity largely confined to this one major urban region."31 In the rural sector, figures from 1986 bore out 7,157,713 children enrolled across the six years of primary school in 1986, and 1,277,619 enrolled across the first three years of secondary.32
But while these systemic shortcomings effect all of the students in the rural districts, male and female,the shortage of government schools and teachers in rural areas has meant the continuation of traditional pagoda education conducted by monks and therefore not available to girls. Today, 30,459 temples still provide the main opportunity for schooling, and thus social mobility, for Thailand's rural poor - males, that is, not females.33
Evidence of this educational inequality can be found in illiteracy rates after a half a century of compulsory education, 6.3% for men and 17% for women.34
Once the problem is reduced to gender differences and inequality, some clear trends emerge. The most prevalent of these being that the continuing success of the prostitution trade rests on the perceptions of the clients seeing the women as both desirable in their exoticism and willing participants in the exchange.
The women of Southeast Asia are subject to age-old, deeply ingrained stereotypes and pre-conceptions; "[s]ex tours primarily market Asian women, described as exotic and docile..."35 There's the perceived "mystique of the Asian woman - beautiful, obedient, available..."36 Some descriptions are even more overt: "[a] Swiss tour operator describes Thai women as 'slim, sun-burnt and sweet ... masters of the art of making love by nature.'"37 These are the qualities that appeal to the foreigners; take, for example, this testimony by a "sexile" or a "sexpatriot," an aging European foreigner who went to Southeast Asia looking for sexual adventure:Now, ... he is reduced to buying himself a bit of affection, some excitement, illusions of comfort and consolation. He has contempt for Britain, where, he says, everyone has gone soft, men are no longer men and women have got too assertive. This is a recurring subtext in the testimony of the sexiles: Filipinas are anxious to please, they don't ask questions, are docile and submissive. "What d'you expect in a woman," says Mike defiantly.38
Even, when you approach the subject of development programs that might offer some hope of redemption, some opportunity "...to create viable income producing alternatives in poor villages that can compete with the earning powers of prostitution,"39, women are denied solely on the basis of their gender; "Aid programmes and information, when available, are almost invariably channeled through men."40
In the midst of this analysis of political economy and gender and class, and the effects they have on prostitution, a moment must be taken to examine the deleterious effects of prostitution on the women who work it. Disease is a constant threat to these prostitutes, some of whom have sex with upwards of eight or nine men a day. Studies have shown that in some locales, more than forty per cent of the prostitutes have venereal disease.41 Also, when, as is often the case, they are started young, "boys and girls are more vulnerable to infection because they are prone to lesions and injuries in sexual intercourse."42 And risk is also increased when the women continue prostituting through their menstrual cycle, as they are wont to do, to avoid the fines levied by bars for taking time off for their periods. Besides those risks, the women often "go deaf because of the incessant loud music in the bars and suffer intestinal disorders because they are forced to throw up so as to keep ordering expensive drinks."43
The physical suffering borne by these women is often unbearable without the aid of drugs. Take, for example, this story of a young prostitute:After having my body ravaged by several customers in a row, I just get too tired to move my limbs. At times like this, a shot of heroin is needed. This enables me to handle five or six men in a single night. I can't help but take the drug in order to keep myself in working condition.44
A United Nations study of a thousand Thai prostitutes revealed that a quarter were regular users of speed, barbiturates, and heroin. All these serve to keep the women indebted to and dependent on yet more unhealthiness.
Finally, the question begs itself: "How does a young Thai woman, normally very shy, dance naked in front of strangers or sleep with them? 'You make yourself very empty,' says Noi, a former prostitute..."45 And after they have been through this experience of prostituting themselves, often there is a need for "counselors for the girls who had been mentally affected by their ordeal"46 - a need, of course, which remains unmet for the vast majority of Southeast Asian prostitutes.
The men, on the other hand, ride the other end of the equation. Whether foreign or local, the men are willing to use the women to satisfy their sexual needs at an incredible rate. This often without regard to disease or any common moral restraints, including age: prostitutes as young as seven are often bartered alongside their older counterparts.
While the foreign aspect of prostitution in Thailand and the Philippines may garner the most attention and money, most of the customers, patronizing the cheapest establishments, are native: "[a]ccording to reliable surveys of sexual behaviour, every day at least 450,000 Thai men visit prostitutes"47 (emphasis mine). Thus, much of the impetus sustaining the incredible rate of prostitution in Thailand is cultural; "Thai men think it is their right to have cheap sex, ... and there are enough poor Thai women to make it possible."48 Prostitution in many cases has become integrated with initiation rights: "[f]or many Thai men, a trip to the neighborhood brothel is a rite of passage, a tradition passed from father to son."49 Certainly, prostitutes play a large part in forming the sexual identity of young Thai males; "a demonstration of heterosexual orientation by having sex with a female prostitute is an important rite of passage for some groups of Thai men."50 This is borne out by the available statistics: "[s]tudies show that the majority of Thai men have their first sexual experience with a prostitute - the act is often a part of high school and university hazing rituals - and that 95% of all men over 21 have slept with a prostitute."51 In addition to rites of passage, the activity of visiting a whorehouse has become a social activity in many cases, "'Sex with prostitutes seems to be a way for men to enjoy each other's company,' notes Barbara Franklin of Care International, ... 'It is often part of a night out with friends who share food, drink and sometimes even sexual partners.'"52
This fosters a deep imbalance in the attitudes most Thai men have towards women and sex; "[m]ost men consider women to be either sexual objects of obedient homemakers."53 And the rift between the sexes deepens when one considers the sexual roles prescribed each:And while it is perfectly acceptable for men to visit prostitutes, premarital sex between men and women who are dating is strictly forbidden. Many Thais believe that this double standard has helped create the thriving sex trade. "In Thailand, women are supposed to be chaste until marriage and monogamous afterward," says writer and social critic Sukanya Hantrakul. "Men are supposed to be promiscuous."54
Indeed, a survey of both sexes by the Deemar Corporation in 1990, bore out that "80% of males and 74% of the females responded that it was 'natural for men to pursue sex at every opportunity."55
The forced migration of rural women, girls in many cases, to the cities cannot be solely explained in terms of coercion. Many women "find their way with open eyes, drawn by the prospects of much higher rewards than they could ever earn even in a government job, let alone doing unskilled work in industry or agriculture."56 In the Philippines, "Hospitality girls can make as much as [US$49] a night, almost the average monthly salary in the Philippines."57 In a 1982 study by Pasuk Phongpaichit, a Thai sociologist, for the International Labour Organization "[estimated] the income of sex workers at twenty-five times that attainable in other occupations. Entire families in the countryside are supported on the earnings of one daughter in Bangkok, and entire rural villages are made up of such families."58
The International Labour Organization in Geneva surveyed 50 women who had made the migration to Bangkok to work in massage parlours to examine the women's rationale behind their work in the sex trade. Their findings summarize the economic thinking behind their decisions:The migration gave them an earning power which was simply astounding relative to normal rural budgets. A couple of years of work would enable the family to build a house of a size and quality which few people in the countryside could hope to achieve in the earnings of a lifetime...They were engaging in an entrepreneurial move designed to sustain the family unites of a rural economy... Our survey clearly showed that the girls felt they were making a perfectly rational decision within the context of their particular social and economic structure.59
Prostitution, in some sense, allows the women that are able to take advantage of it the opportunity to live the American dream, to enjoy and extend increased consumerism to their families: "[m]odernization and sophisticated advertisements have also brought new desires for consumer goods to villagers and a shift towards a cash economy."60 On the other end of the motivation spectrum, there are student prostitutes at the University of the East, in Manila, who "are putting themselves or their siblings through college"61 by prostituting themselves, primarily to other students.
In perhaps the most sad permutation of the prostitution situation, for some Filipino women, analmost religious belief in the promised land - America - adds to the attraction of the hospitality business. Many of the girls pin their hopes on prostitution as a way of achieving their ultimate dream: marriage to an American. For these young women their customers are people who can give them things, like blue-eyed kids and a condo, not AIDS.62
This scenario, however unlikely, was plausible during the existence of active U.S. bases on the Philippine islands. A 1989 article in The Economist reported that "around half of America's young, single servicemen leave their posting with a Philippine bride"63 - which, of course, left most of the rest of the women to be "rewarded only with sexual diseases... and unwanted babies."64
Now with the bases gone, there are few customers who stay around long enough to develop this sort of relationship with the women, in fact, there are far fewer customers overall, leaving the women without clients, and without skills, hence without jobs.
The Advent of AIDS
Perhaps what will be the final arbiter in the struggle over prostitution is the advent of AIDS to the brothels of Thailand and the Philippines. AIDS is spread rapidly and efficiently by the brothels because, basically, "[m]en do not like to use condoms, and the women can ill afford to refuse a customer who will not."65
The rapid onset of the disease is imminent, if not already in progress, simply because, "[m]ost of the men visiting prostitutes reported having nonprostitute partners as well. Of those men who had both types of partners (prostitutes and nonprostitutes), most men who had unprotected intercourse with prostitutes also had unprotected intercourse with nonprostitutes."66 Without a hint of irony, "[w]hile Thai men will wear condoms for family panning, ... they object to them with girlfriends and prostitutes"67 - meaning that the men that patronize prostitutes bring the disease home to their wives, and ultimately, their children.
The brothels also serve to export AIDS internationally as well. When foreign prostitutes become infected in the brothels of the cities of the Philippines or Thailand, they are often sent home to Burma, or Cambodia, or Laos, where they continue to spread the disease. In addition, "returning sex tourists have probably imported HIV to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan."68
This is an area where women can no longer endure their second-class status in silence; "women have a 10 times greater risk of contracting the AIDS virus from men than men do from women."69 According to one estimate, "at the current rate, at least 1.5 million Thai women will be HIV-positive by the year 2000, and so will one third of their children."70 U.S. News and World Report provides an economic breakdown, predicting that "AIDS could mean $8.7 billion in lost income - $2 billion a year in foreign funds is at risk - AIDS health costs could jump by a factor of 65"71 all of this meaning that prostitution could end up exacting a higher human toll than was ever estimated - leading to speculation that perhaps AIDS is some sort of retribution for the wholesale abuse and expliotation of the women of these countries.
Ironically, "no sector of the Thai economy has more to fear than the $5 billion tourism industry."72 In fact, sex tourists are already beginning to shy away from some of the hot spots of Bangkok and Manila. The combined human and economic costs of AIDS should soon jar the governments of these countries out of their complacency and denial, or else they could very well have a catastrophe of epic proportions on their hands.
Perhaps what best sums up the reasons for the continuing willing participation of many prostitutes is this remark of a 28-year-old Filipino prostitute: "Of course, I hate this, but there is no other way to make this much money."73 A young Thai woman asks, "Why work in a factory for 2,000 or 3,000 baht a month [$80 to $120], when one man for one night is maybe 1,000 baht?"74 As long as there are no other high-wage jobs available for those women, and as long as prostitution continues to pay more than the less detrimental alternatives, women will continue to choose prostitution in Southeast Asia.
And meanwhile, the official attitude of coercion and condonement is currently fixed because too many people make too much money off the prostitutes. I have spoken of prostitution as among the highest earning jobs a women can get in Southeast Asia, but in fact, "Korea Church Women United estimates that prostitutes receive less than one-thirtieth of the fees their patrons pay."75 Indeed, "Airlines, travel agencies, hotels, madams, pimps - all take a chunk of the prostitutes' earnings"76 - not to mention paid-off policemen and politicians. In one particularly astonishing case, it was reported "in 1979 that the Manila Ramada made forty per cent of its income from extra fees for prostitutes."77 If one can ignore the egregious human costs, the toll that is exacted on the young women involved, prostitution, simply the commodification of a basic human, basic male, desire, is profitable for all persons involved. In this world marketplace, taking into account our unrelenting pursuit of mammon, prostitution, as practiced in Southeast Asia, is merely an efficient, unrelenting articulation of our modern market values applied to male sexuality.
"The price of Thailand's prosperity," The Economist, 15 May, 1993: pages 35-6
"Protecting the tarts of Thailand," The Economist, 25 February, 1989: page 30
"Sense about sex," The Economist, 8 February, 1992: page 32-3
"A view from the bases," The Economist, 26 August, 1989: page 28
Balfour, Freddie, "Looking for AIDS, Joe?," Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 April 1987: page 112-3
Duggan, Stephen J., "Education and Economic Development," Journal of Contemporary Asia,volume 21, number 2, 1991: pages 141-151
Erlanger, Steven, "A plague awaits," The New York Times Magazine, 14 July, 1991, page 24-26, 49, 53
Gay, Jill, "The 'Patriotic Prostitute," The Progressive, February 1985: pages 34-6
Gooi, Kim, "Cry of the Innocents," Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 September, 1993, pages 36-7
Handley, Paul "Catch if catch can," Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 February, 1992: pages 29-30
Hantrakul, Sukanya, "Dutiful daughters on society's lower rungs," Far Eastern Economic Review, volume 123 (January 5, 1984): pages 39-40
Hitchens, Christopher, "Minority Report," The Nation, 29 November, 1986: page 598
Hornblower, Margot, "The Skin Trade," Time, 21 June, 1993: pages 45-51
Ladd, Ginger, and Hiebert, Murray, "'Flower Sellers' Bloom," Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 July, 1993: page 36
Lamont-Brown, Raymond, "No Compensation for the Comfort Women," Contemporary Review, volume 262, February 1993, pages 80-82
Lintner, Bertil and Hseng Noung, "Immigrant viruses," Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 February, 1992: page 31
Moreau, Ron, "Sex and Death in Thailand," Newsweek, 20 July, 1992: pages 50-1
Neumann, A. Lin, "Scandal in Manila: The X-rated Business Trip," Ms., volume 12, February 1984, page 99-102
Porpora, Douglas and Lim, Mah Hui, "The Political Economic Factors of Migration to Bangkok," Journal of Contemporary Asia, volume 17, number 1, 1987: pages 76-89
Rhodes, Richard, "Death in the Candy Store," Rolling Stone, 28 November, 1991, pages 62-70, 105, 113-4
Robinson, Lillian S., "Touring Thailand's Sex Industry," The Nation, 1 November, 1993: pages
Seabrook, Jeremy, "Cheap Thrills," The New Statesman & Society, 31 May, 1991: pages 12-13
Serrill, Michael S., "Defiling the Children," Time, 21 June 1993: page 53-5
Sterngold, James, "Japan admits army forced women into war brothels," New York Times, 5 August, 1993, late New York edition: A2
Tice, Carol, "Love for Sale," Utne Reader, January/February 1992: pages 37-8, 40
Tiglao, Rigoberto, "Students for sale," Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 July 1989: pages 46-7
"Selling sex does not pay," U.S. News and World Report, 27 July, 1992: page 52
VanLandingham, Mark J., Suprasert, Samboon, Sittitrai, Weasit, Vaddhanaphuti, Chayan, Grandjean, Nancy, "Sexual Activity Among Never-Married Men in Northern Thailand," Demography, volume 30, number 3, August 1993: page 297-313
Waller, Andrew, "A fight on all fronts," Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 February, 1992: page 28-29
1 Rhodes, Richard, "Death in the Candy Store," Rolling Stone, November 28, 1991, page 69
2 Lamont-Brown, Raymond, "No Compensation for the Comfort Women," Contemporary Review, volume 262, February 1993: page 80
3 Sterngold, James, "Japan admits army forced women into war brothels," New York Times, August 5, 1993, late New York edition: A2
4 Ibid., page A2
5 Gay, Jill, "The 'Patriotic Prostitute," The Progressive, February 1985: page 34
6 Ibid., page 67
7 Ibid., page 34
8 Rhodes, Richard, pages 66-67
9 VanLandingham, Mark J., et al, "Sexual Activity Among Never-Married Men in Northern Thailand," Demography, Volume 30, Number 3, August 1993: page 305
10 Ibid., page 305
11 "Sense about sex," The Economist, 8 February, 1992: page 33
12 Erlanger, Steven, "A plague awaits," The New York Times Magazine, 14 July, 1991, page 53
13 Hornblower, Margot, "The Skin Trade," Time, 21 June, 1993: page 49
14 Lintner, Bertil and Hseng Noung, "Immigrant viruses," Far Eastern Economic Review, 20 February, 1992: page 31
15 "Sense about sex," The Economist, 8 February, 1992: page 32
16 Ibid., page 32
17 Ibid., pages 32-3
18 Gay, Jill, page 34
19 Rhodes, Richard, page 65
20 Ibid., page 113
21 Robinson, Lillian S., "Touring Thailand's Sex Industry," The Nation, 1 November, 1993: page 496
22 Rhodes, Richard, page 69
23 "The price of Thailand's prosperity," The Economist, 15 May, 1993: page 35
24 Porpora, Douglas and Lim, Mah Hui, "The Political Economic Factors of Migration to Bangkok," Journal of Contemporary Asia, volume 17, number 1, 1987: page 78
25 Ibid., page 80
26 Ibid., page 78
27 Hantrakul, Sukanya, "Dutiful daughters on society's lower rungs," Far Eastern Economic Review, volume 123, January 5, 1984: page 39
28 Gay, Jill, page 36
29 Duggan, Stephen J., "Education and Economic Development," Journal of Contemporary Asia, Volume 21, Number 2, 1991: page 141
30 Ibid., page 145
31 Ibid., page 145
32 Ibid., page 146
33 Hantrakul, Sukanya, page 40
34 Ibid., page 40
35 Tice, Carol, "Love for Sale," Utne Reader, January/February 1992: page 38
36 Neumann, A. Lin, "Scandal in Manila: The X-rated Business Trip," Ms., February 1984, page 101
37 Robinson, Lillian S., page 496
38 Seabrook, Jeremy, "Cheap Thrills," The New Statesman &Society, 31 May, 1991: page 12
39 Moreau, Ron, "Sex and Death in Thailand," Newsweek, 20 July, 1992: page 51
40 Hantrakul, Sukanya, page 40
41 Gay, Jill,page 36
42 Serrill, Michael S., "Defiling the Children," Time, 21 June 1993: page 54
43 Hitchens, Christopher, "Minority Report," The Nation, 29 November, 1986: page 598
44 Gay, Jill,page 36
45 Erlanger, Steven, page 26
46 Gooi, Kim, "Cry of the Innocents," Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 September, 1993, page 37
47 Erlanger, Steven, page 26
48 Ibid., page 26
49 Moreau, Ron, page 50
50 VanLandingham, Mark J., et al, page 299
51 Handley, Paul "Catch if catch can," Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 February, 1992: page 29
52 Ladd, Ginger, and Hiebert, Murray, "'Flower Sellers' Bloom," Far Eastern Economic Review, 8 July, 1993: page 36
53 Moreau, Ron, page 50
54 Ibid., page 50
55 VanLandingham, Mark J., et al, pages 298-9
56 Hantrakul, Sukanya, page 40
57 Balfour, Freddie, "Looking for AIDS, Joe?," Far Eastern Economic Review, 9 April 1987: page 113
58 Robinson, Lillian S., page 495
59 "Protecting the tarts of Thailand," The Economist, 25 February, 1989: page 30
60 Erlanger, Steven, page 49
61 Tiglao, Rigoberto, "Students for sale," Far Eastern Economic Review, 6 July 1989: page 46
62 Balfour, Freddie, page 113
63 "A view from the bases," The Economist, 26 August, 1989: page 28
64 Ibid., page 28
65 Balfour, Freddie, page 112
66 VanLandingham, Mark J., et al, page 311
67 Erlanger, Steven, page 26
68 Waller, Andrew, "A fight on all fronts," Far Eastern Economic Review, 13 February, 1992: page 29
69 Moreau, Ron, pages 50-1
70 Ibid., page 51
71 "Selling sex does not pay," U.S. News and World Report, 27 July, 1992: page 52
72 Ibid., page 52
73 Neumann, A. Lin, page 102
74 Erlanger, Steven, page 26
75 Gay, Jill, page 36
76 Ibid., page 36
77 Ibid., page 34
outside links:Excerpts from Hello My Big Big Honey! a book of "Love Letters To Bangkok Bar Girls And Their Revealing Interviews" by Dave Walker & Richard S. Ehrlich.
Author and researcher in this feild Cleo the MOOflower Madam has a page up with personal anecdotes about her research experiences.