Stickman Readers' Submissions January 14th, 2010

In Reply To Marc Holt’s Is It Moral

As I was reading Marc Holt’s submission about morality or lack of it, certain thoughts kept on bugging me.


First of all, since he admitted to thousands of liaisons with Thai bar girls, I have to admit he’s got something of a monopoly on the subject. For if you do that there has to be a certain progression to your ethical / moral compass getting skewered.

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Indeed by his own admission he had done this gallivanting only because he couldn’t find a suitable partner until some time later in life when he was finally able to abandon his business transactions.


I’m using his nomenclature here to highlight the fact that even in business there are ethics / morals which operate to the success of both parties to a transaction.


In the selling and buying of sex transactions, both parties are bound to get damaged to variable extents.

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Our own Stick has already mentioned this recently and he should know as he documents it on these pages.


What Marc fails to see is that selling one’s body in Thailand is an exercise not of free will but as a desperate act of economic necessity.


The punter who explains it as a free exchange of goods and services is rationalising it to free his own conscience from feeling of guilt and it has nothing to do with Christianity. It’s the moral compass we all grow up with (unless we’re talking about a psychopath) and one can only engage in thousands of these deals if we justify the means to an end, that is that the punter is actually helping the girl financially and therefore he can forget the emotional and physical damage.


In this process the punters can continue doing the same deeds and even be proud of themselves being


“benefactors”.

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Be that as it may, even “seasoned players” as Marc used to be must understand that Thai bar girls are human beings and not chattels.


One can have feelings for those misfortunates who are in a lesser financial position than us and who we can “buy” for our pleasures.


In case the readers think I’m a puritan let me state that I’ve also engaged in the P4P scene years ago even though I’m far behind Mr. Holt’s sexual appetites. However I never forgot that while I’m paying for a service it’s provided by someone who needs to feed others. Do they lie about things, many do, so what, many of us actually want to lie to… to keep up an illusion. Did you read Marc‘s aside that he also lied to bar girls when he told them in his moments of passion that he loved them? He could have just kept quiet if he wanted only the sex and not any feeling!


I maintain that morality / ethics don’t have to be abandoned even in the context of the Thai sex trade. Not in the case of a buyer at least, for if you do that you’re letting your humanity go.


Let's remember that nobody is as disposable as a condom.


I use this analogy advisedly. You may chuck away a condom after the sexual act but the person you used it on is not a spittoon. And you as a punter is not a disposable needle..


Having sexual intimacy even at the bar girl level is a human experience and just because you throw a couple of thousand baht her way it does not make the transaction even.


How about trying to put the shoe on the other foot. How much would you sell your body for to make it worthwhile? Of course it all depends how desperate you were, right?


There’s morality and ethics in everything we do, every day in our mundane actions.


We don’t steal when we can afford to buy, we pay our way instead of cheating along the way..we help those who ask for assistance..etc..


You can’t be an upstanding citizen part time..you can’t teach your children rights and wrongs when you suspend your morality when it suits you. Otherwise you’re not true to yourself.


I think I understand where Marc Holt comes from and I don’t even think his advice is misdirected; I just think it’s not properly thought out. Or maybe he just doesn’t remember too well. I mean it was an awful long time ago..and that brings to mind that during those years when Marc and I were partaking to various degrees in the nightlife the girls were quite decent and not mercenary at all. You didn’t have to have Marc’s attitude then, a lot of girls wanted to have a connection other than the money. Now in our consumer society the girls and the punters are a different species. I’m happy for Marc and for myself that we’re no longer in the “market”.


It’s just that Marc and I have different experiences.


So I wrote this piece to balance his.

Stickman's thoughts:

I still think Rahiri's submission summed up things well – there was much balance to what he said.

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