Sex tourist and backpacker experiences [split thread]

[tuktukmike]

Come on you guys,

The average sex tourist sees Phuket, Pattaya, chang mai, Maybe Hua Hin, and also of course maybe the girlfriends village.

From what i see of the backpackers they will travel all over Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and many other areas.

Why should anyone get steamed up about sex tourists, its been going on for decades and from what i am told Buddah teaches that as long as what you do does not harm anyone all is ok.

Phillip,

I am sure your right, i can imagine any 20 year old girl just loves to jump into bed with a wrinkly 70 year old for the best sex of her life.

mike.

[Jaime]

Of course, your 'average' backpacker and your 'average' sex tourist probably just see different sides of the same tourist experience coin - both convince themselves that it is the real experience. What I meant was, for those 'sex tourists' who get in deeper - marriage or just more adventurous as a result of many regular visits - there is more likelihood of seeing the way Thais really live behind the thin veneer of tourism. I knew loads of people at college who had been to Thailand as backpackers but it seems that while they may have been all over South-east Asia they spent all their time with other backpackers popping pills and then never went back. The box was ticked! I think that gap year backpackers are less likely to return unless they end up as..... sex tourists!

How many backpackers have been to the abattoir at 2 in the morning to pick up bags of blood and offal for a post drinking session larb feast? Or have helped with the rice harvest or to distill the moon shine lao khao from the first batch of rice wine sato? Probably not many sex tourists either I hear the reply but I think there is much more likelihood of them even being exposed to this stuff if they are long term repeat visitors.

I agree somewhat with what you say about sex tourists as a generality - it is just a fact of life in Thailand and requires little further justification or soul searching. This in turn means that anyone who has a relationship with a Thai woman is regarded in Western society as a sex tourist (i.e. inadequate deviant), whether pursuit of sexual encounters was the reason they went to Thailand in the first place or not. So when I write or think about 'sex tourists' I tend not to make clear distinctions about their original intentions or motivations since even the purest of us are regarded suspiciously as perverts anyway!

[tuktukmike]

I never consider any tourist out here as a pervert unless they get involved in the child sex trade.

I just think we all have to accept the reality of why so many men come out here.

Most of the ones you see drunk and hanging on to the bar are people who have serious personal problems, maybe drink or otherwise.

We all know they would have real problems holding down a relationship in their own country which is why they are single and out here.

They generally cant even sustain a long term relationship with a Thai woman and end up fighting on a daily basis, i have seen it all too much.

Then you have the Thai Fever, Middle aged man comes out here and suddenly girls are everywhere and available to you, so you promise them the earth and want to give up everything that was important to you.

I know i have been there. but came to my senses just in time as some of you on this forum will know. Now i am still with my wife of 26years and have learnt my lesson the hard way, I hope.

Mike.

[Rider]

This whole term 'sex tourist' just sounds straight out of some stupid journilists column. You know... so what if a bunch of guys wanna pay for some girls to get their groove on with for the night! Big deal. They make it sound like some terribly crazy thing is going to explode or something!

I was on this train and overheard these daft little student backpacker falang chicks talking the way daft students often banter.
Then they started slagging off guys who come to thailand for women like their some kind of sub-human species below all other travellers! Acting like they were whiter than white, which they were not (as I later gleaned)

I'm not ashamed to say I'd prefer to 'dance' with a thai lady (even some of the bar girls) than most of the pretentious European girls I've met in LOS.

The backpacker types need to get down to the roots of the place and quit the pussy-footing around, politically correct crap.

OT I know but semi related to the age difference thing.

[tuktukmike]

Hi Jamie,

So what your saying is that if you want to see the real Thailand then go and sleep with a Thai girl and all will become clear.

I know from experiance of talking to the so called dreaded uneducated backpackers that they know a lot more about the lifestyle out here than most of us.

And by the way, they dont stay at the Hilton.

Mike.

[Jaime]

No I'm not saying that at all Mike - read my posts again. I was just trying to highlight the irony of a situation in which one group of, lets face it commonly villified, tourists may actually end up doing stuff that the backpacker experience purports to offer but just can't. It stands to reason that if you get involved with a Thai girl or man (or indeed simply live and work in the country long enough) you are more likely to be exposed more genuinely to the way of life. It applies to every country, not just Thailand. For a comparison, I doubt if many tourists had the same experience of Mallorca that I did as a child for example - you would be surprised at just how far removed village life was then from the tourist resorts just a few miles away.

I don't understand the Hilton reference but just in case you meant me, I've never stayed there either! However, like many people of my generation I have been known to indulge in a bit of backpacking so be sure that I have no particular axe to grind against backpackers in general!

[Lev]

I have removed the nonsense from this thread and split it from its original to maintain relevancy to topic. I apologise if I have deleted anyones posts by mistake that were considered relevant. The original thread can be found here:
http://www.huahinafterdark.com/forum/vi ... php?t=1516