Sleepless in Bangkok

by Ian Quartermaine

  However, more vacation-like and less polluted than Bangkok - due to the light breeze which blew across from the Gulf of Thailand - it suited many farangs. Ever tightening visa regulations and increasing costs ensured that the Thai government was doing its best to persuade them to leave. Goodbye, Pattaya.

  After the USA lost the Vietnam War - the heavyweight part of an international force which failed to defeat what had wrongly been considered by American politicians and the media, as nothing more than a bunch of unsophisticated Oriental peasants - resulted in great loss of face for the nation as well as the loss of so many young American lives. In the shame-filled aftermath, many former combatants discovered their own countrymen did not exactly welcome them home as heroes. The reverse, Vietnam vets were an embarrassing reminder of the vulnerability of a nation which, until that period in history, had considered itself master of all it surveyed.

  In reality, the North Vietnamese Army was a highly disciplined force expert in small arms and guerrilla warfare. They were also backed by the people of the North, whose hatred of colonial rule was reason enough to risk their lives for a cause. In contrast, the American forces were mainly conscripts just out of school. With no cause to fight for and no wish to be there, they were doomed from the start. They had not lost a war or anything else; politicians in their country had all but betrayed them.

  The same went for Australian troops. Their involvement in a war of no real concern to that nation - as Vietnam had no plans to invade Australia; they just wanted control of their own country after more than a hundred years of colonial rule. Bad calls by politician’s based on ignorance or ego, had sent far too many good men to their deaths. Often outnumbered, the Oz troops had given more than a good account of themselves. They had lost nothing other than the unqualified support of their own government. That and their innocence.

  Realising they were as disposable to their American-as-Apple-Pie-Motherland, as the paper cup containing the Coca Cola which normally accompanied it, a few ex-Vietnam vets stayed on in Thailand - their favourite place for R & R.

  But tightening visa regulations and a general hardening of Thai attitudes, persuaded many to leave the Land of Smiles. Conforming to the ‘law of diminishing returns’, far from managing to screw more cash from resident expats, their disposable income moved away with them. So Steven discovered many of his farang friends were no longer in residence.

  Over the years, Pattaya had created a kind of Disneyland for adults. AIDS ultimately fucked everything and the bottom dropped out of the sex industry. This was followed by the Asian Tiger economic melt-down, whence land and property prices started to fall. Add corrupt cops, fraudulent taxi drivers, liars masquerading as lawyers, property scams, packs of mangy dogs, buildings left to rot, roads untended and raw sewage polluting the beach, turned what once was a carefree happy atmosphere into one of dirt, sleaze, dishonesty and a ‘gimme’ culture. If you wanted a beach resort, there were many better places in South East Asia to choose from.

  If Pattaya’s worst enemy could have worked out a plan to destroy the attributes which had once attracted so many, local government incompetence, infrastructure neglect, greedy business owners and a predominately crooked police force, managed to finish what AIDS and the economic recession had started. Apart from old hands who remembered the place as it was before, it now mainly attracted lower orders of Arabian and Eastern European male tourists who saw the place as an Oriental version of Spain, but with cheaper sex. To discourage them, the price of that was going up. Add imported criminality to compete with the local variety, and Pattaya was well on the way to fucking itself completely.

  Watching two dwarves beat the shit out of each other in a bout of Thai kick boxing at the once notorious Siren Bar, close to the tourist police kiosk on Beach Road - each contestant earning no more than five dollars for their gladiatorial contest - a girl no older than thirteen, sat down and whispered in Steven’s ear. The coffee coloured Lolita’s softly spoken message confirmed that she was offering to smoke him for 300 baht. Once prevalent when the age of consent was 13 in Thaland, the girl was now jail-bait since Western governments had forced the Thai government to raise it to 15 - if they wanted their annual aid package to continue. If sex was exchanged for money, the age of consent was now 18.

  Steven declined. If he wanted that sort of thing he could go to the ‘No Hands Bar’, where as you watched a porn movie on TV, one of the not so young hostesses would suck you off behind the darkened bar counter. They sucked your big tip in exchange for a small tip. Pattaya’s own unique blow job factory. [*}

  Being so young, the girl must have been desperate for cash to risk being picked up by the cops. Albeit, three months in a juvenile home was nothing to the ten years hard which the man would get for the pleasure of having his dick sucked, or fucking a schoolgirl or boy. Or if he was lucky, a $10,000 bribe to the cops for losing the evidence.

  Steven felt obliged to give the waif-like Lolita 300 baht to go away, so she wouldn’t need to smoke anyone that night. Despite having the benefit of a cock sucking night off, she would still be able to buy her meal of the day at one of the many streetside restaurants, and pay for the small room she shared with her mamma and many younger brothers and sisters. Albeit, after she had conned some cash from Steven, she would probably accost another farang and try to sell him a blow job. Probably an illegal entry Cambodian girl, where sex with minors was not so frowned upon so much, the rest of Steven’s 300 would probably be spent on make up. Life could be hard in South East Asia - in every sense. Since Thailand got its own Minister for Social Order and bare nipples were banned even in go-go bars - except for bars owned by the local police - nearby Cambodia was poised to take up the sex-trade slack.

  It was widely known that the local gendarmerie collected a ‘tea money’ percentage from every ‘leisure’ establishment in the raucous, not wholly law abiding, former fishing village of Pattaya. Transformed into the most unashamed entertainment and libidinous services centre in the world, police cooperation with the local business community - or should that be local business cooperation with the police - aimed to ensure that the most open supply of sex in absolutely any and every conceivable format, would continue long into the future. That is, until the new Minister for Social Order was appointed. Ironically, appointed by a Prime Minister who was regarded as so corrupt, a Military Coup kicked him out of office and many criminal charges were filed against him! His example of ‘Social Order’even carried on down to his lawyers, who were jailed on charges of bribery and corruption. Do as I say, not what I do!

  Pattaya once sucked in a libidinous way; it now sucked because it no longer did. Albeit, it had managed to keep its sense of humour and penchant for fun. The Babylon Suite at the Penthouse Hotel, and its ancient Roman bath house, confirmed the Chinese saying: ‘The truth has many windows’.

  [*] For the not so young bar-girls in Pattaya, the No Hands Bar was one of the few places they could get work in the sex industry. ‘Penal servitude’ in its most lateral and literal sense, they crouched down behind a darkened counter. But it could be someone’s toothless grandmother or even a dog doing the business! There was also the possibility a disgruntled employee might take out a personal problem on a customer with a knife or pair of scissors. That would result in someone dropping a bollock for ever. Such an event would be the reverse of a cock-up - for the rest of the customer’s life. But there was risk in everything. Cum what may though, satisfaction was generally guaranteed - whoever or whatever did the business!

  26

  Glad To Be Gay

  Unbeknown to Steven, Rupert had also arranged to visit Pattaya. No more than a few narrow streets away, Rupert was visiting one of the many go-go bars where youths and young boys danced near naked. Pattaya was fast becoming a homosexual paradise.

  Having rejected the ‘Cocobanana’ [*] - probably the most aptly named, brown skinned gay bar in the world - Rupert left the complex of homosexual watering holes and pick-up points in Pattayaland One. He wo
uld seek out younger trade in the back streets adjacent to Soi 17. Not only were the boys younger there, they were also cheaper. As one of the British ruling classes known for keeping a tight rein on their generosity - Rupert would be in his element.

  A sweet young lad smiled and rushed over to Rupert as he passed through the entrance of a brightly lit backstreet bar into the dark and rather seedy atmosphere inside. Rupert kissed him.

  “You promised you would keep in touch,” the effeminate youth said, a petulant expression on his face. “For weeks I was saving myself just for you,” he added, lying through his teeth, as he’d given head to at least ten guys in the week after Rupert had left and his ass had been screwed more times than he could remember. In fact he’d been so brutally abused on one occasion, he’d bled. For a short time he was happy, believing his hormones had altered course and, by some miracle, had been blessed with a monthly menstrual cycle.

  “I had so much work my dear,” Rupert replied, lying through his teeth, as he’d had anal sex with nine boys in the final ten days of his last holiday in Thailand, and had given and received head more times than he could recall. It would have been ten boys but he’d had a severe headache on one day and stayed in bed alone.

  “Do you want to pay the bar for me?” the youth asked. “If so, you’d better tell me if you want short time or all night. I no longer trust you after your last visit, so we’d better keep things on a commercial basis.” [**]

  “Bitch,” Rupert thought. “I’ll tell you later,” he replied, having no intention of doing any such thing, as he sat close to a small raised stage where a dozen young boys in g-strings were go-go dancing.

  “Whisky, darling,” Rupert told a young waiter not pretty enough to sell his ass. “Not the local stuff. The only local stuff I like is human.”

  Rupert smiled at the youngest of the less than legal boy dancers. Officially eighteen, few youngsters from the country knew their real age and he was probably fifteen at most. Not that anyone gave a shit as the whole point of homo bars was to please the client, and the younger the boys looked or actually were, the more the clients were pleased.

  Should the kid be used in a scam - where a complaint would be made to the police that a farang was having sex with a minor, even though the complainants had set up the liaison - Pattaya’s finest would be happy to accept an unofficial fine. All concerned would welcome their share of the take. As to the kid, he was instinctively gay from birth and would not understand what all the fuss was about or why it was considered wrong for him to sleep with an older farang [***].

  From the kid’s cultural perspective, it wasn’t of course. This was something the sex is sinful, Western position would probably never understand. ‘The truth has many windows’, and sex was fun in Thailand whether you did it for free or for finance. Hard cash for hard dicks in soft places. Front or back, anything or any way you wanted.

  When the record finished, the lad Rupert had been smiling at stepped down from the rostrum. Unlike the bar, his provocative smile confirmed that he did not operate a no-smoking policy. Lifting him up onto his lap, Rupert fondled inside the young boy’s minuscule jockstrap. With teenage hormones raging, the kid almost came in Rupert’s hand.

  “You naughty boy, you just dribbled over my new manicure. I just paid 90 baht for that. I’ll have to spank you later,” Rupert said, looking forward to the event.

  “Baby’s sweet isn’t she? Just down from the country. I don’t think anyone’s had full sex with her yet. Do you want to take her for the night?”

  The deep voice came from the mammasan - an ageing queen who had obviously once been pretty but who now looked like more like a pantomime dame in a man dressed up as woman show in a seedy British seaside resort.

  Rupert gave the kid’s hard little willy another grope and kissed him on the forehead. Later he would do it the other way round - kiss the kid’s hard little willy and let the boy grope him. “I think so,” Rupert belatedly replied, as he handed mammasan the 300 baht ($9) bar fine.

  [*] The word ‘Cocobanana’ is a humorous derivation of the famous nightspot, the ‘Copacabana’. [**] Paradoxically, despite the fact that Thailand is known throughout the word as the seat of the sex industry, prostitution is officially against the law. To fully confirm this fact, the 1996 Prostitution Prevention and Suppression Act was passed. This meant that a law later placed on the statute book when the Asian economic melt-down occurred and Western aid was desperately required - placing Thailand in a position where it could be morally blackmailed - banning anyone under the age of 18 from working in the sex industry, was not and never could be valid. It is not possible to ban anyone of any age from working in an industry that does not legally exist, and is in fact against the law!

  A further paradox in the Land of Smiles, is that prostitutes are licensed by government departments in some districts and are given health checks before licences can be renewed! TIT (That Is Thailand).

  Perhaps the West could learn from Thailand regarding their blind eye approach to sex, as criminalising those who provide or partake of its services serves no useful purpose. In fact it encourages felonious activity. Australia, Germany and Holland have gone further by legalising prostitution. Like some Thai provinces, health checks have been instituted for those working in what is no more than a branch of the leisure and entertainment business. Too sophisticated for Bible-Belt America and bumbling Britain, where the concept that sex is sinful is pervasively woven into the system.

  [***] To maintain their overseas aid packages when the shit hit the economic fan in 1997 - after so many politicians, bank and business executives plundered the country’s coffers - the Thai government gave assurances that the Western approach to sexual morality would be followed rather than the guilt-free Oriental concept. To show their resolve, the age of consent was raised from 13 to 15. In the sex industry 18 was now the minimum age. Albeit, technically there is no legal sex industry!

  Unlike the previous ten thousand years in Siam, sex with anyone remotely young was now against the law. But it still went on as before, more often under the protection of the cops. So the pretence that Western rules governing sexuality had been introduced in Thailand, merely supplied the scenario for another scam. The only thing that changed was the price went up!

  Inscrutably, by showing compliance to Western moral values, the country managed to obtain ‘additional’ overseas aid. By facing all ways at the same time, everyone was happy! This included pimps and brothel owners specialising in underage sex who carried on as before; the governing elite who had thought up the plan to score more funds from Western taxpayers, much of which went into their own pockets; and overseas politicians who gained credibility at home by appearing to have done something politically correct abroad! Anything to do with sex was always worth some media coverage in the West, and any politician highlighting what could be passed off as something scandalous to the tabloids, would gain some useful publicity. Hypocrisy and self-serving agendas ruled, as always. Western administrations and NGOs could be really simple minded at times.

  Whilst posing as guardians of the world’s sexual morals since information technology allowed the PC brigade and religious right to more effectively impose their views globally, the paradox was that many Christian church personnel in the West had been sexually interested in young boys for as long as anyone could remember. The fact that a great many MPs in the British government were gay and couldn’t wait to vote for the homosexual age of consent to be lowered, was also rather hypocritical. So as Western administrations were insisting that South East Asian nations raise the age of consent to 18, gay British MPs were aiming to lowering it to 16, whilst seeking further legislation to reduce it to 14. Do as I say, not what I do.

  A further slab of hypocrisy was that the age of consent in other Common Market nations such as France, Holland, Spain and Italy, ranged from between 12 and 15! Only in the UK was it as high as 16. So much for the planned convergence of laws in the European Common Market! In much of the Middle E
ast it was also 12. Only in the USA has it been as high as 18. In Rio, it is as low as 8. Eight dollars, that is.

  Additional inconsistency is that teenage pregnancy rates are higher in the USA than almost any other nation, confirming that the ultra high age of consent rule is held in contempt and disregarded by those it was meant to govern! Second in the world teenage pregnancy league was Britain, which has the second highest legal age of consent. However, underage sex was always popular amongst the British ruling classes throughout the centuries. This was particularly so in the Victorian era, considered by those of a right wing political stance to be Britain’s golden age! Further hypocrisy, as ‘Great’ Britain was showing the natives the correct moral path whilst colonising (stealing) half the globe, it was savagely beating its boy children and quite often fucking its girl children.

  Under pressure from the USA, Japan raised the age of consent from 11 to 18. Ironically, blow jobs from a teenage intern for at least one American President was a part of White House life. Do what I say, not what I do.

  Yet more irony is that as the age of consent has been raised, the age at which sexual maturity (puberty) is reached has decreased. It can now be as young as 8! Years, not dollars. It would appear that ignorance, confusion and sexual hypocrisy are alive and well in the West.