The air duct in the bathroom door of my hotel in Pattaya is broken. I just realised its on purpose. Lying on the bed, the man in this room before could watch his woman pee without her knowing. Maybe his long time Thai girlfriend, maybe his hooker for the night.. who knows. Apparently there is a story that one Thai woman here hooked up with a Canadian on the Internet. He came here, they got married and now she is in Canada. Her sister is still looking for someone..she's the one who told the story.
All I can think of while I pass through my second sex and tourism city is that the power supply in this country makes my computer screen pink, that traveling with someone with a shellfish allergy limits your diet not because of something they do, but because of your inner guilt. That all my relationships and friendships right now are so fragile – stretched rubber bands that could snap on either side of the sea. That to be lonely in Pattaya is worse than being lonely in Amsterdam. And I'm not really lonely here.. just that once again there is a sexual universe from which I'm blatantly and obviously excluded.
When feminism turned up its rather long nose at all pornography, all sex cities and all allegedly demeaning sexual activity, they brought women to this place, where we struggle with anxiety and desire. This is the first time I'm impressed by white women in reality, not the ones in books, music or movies. I watch the few who reach here, with their partners or without. One asking the tuk-tuk man for the disco, because surely there there must be something to do for her in this city. Others trying to not look uncomfortable with what they agreed their partners could do .. they thought it was a night with a prostitute, one fleeting night, the forgettable night.
But no, it isn't that simple. Because here.. is where white men rule. Here is where you go to flesh out your dom-sub fantasy in the kind of equation that entails absolute submission, with the threat of livelihood. And if the Thai girl is lucky and leaves the country with the man, then a later threat is abandonment in a strange land and deportation. Here is where a 54 year old man asks for a non-smoker, clean Thai woman aged 20-28. Sign language is for directions ... for the penis. Escort services advertise for anyone, old and young. Men, ridiculously ugly, get to fondle women in pubs and restaurants, in a gross yet familiar fantasy. Here is where the cliche of the sex show, the disinterested disengaged woman pulling out the ping pong ball from her vagina for the 100th time that day, now has to draw up her stockings, retouch her make-up for the wholesome goodness look and has to look interested. Even if she escapes having to be actually sexy in the show, she has to be affectionate, almost loving, simpering, beautiful when she is the escort for the night. And she is most well paid, most well looked after as the escort...so why wouldn't she be.
There are things I notice along with the broken bathroom door. I look around and see many imitations of my hot sexiest dates. The dim lighting, the food, the drinks, the intimacy of leaning into each other..and looking at them I wonder why the man's hands are not between the woman's legs. Then it strikes me.. without any exception, all the women (the countless almost hundreds I've seen) are wearing shorts or jeans, not a single skirt amongst the escorts. This is the barrier that they have erected, no pussy fondling in public. Besides ofcourse the clit doesn't exist in this land.
During the pussy show .. the famous ping pong ball, burst balloons with pins from your vagina show .. the gay man I'm with admits that this is the first time he's actually seen pussy. Ofcourse this pretty much confirms that he will remain gay forever... what could be more inspirational of thoughts of vagina dentata then the sight of the pussy capable of acrobatic cringe-worthy feats like pulling out a string of blades. And later he asks me.. so where is the clit exactly? My hand is reaching for a napkin to draw a diagram, when I realise how strange it is that in an hour long show where the hole is the performer, the tranny with the pink boa, the gay man with the biggest cock, somehow they forgot the smaller, perkier, queerer girl in the line-up behind the star. They just forgot her.
Apparently heteronormativity.. the word that I've ridiculed for its clumsy klunkiness is getting a Thai massage while being jerked off just for a tip. Here the white man gets the last laugh, just after the transvestite playing the fat white old woman or the essential 'ugly item' in the sex show gets to sing, or rather lip sync to the lyrics of I will survive.
From my terrace in the hotel room at 5:00 am I can see a snooker house, where a group of Thais are still hanging out. One Thai woman has a white eye patch. A Thai boy is leaning over to talk to a Thai girl. The whities/firangs have left. The coloured balls are in triangles across many tables. Welcome to Happiness Star Bar. Kittens Club. Boyz Town. All Girls. Tiffany Show. Classroom. Dollhouse.Tahitian Queen. Elephant Bar. Fantasia Show.
...these are first impressions, they might change once I get an erotically charged massage .. or not :-)
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