Overpaying, Underpaying
From the Desk Of Dr Jekyll
Ah, good old Dana. Good warm-heated, generous-to-a-fault Dana. The original ugly American. Hate him or loathe, him, there's no getting away from him. Don’t overpay bargirls, he says. It spoils it for the rest of us. Pay the market rate. Not a baht more, not a baht less.
Err, Earth calling Dana. I’ll pay what I like, mate. It’s none of your business what I pay. In fact, knowing that it pisses you off will encourage me to pay even more. Why? Because it will spoil it for the cheapskates like you. I look at it this way. If I pay a girl 3,000 baht short time, she's less likely to go with a scumbag like you for 1,000. Overpaying works. The pretty girls in Rainbow 2 in Nana Plaza won't go with farangs, because farangs won't pay more than 1,500 baht. The Japs pay 3,000 baht and more. Ergo, Japs get laid in Rainbow 2, the likes of Dana don’t. Sounds fair to me.
I don’t like cheap sex. Cheap sex brings in the low-rent sex tourists. Guys who just come to Thailand to screw cheap hookers. I like expensive sex. I like knowing that the girl charges more than the likes of Dana will pay. I like knowing that when a fat prick in shorts and flip flops leers at her and offers her 1,000 baht she's going to smile sweetly and tell him that he's wasting his time.
I don’t want to be where Dana has gone. I don’t want to sleep in a hotel bed where Dana has slept. I don’t want to eat in a restaurant where the fork has been in Dana’s mouth. I don’t want to sit on a toilet seat in a plane where Dana has plonked his fat arse. I do not want to have sex with a girl who has been on the receiving end of Dana’s jaded little pecker.
I am happy to pay for a degree of exclusivity. I’m not stupid, I know I don’t have the girl to myself. But if more guys like me overpaid then there'd be less scope for the likes of Dana forcing the girls to sell themselves cheap. Prices would go up and the likes of Dana would stay at home. Or at least stop having paid-for sex in Thailand.
I am happy that Dana stays at the AA Hotel in Pattaya, a well known haven for sex tourists. I stay in a much better hotel, pay more money, and don’t have to look at Dana while I’m having breakfast. I’ll happily pay extra for that privilege. I fly business class. Not because I need a bigger seat, I don’t. I don’t eat airplane food, either. Or use the business class lounge. I fly business class so that I don’t have to sit next to guys like Dana. If I had my way flights would cost ten times as much and airlines would fly one tenth of the number of passengers. Think how much safer the roads would be if car prices went up 1000 per cent and the number of cars went down by 90 per cent. It'll never happen. That's not the way of the world. So maybe I’m pissing in the wind by overpaying bargirls. But it’s my money and I’ll spend it how I want.
I do resent Dana telling us all not to overpay. I don’t tell him how to live his life. But he's an American and don’t Americans just love telling the rest of the world how to behave?
So, you pay what you want to pay, Dana. I’ll pay what I want to pay. The rest of you make up your own minds.
(Oh yeah, Dana, the reason the girl on the boat moved away from you was that she could feel you staring at her. She knew that you were thinking about her. And she knew you were a sex tourist. Not prejudice, mate, she was just a good judge of character).
From the Desk of Mr Hyde:
Dana is the man! The MAN, and I write that with capital letters. Top chap. He calls a spade a spade even when it’s an implement for shovelling earth. Damn right these guys who overpay bargirls are doing us all a disservice. A hooker is a hooker and there is a going rate for hooking. I remember the days when you paid 500 baht for all night and the girls were grateful for that. No condoms either, and you'd kick them out of bed if they didn’t take it up the dirt box with a smile and a khop khun ka.
I made the same mistake as Dana once and overpaid an ugly bird because I felt sorry for her. Never again. She was a crap shag and I told her, either pull your socks up or I’m cutting what I give you in half. Well, she cried and bawled and told me that her mother was sick and her water buffalo needed a new school uniform but I was as good as my word. She appreciated me all the more afterwards, I can tell you. Why? Because I showed her what her true worth was. I was honest with her, and honesty is a commodity in short supply in this God-foresaken country. She's in Germany now with her new husband and she's welcome to him. Yes, she got a big house in Berlin and two lovely kids, but she lost the chance to have sex with me for 500 baht a pop, so whose laughing now?
The thing you have to remember is that you get what you pay for. And you pay for what you get. When Dana walks down Walking Street with a 500 baht hooker on his arm, that's what he's paying. Why should he pay more? Why should any one of us pay more? If he stays in a cheap hotel, he pays a cheap price. He wouldn't expect to pay 4,000 baht a night to stay in the AA Hotel. He pays under 1,000 baht and if the sheets are dirty and the shower leaks, then so be it. Why should he pay US$3,000 to fly in the comfort of business class from his native Boston? Dana cuts his cloth according to his means, and if that means flying 8,000 miles with his knees under his chin, then we should all praise him for that. And if he chooses to support the poor farm girls of Isarn by paying them 500 baht for a few minutes of the old in and out, then I think we should raise our glasses to him! Praise to Dana! You are the MAN! And it’s not fair of those rich bastards who keep overpaying – don’t they realise that they're spoiling it for Dana and his sex tourist brethren?
We should all be following Dana’s example. Treat the locals like shit. Pay them as little as possible, because that way they learn their true worth. Give our business to the cheapest hotels. Eat at the cheapest restaurants. Screw the cheapest hookers. That increases the rate of trickle-down because you're helping those at the bottom of the pile, the people who need it most. What is an expensive hooker going to do with her money? Buy more gold? A bigger condo? Start up her own business? Send her sisters to school? Build a house for her parents? No mate, go with a cheap farm girl and pay her as little as possible, that way all her money goes on food and electricity, that way she has to keep working. Treat ‘em mean to keep ‘em keen, that's what I say. The less they get, the harder they work. Isn’t that what made America great, Dana? Isn’t it?
(Oh and Dana, don’t feel too perturbed by the fact that the girl on the boat moved away from you. She had obviously realised that when everyone else had gotten off the boat, the weight distribution had shifted. By moving across the boat she was merely making it move through the water more efficiently. I’m sure had there been more people on the boat she would have stayed put, and possibly given you a hand job as well).
Stickman's thoughts:
Interesting piece, though I don't think you quite got the arguments for paying top dollar right…so I guess you are a Mr Hyde…am I right?!
