It's Cheap

Happy Sabbath. Shabbat Shalom.

Shabbat - שבת (sha-bat) - This is the Hebrew word שבת shabbat literally meaning a “ceasing” or “stopping.” This word is always used in the Hebrew Bible for the seventh day, the Shabbat, the day work ceases for the purpose of rest.

Shalom - שלום (sha-lome) When we hear the word peace we usually associate this to mean an absence of war or strife but, the Hebrew meaning of the word shalom has a very different meaning. The verb form of the root word is shalam and is usually used in the context of making restitution. When a person has caused another to become deficient in some way, such as a loss of livestock, it is the responsibility of the person who created the deficiency to restore what has been taken, lost or stolen. The verb shalam literally means to make whole or complete. The noun shalom has the more literal meaning of being in a state of wholeness or with no deficiency.

May you never find rest until everyone is restored.

Below is a video (from a post on Seth Barne's blog) and an excerpt from an op ed article from Britain about the Thai sex trade.

SHE Hopes from Gabrielle Rodgers on Vimeo.

In May 2005, Alex Renton for Prospect Magazine wrote:

Westerners form an important—albeit not the major—part of this economic picture. A few have settled here because of it, calling themselves “sexpatriates.” In towns like Pattaya on the Gulf of Thailand, on Phuket island and in the sex trade districts of Bangkok, they run bars, hotels and brothels, mediating the transactions between male tourists and Thai women. They are vocal on websites and in local publishing ventures, churning out guides for sex tourists. Some of these men see themselves as exiles, refugees from the “feminazis” who are crushing the spirit of the western male. Here, the old order of the sexes still reigns. Women know their place, they wash your feet before they have sex with you, they say thank you and help you in the shower afterwards. And, of course, westerners’ savings and pensions go a long way. Beer is a dollar a bottle, and a woman for the night available for £10 or less. It’s the “last place you can be a white man,” says one bar-owning sexpat on his website.

Their guidebooks picture a world of grasping, stupid peasant girls, known as “LBFMs” (little brown fucking machines), out to entrap and rip off the honest, randy male visitor, who must treat them firmly and be sure to stamp out any nonsense for the sake of the next bloke who comes along. Books like Sex, Lies & Bar Girls are available in mainstream shops, including at Bangkok airport. They are full of robust advice on “scrogging” as many Thai women in as short a time and for as little money as possible.

One of the self-justifications put forward by the sexpats is that the business makes everyone happy—the exploitation is two-way. It is not like normal prostitution, you hear. All the girls are smiling! (”All smile, all the time!” is an official tourism slogan). But you don’t have to be a feminazi to see that the power relationship is grossly unbalanced. The real choices lie with the man with the wallet.

The famous Thai smile hides a lot. The women of rural Thailand who descend on the tourist areas are driven by poverty. Around a third of the Thai population lives on less than $2 a day; in the agricultural northeast, where farmers are beset by drought and collapsing prices (chiefly because of the dropping of trade barriers with China), one in six people lives on less than $1 a day. A high proportion of prostitutes—over 60 per cent, according to some surveys—have left children at home in the countryside. In traditional Thai society, a girl’s first duty is the support of her family. Seventy-five per cent of prostitutes, according to one study, entered the trade after the failure of a relationship—”damaged goods” in a society that still puts a high premium on female virginity. Another common reason given for entering prostitution is the pressure of family debts.

And the gains to be had are fabulous. The price of sex from a street prostitute in Nana starts at perhaps 500 baht, a little over £7. That is a fortnight’s living costs in the countryside, or half a week’s salary for a Thai police constable. There is little doubt that the sex trade is vital to the economy of the poor northeast, which is another of the well-rehearsed justifications of the sexpats. Tales of bar girls who retire rich and happy to their home villages—some of them with a farang (foreign) husband—are many, and there is no social disgrace attached. “The land a girl child ploughs lies between her legs,” goes a saying from rural Thailand. But some women are broken in the process, and on my street, occasionally, you can see the damage that results.