Pattaya, Thailand – In a daring nautical themed outfit, sex worker May confidently predicts the survival of Thai sleaze town Pattaya despite a junta attempt to tame the kingdom’s “Sin City”.
She is bullish because she, like tens of thousands of others in the industry, have no plans to give up their jobs. And there are no signs the hordes of foreign sex tourists are abating.
Two hours east of Bangkok,
Pattaya’s bawdy reputation hails from the Vietnam War era when American GIs
partied in their downtime.
Today it spins money off its
no-holds-barred reputation and its most successful sex workers earn anywhere
between 70-150,000 baht ($2-4,400) a month, as much as ten times the national
average wage.
”I make good money here, for me
and my family,” May told AFP as she touted for clients near‘Walking Street’ — a
mile-long drag festooned with bars and clubs pouring out ear-crushing EDM
music.
But concerns about the impact
on Thailand’s reputation have spurred authorities to act, while frequent
reports of underage sex workers, drug abuse and mafia operations further muddy
Pattaya’s name.
May, who is transgender, said
the strip has felt more subdued in recent weeks as police and soldiers conduct
frequent patrols as part of a clean-up ordered by the censorious ruling junta.
Police Lieutenant Colonel
Sulasak Kalokwilas is one of those tasked with what many might deem the
ultimate Sisyphean task: weaning Pattaya off sex.
”We are suppressing obscene and
dirty shows. We’re trying to make those bars disappear,” he explained.
As he spoke, lines of women
stood behind him in revealing outfits enticing punters into bars with names
like Taboo and G-Spot as well as Fahrenheit — a nightspot boasting “The Hottest
Girls in Pattaya”.
”The lady boys and women
working there, they are not involved in the sex trade,” said Pattaya’s police
chief Colonel Apichai Kroppeth, echoing the kind of Thai police rhetoric
commonly divorced from reality.
”They work as waitresses, sit
and chat with customers, some dance in shows,” he said.
Bar fines, short-times
For many residents of the city
the latest moral outrage fits a familiar pattern: negative overseas headlines
prompt authorities to launch high-visibility — yet limited — crackdowns on an
industry that pays the bills for everyone.
”You’re expecting the poachers
to be the gamekeepers?” said one westerner who has made Pattaya his home, when
asked if the latest clean-up will work.
The sex trade is a cash cow for
the bar owners, girls, massage parlours, hotels, taxis, mafia and, many have
long alleged, the cops charged with policing.
Thais call it “pon prayote”,
says British journalist Andrew Drummond who reported on crime in Thailand for
two decades.
”It means everyone benefits… it
brings in massive amounts of money and simply couldn’t happen without police connivance.”
Apichai insisted there was “no
bribery for sure” in his force.
Prostitution is illegal in
conservative Thailand. Yet it remains ubiquitous for local and foreign
customers alike.
Businesses use a well worn
loophole to avoid prosecution, hiring sex workers inside the bars merely to
entertain and talk to patrons.
A small “bar fine”, usually
around 500 baht ($14), secures private “short time” away from the bar where any
deal struck for sex is purely between the punter and prostitute.
While authorities have vowed to
shutter the trade, there is little discussion on what happens to the sex
workers — who often support large families with their earnings.
There are no exact numbers, but
a 2014 UNAIDS report suggested some 140,000 females are employed by sex work
across Thailand. Tens of thousands are thought to operate in Pattaya alone.
Par for the course
Tourism officials are
optimistic for change, citing the increasing number of families coming to the
town’s resorts and its popularity for sports, such as jet-skiing and golf.
”In terms of facilities I think
we are already there,” said Suladda Sarutilavan, Pattaya’s director of tourism.
Last year some 12 million
tourists — seventy percent foreigners — visited a city which now boasts over
100,000 rooms across 2,000 hotels, from cheap backpackers to swanky golf
courses and family apartments.
While not everyone who comes is
a sex tourist, she admits the city’s seedy image and crime headlines are a
problem.
”It makes us feel a little bit
uncomfortable,” she said.
Two recent killings have
renewed the spotlight on the city’s reputation as a bolthole for foreign
criminals.
In January, British businessman
Tony Kenway was gunned down as he left the gym, a hit police linked to “boiler
room” scams.
In 2015 an Australian former
Hells Angel was kidnapped in broad daylight and murdered.
Foreigners who have made Pattaya
home lament the killings, but say they fail to tell the wider picture of a
largely safe, affordable city.
”Every night I went out in
Coventry there was always one or two fights. I feel completely safe here,” said
Briton Bryan Flowers, who moved to Pattaya a decade ago and now owns a dozen
bars.
Others argue fancy hotels,
malls and golf courses can flourish in step with the town’s party reputation.
”It’s why a lot of people come
here,” Simon Peatfield, another Brit who owns restaurants and sports bars,
said.
”There’s only so much golf you
can play.”
ANN
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