THE 'PATRIOTIC PROSTITUTE
Gay, Jill
The 'Patriotic* Prostitute_ Her country promotes her as an economic asset BY JILL GAY Germany's Rosie Travel sells sex tours to Thailand. "Anything goes in this exotic country," says the...
...Prostitution now vies with sugar as Thailand's second largest producer of foreign exchange...
...Pasuk Phongpaichit, author of the ILO study, says she first met a woman named Lek in a so-called massage parlor, which was actually a brothel...
...Between 70 and 80 per cent of male tourists who travel from Japan, the United States, Australia, and Western Europe to Asia do so solely for the purpose of sexual entertainment, according to World View 1984, a French political almanac...
...Your carnal conversations with foreign tourists do not prostitute either yourself or the nation, but express your heroic patriotism...
...That really got the attention of the press...
...In fact, he went to ask her employer for more money...
...She cried for several days afterward...
...The sex trade has also figured in Thailand's economic development strategy, which calls for reducing investment in agriculture and aggressively pushing the export of goods produced in the cities...
...We needed a lot of dollars in order to pay off the foreign debt, so tourism was a major thrust for dollar earning...
...Still struggling, she was finally persuaded to sell her virginity for $400, of which she received $100...
...presence in Vietnam...
...1 have done my best to make money, even going to the extreme of selling my one and only asset, but all in vain...
...Airlines, travel agencies, hotels, madams, pimps—all take a chunk of the prostitutes' earnings...
...Such demonstrations are essential if the sex trade is to come to a halt...
...A night spent with a consummate Kisaeng girl dressed in a gorgeous Korean blouse and skirt is just perfect," continues the JAL pamphlet...
...Throughout the war, Bangkok was a favorite "rest-and-recreation" (R&R) spot for GIs...
...He said he wanted to make sure his daughter was in a good place...
...They are not so attractive, having lost the sweet and innocent look, and are heavily made up...
...And it actually stopped Japanese sex tours for a while...
...After having my body ravaged by several customers in a row, I just get too tired to move my limbs," one prostitute says...
...Saigon has become an American brothel," Senator J. William Fulbright noted...
...A study by the United Nations Fund for Population Activities disclosed that out of 1,000 prostitutes in Thailand, one quarter were regular users of drugs, particularly speed, barbiturates, and heroin...
...Anything goes in this exotic country," says the company's brochure...
...When Japan severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan in 1973, much of the Japanese sex trade shifted from Taiwan to South Korea, a move welcomed by the South Korean government...
...by 1964, after the United States established seven bases in the country, that number had skyrocketed to 400,000...
...And the South Vietnamese government didn't seem to mind...
...Indeed, the ILO study found that of fifty prostitutes interviewed, all but four sent money home...
...In a typical village in the north, as many as one-third of the families have no land, and three-quarters have less than the two acres needed for subsistence...
...She figured she would have to work 150 hours more, but then her parents took out another loan to pay for medical bills her grandparents had incurred...
...She made $ 1.50 a day mixing cement and steel, then $20 a month as a housemaid...
...The protest was coordinated by the Filipina organization, Third World Movement Against the Exploitation of Women, and it "really embarrassed the Prime Minister on his state visit," Santiago says...
...Then they got married, and the family lost its major source of income...
...But they are not likely to succeed unless there are more profound changes, both in the presence of the U.S...
...Suicides are not uncommon...
...In the daytime, a receptionist kept a constant watch over the entrance...
...Men who come to the Grace Hotel are searching for specific styles of sex which they have difficulty finding elsewhere...
...because you are morally fastidious...
...Currently, as the economy of the Philippines deteriorates, "the government feels there is a more urgent need to earn foreign exchange," adds Santiago, "so there's been a proliferation of prostitutes now...
...But the hazards are all their own...
...They bargain...
...Massive investments have been made in resort areas, and the government is counting on billions of dollars in tourism revenues to help cover a foreign debt that exceeds $20 billion...
...And with that, came the sex tourists— mainly from Japan...
...The international sex trade has reached shocking proportions...
...in South Korea, 260,000...
...When asked if she liked the job, she said she did not...
...You girls must take pride in your devotion to your country," the women are told at the orientation sessions...
...military base at Subic Bay and the R&R center in Olongapo—both in the Philippines-are the largest bases for prostitution in Asia...
...today, however, the word is synonymous with prostitute...
...One source reported in 1979 that the Manila Ramada made 40 per cent of its income from extra fees for prostitutes...
...Many send their daughters to Bangkok to work as prostitutes...
...Even when I went to the bathhouse, someone was sent along to guard me...
...Such forms of entertainment should not be prohibited...
...Japan Air Lines (JAL) is a little more subtle...
...Similarly, the number of R&R centers in the Philippines increased from twenty to 600...
...I have done my best to make money," one prostitute says, "even going to the extreme of selling my one and only asset, but all in vain...
...Korea Church Women United estimates that prostitutes receive less than one-thirtieth of the fees their patrons pay...
...In the Philippines, an estimated 200,000 prostitutes operate...
...But the soil was too poor to support them, so they went back to work as prostitutes in the cities...
...Still, it appears to be a problem for visitors to Thailand to find the right places where they can indulge in unknown pleasures...
...When the U.S...
...In South Korea, Kisaeng women were traditionally hired to sing and dance at parties...
...We must do this because we have to consider the jobs that will be created for the people...
...And some women opt for the profession because they don't care to work in the hazardous export-oriented plants...
...The author thanks Catherine Dolan for research and Brenda Falk for editorial assistance...
...Kisaeng parties, it adds, have "become one of the nation's most charming attractions...
...They presented him with a letter of protest saying that this is a shame on the Japanese people, and that he should put a stop to the whole thing...
...Currently, "the Catholic Women's League, other church groups, and even the mayor have been holding rallies against sex tourism" in Sebu, the Philippines, a new center of the trade, says Santiago...
...She would like to go home...
...Rosie has done something about this...
...Forty-one per cent of the prostitutes had venereal disease and 19 per cent had undergone abortions, which are prohibited by law in Thailand (and therefore often hazardous...
...Isn't it strange that it is always someone else that reaps what one sows?* Taew grew up as one of eight children in northern Thailand...
...The Grace Hotel does not employ prostitutes, but it makes its coffee shop available as a marketplace...
...Most remit one-third to one-half of their earnings, sums essential to their rural families' survival...
...Therefore, I ask of all governors to consider the natural scenery in your provinces, together with some forms of entertainment that some of you might consider disgusting and shameful because they are forms of sexual entertainment that attract tourists...
...But something other than the mere presence of soldiers and tourists accounts for the flourishing business...
...Women who come to the Grace Hotel are usually on the way down in the market...
...Women's groups around the world have begun to mobilize against the international big business of prostitution...
...Your carnal conversations with foreign tourists do not prostitute either yourself or the nation, but express your heroic patriotism' woman says...
...At times like this, a shot of heroin is needed...
...The Thai police estimated in 1982 that there were 700,000 prostitutes in the country—about 10 per cent of all Thai women between the ages of fifteen and thirty...
...Isn't it strange that it is always someone else that reaps what one sows...
...In order to embellish and relish better the nights of Korea," its brochure advises, "you must start above all else with a Kisaeng party...
...One day, her father went to see her at work...
...The owner charges an entrance fee of $2...
...dollars for the State...
...A 1982 International Labor Organization (ILO) study found some 500,000 prostitutes in Bangkok alone...
...prostitutes are issued identification cards that serve as hotel passes...
...Sex tourism in the Philippines really took off during the period after 1972 when martial law was declared, and the government gave priority to export promotion," says Irene Santiago, a Filipina community organizer...
...In the lounge of the hotel, men in their sixties can be seen propositioning girls in their teens...
...Since all ground floor windows were covered with iron grids, it was impossible to think of escaping through them...
...military and in the export-oriented development strategies of Asian countries that depend on foreign exchange—at the expense of their most impoverished women...
...I can't help but take the drug in order to keep myself in working condition...
...It's an inexhaustible source of U.S...
...Taew's story is not an aberration...
...In the Philippines as well, women have protested the sex trade...
...One woman killed herself after observing her own naked body in a mirror...
...And in South Vietnam itself, there were about 400,000 prostitutes at the height of the war—almost one for every GI...
...Lek's employer had lent her parents some money...
...Taew did not like it a bit," the ILO study reported...
...So Taew was sent to Bangkok to find work...
...But she couldn't go home...
...Later she tried waitressing...
...Her two elder sisters worked as prostitutes to American GIs at the base at Udon...
...She still had the look of a little girl, and her figure was not fully developed," recalls Phongpaichit...
...we need dollars," one official said...
...When the American soldiers left in the mid-1970s, "the post-Vietnam slack was picked up by tourism," says an activist with Friends of Women, an organization based in Bangkok...
...After her parents kept writing Taew letters asking for more money, Taew relented and went back to work as a prostitute, frequenting the Grace Hotel...
...At one o'clock every night, a guard locked the door of my room and took away the key," the woman said...
...It was covered with scars inflicted by a man who used lit cigarettes...
...This enables me to handle five or six men in a single night...
...When the jet landed in Bangkok, it was greeted by another demonstration, held by Friends of Women and other Thai feminists...
...I felt I was picking out a slave girl at a slave market," says one Japanese tourist about his visit to Korea...
...So she jumped out of a second-story window—and now is paralyzed from the waist down...
...Air Force left in 1975, her sisters came back to farm the land...
...The Americans need girls...
...Taew sent her earnings home so her family could build a well for drinking water...
...The Manila Midtown Ramada Inn hands out a printed sheet "to our Japanese guests with ladies" that lists the charges for taking a woman to a room...
...When then-Prime Minister Zenko Suzuki of Japan visited the Philippines in 1981, "the Japanese women's groups were able to link up with Philippine women's groups," recalls community organizer Santiago...
...The area around the U.S...
...Especially when it comes to girls...
...You can book a trip to Thailand with erotic pleasures included in the price...
...Within the next Jill Gay is associate director of the Third World Women's Project, Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, D.C...
...There were 20,000 prostitutes in Thailand in 1957...
...You get cancer working in factories, we get abortion and VD working as prostitutes," one *You girls must take pride in your devotion to your country...
...it was up to Lek to work for the employer as repayment for the loan...
...In South Korea, the government sponsors an "orientation program...
...But far from being alarmed by these figures, leaders of the affected countries are spurring the trade along...
...Lek was their only source of income...
...The card is a "Certificate of Employment in Entertainment Service...
...Another woman, as recounted in a Korean newspaper story a few years ago, tried unsuccessfully to escape, but failed...
...Why should we refrain from the exchange...
...In 1982, Dutch women held a militant protest at the Amsterdam airport for the departing plane to Bangkok, dubbed the "gonorrhea express...
...two years, we are going to need money," said Thailand's vice premier, talking to a meeting of provincial governors in 1980...
...Though prostitution is called the world's oldest profession, the boom in Southeast Asia started with the U.S...
Vol. 49 • February 1985 • No. 2
