THAI GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

The Edge of Ambiguity

Erik Cohen
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

ABSTRACT
This paper examines the dynamics of the short-term and
longer term relationship between prostitutes and tourists
in Bangkok, Thailand. Based on fieldwork in one small
area of Bangkok it examines the expectations of the
women and the foreign men who patronize their services.
It concludes that for most of the women, prostitution
offers a career marked by a pattern of upward and
downward mobility, economic insecurity, often emotional
instability, and no long-term solution to the economic
conditions which made them join the profession in the
first place. Keywords: prostitution, relationships with
clients, social mobility.

Erik Cohen has done sociological and anthropological research in Israel

(kibbutzim, new towns, ethnic groups). Peru (urban anthropology). the Pacific
Islands (tourism). and Thailand (tourism in the hill tribe regions in the north and
on the islands in the south). His present research interests are tourism, strangers,
expatriates, social ecology, energy, and the sociology of “modernity.”

Annals of Towism Research. Vol. 9. pp. 403428.1982 01607383/82/030403-26$3.00/O

F’rinted In the USA All rights reserved. @ 1982 J. Jafmi and Per@mon Press Ltd

403
 THAI GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

RESUME

Les Filles thailandaises et les hommes Farang: A la

frontiere de l’ambigui’te. Cet article examine la dynamique
du rapport, dans l’immediat et a long terme, entre les
prostituees et les touristes a Bangkok, Thailande. En se
basant sur des recherches sur le terrain dans une petite
partie de Bangkok, il examine les esperances des femmes
et des hommes &angers qui vont chez elles. 11conclut
que, pour la plupart des femmes, la prostitution est un
metier qui comporte une mobilite ascendante et descen-
dante, de l’insecurite Cconomique, souvent de l’instabilite
Cmotionnelle, et aucune solution a long terme aux con-
ditions Cconomiques qui les ont fait entrer dans cette
profession au premier lieu. Mots Clef: prostitution, re-
lations avec les clients, mobilite sociale.

TOURISM AND PROSTITUTION

The notion that tourism to developing countries generates prosti-

tution is widespread, but the relationship between tourism and
prostitution is not well understood. F. Fanon warned impassionately
against the poor countries of the world becoming the “brothels of
Europe” (Fanon 1966:1251. Journalists and social critics have fur-
nished a wealth of illustrations of tourism-related prostitution (e.g.,
Turner and Ash 1975: passim); some have explicitly argued that
tourism in fact causes prostitution (e.g., Prahl and Steinecke 1979:
98; Putschogl-Wild 1980:47; Krawenkel 19811. The relationship be-
tween prostitution and tourism has recently been examined in
several reports, e.g., by the Rome-based ISIS. It is remarkable,
though, that a relationship so often casually observed, which pro-
voked so much indignation and exhortation, has generated little
interest in serious, unbiased and systematic sociological or anthro-
pological research. Indeed, one looks in vain in the major recent
collections and reviews of the literature on tourism (UNESCO 1976;
Noronha 1977; Smith 1977: de Kadt 1979; Cohen ted.1 19791 for a
serious study of the nature, causes and consequences of tourism-
related prostitution. De Kadt (1979:631, in the introductory essay to
his volume of papers, states explicitly that “It has at times been said
that prostitution flourishes in tourism resorts, but on this not much
evidence is adduced in this volume.” The reasons for this omission
remain unstated: one can only suspect that prostitution is a touchy

404 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 EFUK COHEN

subject which respectable students of tourism are, somewhat reluc-

tant to discuss.
The few studies in which tourism-related prostitution is men-
tioned are remarkably uninformative. Most authors refer to it
casually (e.g., Noronha 1979, on Bali; Naibava and Schutz 1975, on
the Pacific Islands: Urbanowitz 1977, on the Tonga Islands), without
having conducted any systematic study. A short paper by Jones
(19781, who did conduct a survey of tourism-related prostitution in
Bali, offers some valuable information, but no detailed analysis of the
phenomenon. A few others (e.g., Andronicou 1979:249, on Cyprus;
Manning 1979:170, on Bermuda) make the important point that in
the situations they studied, the growth of tourism was not ac-
companied by the emergence of prostitution. Indeed, Manning
( 1979: 1701 states expressly that “. . . if ‘tourism is whorism’ as some
of its critics contend, Bermuda is literally exempt.”
Many important questions concerning the relationship of tourism
and prostitution thus remain as yet unanswered. Why does tourism-
related prostitution flourish in one country (e.g., Thailand, South
Korea, or the Philippines) and not in others (e.g., Cyprus or Sri
Lanka)? Does tourism cause the emergence of prostitution or is it
that prostitution merely “. . . changes its form.. . in response to
tourist demand” (Jones 1978:6, emphasis in original)? What is the
importance of tourists vis-a-vis locals on the total prostitution
scene? How are tourism-related prostitutes recruited? How do they
differ in incomes, status, and work conditions from those working
with a local clientele? And, finally, the main subject of this paper:
what are the dynamics of the relationship between prostitutes and
tourists-a question which touches upon the wider and even more
neglected problem of relations between the sexes in touristic
situations (Cohen 1971).

Tourism and Prostitution in Thailand

Tourism-related prostitution in Thailand has recently been the

topic of some critical reports (e.g., TIS 1979; Thitsa 19801; it is also a
subject popular with journalists whose reports are rich in provoca-
tive and sometimes lurid details (e.g., Scheicher 1975; FEER 1976;
Hail 1980). Several Western and Thai critics have written indignant
articles on the problem (e.g., Mayer 1979: Meier 1979; Straatmann
1980; Mingmongkol 19811, but none of these has conducted any
detailed research. The only published study so far, that by Phong-
paichit (1981a 1981b1, though relevant and interesting, deals pri-
marily with the background, economic position and quality of life of

1982 ANNALS OF TOUFUSM FULSEARCH 405

 THAI GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

masseuses. Moreover, although foreigners are about “. . . half the

clients in the high-class massage parlors.. . ” (Phongpaichit 198 1a:
171, the study is not specifically concerned with the relations
between the masseuses and their foreign clientele. Wanschafft
(19821, in the heretofore only published report on his study of the
major Thai resort of Pattaya, touches upon prostitution only tan-
gentially. It thus follows that, despite much public talk about the
problem, and its obvious importance and salience, tourism-related
prostitution in Thailand has not yet been systematically studied.
The present paper is just a modest first step in the effort to address
this important problem explicitly and systematically.
As Phongpaichit (1981a:171 noted, “Prostitution, concubinage and
sex-for-sale have . . . long been familiar and accepted elements of Thai
society” and are by no means a creation of tourism. However in
Phongpaichit’s view, “commercial sex never came close to today’s
scale until foreign demand for it soared in the mid-1960s.” Even so,
the precise share of tourism-related prostitution in the total prosti-
tution scene in Thailand is unknown; it appears that the great
majority of prostitutes still serve a local Thai and Chinese clientele
as well as Malaysian and Singaporean demand (concentrated mainly
in the southern city of Had Yail, while only a minority works with
European, Australian, American, or Japanese tourists. These, how-
ever, may well constitute a majority of the clients of the higher
quality establishments.
A further general point is highly relevant here: whatever the
present status of the “loosely structured” paradigm of Thai society
(Embree 1950; Evers 1969; Potter 1976:1-l 1). there is little doubt
that, at least in the contemporary urban centers, there reigns a
considerable degree of sexual permissiveness and promiscuity, care-
fully hidden behind the decorous and respectable front of Thai
society. It is important to note that, unlike in some tightly structured
societies such as Iran or Turkey, there is often no crisp separation in
Thai society between emotional and mercenary sexual relationships.
Rather, such relationships form a spectrum, ranging from pre-
marital, marital, and extra-marital love-relations, through perma-
nent or protracted liaisons between relatively wealthy men and poor
concubines or mistresses (mia noy or “minor wife”), to short,
commercialized sexual encounters in brothels and massage parlors,
of which there are virtually thousands, even though prostitution in
Thailand was outlawed in 1960.
Embree already noticed this fuzziness of the boundary between
emotional and mercenary relations between the sexes in the Thai
dancing cabarets of the 1940s: “. . . [the girl] may or may not require

406 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM FU3SEXRCH

 EFUK COHEN

a guest to buy a ticket [for a dance-partner]; and if she goes home

with him afterwards, she may or may not be mercenary about it,
depending on how she feels” (Embree 1950:1861.
The earliest sexual liaisons between Thais andfarangs, i.e.,white
foreigners, where apparently those between Thai men from the elite
and American women (Smith 19711.The inversion to the presently
dominant pattern of liaisons between Thai girls and foreign men
began with the arrival of American military men in 1962. many of
whom had Thai mistresses, referred to as “hired wives” or “rented
wives” (Smith 197 1:129). The easy availability of sex became one of
the chief attractions for the *‘. . .American servicemen [who] began
coming on one week rest and recreation visits from South Vietnam
in 1966” (FEER 1976:271.Although at first they arrived in “. . . care-
fully regulated [groups of] 500 GIs at a time. . . (Time, 1966:181,
“. . . bars and nightclubs sprang up all over town: and thousands of
girls were employed.. . to help the US troops unwind” (FEER
1976:271.Eventually, about 40,000 American GIs were stationed in
Thailand (Pongpaichit 1981a:161:their presence shaped those in-
stitutions which at present mediate most of the contacts between
Thai girls andfarangs: the bar, the nightclub, the massage parlor,
and the coffee shop. Some of these institutions, particularly bars and
massage parlors, are also popular with Thai males-but there is a
tendency towards segregation. While brothels are ubiquitous, they
serve primarily a Thai clientele.
After the GIs left, foreign-oriented prostitution suffered a short
recession, but it was soon “ . . .rescued to a certain extent by the
successful promotion of tourism” (FEER 1976:281.Indeed, tourism
to Thailand expanded at a quick pace since the Vietnam War:
according to the Tourism Organization of Thailand, the number of
foreign arrivals which in 1971 stood at 634,000, rose to LO98.000 in
1976 and reached 1,591,OOOin 1979. Males outnumer females
among tourist arrivals by two to one. This growth was accompanied
by a considerable expansion of prostitution which reached un-
precedented proportions: “For the country as a whole, current
estimates place the number of women in the ‘sex industry’ between
500,000 and one million.” In Bangkok alone, their number is
estimated at about 2-300,000 (Pongpaichit 1981a:14-151.
Such numbers are vague not only because precise statistics are
unavailable, but also because the category of women “working with
men” is not crisply demarcated. It is also not known how many of
these cater primarily to tourists and other foreigners. It is certain,
however, that the reputation of Thailand as a land of “instantly
available women” (7lme 1966:181,amplified and embellished in no

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 407

 THAI GIRLSAND FAFUWG MEN

uncertain terms by the travel industry especially in Germany, the

USA, and Japan, brought large numbers of sex-seeking tourists into
the country (Phongpaichit 1981a:14; Prahl and Steinecke 1979:99).
This was so much so that a recent article noted that “charming
Thailand will find it hard ever to get rid of ‘its whorehouse repu-
tation” (Putschogl-Wild 1980:47).The demand for sex has given rise
to a new type of organized tour, the “sex package tour” brought
predominantly by European, especially German, and Japanese tour-
ists, who “travel mainly to buy sex” on short trips to Bangkok as well
as some other-Asian destinations (Scott-Stokes 1979). Several Euro-
pean travel companies, such as “Jet Sex” of Zurich and “Euro-
Tours” of Amsterdam, specialized in such tours (Mayer 1979:6).This
phenomenon infracted one of the rules of the game-the studious
silence on the sexual theme in the publicly promoted touristic image
of the “land of smiles”. The publicity given to such tours has in 198 1
triggered off one of the periodic police crackdowns on prostitutes
(FEER 1976:28), which like so many previous ones, was directed
primarily against the women, rather than the institutions which
promote prostitution, or the conditions which generate it. Seeking
to protect the national reputation, the crackdown was oriented
primarily to tourist-oriented prostitutes, and much less to those
serving That nationals. Like similar efforts in the past (FEER
1976:28), however, this too was ineffective and soon discontinued: it
could not be otherwise since it dealt with the symptoms of the
problem, rather than its roots.
These roots, which can here be touched upon only briefly, are
complex. They are found in some fundamental changes, tensions,
and pressures in contemporary Thai society, related to the pattern of
its economic development and modernization. Of particular im-
portance are two processes: rural-to-urban migration and the grow-
ing instability of the urban and, increasingly, the rural Thai family.
Growing inter-regional inequalities and differential opportunities
generated an ever larger stream of migrants from the provinces and
particularly the depressed North East (Dormer 1978:594-9) to Bang-
kok (Stemstein 1976; NSO 1979). An outstanding group among
these are young single women, often burdened by small children.
Many departed from home after the breakdown of their marriages.
The number of such single women further swells as a consequence
of the growing breakdown of urban families, many of them recent
arrivals to the city. Most of these women had little education and no
occupational training. They are pressed to earn not only their own
upkeep, but often also some money for the support of parents,
younger siblings, or their own children. Under conditions of a

408 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RJBEXRCH

depressed labor market and very low wages for unskilled and even
semi-skilled workers, many find in prostitution the only recourse
which enables them to fulfill their obligations (Turton 1976:279;
Phongpaichit 1981a, 1981bl. Some others find that by prostitution
they can earn much more money and enjoy better working condi-
tions than in other workplaces. The latter are apparently more
numerous among women working with a farang clientele than
among those working with Thais. Indeed, whatever the contribution
of tourism to the growth of prostitution in Thailand, it should be
emphasized that the women working with farangs are in many
respects the “elite” among the prostitutes: they earn significantly
more than those working with Thais, enjoy greater independence,
and are rarely controlled by pimps or pushed into prostitution
against their will-which is otherwise quite a common phenomenon
(FEER 1976:271.
There is considerable mobility into and out of prostitution, which
is perhaps even greater among the tourism-oriented prostitutes
than in the general population. Many rural girls go into prostitution
occasionally to complement the meagre family income (Turton
1976:2791. Some move at least temporarily into other occupations,
become mistresses, or marry foreigners-and return to prostitution
when they lose their workplace, need more money, or when the
relationship with a lover or husband breaks up. Prostitutes are thus
an occupational group which, though it may have a hard core, has
wide, fuzzy margins. Indeed, in the recent controversy on the
legalization of prostitution a principal argument of the opponents
was that, by legalization, the girls would be formally stigmatized and
find it more difficult to move out of the occupation.

METHODOLOGY AND BACKGROUND

The data derive primarily from the first stage of a longitudinal

study of a soi (lane) in the hinterland of one of the principal touristic
areas of Bangkok. The author lived for nearly two months in a slum
in the soi and conducted participant observation and in-depth
interviews with its inhabitants. While the major topic of the study
was not tourism per se, but the wider subject of “urban life under
conditions of diminishing opportunities” in contemporary Thai-
land, tourism played an important role in the life of the soi. The lane,
and particularly the slum, houses several hundred girls who “work
with farangs” in various capacities-as bar-girls, masseuses, coffee-
shop girls, or mistresses. Several farartgs, mainly drop-out expatri-
ates, also live in the so&a few in the slum, others in neighboring

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEAFCH 409

 THAI GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

apartment houses. Many other, short time tourists, visit the soi,
eating in the little restaurants or spending time with the girls.
Several small hotels, coffee shops, and bars are located in the vicinity
of the sot.
The author conducted extended interviews and collected at least
partial biographies of some of the girls, and of the&rungs living in
or visiting the soi. The following is based to a large extent on this
case material.
The girls are predominantly in their twenties, from the north-east
of Thailand, and have lived from a few days to a few years in Bangkok.
Many have young children from an earlier disrupted marriage or
cohabitation with a Thai man, either back home or in Bangkok.
Some girls tried to work in other occupations, such as housegirls or
factory workers, but being unskilled, either found no work or could
not make ends meet from their meagre incomes and turned to
prostitution. Some may have worked with a Thai clientele prior to
turning tofurungs, but this point is difficult to verify. The girls work
primarily in bars and coffee shops which cater to tourists and other
foreign residents: there they are rapidly socialized by their peers into
a new and for many hitherto unfamiliar role. Most work in prosti-
tution intermittently from several days or weeks and up to a few
years. Some have Thai boyfriends who live off their earnings, but do
not serve as pimps: they neither hustle clients nor offer the girls
protection. Most girls, however, live alone and at least profess a
strong aversion against Thai men, based on their unhappy past
experiences (cf. Bujra 1977:25 for a similar aversion of Atu women
against African customers). They claim that they go out only with
farangs, and as far as one could establish, this seems to be generally
true.
The majority of girls had no formal training in English or any
other foreign language and, particularly at the outset, can speak only
Thai Since very few farangs possess any knowledge of Thai, com-
munication between them and the Thai girls is limited and in great
part conducted in simplified “foreigner talk’ (Ferguson 198 11,
English, or sign language. The chances of a girl to attract desired
foreigners are much increased by the knowledge of a foreign lan-
guage, since many farangs look for companionship as well as sex
during their sojourn in Thailand (for a similar situation in Kigali,
Ruanda see Vandersypen 1977:991.

AMBIGUITIES IN TOURISM-ORIENTED PROSTITUTION

Lemert (1951:2381 has defined prostitution concisely as sexual

410 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 ERIK COHEN

intercourse characterized by barter, promiscuity, and emotional

indifference. A more precise definition is offered by Gagnon ( 1968:
592-31:

. . . the granting of sexual access on a relatively indiscriminate basis

for payment either in money or goods.. . Payment is acknowledged
to be for a specific, sexual performance.. . Payment for the specific
act is what distinguishes the prostitute from the mistress or from
females who accept a range of gifts while having sexual contact with
a male.

The ideal-type of prostitution is thus conceived of as a form of

specific, universalistic, and affectively neutral economic exchange.
While probably more common in brothels and massage parlors
serving a Thai clientele, the ideal type is only rarely approximated in
tourism-oriented prostitution, especially in the case of bar and
coffee-shop girls who were the principal subjects of the study. This is
the “edge of ambiguity” in Thai prostitution: the relationship be-
tween these girls and theirfarang partners is ridden with ambi-
guities. These become the more pronounced the longer the duration
of the relationship. The ambiguities are contingent upon the fact
that, as Embree ( 1950: 186) noticed manyyears ago, tourism-oriented
prostitution in Thailand is, like in Columbia, incompletely com-
mercialized (de Gal10 and Alzate 1976) as can be seen by a closer
examination of the three principal variables bywhich the ideal type is
defined:
1. Specificity: While a prevailing notion of fair remuneration for
sexual services exists (in 1981, it was about 150 baht [U.S.$7.50] for
a “short time,” about 300 baht [US $151 for a whole night), many
girls refuse to state their price, considering it more decorous to leave
remuneration to their partner’s generosity; thereby the payment for
sexual services takes on the more or less fictional character of a gift.
It should be added that, while in some cases a girl may be short-
changed by a tight tourist, she quite often receives more than the
currently accepted remuneration-with some rich German or Arab
giving her up to a few thousand baht for a night.
2. Universalism: The girls preserve considerable freedom in the
choice of their partners; while it is generally true that the longer the
girl was involved in prostitution, the less choosy she becomes, she
still exercizes discretion over whom she goes out with: she also
generally preserves the right to decide which kinds of sexual acts she
will perform and which refuse.
3. Neutrality: Unlike in professional prostitution in modern

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 411

 THfd GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

Western countries, many girls do not “look at their job objectively”

without becoming emotionally involved (Rasmussen and Kuhn
1976:2791. While detachment may grow with time, and emotional
involvement may in many cases last only for the period of actual
interaction, girls do get emotionally involved, especially in relation-
ships of longer duration. Indeed, the manner and extent of their
involvement largely determines the nature and dynamics of the
relationship and will hence serve as the principal variable for the
typology of Thai girl-farang men liaisons.
These deviations of the girls’ role from the ideal type of the
prostitute finds also a subjective expression in the girls’ self-
conception. They generally see themselves as “working with for-
eigners” (tamgun kapfarang) and at least profess to be insulted if
referred to as prostitutes. While it may be argued that this is simply a
device to preserve their self-respect, it also draws a line of social
distinction between themselves and the girls working in brothels.
Though the primary motives for going into “work withfur-angs” is
the desire to earn a large amount of money quickly, this is often
accompanied by two additional motives, namely the interest in and
excitment of meeting strange and often attractive foreigners, with a
respected status and cultural background: and the hope of marrying
a farang, emigrating from the country, and thus escaping their
present predicament (cf. Cohen 1971 for a similar motive among
Arab boys seeking to associate with tourist girls). These two motives
are particularly strong at an early period of involvement in prosti-
tution, when the deviation in the girls’ behavior from the ideal-type
is most pronounced. Many girls, however, soon suffer a disappoint-
ment and personal crisis-particularly after an early love affair turns
sour or a marriage with afarang breaks up. After that, girls generally
tend to control their emotions more carefuly, and become more
judicious in the selection of partners with whom they get involved
(cf. Rasmussen and Kuhn 1976:279. on a similar process among
American masseuses). Some indeed, become exclusively interested
in money and at least for a while, turn their emotions off completely:
this is often accompanied by an intensive involvement in the peer-
group of girls with which they live or work. Most, however, do not
become permanently detached: rather they try to control their
emotional involvements and often simultaneously entertain a range
of relationships of varying intensity and personal significance.
Unlike in the case of other forms of prostitution in Thailand, some
degree of ambiguity continues to characterize many of the girls’
relationships throughout their career.
One of the principal reasons for this is that both bar girls and

412 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 ERIK COHEN

coffee-shop girls tend to extend a liaison beyond a single encounter.

Many stay with a tourist for the rest of his sojourn in Bangkok or
even in Thailand, traveling with him to such well-known tourist
centers as Chiang Mai, the major city of the North, or Pattaya the
important resort on the Gulf of Thailand: some even go abroad, as
girlfriends or wives. Many continue to keep in touch by mail with
their partners afterwards. Some entertain a lively correspondence
with several foreigners, receiving from them money through the
mails, even as they continue to work with other farangs. Some
tourists come back regularly to spend time with the same women.
While emotional attachment may partly explain this tendency to
prolong the liaison, other motives are also operative. Since girls who
offer themselves tofarangs are plentiful, the economic situation of
each is precarious: economic security is thus often foremost in their
minds even beyond immediate economic gain. (For a similar prob-
lem of security among thefemmes libres of Kigali, cf. Vandersypen
1977:98). Hence they frequently strive to turn the relationship from
an ephermeral one of prostitute-client to a more stable one of
mistress and patron. Moreover, once the relationship becomes a
more permanent one, the girls often develop economic and even
psychological dependency on their boyfriends, which in turn con-
tributes to the exacerbation of tensions and the eventual break-up of
the relationship.
While lack of space precludes a detailed description of thefarang
clientele, a brief description of its composition and motivations is
essential. The clients are a fairly motley lot: they range in age
between the early twenties to the seventies, with the majority
between the late twenties and early forties. While many are mass
tourists on their first short trip to Thailand, quite a few are on
second or subsequent, often extended visits. A few live in Thailand,
intermittently or permanently. The latter, while few in number, are
the ones with whom this author had closest contact, since some of
them live in the soi or even in the slum in which he lived.
The extent to which the farang seeks authenticity (MacCannel
1973; Cohen 1979) in his relations with the girls varies widely-from
a mere desire to enjoy their bodies to a quest for a genuine sexual
experience or even an extended love relationship. Some men suddenly
realize apparently undreamed of sexual experiences, deciding pre-
cipitately to marry their girl of a few days, even resolving to break up
an unexciting marriage at home. Others, trying to turn a temporary
liaison created on a vacation into a permanent one, continue to write
love-lorn letters to their girlfriend and to support her financially in the
(mostly vain) hope that she will stop engaging in prostitution.

1982 ANNALS OF TOURlSM RESEARCH 413

 THAl GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

While such deep involvements may be rare, the observations

support Rasmussen and Kuhn’s ( 1976:279) claim that a man often
expects the girl “. . . to get involved to a certain degree and to enjoy
him personally or to get turned on by him.” Many girls respond
genuinely, especially if they started only recently to work with
farangs and if the relationship becomes an extended one. Indeed,
they may continue to be in love (r&l with one man, even after he has
left, and like (chawp) several others among their regular customers,
while remaining indifferent to the many men with whom they have
occasional encounters. However, like the American masseuses
(Rasmussen and Kuhn 1976:279-2801, many learn to fake involve-
ment in order to satisfy their customers’ expectations, while they
remain cold or are even turned-off by the man. In other words, they
create in the customer the illusion of emotional involvement or
sexual attraction where there is none-a special case of “staged
authenticity” (MacCannell 19731. Their ability to do so convincingly
is an indicator of the extent of their “professionalization.” This
introduces an additional element of ambiguity into the relationship:
because not only are quite a few of their customers taken in by the
acting, but the girls themselves, especially in protracted relation-
ships, may become uncertain as to their real feelings towards their
farang partners.

TYPOLOGY OF RELATIONSHIPS

The relationships between Thai girls andfarang men are more

varied and complex than one would have been led to expect from loose
talk about tourism-oriented prostitution in Thailand. To overcome
that difficulty, a typology of the relationships based on Blau’s ( 19671
concepts of love, social exchange and economic exchange was devel-
oped. Blau conceives of “love” as a foremost example of relations based
on intrinsic gratification-self-gratification by the partners ( 1967:
761 in contrast to types of relations based on extrinsic gratification
(i.e., gratification by rewards received from others): “social exchange”
and “economic exchange.” The former, according to Blau, is based on
unspecified reciprocal personal obligations between partners, who,
through mutual trust, establish an extended relationship of reciproc-
ity: the latter is based on disparate acts of contractual transactions in
which exact quantities are exchanged: they do not necessitate, and
neither do they create, extended reciprocal relationships. Blau em-
phasizes that even in love relations, despite their intrinsically
gratifying nature, an element of exchange to promote the mutual
commitment of the lovers is involved ( 1967.93-94, 761.

414 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 EFUK COHEN

The commercialization of personal services in modem society,

involving, among other things, the transformation of traditional
host-guest relationships into seller-customer ones in modem tour-
ism (Bryden 1973:94-951, often produces situations in which the
two types of exchange are mingled and thus engenders consider-
able ambiguity in relations and conflicts between institutional
goals (Shamir 1978:288). The brevity of touristic encounters (Sut-
ton 19671 precludes the emergence of stable relations based on
social exchange, and promotes what Greenwood (1977) called the
“commoditization” of all spheres of the hosts’ culture. Purely
commercial attitudes on the part of the hosts, however, rob the
tourists’ relationships with them of much of their attractiveness.
Professionalization in tourism, hence, finds one of its expressions
in the ability of the service personnel to provide “personalized
service”-a form of “staged authenticity” (MacCannell 1973) in
which relationships based essentially on economic exchange are
camouflaged to appear as if they were based on social exchange.
However, where relationships are only incompletely commercialized,
a genuine mixture of both types of exchange may emerge in the
same relationship.
The manner in which the two types of exchange are related can
thus be .used as the basis for a typology of relationships in tourism.
Applied to the relationship between Thai girls and farangs, four
types are obtained.
1. Mercenary: This is a form of pure “economic exchange,” based
on a clear understanding, on both sides, that sexual services are
exchanged for money; while, unlike in the brothel or the massage
parlor, the girl may not expressly state her price, but leave
remuneration to the customer’s generosity, both sides understand
the neutral nature of the relationship, and involvement is neither
feigned nor demanded. Explicitly mercenary relationships are gen-
erally of short duration, but in some cases (e.g., unattractive girls
and elderly, well-to-do men) take on the nature of a protracted
contract-like liaison. Thus, a 76-year-old German lived for more
than a week with a 20-year-old girl in a hotel opposite the soi. He
said that he gave her “250 baht (US $12.50) a day and food”: and
though he complained of her insistence to pay her on a day-to-day
basis, he was satisfied enough with her to think of marrying her
and taking her home “to keep my household.” The girl, however,
broke off the relationship.
2. Staged: This type is also essentially a form of “economic
exchange,” but camouflaged as “social exchange” or even love. The
girl feigns emotional attachment and intentionally leads on her

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 THAI GIRLS AND FAFUNG MEN

partner to get involved. In this effort she may be helped by her

partner’s eagerness, the fragmentary and superficial nature of their
acquaintance, and his ignorance of the context of prostitution in
Thailand. While she may carefully avoid asking for money for
specific sexual favors, she will lead on her partner to invest ever
more into the relationship, thus creating an apparently stable
liaison.
Unlike in the case of ordinary reciprocal relationships based on
“social exchange,” however, the girl is not interested in cementing
the relationship but in extracting the maximum financial gain.
Hence she will at a certain point, frequently close to her partner’s
departure, try to “capitalize” the relationship by asking for a large
sum of money, actually a retribution for favors rendered, even at the
risk of provoking a break. Depending on her skill in manipulating
thefarang, who by now may be deeply involved, this may lead to his
disenchantment and separation, or to his acquiescence to pay, with
the understanding that the relationship will continue even after his
departure. The girl will indeed often proceed to extricate money
from him through detailed renderings of often non-existent prob-
lems in her letters, while she continues to engage in prostitution or
gets involved with other men.
3. Mixed: This is a variable mixture of “social exchange” and even
“love” with an “economic exchange” relationship. While it is
characteristic of many protracted liaisons, it is also a most unstable
one, since it is based on conflicting motivations: economic interest
and emotional involvement. While the former generates in the girl a
calculating attitude towards the partner, the latter induces her to
develop and preserve the relationship as valuable in itself, even at
the expense of her economic interests. Her conduct thus tends to
fluctuate between extreme demands and extreme attachment,
between the polar role types of prostitute and lover. Such fluctua-
tions, often triggered-off, intensified, or mitigated by her partner’s
behavior, are at the basis of the tensions and instability inherent in
this relationship, which will be discussed below.
4. Emotional: This relationship is based on “love,” i.e., intrinsic
gratification and “social exchange.” It is dominated by the emo-
tional involvement of the partners, with economic interests on the
girl’s part playing only a minor or subdued role: the girl often lives
with her lover “for free” or receives only minimal support which
enables her to fulfil her family obligations. While it is less conflict-
ridden than the preceding one, the stability of this type of
relationship depends primarily on the strength and duration of the
mutual emotional involvement of the partners.

416 1982 ANNALS OF TOUFUSM FUBEARCH

 ERIK COHEN

These are, of course, analytical types, deduced from observations.

Actual relationships approximate one or another type and fre-
quently fluctuate between them.

TENSIONS IN THE RELATIONSHIPS

Most protracted liaisons between Thai girls and farangs are
complex in nature-they belong to either the “staged” or “mixed”
type. The crucial variable for an understanding of the dynamics of
the relationship is the extent of the girl’s emotional involvement
and her readiness to sacrifice her economic interests to it. At least
at the outset, both sides are generally aware of the predominance of
such interests-after all, the girl operates in a sphere which is
publicly defined as “prostitution,” whatever her self-definition and
however marginal she may be to the hard core of that sphere. The
first encounter, then, is usually mercenary by nature. Subsequently,
however, both sides may develop an interest in a protraction of the
relationship and its redefinition. The farang’s primary interest is to
develop a “real” or authentic relationship from what was initially a
mercenary one. A subsidiary interest, found primarily among the
drop-out expatriates, many of whom are impecunious, semi-
permanent tourists (Cohen 1982b3,is so to involve the girl emo-
tionally that she will be willing to stay for free or for the bare
minimum she needs to fulfill her obligations: whereby the farang
would save money, while having the girl. Indeed, some experienced
farangs go so far as to feign emotional involvement with the girl
with that aim in mind-thus creating a situation of “reversed
staged authenticity,” the staging in this case being done by the
foreigner rather than the host.
The girl’s interest in protracting the relationship is primarily one
of security. This, however, is often accompanied by a growing
dependence, which, in addition to economic, frequently has also
emotional overtones. Many girls would not stay with a man if they
do not at least like him, though they may not be in love with him.
However, a girl may feign liking when emotional involvement is
absent as a means to keep her man, thus creating a “staged”
relationship. Even when she likes or loves him, she often faces a
dilemma: her attachment may spoii her chances of earning more
money in short-time, purely mercenary encounters (cf. Vandersypen
1977:102 for a similar dilemma of the femmes libres of Kigali).
While this may be an external source of tension in the relationship,
there are others, inherent in the relationship itself.
A protracted relationship is normatively “wide open.” There are

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 THAI GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

not only many aspects of the relationship open to differential

interpretation on the part of the partners, but also important
obstacles to the process of negotiation intended to clear up
inherent ambiguities: each side generally interprets the cues
emitted by the other according to his own cultural premises. Such
relationships are hence intrinsically unstable, suffering from fre-
quent tensions and breakdowns. These problems can be most
clearly illustrated with respect to two focal points of tension: money
and jealousy.
Farangs suffer endimically from “staging suspicion” (Cohen
1979:27-281, the fear that they are deceived-that the girl only
feigns attachment in order to extricate money from them-even
when this is not in fact the case. Since in their view an emotional
relationship between the sexes is defined as one which does not
involve the payment of money, they tend to see in the willingness of
the girl to live with them for “free” an indicator of the sincerity of
her attachment. The girl, however, tends to interpret the money
received from the farang not as payment for her favors, but as a
“gift” (Bujra 1977:181, or as support for her and her family. The
amount provided serves her as an indicator of the depth of her
boyfriends obligation towards her and of his esteem and attach-
ment to her (cf. La Fontaine 1974:98 for a similar attitude among
thefemmes libres of Kinshasal. The common tendency of girls to
accuse their boyfriends of stinginess (kiniao) is thus not only an
expression of dissatisfaction with what the girl has actually
received in view of the widespread image offarangs as immensely
rich (Cohen 198 11 or of a moral condemnation of lack of generosity
(which is a highly esteemed quality of character in Thai culture). It
is also an expression of doubt in thefarang’s professed feelings for
the girl. The&rang, however, is apt to perceive such accusations as
expressions of greediness, unthankfulness or lack of real feelings
on the part of the girl. To the native image of the immensely rich
man is thus juxtaposed the image of the endlessly demanding Thai
girl.
This problem becomes particularly acute once a farang marries a
girl and takes her home. While in Thailand, owing to a relatively low
price-level and a greater propensity to spend while on a vacation, he
may live up to her expectations, Once back home in a Western
country his propensity to be generous is often reduced by a change
in disposition (the return to daily reality) as well as by objective
economic constraints (a small income and high prices) which the
girl is usually unable to comprehend fully. This is apparently a
major factor generating tensions and conflicts in such marriages.

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 ERIK COHEN

Combined with the problems the girl encounters in the wake of her
sudden, unprepared and radical transition into a new environ-
ment-the ignorance of the language and customs, the loneliness,
the separation from family and friends, the unaccustomed foods
and climate-these tensions and conflicts make such marriages
highly brittle and lead to their frequent early termination.
Other kinds of misunderstandings leading to tensions and
breakdowns derive from the issue of jealousy. The Thai girl usually
develops a marked possessiveness about her farang partner, ex-
pressed in strong feelings and protestations of jealousy upon the
slightest suspicion of unfaithfulness. This is the case even though
the girl, as described above, may entertain a variety of liaisons of
varying intensity with different men, or may not be emotionally
involved with him. On a superficial level, such possessiveness may
well express the girl’s fear of losing her source of security and
support. But on another level, it expresses, like the demand for
money, a deeper cultural theme: the sense of “losing face” or
shame caused by the discovery of infidelity, the intensity of which
is often incomprehensible to a foreigner, unaware of the crucial
importance of keeping one’s face in Thai culture. This lack of
comprehension is intensified by the farang’s perception of the girl
as a prostitute, i.e., a woman whose promiscuity is part of her
occupation, to whom he feels no particular obligation to be faith-
ful. Her profession, indeed, may well arouse his own feelings of
anxiety and jealousy, particularly during periods of separation.
Tumultous scenes of mutual recriminations and veritable tan-
trums of fury on the girl’s part frequently punctuate a relationship
and often precipitate its break-up.
The important point to note is that conflicts lead to at least a
temporary redefinition of the relationship on the girl’s part, thereby
exacerbating its ambiguity, Her principal strategy in the case of
conflict over money or the partner’s infidelity is to turn the
relationship provocatively into a mercenary one-by demanding
exorbitant amounts of money as payment for all the time spent
with her partner. The point of the exercise is not only to extricate
money, but also, by degrading herself to the status of an ordinary
prostitute, to rob the relationship of any intrinsic or “authentic”
meaning which it might have had for the farang-thereby seriously
injuring his male self-esteem. The relationship might break up at
this point in disillusionment. But in many instances, once the girl’s
fury has been acted out, it resumes again in the same ambiguous
mood which characterized it before, oscillating between emotional
attachment and mercenary interest and leaving at least the farang

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 THAI GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

and often even the girl herself uncertain as to where each precisely
stands with the other, or for that matter, as to one’s own emotions.

CONCLUSIONS: THE DYNAMICS AND CONSEQUENCES OF

TOURISM-ORIENTED PROSTITUTION

This paper offers a fairly detailed account of the dynamics of

relationships between Thai girls andfarang men in a situation of
incomplete commercialization (de Gal10 and Alzate 1976). Such
relationships can fruitfully be analyzed in terms of Blau’s (1967)
exchange theory while tending to differ significantly from the
purely mercenary, routine prostitute-client relationship based on
specific economic exchange, such relationships generally do not
attain the opposite form of a purely emotional relationship, based
on love and social exchange, but frequently involve a considerable
amount of ambiguity. They often feature simultaneously a compo-
nent of economic exchange and one of feigned or intended social
exchange, and tend to oscillate between an emphasis on each of
these poles. “Staged” and “mixed” liaisons, which constitute the
majority among the protracted ones, are thus inherently precarious
and unstable, frequently ending in raucous conflict. Since the girls
usually return to their previous life style after a break-up, they pass
in the course of their careers through a series of such liaisons, in
addition to many occasional purely mercenary encounters which are
part of their routine work in the bar or the coffee shop. It is
important to note that manyfarangs who stay in Thailand for longer
periods of time or come on frequent visits go through a similar
experience: several protracted liaisons, mostly ending in failure, in
addition to many short, primarily mercenary encounters. What are
the long-term consequences for both partners of such relationships?
In general terms, it can be concluded from the available evidence
that the mutual attitude of both sexes changes in direct relation-
ship to the duration of their interaction: the longer they were
involved in various liaisons, the greater their mutual disillusion-
ment and the less their readiness to get seriously involved in a new
liaison.
Though farangs differ in the extent to which they seek an
“authentic” relationship with Thai women, their attitude to the
girls is influenced by the image widely disseminated in the mass
media and advertisements and is generally more positive among
those new to Thailand than among those of longer standing. Upon
first arrival, they are usually not only more eager for a sexual
adventure than later on, but they are also more easily taken in by

420 1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

 ERIK COHEN

the crasser forms of staging on the part of the girls. Newly arrived
&rungs are more apt to turn a casual encounter into a permanent
liaison; there are frequent instances of tourists who married a girl
after a few days acquaintance. As the&rang gains experience and
becomes more discerning, his eagerness cools off and his attitude
to the Thai girls becomes less favorable. Many of those with
experience emphasize the greediness, opportunism, unfaithfulness,
and promiscuity of the Thai girls, qualities which sharply contra-
dict the image propagated in the media. While still physically
attracted to them, many decline to become emotionally involved.
Their disenchantment is often accompanied by cynicism, well
expressed by a drunken American working in Saudi Arabia, but
spending his time-off in Thailand, where he is married to a Thai
woman: “A beautiful people-as long as you have money!” Such
disenchanted farangs often cease to have protracted liaisons al-
together and entertain a sexual life-style characterized by a con-
stant change of partners, whom they often choose from the fringe
of the prostitution scene-girls who arrived only recently, and who
are still more innocent, naive and pliant than those with longer
experience.
The attitudes of the girls undergo a parallel change in the wake of
disillusionment. It is common for a girl to get quite deeply involved
in a love-relationship with one of the firstfarangs whom she meets.
The trauma of breakup of the relationship or of separation after the
departure of her boyfriend usually provokes a personal crisis, which
eventuates in a more guarded or discriminating attitude towards
farangs. Some become completely detached, at most feigning in-
volvement in “staged” relationships (Rasmussen and Kuhn 1975:
2791; others become more discriminating, but from time to time do
get seriously involved with a farang. Owing to the ambiguity and
ephemerality of such liaisons, the careers of these girls are punc-
utuated by emotional crises of varying severity.
The life of most girls is markedly ephemeral. It is characterized by
considerable precariousness and instability which-though rooted
in their broader social situation-is reinforced by the girls’ life style
and by the attitudes which they develop as they become socialized
into prostitution. This predicament can be observed on several
levels. The decision to engage in prostitution is itself, at least
initially, not a conscious choice of a career. Rather, it appears to the
girls as a temporary resort to be abandoned once a better chance
offers itself. Many girls, especially at the early stages of involvement
with prostitution, hope, like some Arab boys in Israel (Cohen 1971)
to escape their predicament completely, through marriage with a

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 THAI GIRLS AND FAFlfWG MEN

farang and emigration to an affluent Western country. However,

even if they succeed in realizing this aim, the liaison tends to break
up and the girls return again to Thailand and to prostitution. Many
girls in the soi have visited or lived in some Western country,
mostly as girlfriends or wives offarangs, but returned to Thailand
after a relatively short period of time.
Even when a girl works regularly in a bar or coffee shop, she is
not sure of a steady income. Like in most areas of the informal
economic sector of the Thai society, supply also always exceeds
demand in tourism-oriented prostitution: there are many times
more girls than potential customers. Hence, the fortunes of any
particular girl fluctuate wildly and depend much on chance. If she
is lucky enough to find a rich and generous boyfriend, she may live
fabulously for a while, eat in the best restaurants, have expensive
clothes and jewelry and dispose of a lot of money. Such good luck
for a girl whose predicament is marked by precariousness often
induces her to become utterly dependent on her partner. The
dependence, in turn, is the source of both her excessive demands
(the farang soon becomes not only the girl’s own provider, but also
the provider of her family), as well as of her possessiveness (the
boyfriend frequently becoming a single point of apparent stability
in an unstable, disorganized life). Such dependence, however, is a
destabilizing factor, contributing to the generation of tensions and
the ultimate break-up of the relationship.
Once the relationship is over or the boyfriend leaves, the girl
frequently goes through a period of severe depression as she falls
back upon her old, precarious lifeways-a room in the slum, food-
stall meals, work in the bar or coffee shop. When she started
working in prostitution, she usually intended to save money and
leave the profession. The relative ease with which she can some-
times earn big amounts of money and the climate prevailing among
her peers at work or in the soi encourages a present-orientation
and an emphasis on immediate gratification. The money a gener-
ous boyfriend left her is usually soon gone, whether on repayment
of debts, support of parents, siblings or children, on fast living, or
help for girls in trouble. Hence, the girl who was one day affluent
will the next be seen pawning or selling her belongings-the
jewelry, tape-recorder, and clothes which she received as presents
from her friend-unless of course, she is lucky enough to find a
new supporter. The sub-cultural orientation to the present, in itself
merely a reinforced tendency prevalent in much of Thai society,
thus exacerbates the instability and precariousness of the girl’s
situation.

422 1982 ANNALS OF TOURlSM RESEARCH

 ERIK COHEN

The girl’s emotional life has an additional destabilizing effect:

many girls balance concomitantly several relationships of varying
emotional depth, each more or less ambiguous, and all essentially
temporary. Ordinarily, none of the relationships offers a realistic
solution to the wider problems, which induced the girl to enter
prostitution in the first place. Though apparently light-hearted and
fun-loving, many girls experience various emotional problems, which
they are not always pyschologically well-equipped to handle. The
closely-knit peer groups which emerge either at the work place or in
the living quarters such as the soi both assuage and exacerbate the
girl’s problems. Such groups not only provide psychological support
in distress, but also material help in times of need. The apparent
profligacy of the girls with their money thus repays itself when they
are in need. The system of mutual suport among girls in a similar
general predicament but with widely fluctuating fortunes, is thus a
form of social exchange reminiscent of similar mechanisms of
“survival of the unfittest” (Lomitz 19781 found in slums in other
parts of the world.
The peer group, however, also exacerbates the problems from
which the girls suffer, by encouraging a dissipate and disorderly life
style, marked by drinking bouts, night-long card games in which
they sometimes lose big amounts of money, and in some case, the
use of hard drugs. Not all girls are hence able to maintain their
mental balance, as indicated by alcoholism, drug substance abuse,
psychosomatic complaints, and in some cases attempted or actual
suicide.
While the above description of the consequences of tourism-
oriented prostitution pertains to the majority, there is a minority-
the exact size of which is difficult to judge-who achieve a degree of
stability or even prosperity. Some find husbands and establish a
steady marriage, others have rich boyfriends who send them suffi-
cient money to live respectably, without engaging in prostitution.
Such girls, whether wives or mistresses offarangs, serve as ex-
amples to the many who did not make it-a symbolic affirmation
that success is possible-and sustains their hopes (cf. Cohen
197 1:229 for similar hopes among Arab youths in Israel).
Some girls, especially older ones, lower their sights and, instead
of hoping to escape their predicament miraculously through mar-
riage or a rich patron, try to save money to establish themselves
independently once they lose their attractiveness. Here an interest-
ing and important subject is touched on: what is the fate of the
older prostitutes? Does she end up in the gutter, or pull herself out
economically? While the fate of most girls working with farangs

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 423

 THAI GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

may be less sordid than some commentators would lead one to

believe (FEER 1976:29), it is doubtful that many really succeed in
establishing a new existence through prostitution. Most girls have
too many obligations which drag upon their resources. The in-
stability of their situation precludes them from simply disregarding
such obligations: they may need the help of others in the future,
and must therefore take account of them in the present.
Tourism-oriented prostitution, as found among bar and coffee-
shop girls in Bangkok, does not generally resolve the problems
which have induced the girls to enter the profession. True enough,
a few girls achieve exceptional, undreamed of success in life, by
successfully marrying a well-to-do foreigner, while some others may
achieve a more limited degree of mobility. For most, prostitution
offers a career marked by a pattern of upward and downward
mobility, a rhythm of long periods of economic and personal
insecurity punctuated by periods of sometimes considerable, but
usually temporary, affluence. While it enables the girls to resolve
some of the pressing problems caused by the precariousness of
their life-situation, it does not usually resolve the problem of
precariousness itself, but often even exacerbates it. It should be
kept in mind, however, that any comprehensive evaluation of the
social and economic significance of tourism-oriented prostitution
would have to take account of the alternatives which the girls face.
To examine this point, however, a different kind of study than the
present one is necessary (i.e.. K. Thitsa [1980] investigates Thai
women with different ways of life). However, even if such a com-
parative study should show that tourism-related prostitutes in fact
tend to be economically better off and more mobile than other
women of similar backgrounds, their economic gains should still be
weighted against the psychological and social damage which their
work and life style inflict upon them. •I0

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This paper is based on the first stage of an urban anthropological

study in Bangkok conducted in the summer of 1981 under a grant
from the H.S. Truman Research Institute at the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem, whose support is here gratefully acknowledged. For
some of the earlier work on tourism in Thailand, see Cohen, 1979c,
1981, 1982a and 1982b.

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 ERIK COHEN

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1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH 427

 THAI GIRLS AND FARANG MEN

Wahnschafft. RD.
1982 Formal and Informal Sectors in a Tourism Resort: A Case Study in Pattaya
(Thailand). Annals of Tourism Research g(3).

Submitted 4 February 1982

Revised version submitted 29 March 1982
Accepted 1 April 1982
Refereed anonymously

1982 ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH