Thailand's History and Culture: Why Gayness Remains a Stigma for Many

[PeterRS]

Ever since my first visit to Thailand decades ago I have been amazed at the welcome given to gay men and women and the seeming openness of gay life. At the same time I have learned and seen evidence of the relative homophobia in much of the country and discrimination in certain sections of society against homosexual individuals. I have also seen the gradual disappearance of many Thais who used to visit the bars in the 1980s and the 1990s, as well as the country boys working in many of the bars being replaced by those from neighbouring countries. 

In response to all these I have seen many western-style views expressed in explanation – especially rapidly rising incomes as Thailand’s economy has developed making it less attractive for young Thai guys to work in the gogo bars. I have always thought approaching Thailand’s culture and sexual morality from a western perspective wrong. A few years ago I tried to do a little research. I did find on the internet one fascinating article by the Australian Professor Peter Jackson who has written a whole series of articles and books on sexuality and queerness in Asian countries. Yesterday I tried to find that article again – without success. But I did eventually find an even longer one that focuses almost exclusively on Thailand. It is very long but I found it totally fascinating. I had intended to quote sections from it in a special post here. By the time I was half way through the article, I had way too many words. So I decided to paraphrase some of its more key moments, with sections in quotation marks being direct quotes from the article.

Essentially what Jackson stresses is that western influences and a desire for acceptance by the West have had and continue to have an especially serious effect on traditional Thai cultural and sexual norms. This was very typical in countries subject to colonization. But Siam was never colonized. Why, therefore, the similarity? Strikingly, the main changes in terms of homosexuality did not start to appear until the mid 20th century and they started internally within the country.

“The key finding of my earlier studies is that despite the global spread of Western power and the intensity of homophobic discourse in the early modern West, these discourses failed to register in Thailand or to be communicated through local networks of discursive power until the 1960s.”

Back in the 1800s Thailand had a very homogenous society. Men and women dressed naked from the waist up. They wore virtually similar hairstyles. It was often difficult to tell men from women. This contrasted greatly with western habits where it was all but impossible not to tell a man from a woman.

“With respect to gender and eroticism, Western visitors consistently made three main critiques that were taken of Siamese barbarism and lack of civilization . . . (1) the ‘nakedness of the Siamese body [above the waist]; (2) the sexual ‘excesses of polygamy; and (3) the similarity in appearance of Siamese men and women, accentuated by a lack of differentiation between male and female fashions and hair styles . . . “

That anti-colonial stance had come to the fore particularly during the reign of King Chulalongkorn (1868-1910). Historically, as Siam opened up trade to the West, two factors contributed to this change. The first was that, as had happened in China by force, Siam peacefully permitted foreign traders to be based in Siam under their home countries laws. European nations and America regarded Siam’s traditional laws as barbaric and refused to allow their nationals to be subject to them. 

Secondly it was King Chulalongkorn who realised that the disparaging tone of Western nations about what they alleged as Siam’s primitive barbarous customs and religion, a view expressed vociferously by Christian missionaries, could have negative international consequences. The King was aware that International Law only protected so-called “civilized nations.” There was concern that Western nations might seize Siam under the pretext of the country’s alleged backwardness. The King realised that Thailand had to change and become on the face of it more western looking. “Thai social critic Sulak Sivaraska labeled Chulalongkorn’s self-civilizing anti-colonization strategy as ‘fighting wolves by donning their clothing.’”

The campaign to westernize (and thus be seen to “civilize”) the surface of the Siamese people began to take off as some of the nobility and the rising middle class had their children educated overseas, mostly to start with in the exclusive English public school system. They returned fully immersed in outward western values and helped change Thai habits, at least in the cities. As the Thai education system gradually developed through the 20th century and spread throughout Thai society in the countryside in the second half of that century, “it cut off the folk culture of rural Thais, who looked on sex as something ordinary, a matter of teasing and playful banter such as is apparent in folk songs, artwork, poetry and so on.” [As an aside, this was very much the impression given by those who worked in the gay gogo bars in the 1970s and 80s].

Even then, as far as sexuality is concerned, “in Thailand the only significant control over lay sexuality prescribed by the religion is a prohibition against (heterosexual) adultery. Thai Buddhism does not regard same-sex eroticism between laymen or laywomen as a sin. In the legal domain, sodomy was made a punishable offence in the first decade of the twentieth century as part of an effort to make the Siamese legal code appear to conform to European norms of civilization. This legal view took place in response to the extraterritorial provisions of trading treaties signed with European powers, the United States and Japan in the nineteenth century. In its Siamese form ‘offenses against human order’ included both male and female same-sex activity . . . However, while the presence of the anti-sodomy law in the legal code gave the appearance of conforming to Victorian era sexual norms, not a single prosecution for homosexuality was made under this law and Thai police ignored the clause, continuing, as previously, to overlook consensual same-sex activities . . .The clause was removed in 1956 as part of a review to purge the legal code of anachronistic and obsolete edicts.”

Perhaps oddly, while Western influences in Japan were aimed to a considerable degree at the homosexual perversions amongst Japan’s religious and military elites, in Siam it focused on the heterosexual polygamous excesses of the nobility. “Western homophobic discourses failed to have an impact in Thailand until after World War II.”

The key to the real change in Thai society as regards homosexuality is concerned did not occur until the later decades of the 20th century. This saw a “Thai bio-medical project aimed at controlling, if not reversing, the proliferation of same-sex and transgender identities. Beginning in the 1960s, Thai physicians and psychologists drew upon Western biomedical sciences in an attempt to control, suppress, and cure cross-dressing and homosexuality . . . However [this] only came into being after the existence of a diverse array of new identities and cultures had been exposed to public view by the sensation-seeking Thai press. [It attempted] to put the genie of proliferating sexual and gender diversity back into the bottle. This is the converse of what Michel Foucault described for Western Europe [in his The History of Sexuality: Volume 1], where it was the rise of new biomedical knowledges, amongst other factors, that in turn incites new sexualized identities into being. The biomedical project has had a significant impact on the recent history of Thailand’s same-sex and transgender cultures, but it could not have had a role in inciting these new cultures into being because it only came into existence after the fact as an ultimately unsuccessful regime of control and containment.”

In the early 1960s, Hanks and Hanks [L. M. Hanks and Jane Hanks, a couple who spent many years working in and writing about Thailand] observed, “Western doctrines include a sharper distinction between the sexes than has been traditionally the case in Thailand. Little boys were once almost indistinguishable from little girls by dress or coiffure. Today sex distinctions are being cultivated.”

The change has been even more universal. “Almost a century of state interventions succeeded in forcing all Thai men and women to refashion their self-comportment in newly defined and clearly differentiated masculine and feminine styles.” This official refashioning of Thai culture and society resulted in distinct homosexuality as a means of sexual expression in Thailand only beginning to be taken seriously in the 1960s. Following the sensationalist press campaign, governments adopted ineffective measures at acceptance and control of its restrictive directives. But these were inhibited by “the mass migration of unemployed and under-employed rural labourers to Bangkok which saw an explosive boom in the urban population and the rapid appearance of new social spaces where, outside the restrictive cultural controls traditionally exercised by family and neighbours, men and women could enact new identities and develop new gender-based and erotically focussed forms of community.”

So in conclusion, specific gayness in Thai society is as new a phenomenon as in western nations. But it is important to realise that the underlying cultural and social structures were hugely different for centuries beforehand. These differences are ingrained in many will likely take another generation or two before being gay is accepted at virtually all levels of Thai society. 

Performative Genders, Perverse Desires:  A Bio-History of Thailand’s Same-Sex and Transgender Cultures

by Peter Jackson

originally published in August 2003 in Intersections: Gender, History and Culture in the Asia Context

and republished in 2008 in Intersections: Gender and Sexuality in Asia and the Pacific

http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue9/jackson.html#t112

I must stress again that I have merely tried to distil the essence of Jackson’s very long Paper. I may not have done this very effectively due to the amount of detail that has to be absorbed but hope I have highlighted at least some key issues. An indication of the depth of Jackson’s analysis is that the Paper has 125 footnotes!

As a follow up, it is well worth seeking more information in Professor Jackson’s book 

An American Death in Bangkok: The Murder of Darrell Berrigan and the Hybrid Origins of Gay Identity in 1960s Bangkok.

There is an excellent (and once again very long) summary in the link below. It highlights the expatriate homosexual subculture that existed in Bangkok following World War II. It mentions the two powerful politicoeconomic cliques that then emerged in Thailand, one based in the police and largely funded and supported by the CIA, the other the military.

49 year old American citizen, Berrigan, one of the homosexual clique with two 20s adopted Thai sons, founded and edited a newspaper titled Bangkok World which flourished in the 1960s. He was murdered in 1965. The Thai elite did not like this homosexual clique. They believed it was influencing Thai gender/sex discourses during the mid-1960s.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/12116

[anddy]

Fascinating stuff, thanks for posting @PeterRS!

the link provided to the article has some error in it, here is the correct one: http://intersections.anu.edu.au/issue9/jackson.html

Funny side observation: at the very bottom of that article it says "This page [...] is best viewed in either Netscape 2 or above, or Explorer 2 or above." A piece of web history there  

 

[Londoner]

Fascinating. 

I knew that my boyfriend was very close to his parents and he claimed that they were fully aware of his sexuality but that the  subject was never discussed.

We'd been together for four years or more before I received the invitation to visit in Kamphaeng Phaet. I had felt rather hurt by his reluctance, particularly in view of the falangs I knew who'd been "taken home" at an early stage in their relationships. I wondered whether the poverty in which they lived was an issue, and without explaining why, I talked to him about my experiences in West Africa, where the poverty in some rural villages and compounds I'd visited (and ate in, from communal bowls) was way beyond that of rural Thailand. 

But no. I had to tease out the reasons why my invitation was relatively late in arriving; nothing to do with poverty, parent or family; everything to do with the close-knit village in which his family lived and its  collective view of homosexuality. A gay man, he told me, was considered to be  effeminate.  P is straight-looking and acting. He didn't want to be considered a ladyboy, or anything like it.

About a year earlier, I'd paid for a house to be built next to his parents to provide a better environment for him....it even had an indoor toilet and bathroom! However, he was there for only six years when the opportunity arose for him to move about ten kms away, to a secluded (relatively speaking) but older house with its own plot of land.

I have to admit to being upset. That house near his parents had cost me dear; I'd been involved in every stage of its planning and construction. I must confess to a feeling of pride for what I'd done for him. And of hurt by his decision.

But again, the desire for privacy and separation from the village trumped everything else, including being willing to  swap the smart concrete house I'd paid for an old and traditional one.

I stress that P , who's now thirty-eight, is straight-looking and acting. And exclusively and assertively gay.  But the hold the community still had on him was immense.  

He visits his parents everyday; but his sexuality ensures that he will no longer live there. In an odd way, bearing the mind the part I played in his two houses, including the fitting-up and refurbishment of his new one, I am something of a victim too!

 

 

 

  

[PeterRS]

Thank for correcting the link, @anddy

I have spent part of the day reading the account of the murder of Darrell Berrigan. More fascinating stuff and so I will post here a summary that unfortunately does not do justice to the length and detail of Jackson's original. But it throws up some key points in the discussion of general Thai reactions to the subject of homosexuality.

As Jackson points out, "Before the 1960s male homoerotic relations in Thailand were structured within discourses that ascribed masculine [phu-chai] and feminine/effeminate [kathoey] gender positions to same-sex partners. This gendered pattern was reinforced by a number of related oppositions, such as senior-junior and inserter-insertee, that established a power hierarchy between a masculine, senior 'man' and his feminized, junior kathoey partner. Notions of class and social status were also important in marking the kathoey-'man' distinction; kathoey were commonly thought of as low-class social riffraff . . . It is possible to say that during this time a crucial discursive transition began to encourage the emergence of gay sexual identities. Newspaper sources from the early 1970s suggest that by then gay did mark a sexual identity, with Thai homosexual men calling themselves 'gay king' or 'gay queen' depending on whether they saw themselves as butch inserters or less butch insertees."

 It was the murder of Berrigan that gradually brought the term 'gay' into general use and with it the concept of two men who acted like men and dressed like men having sex together, although initially it had primarily referred to prostitution. And as noted it was the Thai media that played this to the hilt, often using what would be regarded as expressions of extreme disgust. This compared to the account in the Bangkok Post which merely used the term homosexual in discussing Berrigan and his colleagues.

"Gossip and rumor in Bangkok’s expatriate community suggest that many Western homosexual men have made the city their home since World War II. However, there are no sources that permit an estimate of their numbers and no biographies or autobiographies that document their private lives honestly. For example, William Warren’s biography of Jim Thompson, arguably the most prominent rumored homosexual American in postwar Bangkok, carefully constructs a female romantic interest for this man, who led U.S. operational support of the Seri Thai [Free Thai] anti-Japanese resistance during the war and subsequently helped reconstruct the Thai silk industry in the 1950s, earning himself the epithet 'the Thai silk king.' Warren tells us that Thompson was 'always rumoured [to be] about to marry this or that young heiress but never quite doing so' and portrays him as a rugged, butch individual. One gets a different impression of the man from the memoirs of another American, Alexander MacDonald, who worked with Thompson and the Seri Thai and cofounded the English-language newspaper Bangkok Post in 1946. MacDonald describes Thompson as 'foppish. . . . he wore dancing pumps much of the time.' Indeed, Thompson’s lifelong love of the ballet, set design, and costumes prompted his interest in Thai silk, whose outstanding visual qualities he helped bring to New York stage productions such as The King and I in the 1950s. Readers of Warren’s biography are left to interpret for themselves the private life of this U.S. war veteran with artistic sensibilities . . . 

"In this essay I use accounts of Berrigan’s life and death as a window on changing Thai attitudes. In these accounts, however, there is another story awaiting narration, namely, the history of the Western imagining of Bangkok as a site of homosexual liberality and a zone of supposed freedom from homophobia. The history of Western homoerotic imaginings of the exotic East in the expansion of Western economic, political, and cultural influence can be detected in reports of the lives of men such as Thompson and Berrigan. But in the sources considered here the intersection of Western desire and imperial power exists as a barely spoken subtext more often than as an explicit presence . . . 

"On 4 October 1965 the English-language Bangkok Post reported in a front-page story that early the previous day the body of Darrell Berrigan, forty-nine-year-old expatriate American editor of the rival English-language newspaper the Bangkok World, had been found in the backseat of his Volkswagen sedan. The car had been parked only thirty meters from his house in Soi Leucha, a side street off busy Phahonyothin Road in central Bangkok. Berrigan had been killed by a single bullet through the back of the head, and his Rolex watch and wallet were missing. On the same morning the front-page banner headline of the Thai-language Thai Rath read, 'Bangkok World Editor Stripped and Murdered . . .,' and the story reported that 'the deceased’s body lay face down on the backseat [of the car] with both hands crossed behind his back. . . . The lower body of Mr. Berrigan was in a condition that could almost be called naked, because both his trousers and underpants had been pulled down to his shins.' The reserved tone of the Bangkok Post, which said nothing about the undressed state in which the body had been found, and the detailed, direct reporting of the Thai Rath marked a divergence between English prudish caution and Thai sexual explicitness that characterized all subsequent reporting of the crime in Bangkok."

Throughout the subsequent investigation, it was the Thai media that sensationalised the murder at every turn. "The Thai press left its readers in no doubt about Berrigan’s homosexuality or the sexual element in his murder. On the day of his cremation, while the English-language press praised his humanity and his commitment to the interests and welfare of the Thai people, the Thai Rath banner headline read, 'Kathoey Reveals Berrigan’s ‘Transvestite’ [lakkaphet] Life—Says He Raised Young Men as Husbands.' The article stated that Berrigan had had a 'transvestite mind' [jit lakkaphet] and 'transvestite feelings' [khwam-ruseuk lakkaphet] and that 'it was general knowledge that Berrigan loved young men the way other men love young women.' The same information was not found in either the Bangkok Post or the Bangkok World.

"On 7 October . . . the Thai Rath noted that police inquiries had now focused on Berrigan’s 'sexual degeneracy' [kamawitthan]. In an interview one Kumut Janreuang, a business associate of Berrigan who had recently resigned from the Bangkok World, said that he had told the police that Berrigan had sexually assaulted [pluk plam] his son twice and that everyone at the newspaper knew of Berrigan’s homosexuality. The Thai Rath also reported that the previous day police had made inquiries at a number of Bangkok bars that Berrigan frequented, in particular the Star Night Club, the Two Vikings Bar, the Mitsui Bar, and the Playboy Bar . . . Berrigan’s prominence in Bangkok and his status as a respected foreigner made solving his murder especially urgent. Casting a wide investigative net, the police regarded all kathoey and homosexually active men as suspects. In their desperate search for clues, the police and the Thai-language press subjected Bangkok’s kathoey and homosexual subcultures to unprecedented scrutiny, exposing for the first time the extent of these networks . . .

"The character of the Thai Rath’s reporting of masculine male prostitutes changed dramatically on 11 October, when it published a front-page story under the banner 'Thai Rath Finds Den of ‘Men Who Sell Themselves’—Total of Two Hundred Members, High Incomes.' The first paragraph read: 'The Thai Rath has found a den of ‘men who sell themselves’ and who call themselves ‘gay.’ The existence of masculine male prostitutes had been reported alongside stories of transvestite prostitutes before. However, the Thai Rath’s 11 October story differed from earlier reports of 'men who sell themselves' in several respects. First, the men identified as gay were nowhere described as kathoey; on the contrary, their masculinity and difference from kathoey were emphasized. Second, this and subsequent exposés about gay prostitutes were associated with a shock-horror response not found in reports of men labeled as one or other variety of kathoey. Despite having published a detailed report of 'masculine kathoey' prostitutes the previous day, it is clear from the language he used to describe the gay sex workers that the Thai Rath journalist believed that he was informing readers about a startling, disturbing new phenomenon."

The reporter made clear that the group was largely made up of youths who sold themselves largely to expatriates and who were clearly wealthy, wearing fashionable clothes form fashionable stores. It also stresses the masculinity of the group. No longer is the term kathoey used.

It is then that Thai Rath home s in on the point it had probably been trying to make in the days since Berrigan's murder.

"[It] detailed the deficiencies of Thai law, which did not criminalize male homosexuality, and called for punitive statutes to suppress Thai gay prostitutes and their Western homosexual clients. [It] surmised that the cause of Berrigan’s death was 'his own sexually perverted behavior': 'If this is true, we need to consider another group of people, namely, men who sell themselves or who call themselves gay. If the activities of this group are left to run wild, they will present a danger to the country, both in terms of public peace and order and also, without a doubt, in terms of the good morals of the people.' Calling on the government to take action, the newspaper predicted a 'horrendous social disaster' otherwise. Several days later [it] claimed that male prostitution was much more detestable and dangerous than female prostitution: 'If a person of the male sex makes his living from prostitution, it will constitute a significant danger to the safety and order of the country and to the good morals of the people. This is because these people have degraded, perverted, and abnormal minds and may commit other serious crimes against society, such as the murder of Mr. Berrigan, or they may become a criminal element if they congregate in large numbers'. [It] also targeted foreigners as the source of the perversion of gay prostitution, counterposing the supposedly pure Thai moral order to the sexual 'filth' brought to the country by Westerners."

From all the above, it is clear that some Thai media were near rabid in their determination to sensationalise the Berrigan murder and the new 'gay' sub-culture which its reporters had uncovered. It is surely little wonder that it was in part this sensationalism and the revelation of a structure of male-male sexual relations that were of a totally different nature to the traditional male-kathoey roles that led many in the country to reconsider their own views and to form new ones; ones that were basically what we might term anti-gay.

[reader]

3 hours ago, PeterRS said:

From all the above, it is clear that some Thai media were near rabid in their determination to sensationalise the Berrigan murder and the new 'gay' sub-culture which its reporters had uncovered. It is surely little wonder that it was in part this sensationalism and the revelation of a structure of male-male sexual relations that were of a totally different nature to the traditional male-kathoey roles that led many in the country to reconsider their own views and to form new ones; ones that were basically what we might term anti-gay.

Thanks for posting about the effects of the Berrigan murder and opportunity it presented for the local media to run wild with theories and speculation.  Politicians almost immediately seized on it as means to settle old scores and attempt to focus on their real agendas

While looking over the bibliography of Peter Jackson, I came across a reference to a fairly recent book: GHOSTLY DESIRES: Queer Sexuality and Vernacular Buddhism in Contemporary Thai Cinema; Arnika Fuhrmann, 2016. I find the closing paragraph in the book review of the  University of British Columbia of particular interest:

"Notwithstanding its compact subtitle, Ghostly Desires is about much more than Thai cinema. Fuhrmann pursues these diverse moving image-makers far beyond the nation’s moral-institutional architecture; and their “queering” of that architecture takes her far beyond the critical conventions of gender studies. This adventure confirms what any observer of contemporary Thailand, however engrossed in mainstream evidence, should know: that a genuinely progressive cultural politics, one that refuses to breathe the stifling atmosphere of bourgeois nationalism, has for years been practised there under the mantle of vanguard art. Meanwhile, the parochial culture industry lumbers on like a zombie, in thrall to self-serving elites and their now unashamedly despotic status quo."

Despite the fact that we're still in the throes of the pandemic, not much has changed in the five years since those words first appeared.

[lotus123]

Thailand has been mythologized by outsiders as a sort of gay paradise that allegedly has high levels of tolerance for sexual diversity. My observation is that it's simply not true at the village level. Even in 2021, I would bet that most gay and bi Thai men outside certain circles in the capital are closeted, and definitely so if they present as straight-acting, as per Londoner's example above. They can discreetly do as they please or whom they please, but if they try to adopt a publicly gay identity, they encounter immediate pushback.

[PeterRS]

49 minutes ago, lotus123 said:

Even in 2021, I would bet that most gay and bi Thai men outside certain circles in the capital are closeted, and definitely so if they present as straight-acting, as per Londoner's example above.

I can assure you it is not just in the villages. Look at almost any major business in the major cities (outside entertainment, the arts and the hospitality industry) and you will find in general the same sort of anti-gay discrimination.

[spoon]

13 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

I can assure you it is not just in the villages. Look at almost any major business in the major cities (outside entertainment, the arts and the hospitality industry) and you will find in general the same sort of anti-gay discrimination.

Where in this world u dont find homophobic of some sort? As long as its different that what they think is normal, these bully will discriminate and condemn. Some countries have laws against this but doesnt stop it from happenning though. While the system or rules helps a bit, tolerance is hugely individuals.

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, spoon said:

Where in this world u dont find homophobic of some sort? As long as its different that what they think is normal, these bully will discriminate and condemn. Some countries have laws against this but doesnt stop it from happenning though. While the system or rules helps a bit, tolerance is hugely individuals.

I agree with you, but the point of the thread was to look specifically at Thailand. It's a country where male-male same sex liaisons had been far from uncommon for centuries and were clearly universally tolerated, as long as the participants fitted the man-katheoy model. Also, sex was, as Professor Jackson writes in the OP "something ordinary, a matter of teasing and playful banter such as is apparent in folk songs, artwork, poetry and so on."

Today most of the world regards Thailand as one of the most gay tolerant countries in the world. Yet my point was that 'gay' did not enter the vocabulary until around the mid-1960s and that when Thais realised that this meant men acting and dressing as real men having sex with other real men, tolerance of same-sex customs was virtually shattered. It was essentially a new concept. It did not fit the traditional model and it was actively disliked. It altered attitudes to sex. All this will have filtered through to the countryside only around 50 years ago and so will still be a commonly held view today by older generations. Given the importance of the family and village structure (as Londoner points out above), I suspect it is a view that is still being passed down to younger generations and it is one reason why so many Thai gay men remain afraid of the consequences of coming out.

This is not at all similar to Western countries where same sex liaisons were frowned on for centuries and even criminalised, but we know they took place. Indeed, they were no doubt a lot more common than is in fact known from those cases like Oscan Wilde's and Alan Turing's which were brought before the Courts.

[spoon]

To simplify things, do u mean thai culture accepting trans but not gay? Man-kathoey relationship is accepted as long as the kathoey is adopt a women lifestyle and traits, aka trans?.

[PeterRS]

34 minutes ago, spoon said:

To simplify things, do u mean thai culture accepting trans but not gay? Man-kathoey relationship is accepted as long as the kathoey is adopt a women lifestyle and traits, aka trans?.

I believe it is more complicated than that. It's hard to explain succinctly because Professor Jackson's writing is far from simple - at least for me! I certainly I believe Jackson does not mean that kathoey means transgender, merely a man who adopts a more feminine outlook.

At one point in the first Paper, he writes about Anna Leonowens' concerns when describing inhabitants of the Royal Palace. (This was the English teacher as later portrayed as 'Anna' in "The King & I" the popular Rodgers and Hammerstein musical.) She served the King for 5 years from 1862. At this time King Mongkut had 39 wives and concubines and 82 children.

Anna later wrote, "Here were women disguised as men, and men in the attire of women, hiding vice of every vileness and crime of every enormity - at once the most disgusting, the most appalling, and the most unnatural that the heart of man has conceived."

Yet, as Jackson points out, what Ms. Leonowens actually saw were the somewhat Amazonian female guards of the King's harem and actors performing in one of the all-male troupes. As in the time of Shakespeare, men took on the role of women on stage. She had simply failed to note much gender differentiation between men and women.

"All Siamese women were perceived as masculine and all Siamese men as feminine," wrote Jackson. Even in the late 1940s, a Study of the Thai village of Bang Chan (now a suburb of Bangkok) noted that "there are very few cultural roles, apart from those associated with religion, which can not be played by either men or women . . . Thai culture in its secular aspects seems to consider all adults as simply human beings together, without major distinction of sex roles; behaviour which is appropriate to one person is equally appropriate to another." In this case, the word "roles" does not refer to a stage play. It merely means in life in general.

He then adds from the same Study, "The degree of equality between the sexes which exists in Thailand . . . is a characteristic which strongly distinguishes the norms of Thai society from those of India, China or Japan, or even the Catholic Philippines and Muslim Indonesia. It is a characteristic which predated the influence of Hindu culture and the acceptance of Buddhism with their androcentrism and emphasis on masculine values." Thus the sameness of the sexes in Thailand is millennia old.

As seems to be indicated by that Study - equality also refers to sexual relations. But the Westernization of the people by imposing the mandate that women and men dress very differently and specifically had also resulted in changes in attitudes to sex. 

Last point. There are virtually no references to kathoey until a 1924 newspaper article. It is only after World War II that the term becomes more commonly used. I suspect (and it is nothing more than that) that by enforcing a different dress code for men and women, thereafter it became much more difficult for men to have sex with other men. After all, in the past it would have been difficult for others to tell who were men and who were women! With the completely new dress code, the kathoey looked feminine and so became attractive to men seeking a homosexual tryst.

I'm sorry, that is all far from simple! I hope it makes some kind of sense.

[lotus123]

20 hours ago, spoon said:

To simplify things, do u mean thai culture accepting trans but not gay? Man-kathoey relationship is accepted as long as the kathoey is adopt a women lifestyle and traits, aka trans?.

I'll go there. Yes, Thais seem to me to accept transgenderism more than homosexuality. My unscientific theory is that it's because kathoey conform to a traditional gender presentation/role even if it's the "wrong" one in relation to the sex they were born into.  

[spoon]

I do know that in chinese/korean royal system, there are eunuch system, basically men who were castrated, serving the king. Not sure about thai though. But they still behave and potray a man role, even married to woman in some of the stories ive watched haha.

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, spoon said:

I do know that in chinese/korean royal system, there are eunuch system, basically men who were castrated, serving the king. Not sure about thai though. But they still behave and potray a man role, even married to woman in some of the stories ive watched haha.

Yes, eunochs were castrated. In Beijing, they were the only men permitted to reside in the Forbidden City other than the Emperor's family and members of the Court. Castration was to ensure they did not sleep with any of the ladies in the Emperors harem! But in line with Chinese beliefs, their excised parts were kept in jars so that their bodies could be buried whole. In some countries only the testicals would be removed. In China, Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia I believe the penis was also removed. I read that the Third Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Di,  took a fancy to Vietnamese boys during the occupation of Vietnam by the Chinese. Many were castrated and brought to Court in Beijing presumably for his enjoyment. Generally, though, castration was not for sexual reasons.

Starting early in the Ming Dynasty eunochs were permitted to marry and so appear 'normal'. But the ceremonies were usually secret.

Eunochs were not confined to Asia, especially in ancient times. Even in the 17th and 18th centuries, boys were castrated in Europe in an attempt to save the purity of their pre-pubescent voices. Many died during the crude operation and most of the others lived very lonely poor lives. Those that made it became quite literally superstars. One, Farinelli, about whom a movie was made in the 1990s, was the pop star of his age and made a fortune. For whatever reason, women adored him!

[10tazione]

22 hours ago, PeterRS said:

After all, in the past it would have been difficult for others to tell who were men and who were women!

But you said that Thais in the past where all running around topless. I am no expert in women but I thought they have breasts that are well distinguishable from male breasts?

[spoon]

17 minutes ago, 10tazione said:

But you said that Thais in the past where all running around topless. I am no expert in women but I thought they have breasts that are well distinguishable from male breasts?

Are we denying the fact that there is man boobs and flat chested female? Lol

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, 10tazione said:

But you said that Thais in the past where all running around topless. I am no expert in women but I thought they have breasts that are well distinguishable from male breasts?

A very good point which Prof. Jackson makes quite clearly. My assumption should therefore be wrong.

On the other hand, I do not know how else to interpret this part of Prof. Jackson's introduction. He states the following:

"In this study I draw upon Butler's Foucault-influenced account of the perfomativity of gender and sex to trace the ways that shifts in the forms of bio-power over gender in Thailand not only altered norms of masculinity and femininity but also radically changed patterns of desire and identity. I account for the emergence of the new Thai identities and gender/sexual cultures by mapping out a precise character of changes in the forms of power that the Thai state deployed in its efforts to 'civilise' the public gendering of the populace - a project of power incited into being as a response to the combined challenges of English, French, Japanese and American imperialisms in Southeast Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This study reveals that even in the absence of Western-Style interventions in sexuality, the disruptions of traditional Siamese culture caused by the state's response to the West radically altered the performative norms of masculinity and femininity, which in turn contributed to the proliferation of new forms of transgender and same-sex identity. This Thai case study provides a counter-example to the presumption that modernity and globalisation necessarily lead to an international homogenisation of sexual cultures."

Norms of masculinity and femininity - patterns of desire and identity - new Thai identities and gender/sexual cultures - disruptions of traditional Siamese culture caused by the state's response . . . radically altered the performative norms of masculinity and femininity . . . etc. All this seems to me to indicate that nothing the state did altered what had been accepted in Thai culture for a very long time, including male to male sexual relations.

Prof. Jackson adds in his Para 5. "Unlike the situation in the West, where both homosexuality and cross-dressing had long been explicitly prohibited, until the later decades of the twentieth century same-sex and transgender behaviours almost completely escaped the attention of the Thai authorities."

I take Prof. Jackson's study as a whole to indicate that homosexuality as we know it did exist in Thailand and that it was in no way frowned upon by the state or indeed the public as a whole. But as I have written, it is a very long Paper and I certainly have not taken it all in. I am perfectly happy for others to contradict assumptions I have made based on the texts of the two articles from which I have quoted part. The important issue for me was to air the subject, for it has long seemed that some/many hold views about being gay in Thailand that are based much more on what is happening in the west rather than on the reality of the situation as it has developed over centuries in Thailand.

[reader]

Please do interpret this post as an attempt to hijack the thread, which has provided much historical context for understanding homosexual trends in Thailand and elsewhere. But as Pride Month draws to a close I thought posting some images that show that young Thais--and those young at heart--may not forever have their thinking about what it means to be gay dominated by an influential group of traditionalists. I'm not aware of anywhere in Bangkok this is more in evidence than Samyan Mitrtown, the high-rise complex at Rama IV and Phayathai Rd.

Located adjacent to two leading universities, it's busy day and night with students and young people, many from the families who may harbor some of he views of sexuality that Prof. Jackson describes. Even if you walk through the mall during the 11 months of the year when it's not celebrating Pride, it's impossible not to feel the vibe that tells you this is a safe place for gays.

 

I think it demonstrates that you don't have to have a parade to demonstrate that it's OK to be gay in Bangkok. The media has carried many stories about gay men and women who are comfortable in their sexuality and these are the folks that have a strong influence on the country's youth.

Artist Ken Khiaosanthia: "I might have a different perspective from others when it comes to defining pride. For me, Pride Month is just another month of the year and it doesn't convince me to be prouder of myself or have more self-esteem. There's nothing so special about it. But don't get me wrong, what I'm trying to say that I'm proud of who I am every day. I have never believed that my sexuality or being part of the LGBTQIA+ community makes me any different, extraordinary or inferior to any others. I don't talk about my sexual preference with my parents and don't need approval from them for being queer. Why? I believe that whether you're LGBTQIA+ or not, you can be a successful person.

Fashion designer Nisamanee Lertvonapong: "I'm proud of myself for being different. When I was a kid, I always thought that being different was wrong. Other kids bullied me just because I was not like them. When I grew up, what everyone saw as 'misbehaviour' is what has made me successful today. There's nothing wrong with being afraid to be different. We were raised in a society that discourages us from being rebels against the standard. But imagine if everyone looks and thinks the same. That's weirder. A tip from me, you must believe in your unique personality. It's a gift that makes you special and stand out from others. I'm proud to be a member of the LGBTQIA+ community."

Our best hope is that when the youth of Thailand come of age and begin to take over the levers of power in their country, their more balanced view of sexuality will be free of the oppression that politics and culture manifested over earlier generations. 

 

[vinapu]

5 hours ago, spoon said:

Are we denying the fact that there is man boobs and flat chested female? Lol

you are on the roll today, LOL

[vinapu]

10 minutes ago, reader said:

I think it demonstrates that you don't have to have a parade to demonstrate that it's OK to be gay in Bangkok. The media has carried many stories about gay men and women who are comfortable in their sexuality and these are the folks that have a strong influence on the country's youth.

 

proliferation and great popularity of BL series and movies in Thailand supports that point of view IMNSHO

[PeterRS]

2 hours ago, reader said:

Please do interpret this post as an attempt to hijack the thread, which has provided much historical context for understanding homosexual trends in Thailand and elsewhere. But as Pride Month draws to a close I thought posting some images that show that young Thais--and those young at heart--may not forever have their thinking about what it means to be gay dominated by an influential group of traditionalists. I'm not aware of anywhere in Bangkok this is more in evidence than Samyan Mitrtown, the high-rise complex at Rama IV and Phayathai Rd.

Located adjacent to two leading universities, it's busy day and night with students and young people, many from the families who may harbor some of he views of sexuality that Prof. Jackson describes. Even if you walk through the mall during the 11 months of the year when it's not celebrating Pride, it's impossible not to feel the vibe that tells you this is a safe place for gays.

I think it demonstrates that you don't have to have a parade to demonstrate that it's OK to be gay in Bangkok. The media has carried many stories about gay men and women who are comfortable in their sexuality and these are the folks that have a strong influence on the country's youth.

I think it is great that as many as possible contribute. I certainly don't see any contribution as highjacking. Let's have more. But I just feel - and it's a personal view - that looking at the situation of being gay in Thailand from a western perspective inevitably leads to quite a few inaccurate conclusions. I have seen the decorations at Sam Yan and am delighted they are there. Yes, it is close to two Universities. But I have to add that there are more than 50 Universities in Bangkok! What have they been doing to celebrate Pride month I wonder? Merely a question because I just do not know. Also, let's be frank. Sam Yan really is not a major hub in Bangkok. My guess is that students at Chula University are more likely to alight at Siam. Now if that display had been in the Siam/Paragon area, I believe it would have had a far greater effect. Still it is a start.

I am certain that many students in other cities throughout the Kingdom are much more pro-LGBT than their elders. Students are often at the forefront of social change everywhere. Hopefully this might be true also in Thailand. But I believe it is vitally important to remember that students graduate and many move into the professions. And it is in those very professions where there is entrenched homophobia in this country. Will most of them be so keen to be known as gay when promotions, salary increases etc. are dependent on being seen to fit in to accepted norms promoted by the older generations? Will they march if there is a Pride Parade in, say, 5 years time? The graduate generation before them have not and probably will not, alas. Will major Thai corporations like TRUE or AIS contribute with cash and banners, as is the case with locally based companies at Singapore's Pink Dot after the government banned the many international companies from becoming involved?

I am less convinced by those commenting in the media. Yes, there have been articles going back at least to the early 1990s. I have already mentioned Khun Natee who deserves far more credit than I believe he is given for really starting a nascent gay rights movement. Yet his base is in Chiang Mai and it was in Chiang Mai in 2009 that its second Pride Parade was shouted down by local inhabitants and had to be abandoned. It took 10 years before another could be considered. When was Phuket's Pride parade cancelled - three or four years ago? An article in Coconuts (below) states that the number of taking in the 2016 March along the Patong beachfront was 100. Just 100! It adds that, as in Bangkok years earlier, farang were involved in the organisation. I cannot stress enough my view that having farang in any key positions in the organisation of a Parade/Pink Dot or other celebration here in Bangkok is a recipe for a non-event (and I know some farang will scream at this!) I also think if the Parade is anywhere close to the gay areas in Silom/Suriwong, it will fail. As I have again stated, Taipei's Pride Parade works amazingly primarily because it has always been organised by a group of locals and, as far as I am aware, steers clear of the only major gay locale - the Red House.

Returning to the subject of those being open about being gay in the media, as I stressed earlier if you take away the hospitality, arts, entertainment and fashion industries which traditionally have a large number of gay employees in most countries, I have seen very few Thai individuals commenting about being gay. Even in that group of four industries I listed, there are also huge numbers who are gay, who are known by their colleagues to be gay and who are written about as though suspected of being gay by the entertainment media - but they will still not consider coming out as gay. 

https://coconuts.co/bangkok/features/thailands-only-pride-parade-marched-phuket-photo-essay-0/

As for local views in the countryside, there was an interesting article in the Bangkok Post five years ago at the time of the Gay nightclub shooting in Florida. Perhaps this puts homophobia in Thailand into a better perspective.

. . . truth be told, homophobia isn't the exclusive terrain of any particular religion or country. Those who think that Thailand is immune to such homophobia and violence against lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders (LGBT) have been fooled by the myth of "acceptance".

In fact, local media has reported cases of violence against this group. A few years ago, a woman admitted to having her daughter's lesbian lover killed in Trat because she wanted her child to date a man.

The victim clearly was murdered because of her sexual orientation and gender identity -- she was a tom, the Thai term for a self-styled masculine lesbian.

In another case, two 17-year-old students in a lesbian relationship were found dead in Nong Khai with more than 60 stab wounds between them. Police suspected they were killed out of jealousy over their relationship.

 Moreover, many lesbians are subjected to rape in order to "cure" their sexual orientation, often by their own family members -- a subject rarely discussed due to the stigma around rape and lesbianism. A father in Loei confessed to having raped his 14-year-old daughter for four years in order to stop her from socialising with tom. Worse, there is a worrying trend that this so-called corrective rape is being normalised in Thai society through the expression Kae Tom Som Dee or "fixing tom and dee" – dee are the feminine counterpart to tom . . .

Therefore, if we are shocked by this senseless loss of lives in Florida, the first thing we should do is to fight the root causes of homophobia in our own backyard, where much of the medical profession still considers transgenderism as a form of mental disorder; where the predominantly "Buddhist" population believes that LGBTs are sinful for past-life adultery and therefore deserve lower status; where all junior high-school students are taught by government-approved curriculum that homosexuality constitutes sexual deviancy; and where popular TV programmes regularly caricature LGBTs as promiscuous and spreaders of HIV/Aids.

https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/1009557/we-need-to-fight-homophobia-at-home

[reader]

I don't reject the idea that discrimination--of all kinds--is deeply rooted in Thai culture as it is the culture of many other nations. But I don't believe that it can't change and evolve.

We can find anecdotal evidence to support either side of the argument I suppose but I prefer to view the glass half full. I agree that many of the young people will go on to adopt norms similar to that of their parents but others will go on to reject them. Cultural is fluid over time and not set in stone.

Young people are more courageous than their elders. That's why nations send their youth to fight wars because they tend to be stronger and more fearless. Those same qualities can be assets used to battle discrimination.

So I hope that these young people will surprise us and prove that they're capable of changing their society. It's admittedly an aspirational view but one I choose to hold on to even more as Thais come to grips with the country's political unrest.

[PeterRS]

10 hours ago, reader said:

Young people are more courageous than their elders. That's why nations send their youth to fight wars because they tend to be stronger and more fearless. Those same qualities can be assets used to battle discrimination.

So I hope that these young people will surprise us and prove that they're capable of changing their society. It's admittedly an aspirational view but one I choose to hold on to even more as Thais come to grips with the country's political unrest.

On this point we agree. I also believe change will happen. History tells us that change is inevitable. The question then is: how long will it take? In the West and the Antipodean countries, it has come with quite remarkable speed when you consider that homophobia was quite aggressively the norm in the 1950s and even 1960s. But we cannot take those territories as an example of what will happen in Thailand and indeed much of the rest of the world.  I believe it will take several generations - perhaps even a century - for deep-rooted beliefs to change.

There is a reason why homophobia and anti-gay rhetoric rules in Islamic societies - it is ingrained in beliefs that are around 1,500 years old. Forget that Islam has had its own homosexual culture at times. These were surely more an aberration than any form of change. Even today in what we would probably call first world Islamic countries, homosexuality is still a major crime. When I spent three days in Doha a few years ago, there were two absolute no-nos - booze (apart thankfully from in my hotel's bars and lounges) and men having sex with men. Nothing in the last 60 years has changed that. If anything, I suspect the rise of militant Islam has resulted in a deepening of traditional beliefs.

I would like to hear @spoon's view in terms of Malaysia. I first visited for a week's vacation about 40 years ago. At that time and for quite a few years thereafter, I noticed no hardening of Islamic views. The gay bar Blue Boy was packed virtually every night (great memories!!), there were several cruising areas including a very active large dark open-air car park in the evening and gay saunas were opening. More recently I have seen hard liners in parts of the country and in the media asserting themselves and their more hard line views. Are the youth of the country willing and able to change that?

Let's also remember that hardening of positions re sexual matters is not limited to Islamic countries. Ultra-right wing governments are pushing back previously more relaxed boundaries. Look at Russia. Look at the Hungary's new bill passed last week. They are moving back in time. 

I also believe it is wrong to link an easing of sexual views and restrictions with political reform. With the greatest respect, I feel this is more of a western concept than an Asian one. Thailand's political model introducing a degree of democracy is less than 90 years old. It was forced upon the country by a small group of the military allied to an equally small number of civil servants and the intelligentsia. It had absolutely nothing to do with any political movement that had germinated and developed in the countryside. Yet many, especially amongst the existing elite and the power brokers, still hanker after the old model. Why is it that since then Thailand has had more military coups than any other country on the planet - 13 successful ones and 9 unsuccessful ones? A "coup culture" is becoming almost as ingrained as homophobia! Can students overturn this? Is there a general view amongst the country's students that change must come? Will students, like their counterparts in France in 1968, lead a general movement that includes strikes,  occupations of factories and government offices in order to achieve change in Thailand? I fear not.

[spoon]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

I would like to hear @spoon's view in terms of Malaysia. I first visited for a week's vacation about 40 years ago. At that time and for quite a few years thereafter, I noticed no hardening of Islamic views. The gay bar Blue Boy was packed virtually every night (great memories!!), there were several cruising areas including a very active large dark open-air car park in the evening and gay saunas were opening. More recently I have seen hard liners in parts of the country and in the media asserting themselves and their more hard line views. Are the youth of the country willing and able to change that?

Lets see, ive not yet born 40 years ago but anyway. Blue boy closes already since the lockdown. So is gtower divine bliss. Anyway, during current lockdown, all bars are closed anyway and i dont go to bars here so i cant provide anymore detail. But i do see some MB (money boys) that goes to zouk bar before covid.

Pre-lockdown, sauna also still very active, but covid did brings down some sauna that i heard were permenantly closed. Not sure if we will see they open up again post covid. 

Massage precovid was open albeit on the down low. Some continue to open during covid time but recently several centers were raided. The raids are mainly focused on licensing, breach of Covid restriction and immigration, but the media of course capitalize the fact that the center serve gay clients. Pictures of masseurs (blurred faces) were publish in FB, and comments on the post is not something i wish to read. Nevertheless, if i want a massage, there are still options available.

MB were active in grindr pre-covid, with healthy streams of indonesian MBs that comes using the visa free option and stay here 2-3 weeks at a time. There are also those from thailand, nepal, myanmar MBs too, mostly from those who uses to work in different area and change profession. Some are also holder of UNCHR. Occassionally we have western MBs/rentmen visiting. Covid time, this has significantly reduced. Hope itll return back to normalcy next year.

Politcally, i dont see any changes soon. We have activists but they are hiding behind HIV/STI causes, rather than specifically for Gay. In social media, those transgender ones are the one being subjected to attack or ridicule since they are accused of not respecting the religion beliefs. One famous case recently is Sajat, an enterpreneur who is in hiding now after failing to attend her court day where she was charged of insulting the religion for dressing like a women in a religious event she sponsor. But she is an influencer and a damn good entepreneur, and people are buying her products despite of this. There are few more of these. We have siti kasim, a lawyer who always support lgbt+ right, safiey illias, another transgender influencer.

Anyway, other than these few cases, if it happens in private, no one cares, not even the gov. While there is laws in about sodomy inherited from the old colonial law, it is not enforced. But we have a separate religious court and only applicable to muslim. So gays from other religion here dont really have any legal issues being gay here, other than the bully and discriminationa from their close community/relatives/friends

 

 

 

[PeterRS]

Thanks @spoon. Sorry I was not specific. I was more interested in what i have felt is a gradual return to religious fundamentalism in Malaysia than in attitudes to gay sex. From visiting the country and reading both local and international media, it seems to me that Islam has become more fundamentalist over the last 40 years. Four years ago the United Nations Commission on International Religious Freedom reported that in the Malaysian context "it seems the brand of Islamism in Malaysia is prohibitive and restrictive, bordering on extremism." There also seems to be a growing rift between majority Sunni and the tiny minority of Shi'ite observers. I read that Shi'ism is banned and exists largely as a result of Saudi funding.  In recent years the stricter Saudi version of Wahhabism has started to take root.

And if Islam has in some areas become more extreme, I assume that bans on homosexual behaviour may also be becoming more enforced. Just thoughts.