I came to Thailand with one concept of the white man/Thai girl relationship in mind, but it didn’t take long to realize how complicated the issue really is.

The more I stay here though, the more depressing I find it. =(

I’m waiting for the day when the average Thai girl is rich enough and free enough to go flying off to Europe or North America herself if she really wants to date a foreigner.

Wouldn’t that be an interesting day?

You know… I’ve heard of that movie and have never been able to bring myself to watch it.

As I keep thinking about this issue, I wonder what the phenomenon of sex tourism (or whatever anyone wants to call it) says about Westerners difficulties with the tough realities of long-term commitment. One of the refrains in the Ardin’s book is that Western men look for “love” in Thailand (though “love” is never really defined) because women in the US are overweight, poorly dressed, nagging, depressed burdens to “their” men. Thai women, in contrast, are portrayed as youthful, happy-go-lucky, blithe spirits who are happy to attend to men’s every need. I just think that the duality is way oversimplified–and I’m not sure it can be explained in a book, really.

A shame that the Ardins didn’t get some perspectives from the women involved. One wonders why? As often as not it’s the Thai girls falling in love and falling hard. When the ether wears off sometimes they find the undemanding older gentleman has issues.

Amongst the wide circle of Lao freinds we have in the US are a number of women from the Lao speaking part of Thailand. Last week my wife met a sister of one newly imigrated to England. She met her husband as she was working in a bar. He twenty years old and from a sheltered background. Her twenty one and newly working in the “entertainment” industry. According to her after their first night he was besotten and followed her around. They both still seem very happy. Must be something to those Thai girls. Ah to be young again.

Interesting that we westerers continually poke and prod the issue of sex tourism in Thailand.

Like the book you reviewed, most of the focus seems to be on the “tourists.”

A followup story (http://bit.ly/S9UZU) in which the NYT interviewed women who had just seen the film noted that “the movie has hit home with this audience because it affirms the sexual reality of women of a certain age, that even as they pass the prime of their desirability to men, libidos smolder.”

Ellen, the lead character in the movie says: ”If you’re over 40 and not as dumb as a fashion model, the only guys who are interested are natural born losers or husbands whose wives are cheating on them.”

Like the guys who flock to Cuba and Thailand, the answer for Ellen and her friends is a trip to Haiti.

With the advent of more forms of communication than ever, maybe these men and women can figure out how to meet each other.

Thanks for your input–and since it’s based on your own observations in Thailand, I give it plenty of weight. Perhaps the phenomenon does go beyond your garden variety sex tourism, but the authors just didn’t convince me of that. Once they’ve made their basic argument– “This kind of sex tourism (which isn’t REALLY sex tourism, they insist) is different.”– they don’t really build upon the argument; they simply repeat the same argument over and over.

I also think that even if the phenomenon IS different, there’s still the question of what prompts Thai women to fulfill this fantasy for Western men (money/economic stability, usually) and you’re right: a far more complex treatment of the entire subject is needed. Unfortunately, I think this particular book just scratches the surface.

Even so, the situation is so enormously complex that I don’t think “a desire to experience the exotic” accurately sums up any part of it. I’m sure there are plenty of old white guys who go to Thailand for two weeks to have sex with exotic Asian girls, but the fascinating part of Southeast Asia’s sex tourism industry are the men who have, as you said, “upend[ed] their entire lives in order to see or be with these women time and again.”

In many situations, what’s really going on is men who have failed in love – either because they aren’t very good at it or they’ve indeed been driven away by the women of their native countries – are discovering that they can literally buy affection from Thai girls (whether it’s ‘genuine’ is certainly a matter of debate, but I’d argue that it doesn’t really matter). There’s nothing new about these men, they’ve always existed. The difference is that with the development of Southeast Asia as a tourist destination they have a place to start over instead of dying bitter and alone, where nobody would have ever heard of them. Exoticism has very little to do with it, and if these kinds of relationships were easily available in America or Western Europe nobody would go to Thailand for them.

Lest you think this is purely a male phenomenon, check out host culture in Japan – wealthy older women provide attractive younger men with gifts in exchange for their “company”. http://www.japanfortheuninvited.com/articles/host-bars.html

There are probably as many reasons for shacking up with a Thai girl as there are men in Thailand, but there’s something far, far deeper about this facet of expat culture than mere sex tourism. If the authors didn’t convince you of that, then I’d have to say the book didn’t go far enough. I’ll have to pick it up.

I’ll have to check this one out for sure. Thanks for the recommendation!