(I do not use only the male pronoun in this case, because plenty of women lose their fucking minds over there, too. I refer you to Patpong Sisters, a book written in the 90s when I was there. by a PhD candidate researching the sex trade. She ends up banging a married Thai pimp without protection. Damn, those 90s chicks, I swear. Hopeless.)
I strolled around Patpong and Nana Plaza a bit, the prime areas of go-go bars, and again, like Khao-San Road, I was amazed how they'd grown. Patpong used to take up 4 streets, but it goes further up those streets than it used to. Nana Plaza used to be a little cul-de-sac of bars, but the bars have spilled out of the cul-de-sacs and flowed everywhere around the area.
This surprised me a bit; there was always a lot of talk about getting rid of the sex tourists during the "Asian Tigers" days of the 90s, and some strict mayors and unrest periods even saw bars forbidding nudity (only bikinis) and everything closing at 2:00am. Given the recent unrest in Bangkok, I wasn't sure what to expect.
But well, you couldn't tell that now. Like Khao San Road, it all seemed more raging than ever.
One thing that seemed different, there were a lot more bars where you could just sit and drink, and it seemed like a lot more dudes than there used to be, just in general. For example, there used to be one hotel that specialized in Middle-Easterners; there seemed like a whole street full of them, this time. I remember it being really a buyer's market during the 90s, with a lot of girls battling over customers.
I didn't get that impression this time, but maybe that's just the time of year or whatever. Or maybe that's due to increasing non-mattress opportunities for girls to make a living.
I've written at some length about my fondness for a paticular Thai whore, and a bar I liked back in the day, called the Hollywood.
It's still there, and while it seemed a bit grubbier and dirtier than I remember, the girls were still top-notch, and while I went more in a sociological capacity, of course I ended up taking a girl out.
I mean really!
The price was about $100, versus less than $50 from 20 years ago, and the girls used to be more flexible about price than I experienced this time. (Although of course I'm not nearly so cute as I was when I was 25, I suppose.)
And it was damn well worth $100, I'll tell you! Just a fine, cheerful, skilled, smooth-skinned, firm-bodied, clean, TIGHT and professional little Thai beauty.
$100!
Immediately after I got out, I was thinking, well, that was worth maybe $75. But after I jacked off to thinking about it a few times, I was kind of like, damn, you know, it really was worth $100.
So! There you go. I didn't feel cheap or stupid afterwards. It seemed age-appropriate in a way that trying to pick up younger girls at nightclubs does not.
The only big disappointment were the rooms at the Nana Guest House. 20 years ago, you rented a room, and you got a whole ROOM, with TV, bath, big bed, mirrors on the ceiling, etc. Now you get a tiny little cubicle, just a bed.
So I won't rationalize or deal with my feeling about whores / sex trafficking / sex work or game / PUA / sex addiction or any of that in this entry.
I'll just say I spent a hundred dollars, and it seemed like both of us seemed to feel it was a fair transaction.
10 comments:
"Immediately after I got out, I was thinking, well, that was worth maybe $75. But after I jacked off to thinking about it a few times, I was kind of like, damn, you know, it really was worth $100."
OMG that's the greatest fucking line ever.
Dear ETX.
Hope you don't mind me asking on an unrelated post.
My question is this... is the trade worth it? By the trade I mean what you did. That is going out to a sandbox somewhere sacrificing a year or two of your life in order to build up some capital and generally get away from the shit storm that is the UK economy right now.
I've read your E-book about life in the Mid East and the part that concerns me is the students who don't seem to give a shit and as to if this work experience is actually worth anything?
A common theme amongst teachers in the UK is that there is a shit storm of paperwork. I work in the quasi government and charitable sector while I take home $33 an hour it is starting to swamp me as I take work home every day and frequently end up working an hour to an hour and a half for every in class hour I do.
I look around me. I've got no time for leisure, games, relationships anything and I thought why am I doing this on fairly poor wages with no job security whatsoever? It's a zero hour contract what they call At will or something in the US. All I do is get up eat, travel to work teach, mark, plan sleep and even though I moved subjects away from ESOL and more towards maths the pattern is identical...
So I got to thinking why don't I do this for a bigger wedge of money?
What are your thoughts about this?
Was your trade for your wedge of capital worth it?
Regards
K
"A cup of gin . . . a shot of camphor . . . " Bazinga!
There's a great honesty in this type of transaction. Bar girls might not have the education, but they have a world of 'international experience' and usually some dire family issues. So long as you don't go into it expecting love or coming out a white knight, it can be a beautiful encounter beyond the Happy Ending. Just my opinion.
The mass media would have you believe these girls (in the Western bars) are trafficked, which under the UN definition means pretty much everybody. But the available alternatives are far worse. On the other side of the transaction, everyone loves to ridicule the "fat/old/ugly" customer, but these are just lonely hearts searching for a shot of camphor in a cruel plastic world.
Well done, I'd love to read further research, a-hem, from you on this topic. I've never been into a Thai "gentleman's club", for one.
Enjoy life.
To me it was absolutely worth it, although if you go to Saudi, go to a college, where you will get 3 months of vacation time. That should be a balm that heals all wounds. There are jobs in China that pay nearly as well, I should say.
With the price of oil where it is at the moment, it seems hard to get jobs in Saudi at the mo.
>With the price of oil where it is at the moment, it seems hard to get jobs in Saudi at the mo.
I'm actually considering selling my soul for a military contract TBH.
>There are jobs in China that pay nearly as well, I should say.
There are but they are exceptionally rare. Usually partnership with an overseas college or something. But the typical University job there 6000RMB-10K. Even the professorship including the government subsidy only amounted to 15000RMB a month. Your average university job pays 6-9K. Problem is a whole load of people spout nonsense about their pay. China suffers from the African problem. Super wealthy send their sons and daughters overseas to the US or UK. Wealthy send their sons and daughters to genuine international schools. This leaves the average people and they're not going to pay half a months salary for a conversation class.
Some of the pay per hour claims people have made are frankly absurd, the olde 500RMB an hour is commonly spouted but taking into account the above about the super wealthy who of course are going to be savvy to have become so wealthy in the first place and the man on the street making 3000 a month nobody will pay that much.
With British teaching qualifications you should be able to get in one of the "real" international partner schools easily enough in China or elsewhere.
As someone currently in Saudi on a military contract that happens to pay a bit over the usual 12,000 SAR, - about 1/3 better in fact.
I don't regret the money I've made but, in less than a year, I've become an angrier, more hateful person than I was before. Management tries to reinvent the wheel every other week. The military throws in random other activities that interfere with our schedule but you come to be grateful as it provides you with respite from the grind of the class.
The students are, without maybe ONE exception out of a student body of hundreds, utterly atrocious. I'm talking like unwilling to even open their books to the right page atrocious. Insulting you one minute and proselytizing the next. You come to cherish the minutes you don't need to look at them.
If you come on a military contract just remember this: if they learn English that's nice but your main duty there is to be a warden in a necktie. There is no teaching that goes on.
Much less paperwork than if you were in the UK though. Also, the money has let me pay off my credit card debts in less than a year.
However, your vacation I guarantee will be far less than 3 months. Be happy if you get a month off.
If you can get on at British Aerospace, that gig is lucrative and allows you to live at their compound, which is one of the few places to have a social life in KSA.
>With British teaching qualifications you should be able to get in one of the "real" international partner schools easily enough in China or elsewhere.
You'd think so but the shitty (and getting shittier) work conditions are forcing a whole load of teachers out of the UK profession and out overseas.
Thanks for the input
>I don't regret the money I've made but, in less than a year, I've become an angrier, more hateful person than I was before. Management tries to reinvent the wheel every other week. The military throws in random other activities that interfere with our schedule but you come to be grateful as it provides you with respite from the grind of the class.
I've heard similar.
>The students are, without maybe ONE exception out of a student body of hundreds, utterly atrocious. I'm talking like unwilling to even open their books to the right page atrocious. Insulting you one minute and proselytizing the next. You come to cherish the minutes you don't need to look at them.
>If you come on a military contract just remember this: if they learn English that's nice but your main duty there is to be a warden in a necktie. There is no teaching that goes on.
I got this impression already from ETX's book along with some returnees. They essentially said your job isn't to teach no no. Your job is to give credibility to the education process and to babysit them through the process.
It concerns me a lot because I really get disheartened when students clearly don't give a shit. There are huge consequences in the UK system as they mess up their exams they don't get another crack at it unless they pay the unsubsidised price which is around £1700 per qualification per level.
This unfortunately often leads to violence as they blame you and come visit you with a knife or brass knuckles. Those are other reasons I need to get out of here.
>Much less paperwork than if you were in the UK though. Also, the money has let me pay off my credit card debts in less than a year.
This is the thing. Right now I'm doing OK but it feels like I'm treading water. I never get contracts lasting more than 2 months and I can't plan or feel secure in any manner.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGhCfuTiabc
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