WARNING: if looking at pictures men you might call attractive women if you didn't know any better offends you or makes you feel uncomfortable with your sexuality, neglect this post.
It's a touchy subject, but I don't care.
This winter, I’ll be going to Thailand to teach English to Thai kids and businessmen. I’ll spend 2 months in Phuket getting my feet wet in the touristy oasis of Thailand that is Phuket City before heading north to Bangkok where the real adventure is. So as one might expect, I’ve been doing as much research into the country with which I have had absolutely zero prior experience as is humanly possible. However in surfing the internet I’ve discovered one very disconcerting thing about Thailand…
Sex tourism is
HUGE in Asia. As elephantine as it is lucrative, in fact. It’s legal in every country in the world where prostitution is not effectively illegal. At the most demeaning level, a sex tourist is an adult who travels abroad in order to have legal consensual sexual relations with another adult often for the exchange of money or presents.
Ugh.
Now, first I would like to point out that prostitution exists virtually everywhere in the world with the exception of maybe the Vatican City and the Antarctica (unless emperor penguin populations have hookers, which, to my knowledge, they don’t). So why am I making such a big deal about it? Well, I’m raising a stink because in Thailand, there aren’t only prostitutes, there are
katoeys.
Katoeys are Thai men who pose as women. More than that though, they pull it off with astonish and terrifying proficiency. In Thailand, Katoey life is actually a culture. They seem to be “singled out” at a very young age (presumably if effeminate characteristics, both physical and emotional, develop) and begin a rigorous campaign of hormone therapy, breast implantation, genital reassignment surgery, and even operations to reduce the size of their Adam’s apple.
And like I said, many of the “girls” pull it off:
(
safe, albeit sexually suggestive links) http://www.sexwork.com/Thailand/Graphics/ladyboy4.jpg http://www.sixsixfive.com/cutetrannie.jpg http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...px-Kathoey.jpg
So now I’m absolutely terrified to go to Thailand for fear of getting plastered in a bar, waking up in a seedy ‘One-Night-Hotel’, and rubbing the sleep out of my eyes just in time to see a Thai ladyboy standing over a toilet and zipping up his fly.
Luckily, from what I understand, they’re not generally sexually aggressive, unless of course, you give them reason to be, or katoeys is really your thing. Well, boys and girls (and boygirls) it ain’t mine, so I’ll definitely be inclined to check the plumbing on any fine Asian women I set my sights upon.
But seriously, I really want to know why homosexuality and transgender culture thrives so openly in Asia (particularly the southeast) when in the West its still taboo and El Stupido Presidente Bush passes laws against gay marriage? Hell, in Japan, stars like
Mana,
Gackt Camui, and
Kagerou pioneered the Visual Kei movement to the point where Japan’s entire media (yes, Razor Ramon
Hard Gay included) revolves around suggestively effeminate and heterosexually emasculating themes. Is it merely a cultural thing? The world of the samurai was reputed to be a very homoerotic one; perhaps some elements of the old-world culture still endure today. Or, could it extend beyond culture, and into religion? Whereas Christianity looks harshly upon homosexuals, Buddhism (which is without a doubt the staple religion adopted by the greater majority of Asian populaces worldwide) practices tolerance and acceptance.
I don’t have the answers here, so I’m hoping someone else can shed some light on this. Maybe it will explain the yaoi and bishi trends common in many manga/anime series. On this one, I’m at a loss. All thoughts, comments, ideas, criticisms, and scrutiny welcome.
Hopelessly confused,
~Shigure