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One of the few podcasts that I regularly listen to is Thinking Allowed, an excellent BBC Radio 4 program about sociology, anthropology and modern culture.

I was very surprised when last week’s episode — after discussing the implications of Darwinian theory for modernization of man — turned towards a certain subject of grave importance that to date has been largely overlooked by serious media: ping pong shows.

In the second segment of the show, host Laurie Taylor interviews Nottingham PhD student Erin Sanders, who has been talking to women tourists attending sex shows in Thailand for her thesis titled: Women? What women? An exploration of western women’s voyeuristic encounters with the sex industry in Thailand

Here’s a short excerpt: (rough transcript by yours truly)

Taylor: When you asked them why they went, what sort of accounts did they give you?

Sanders: There are a variety of accounts. Most of them didn’t seem to have any very clear reason for why they went, except that they saw the ping pong show as a distinctly Thai cultural experience. And that’s really how they described it, some of them likened it to going to a ballet. Going to a ping pong show is the Thai version of going to a ballet. They said that, you now, friends had talked about it. It was something that was really part of the sort of tourist discourse about Thailand.

The whole segment is really well worth listening to, and not just because it’s a strangely scientific approach to the all too familiar seediness of sex tourism in Thailand. Among other things Sanders talks about the phenomenon of “dark tourism” and the role of white women tourists in promoting the Thai sex industry.

To me, hearing Brits talk about Thailand as a sex tourism destination is a reminder of what folks back home associate with Thailand: ping pong shows, ladyboys, and cheap prostitutes. I think this is especially true for Europe, and to a lesser extend for North America.

Living in Bangkok, it’s easy sometimes to forget about Thailand’s reputation abroad, both because you get so used to seeing the sex tourists in certain parts of the city that they start to seem like the most normal thing in the world, and because Thais rarely ever talk about what’s going on in those areas.

I’m sure that most of my Thai friends and acquaintances have a good hunch that beaches aren’t the only thing all these male tourists come to Thailand for. But many of them never set foot into Pat Pong, or Nana Plaza, or Soi Cowboy, and it’s not like sex tourism is ever discussed in Thai media, so the issue is all the easier to ignore. Most Thais would probably be shocked and embarrassed if they were fully aware of Thailand’s image overseas.