#MeToo
I recently read that this bunch of frustrated woman celebrated the 1 year foundation of their club. Congratulations!
For the sake of female readers of Stickman, and I should think there are not too many, it would be advisable to add two preliminary remarks here. <Google Analytics statistics show that 14% of visitors to the Stickman site are female – Stick>
The following opinions, anecdotes, and other related events are my own and exclusive thoughts. They may or may not be other readers’ views.
Secondly; I would never condone or tolerate violent or improper behavior towards any woman at any age. The question here is how many of these meToo stories are real and genuine. How many are partly real, exaggerated or worse, made up out of pure sensationalism.
So, here goes:
Currently, a time when a large number of woman on the planet claim to have been sexually molested, harassed or abused, made indecent proposals or even raped at times and then suddenly remembered the incidents 30, 40 or more years later. Others two months or two weeks ago and a few the day before yesterday.
Now let me relate to some incidents that occurred years ago before my retirement when I was at the helm of a tour operating company in Phuket.
The low season months from May – September were mostly filled out with promotional work. Be it in the office, by telephone, fax and letters, later on the internet. Followed by the much-anticipated yearly 3 or 4 weeks of promotional tours in Europe combined with a few days of my country’s widely known sightseeing spots. I was accompanied by two of the most commendable staff members of the past months or years.
Often when one of the girls on tour or back at the office secured an important booking I felt praise was due and appropriate. As an example, let’s say a satisfied client that for the 5th or more years following confirmed a booking. Or a small or medium-sized tour group on a Thai round trip package. Even once an entire football club on their yearly outing after a successful season. Players, manager or coach, club officials and the president. A total of 28 travelers.
On such occasions I would often single out the girl or girls involved in securing the successful booking and show my appreciation with a friendly and hearty slap on their butt.
Naturally, the girl or girls would immediately drop everything they were doing and run to the next police station to inform on a sexual abuse case performed by their very own boss.
Eeeehhh, no they would not of course. Instead they’d turn to me and give me that smiling, polite wai, with a slight bow of the head. The Thai way to show appreciation for having well done and content of being praised for the good work. This behavior naturally implied longstanding familiarity over many years sometimes and was understood and accepted on both parts.
That was not the case of the inebriated farang that in a Phuket go-go bar went up on stage and started to grab the girls’ breasts and butts probably thinking all was allowed in such establishments.
Unknown is what was on this other fellow’s mind when he grabbed a female flight attendant in a similar way years back on a Singapore Airline flight.
In the first case the farang had a very unpleasant encounter with the security boys of the establishment and was later spotted with a swollen, colorful eye and a broken tooth. The second was simply arrested by police on arrival at Changi Airport.
At this point let me say that in the close to 20 years that I ran the company, I never had any kind of hanky-panky, improper or sexual relations with any of the immediate staff in my office even though the temptation was often palpable.
With girls not part of the local staff in Phuket but employed sometimes on a daily basis off the island, I plead guilty. The reference concerns girls doing local tours at various places around the country or sightseeing spots but not employees of my company. Girls or women that I met in or around their locality and often never saw them again. In such cases I’ve no problem to admit that when an invitation was perceived on the guide-girls part I was not the guy to say no.
To clarify, that was in the mid-90s when accompanying foreign travel guides on buses were accepted, even welcomed in most places. The reason; I often had guests from the French and German-speaking part of the country. If the local guide could speak French I translated into German and vis-versa.
Another recollection. That of a young lady accountant. She was originally employed thanks to good testimonials and many colorful sort of diplomas. All in Thai of course and I admit to not having been able to read or entirely interpret their value or status. Unfortunately the girl didn’t have a clue about accounting. I told her so at the end of the month and she knew it. She didn’t lose her calm though. She was young and very pretty. Of that she was well aware too.
In our short interview she made it abundantly clear and admitted that her practical knowledge with numbers and arithmetic were not as expected. But her other assets, she said with an inviting smile, would surely make up for the lack of solid competence in accounting. In this case I admit that the decision was not an easy one but I believe to this day that it was the right one.
I sacked her on the spot.
To successfully prosper with my growing tour company in this situation was more important to me than the sexy ass of young lovely.
I have a good friend (lady) quite opulent and at a somewhat advanced age that spends every summer holiday in a well-known African country. Why does she go there? To meet up with Joseph. Joseph is a young, handsome and probably well-endowed man. He’s also dirt poor. Claudine on the other hand disposes of substantial assets and I can imagine that Joseph leads if not a prosperous, certainly a comfortable life during the 10- or 11-month intervals of Claudine’s absence.
Yes, I know there are many other “ladies” with the financial means to entertain young toy-boys and not only in Africa. Much was made earlier this year in the Swiss press about the affaire Sharon Stone entertained during several months with a young, handsome toy-boy 20 years her junior in Zurich.
To this day no complaints have been registered of these or similar cases, at best a knowing smile or could it possibly be envy.
But more importantly, no one has yet suggested that it was now perhaps time to create a male oriented #meToo branch to protect sexually harassed or abused males from belligerent and aggressive woman.
But back to Thailand.
About 20 years ago somewhere in a small village between Khon Kaen and the large Ubolratana reservoir I was on a prolonged weekend journey. With me was a pretty young girl from the village that I had met only days before at what is now called “the world’s largest adult entertainment center”. I had been planning to explore by hiking the picturesque walkways around the dam and the girl was eager to participate and show me the best itinerary.
Naturally it did not escape my attention that her main agenda was to meet the family. Helping (read foot the bills) to repair a leaking roof and install some new water pipes leading to the outside bathroom and the water tank. These were my fairly reasonable contributions to the family plus the salary of the bargirl.
The main event however took part after sundown. On a nearby empty field a large screen was put up and a very ancient projector installed, possibly a remnant of the Nickelodeon times of early movie shows in America. The powerful illuminating source to project the film on the ancient projector on the large screen 50 meters or more away came from longish, silvery looking lightening sticks that burned down in 15 or 20 minutes. They needed to be replaced. Same thing when the large film reels had to be changed. Each interruption took several minutes and was probably the main reason the event had such a large following.
For 5 minutes the field became pitch dark. The young couples, meaning the ever so shy and bashful girls during the day and the polite young man at daytime rapidly became intertwined to take advantage of the moment. Kissing is not popular in rural Thailand so the young lovers simply did a shortened version of what they observe animals doing during the day at any time and any place.
Nothing particularly extraordinary here, perhaps you did the same in the old drive in movies in America. One difference tough. While the audience was made up of mostly young people a number of them where law enforcement officers possibly entertaining their mia-noi. Not in uniform of course. So how do I know? My girlfriend pointed them out to me. One of them, she said, was a one-time lover of hers.
Once the show was over everybody went their way but not before the movie crew announced their next venue to town followed by applause and hurray’s of the crowd. The next day was a day as all others before and after. No complaints, no lamenting girls, no law suits. My honest opinion is that these girls enjoyed the movie nights just as much as the boys.
Thailand and Asia in general cannot be compared to the rest of the world I hear you say and you would be partly right. Especially America and to a lesser degree Europe.
Several years ago some Stick submitter penned a story I believe titled “the pendulum” The principal point of the story was that while the pendulum was currently swinging to the woman’s side and this often in court divorce judgements and other cases. The movement would inevitably in time swing the other way again, he said. I liked the story and also the way he (or perhaps it was another contributor) created the term Feminazi. A word that fits some, not all, of the meToo contributors in the feminist press or media.
So what is the moral of the story?
Let girls (woman) be girls and boys (men) be boys.
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The author can be contacted at : ILDEDEKLOTH@hotmail.com
