From the Farm to Fornicating with Farang
By KorskiTry to put yourself in her place, and try to imagine, if you can, changing as quickly and radically as she is asked—nay, almost forced--to do; and, assuming you can change so quickly and radically, do you think you could control the speed and direction of the changes that are affecting just about every aspect of your life? I’m referring to that young Thai woman, invariably from Isaan, who suddenly finds herself in Bangkok or Pattaya or Phuket, and not working in a factory or some other respectable low paying job but among women who are exclusively catering to the sexual needs and demands of foreigners, or farang.
There’s no one story, and all kinds of exceptions, but having said this, let’s imagine what might be called a fairly typical case, and identify some of the many changes a young woman undergoes on her way to being a “successful” and “adjusted” bargirl or prostitute, and then down the road one that becomes a real pro at the game—manipulative, exploitative, clever, deceptive, and with a bank account and spending budget and life style to prove it.
So, a girl living in a village in Isaan hears through another village girl (or her sister--more of these cases than one might imagine, I suspect) that there’s good money to be made in Bangkok or Pattaya or Phuket fornicating for money with farang. She’s told she will be able to make money unlike anything her parents are making or have ever made, or that she can imagine making in the village or nearby city or in a Bangkok factory no matter what she’s doing. No doubt many girls don’t want to do what they imagine they would have to do with all these strange and demanding farang. But an incredible number of them, as history so amply shows, give it a try, and obviously a great many “succeed.” Some clearly don’t and they return to the village after a week, or two, or three. It just wasn’t for them...it’s worse than they imagined...English is impossible to learn....
The language barrier is very considerable, and my guess is that most of the girls find it very hard going for the first couple of months, and for some a considerable time period beyond a month or two. In the beginning, they literally understand nothing, not even how to ask those mantra-like questions: What your name? Where you from? You here on business or vacation? The words Thank you are utterly foreign to them. I no do is a phrase that probably comes much faster to their lips.
Then there is the shock of those first times with a farang. And the shock is real; it must be. They are looking at penises larger than what they have been used to with their Thai boyfriends or ex-husbands—assuming they have had some previous sexual experiences. What shocks them as much as anything—unless with Koreans and the Japanese--is not so much the length of the penis, shocking as this too can be, particularly when it bangs against the uterine wall and causes pain or pleasure (they’re not always sure which, even when they bleed); it’s the girth that disturbs them. Yes, the girth. They may or may not have had a child before turning to prostitution. But they still find it hard to accept (not all of them, to be sure) that they can “handle” the “fat” farang penis. All their looks of surprise and comments in the bar and the bedroom about penis size are not just idle talk and false flattery. In the beginning and for some time thereafter it is all real enough, and the beginning given the variety they see as time passes, is not a few days or weeks.
As far as I know, most of the girls come from sexual experiences not much more complicated than the proverbial man-on-top-of-woman, the classic missionary position. And because they are young, as is the Thai young man or men they have been with, and very much because of the culture they live in, it’s all very cut and dried. It’s all akin to what one sees in copulating non-human primates. He’s on—boom, boom, boom—and then he’s off. A couple of minutes start to finish (ask a Thai woman fresh off the farm and this is what she will tell you), and if there is foreplay at all it is of the sort that is probably briefer than a thirty second TV commercial.
Suddenly, for the young woman to find herself with farang in the sexual arena it’s a whole different matter in all kinds of ways. They’re older and they don’t come as quickly. They don’t come as quickly, young or old, because they’ve been drinking too much and have what in the West is known as “whiskey dick”—ten, fifteen, twenty minutes or more to get off; and even a quite drunk farang of any age can be quite persistent. It takes longer with the farang, a great many of them (most?), because they are using condoms, and for almost all men it takes longer to get off when you use a condom. And then it’s all further complicated by all the guys now using Viagra or Cialis, which makes getting a climax, especially when combined with using a condom, and when combined with age, and with alcohol thrown in, even more difficult. Some guys just don’t get off at all, or they only get off only by a subsequent blowjob or hand job.
Yes, blowjobs and hand jobs. Yet more adjustments for the young girl off the Isaan farm. As far as I know, no one really knows how many Thai girls have given blowjobs to their Isaan boyfriends or husbands, but my suspicion is that the percentage who have done so is very low—perhaps below five or ten percent. (One old expat who’s been doing Thailand hookers since the sixties told me that in those days virtually none of the girls gave a blowjob, and that it was the Americans who first started asking for it in great numbers.) And so another adjustment, and one that some never make, is taking that big farang penis in the mouth, and more than the first quarter inch which satisfies no man. Then, too, horror of horrors, the young and naïve farm girl presently discovers that having more or less made one adjustment—getting around to doing something resembling a blowjob, she comes upon that “awful” farang who comes in her mouth; and then all she wants to do is retch, and spit it out, and cough until she clears her mouth and throat of every very last hint of bad-tasting farang sperm.
There’s another adjustment that the young girl off the farm has to make, and it’s probably a small one compared to accepting the idea of “smoking,” or giving blowjobs. And that’s even knowing what the hell the farang is doing the first time he turns her over and wants to take her from behind—doggie style (not in the ass—no, that almost never!), as they learn. Doing it doggie style, from what I have heard, is not commonplace in the sexual life of an Isaan farm girl.
There’s yet more. There’s all the other positions that the farang asks for, or demands: going cowgirl (sitting on the guy—which they soon come to love for the control it gives them); doing it in the shower (now they’re really adjusting to the farang’s idea of novelty); or astride the chair near the window, or standing against the door or the wall (the bed will now never be seen the same way again when it comes to the pleasures of fucking).
Imagine the farm girl’s reaction when a farang for the first time puts his head between her legs and starts giving her clitoris a real go with his tongue and a finger or two. Dirty perverted farang! So so strange this big nosed stranger! Who knows what’s going through their minds the first and second and third time the farang pleasures the girl to massage his own ego? It’s hard to believe that the first time or two they’re not unsettled by it all. Soon, however, they learn that this clitoral manipulation and stimulation are more than okay. The farang has now taught them that it’s not intercourse that will so effectively get them off and wanting more, but the tongue or two fingers working the clitoris. Before long, they’re doing it to themselves while the farang is behind them and banging their heads against the pillow or headboard.
Imagine the farm girl’s reaction when the farang wants to take fifteen or twenty minutes to warm her up, and his tongue and hands are meandering all over her tight young body, all the way down to her toes; and then he’s in her ear with his tongue, which drives her half nuts and yet she loves it and can’t get enough of it.
How can a young girl beginning to go through all of this—hating some of it and loving some of it even more—ever go back to the farm boyfriend and enjoy the two minute boom boom, followed by one kiss on the cheek and no cuddle because he’s in a greyhound’s rush to get out the door to drink and gamble and spend whatever money he’s got in his pocket?
There’s so much more going on at the same time all of these things are occurring. Having to deal with farang who are fat, and ugly, and have bad breath, and insist on groping her in a way that she had never imagined possible. Having to learn from watching others that when the guy sits down next to you at the bar it’s more than an okay idea to put your hand on what he’s got and size him, and then suggest that you’re going to take him places with that arm length dick of his he’s never been before.
And there’s so much more to learn.
How to woo any old or young or beguiling farang and get him to buy you a lady’s drink before he pauses long enough to figure out whether you’re his “type” and wants to get up and leave without buying the drink on which you get a commission.
How to get him to believe that with that young body of yours and your always charming smile you’re going to give him sex like he’s never had before.
How to make promises that are just vague enough so that you’re going to be able leave earlier than he believes. You’re going to do a “runner” on him (you’re now beginning to think quite strategically), so you can get at least one more guy short-time, or perhaps a better paying long-timer, before closing time.
How to get the gullible farang to believe he’s going to be smoked like he’s never been smoked, and then after a long twenty or thirty seconds of some shaft licking and a bit more plead that he’s too big, or your mouth hurts, or you’ve got a sore in your mouth, or you only do it until the end of time with the boyfriend or the husband you swear you don’t have.
Then there’s the whole “bargirl culture,” a small world unto itself.
Where you learn to deal with the other girls who are better looking, or have bigger breasts, or simply really know the game and how to hook farang and get not just the lady drinks but the lucrative barfine and big baht money that follow in three hours or in the morning at the door. And do it just about every night, even in low season.
Where you learn to know exactly when to go short-time rather than long-time, and give just the right excuse to leave at five in the morning when you promised to stay until eight or nine. Or if you’re going to stay into the morning making sure that he buys you breakfast, and then takes you shopping, which can be the real payoff.
Should you, just off the farm and stuck up to your eyebrows in tradition, get your hair cut shorter, or curled, or dyed? How about getting all that fancy shit put on your fingernails and toenails? Should you get a tattoo? And where? And how many? What about getting a flashy belly button stud on a silver chain? Or getting the lip or nose ring, or a nose stud? Then there are the sexy clothes and the hot shoes and the eye shadow and the lipstick you start to think about, issues that on the money-poor farm were never an issue. All of this central to an enormous change occurring rapidly, seemingly overnight, literally in weeks, or a month or two. You’re able to hang in there and stay on the game if you’re able to deal with the massive assault on your sense of right and wrong. Just don’t lose focus: it’s all about money.
Should you require all farang to wear a condom, or make exceptions to what you’ve been told is the right thing to do: exceptions for those you’ve been with two or three or four times and who seem clean, and who you like more than just a little bit. You like him, of course, because he has a “big heart” or a “good heart,” which really means he’s not too demanding sexually and he takes you places you’ve been and, best of all, he’s putting all that baht in your hand or purse.
But what about the older farang, or young ones too, who insistently plead that that they’re disease free and they hate condoms and they just can’t come with one on, and who say so insistently: so what’s the problem going without? You want an extra two or thee hundred baht? No problem...
For some girls, a lot of this change is just not possible. They can master the English language enough to get by, but they just can’t buy into the blowjobs. They can handle the ugly farang but they can’t handle the over-the-top fat ones, or the smelly ones with repugnant breath. Or they can handle doing blowjobs with fat and ugly farang with bad breath, but they can’t—just cannot—deal with the unpredictable drunk skinheads with fourteen tattoos who turn abusive and want something truly kinky and are into slamming you until you want to scream.
It’s obvious that tens of thousands of young girls right off the Isaan farms have been able to make all of these adjustment and then some, but that some (no one knows how many) have not been able to do so. The incentive to succeed, of course, is the money, rather pure and simple. And even when not wildly successful with “capturing” farang in the bar, the girls can do very well, and they find themselves with money for themselves and for their families they never imagined before getting on the game.
What I suspect very few if any of the young girls can imagine is what all these changes mean. Where they will find themselves in one or two or five years—perhaps drug addicted, slutty beyond their farm girl imaginations, married to a farang and with his kid and scheming to get every last baht he has before getting rid of him. Or in the very worst case, diagnosed with the HIV, probably picked up not from a farang but from the drug-injecting bi boyfriend or husband who like all pimps happily feeds and prospers off the hooker girlfriend or wife’s earnings.
And how many understand—even a little bit—that once they start down the bargirl road their life will never be the same? It isn’t that they just can’t go back to the farm life of innocence and poverty of a kind that farang don’t understand; but that they are now stuck with a past they can’t forget, or shed. And like it or not they now have dreams and expectations, and nary a thought that as they age they become less desirable, and then more or less undesirable.
Ah, what a challenge for the girl off the farm and on the road to fornicating with one strange farang after another! A challenge that were I in her boots (and for a thousand reasons obviously cannot be) I could not imagine handling easily, and without in the beginning a genuine sense of fear about what might happen with that big hard-drinking farang who wants to pay the barfine and take me for the night.
Stickman's thoughts:
The second to last paragraph is chilling because it is oh so true and really hits the bullseye.
I once write that within 6 weeks of starting in the bar environment they may be able to escape largely unscathed. I am not sure if I still think that is the case.
The author can be contacted at korski1@cox.net.
The author of this website, NOT this article, can be contacted at: stickmanbangkok@gmail.com.
