Thai Thoughts And Anecdotes Part 39

MORE TALK

No one else will say; so I will say it. I'll be the lightening rod. I'll take the hits. I'll be the sacrificial node. I think Thailand is a big sexual fraud. There, I've said it. I've said what others have thought–but no one wants to say. It is the universally accepted place for sexual license and pleasure. It is supposed to be the place on this planet for the best of the best sexually. Well, if that is so; then how come I do not see public sex acts of every description on every stage in every bar in Thailand. THAT IS SEX. If a place is supposed to be all about sex and selling sex, then when I walk into a bar I should expect to see man to woman sex, and man to man sex, and woman to woman sex, and animals. You can tell me that you don't find that personally appealing, but you can not tell me that is not sex! So where is it? I'm in Thailand. Where is this sex?

And before you get your chest all puffed up and start running to the dictionary to check on the spelling of the word 'moral'–let me ask you a question. Do you like sex? It is a 'yes' or 'no' answer. You can't have it both ways. So pick one. Did you answer 'yes'? OK, we have something in common. I like sex too. So where is it in Thailand? In which bar can I walk in and see sex acts of every description performed in public with athleticism and enthusiasm. The answer is nowhere.

You are still not comfortable with this are you. And do you know why? Because you are scared. You are scared to have fun and you are scared to have sex and you don't want anyone else to see your weenie. But you are really good at drinking and you are really good at storytelling. The pity of it is that it is not your fault. Society made you and all society is interested in is shoddy goods. People with limited options and small minds. Your big life dream is to have a 10 year balloon note on a leased fish and chips shop and spend the rest of your days cleaning up slop with your fat moustached wife from Manchester. Me, I'm dreaming about having sex with transvestite elephants. I guess we're different. I will drop my pants almost any time in front of any woman with almost no provocation. I end up having a lot of fun. This shouldn't make me special. But I find that if I tell stories of my behavior almost no one believes me. But I'm still not getting enough and I'm still not satisfied. Where is this wonderful adult uninhibited sex that I used to hear about before I booked my first ticket to Thailand? I am not talking about the ignorant farmer's daughter doing the Bangkok shuffle and winking at the DJ. I am talking about rooms and bars and venues full of screaming and grunting and violence. Violence and sex will give you a hard-on that you will actually be frightened of. You'll be holding a pot over the thing in case it explodes. Where in Nana Plaza or PatPong or Cowboy or Pattaya can I get a reliable dose of violence and sex and educated perversion? Answer: NOWHERE. How many of the girls you barfine will help you tie all four limbs to the bed? How many of these little future mothers will have duct tape and rope in their purses? How many know what 'golden showers' means? Or the pleasures of latex and rubber? Answer: NONE. And don't waste my time telling me that you wouldn't find one of these bars appealing. If I could set up a bar in the Nana with public sex and nightly fist fights and animal acts it would be the highest grossing bar on the planet Earth. Because big talkers like you would crawl over crushed glass with your asses on fire to get in the bar. The cover charge would be 2000 baht and I would be turning people away. And that bar would finance the real bar on the third floor where the Cascade is currently going through another death scene. In that bar, EVERYONE would have to be naked. That's right. Everyone. Even the customers. What's the matter? Nervous? But I thought you said earlier that you liked sex. Yeah, exactly. More talk!

PEOPLE HAVE NEEDS

When I was growing up the neighbors on either side of us had full-time, live-in maids. In one of the houses the wife was sixteen when she got married and one of her wedding gifts was a fourteen year old Scottish foundling named Edith who stayed with the family for life. The other neighbor was a doctor and his family also had a lifetime live-in maid. The maids were not allowed to smoke cigarettes in their master's houses and they were not allowed to gossip in their master's houses and they were not allowed to laugh in their master's houses. So every afternoon they would appear at our back door and my mother would let them in the kitchen where they would smoke and laugh and gossip. My mother pretended to disapprove of this low class behavior but I noticed that she was always there to greet them and she always had something for them to eat and drink. People have needs.

It is the same in Thailand. For example: When the Thais go to the temples there are many things they are not allowed to do. There are many rules regarding social behavior and dress. But directly outside the temple and sometimes still on the temple property will be places to drink and to smoke and to gossip and to laugh and wear shorts and maybe even gamble. People have needs. <Are you sure about this? Temples are sacred places and I have never seen nor known people to gamble in temple grounds – Stick>

I think this is one of the nice things about Thailand. The Thais recognise in a very open and adult way that people have needs. In my society here in the United States since the 60's, we have also been opening up and becoming a lot less hypocritical about peoples needs and urges and natural inclinations; but the Thais are way ahead of us. Considering the probable reason that I am coming to Thailand twice a year; the immigration officials are really pretty accommodating. I wonder if the United States officials would be as adult and as welcoming. When I bring my latest love into the lobby of the AA hotel in South Pattaya, Anna the tour director just looks at us and smiles. It is much easier to smile than to frown. Here in the United States there is still way too much frowning and judging going on. And in most cases the sexless are in charge of the scared. Not in Thailand. In Thailand nobody appears to be in charge of anything and nobody appears to really care. This is either something to be criticised or a benign indifference that affects everybody in a good way. The United States is a very, very open society. That is why even as I write this there are people swimming rivers and trekking through the jungle and climbing over mountain passes to get here. But we could still learn something from Thailand. We could relax a little bit more and chill out a little bit more. All of our education has taken some of the fun out of life. Everybody is a little too smart-alecky and way too politically correct. Not in Thailand. In September I was in Chiang Mai at the Doi Suthep temple negotiating with a vendor over the price of gongs and gong hammers. I really, really wanted them but the price was either too high or more money than I had. But the result was the same. I really wanted the gongs and the gong hammers. So instead of walking away, I hung in there and continued to whine and moan and make faces and negotiate. The woman vendor was in her 50's. I ended up with my arm around her as I tried to get us to a place where I could make the transaction happen. She didn't take offence at my arm being around her in a familiar way. She smiled. Here in the United States if I did that I would be slapped with a sexual harassment suit and be placed at risk of losing my community reputation and my family and my job and my career and my assets and my health. Not in Thailand. She just smiled and went with it. I bought the gongs! I like Thailand.

I LIKE SUBTLE

Young and green and innocent, I stumbled ashore in Charlotte Amalie in the US Virgin islands after a delivery trip from Miami to the Virgins. The captain's wife had been a butch shrew, the trade winds blew and blew and blew, the timbers squeaked and groaned as they slid over one another in the old boat, and the one eyed captain would sometimes forget to put in his glass eye at breakfast. After the obligatory coca-cola and the trip to the Tasti-Freeze I found myself on a hotel patio at night while a black calypso drum band played. They had the bodies of black adonises and eyes that searched out every white woman in the audience. The message they delivered was not subtle. It was island black man sex freely delivered to every dreaming single or married white woman. Thirty years later I can still remember the drama. Big and loud can be good and effective. But sometimes subtle can be good too.

Thailand is all about subtle. When I phone my US based Thai-owned travel agency to book airline tickets Enn talks in such a low, feminine, slow voice that I can hardly hear her and I can hardly understand her. First irritation–then the happy realization; I am back in subtle Thailand again. Where the female language politener is Ka–low and drawn out and slow like a woman pulling her night-gown off the bed. What's your hurry man? Aren't I enough woman for you? Are you really dreaming about someone else while you are listening to me? Of course you aren't.

Subtle is my trump card and my power and my allure and my mantra. No matter how long it takes me to finally finish the sentence with the final long drawn out Ka–you will wait; you will wait until I am finished. My hook is in your mouth and you aren't leaving until I release you. Power delivered without fanfare is real power. I worked once at the Rockefeller Rock Resort hotel on St. John in the Virgin Islands. A road was being cut through the jungle on the mountain top over the hotel. The cut was new so from a distance you could see the line of the cut in the jungle. One morning David Rockefeller was out in a boat and he saw the line in the jungle over his hotel. "What's that?", he said. It was explained to him. Nothing more was said. That night a gang of laborers was dispatched in a truck with a portable generator and 55 gallon drums of green paint. The road was spray painted green. No order had been given by David Rockefeller. But the Big Man might have been displeased. That is power. Subtle power trumps all else. Twice a year I go to the Kingdom determined to not get jerked around, to not be played like a violin, to not fall for the slow talking, big smiling show of subtle manipulators with long black hair. And every year I lose. Subtle power corrupts because it infests and takes over without calling attention to itself. It's power replaces your power. One day I was walking up the sidewalk of soi 13 in Pattaya. It was about 2 in the afternoon. There was a group of bored bar girls sitting on a window sill next to the sidewalk. One of the girls was sitting with one leg crossed over the other leg. She was wearing an ankle to neck sprayed-on black lycra body suit. Hanging off one foot was a black velvet stripper heel with a little pink bow. As I was walking by the little brown foot moved–the shoe dangled. More subtle and more powerful you cannot get. "Nice shoes!" I said. "Thank you", she said. And I moved on. But that is not what I really wanted. What I really wanted to do was throw myself down on the sidewalk and grab her foot and shoe and rub it all over my face as I squirmed and burbled like a baby. Her subtle power would have trumped my public shame and my sense of personal dignity. One word from her and I would have been her slave.

So big black men with 'I'll fuck you eyes!' works; but subtle works too. I like subtle. I like Thailand.

Stickman says:

Dana, I'm sure if you look hard enough, you'll find what you are looking for in America.