text | Wang Anyi
Recently, Thai netizens went crazy because they could not open the world's second largest video website P site. People in agitation quickly pushed related topics to the hot searches on Twitter, pointing directly at TrueOnline, the largest communications operator in Thailand.
Under pressure, TrueOnline issued a statement admitting that it did restrict users' access to the P site and explained that it was because "the website contains inappropriate content."
Immediately afterwards, Thai netizens discovered that another operator, AIS, could not log in to the P site.
users quit. Countless people were online, directly placing a strife with the operators, and threatening the operators to resume access by redirecting the network.
In the end, TrueOnline chose to admit defeat, withdrew the statement, and resumed web access.
Thai netizens are the deepest user of P site
Due to the epidemic, P site has been popular all over the world recently.
When hundreds of millions of people were forced to stay at home, P station suddenly announced that it would provide one month free membership for the whole world, and the number of P station visits soared, with an average of about 120 million visitors per day.
P site also changed its logo to "stay at home"
On March 10, Italy announced its ban on the country and received free membership benefits from P site on the 12th. On that day, the country's "watching volume" soared by 57%.
March 16, Station P also provided free memberships to the French and Spanish. The registered members increased by millions on the same day, and the next day, the number of visits from France and Spain increased by 38.2% and 61.3% respectively.
P station also produced support posters for France and Spain
March 25, P station announced that it was free of charge worldwide on this day, with nearly 30 million more visits.
India happened to announce its "closure" on this day. The number of visits from India increased by 55% on the same day, and on the third day it increased by 95%, setting a peak of the month. The
P site is very popular all over the world, and the Thais are naturally no exception.
Among the top 10 most popular websites in Thailand, P site is among them.
In the 2019 P station annual report, the Thais won the world's first place with an average stay time of 11 minutes and 21 seconds.
In the same report, Thailand also won the world championship of the website's annual search volume.
In 2016, P station launched VR adult video business. User statistics a year later found that Thailand ranked first in the hottest regional rankings.
Obviously, Thailand has a large number of loyal fans of P stations, and the practice of Thai operators blocking P stations is equivalent to stabbing a big hornet's nest. No wonder they were criticized on Twitter and were so embarrassed.
Under the threat of countless netizens to switch to the Internet, Thai operators not only admitted their defeat, but were also forced to apologize.
TrueOnline responded, "I apologize for the wrong information here. The website mentioned above is not restricted. If you encounter any problems when using it, please contact us."
and AIS Thailand's response is intriguing, "AIS is a communications service provider that allows customers to access all websites without restrictions unless there is an order from a government agency."
This is obviously going to blame. Blocking the P site is not because our operators are looking for trouble, but because of the government's instruction and order.
Pornography industry is an important gray industry in Thailand
Why does the Thai government block P site? It is unknown that such a move is even more abnormal considering the Thai government's consistent ambiguous attitude towards the porn industry.
Contrary to many people's perceptions, prostitution is actually illegal in Thailand.
Pattaya Red Light District
In 1960, Thailand passed the Prostitution Prohibition Act. The Act was abolished in 1996 and the Law on Prohibition and Punishment was implemented.
The problem is that the law focuses on punishing porn companies and pimp intermediaries because these people violate women's rights and freedoms and undermine their dignity.
Women are sitting inside and outside the bar in the red light district of Bangkok (photo source Reuters)
and are very tolerant of sex workers themselves.
For example, the "Prohibition and Punishment of Prostitution Law" stipulates that women who stand on the street can only be fined no more than 1,000 baht. Women who provide pornography in brothels will be sentenced to one month of imprisonment.
If the legal discretion is strictly followed, many bars, karaoke, Thai massage parlors, and saunas and jacuzzis in Thailand are illegal pornographic places.
Bangkok street massage shop
However, the elastic space left by the law has made the porn industry take advantage of loopholes and become a gray industry that operates as a "edge ball", and is even growing stronger.
The government is helpless to openly ban the secretly. Thailand's pornography industry has come to this day step by step, which is the result of the joint action of multiple factors such as history, economy, and culture.
During the Vietnam War, as the rear base of the US soldiers, Thailand had more than 50,000 permanent US troops. All of these people were paid for by the US government. Therefore, they loved staying in hotels with swimming pools and enjoying all-day cafes, Thai baths and bars.
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The small fishing village of Pattaya also developed after becoming a US military base. The strong demand and the temptation of the US dollar have allowed countless bars engaged in pornographic services to grow.
At that time, countless new bars were opened in Pattaya
1950, there were only 20,000 sex workers in Thailand, but by 1964, after a large number of US troops poured into Thailand, the number of sex workers had soared to 170,000.
Historical records of Chiang Mai University, after the US military stationed in Pattaya, it used force and money to radiate the red-light district industry to the capital Bangkok, and even directly invested in profit guidance.
After the end of the Vietnam War, the US military withdrew from Thailand, but Pattaya's reputation spread all over the world, and various entertainment venues turned to serve tourists from all over the world.
"Southeast Asia Research" published in May 1998 pointed out that in the early 1980s, more than half of Thailand's clients came from abroad, and these people were both clients and tourists.
As an emerging destination for sexual tourism, Thailand's GDP has soared. By the 1990s, Thailand's pornography and tourism had been closely integrated, and various pornography venues were closely linked to travel groups.
Today, the tourism industry accounts for nearly 18% of Thailand's GDP. The service industry linked to the tourism industry accounts for about 44%. Both support half of Thailand's economy, and service jobs alone account for 37% of Thailand's employed population.
has been counted on data that the porn industry and its affiliated industries contribute 3%-10% to Thailand's GDP every year, and there are more than 2.9 million employees related to the porn industry.
Why is the porn industry banned repeatedly
Every year, Thailand's porn industry attracts countless tourists, but it has also triggered many negative effects such as AIDS, venereal diseases, violence, human trafficking, poor tourism image.
Therefore, Thailand has not considered ending the porn industry.
In 2014, Vatana Langgong became Thailand's first female tourism minister, and she has been trying to end the development of the domestic porn industry.
In 2016, there were more than 1,000 pornographic places called bars and massage shops in Pattaya that were actually brothels.
Wataran Gong said, "I don't want Thailand to get together with pornography."
Wataran Gong hopes to launch a pilot project to reshape Pattaya's economic business format and replace the pornography industry with water sports.
"We hope that Thailand's tourism is truly high-quality tourism. We don't want to be linked to porn anymore."
On February 21, 2017, Thai Prime Minister Prayut was dissatisfied with foreign media calling Pattaya the "Sex Capital" and announced that it would completely eradicate Pattaya's porn industry.
Within one night, Pattaya entertainment venues were surrounded and banned by military and police, and the then mayor of Pattaya was also dismissed.
Police raided an illegal bar in Pattaya
However, as the daily turnover of Pattaya red light district returns to zero, a large number of porn industry workers are unemployed, and the government has to re-examine the decision.
In early January 2018, the sauna bathing site of the famous entertainment venue in Bangkok, "Victoria's Secret", was investigated by the Thai Special Case Office.
"Victoria's Secret" sauna bathhouse was checked
At that time, Thai media Sanook quoted a paper in the report, revealing the numbers behind Thailand's porn industry.
The author of this paper is also very famous, named Juvet Camowester, who was once the owner of Thailand's largest massage parlor and was known as the "bathtub tycoon".
After being arrested in 2003, he publicly claimed that he had bribed many Thai policemen. He then sold some massage parlors, formed his own party, and ran for mayor of Bangkok in August 2004 without success.
In 2008, he ran for the mayor of Bangkok again. Although he ranked third, he still failed
This paper, titled "Informal Business: A Case Study of Social Services in Thailand", was written by Kamo West when he participated in the Master's Degree Defense of Thailand University of Law and Political Science in 2008.
The paper mentioned that there were more than 229,000 sex workers in Thailand at that time, and the main activity venues were bars, karaoke, Thai massage parlors, saunas and jacuzzi, etc.
Kamowest once went to the red light district in Papong, Bangkok to get votes
These sex workers have a minimum monthly income of 30,000 baht (about 6,733 yuan) and a maximum of 125,000 baht (about 28,000 yuan).
Thailand's pornography industry generates a total annual revenue of 163.839 billion baht (about 36.7 billion yuan), among which Thai massage parlors rank first, with about 36.427 billion baht (about 8.1 billion yuan).
"Victoria's Secret" record book found in the sauna bath
. According to statistics from Chulalongkorn University, more than 30% of Thai porn industry practitioners are "full-time", while the rest are part-time workers, engaged in this business and earn most of their living sources.
If the government bans the porn industry in one-size-fits-all manner, it means giving up high economic income and a large number of high-paying jobs, and carrying a heavy burden on the unemployed.
In fact, there are still some disguised pornographic services in Thailand, such as renting a wife, which are also products left over from the Vietnam War.
In 2018, 1.8 million foreign retirees lived in Thailand, and many white elderly men would choose to rent a wife.
In addition to historical and economic factors, traditional Thai society and culture are also very open-minded about the porn industry, and people do not discriminate against sex workers.
In traditional Thai culture, women can become the head of the family and become the pillar of the family economy.
In northern Thailand, women can inherit the land of their houses and land, and they are also responsible for raising their parents. Among the women in northern Thailand who have entered the porn industry, 60% of them are to help their families.
Especially in 1997, the financial crisis hit Thailand, and many women were forced to go into the market. By the first half of 1998, the number of women entering the porn industry soared by nearly 80%.
Women who make money to support their families are respected, and if sex workers are forced to go into business for their family livelihood, they may even be regarded as a kind of merit.
The epidemic hit the porn industry the worst
This year, the downward pressure faced by Thailand's economy will not be much easier than in 1997.
As the epidemic spreads, Thailand ordered the "closure of the country" on March 26, which will last at least until June 30.
Thailand Tourism Bureau believes that according to the most optimistic forecast, 14 million to 16 million tourists will travel to Thailand this year, a sharp drop of more than 60% compared with the record 39.8 million tourists in 2019.
Social isolation also means the collapse of the porn industry.
From Bangkok to Pattaya, the once noisy and prosperous red lights fell into a dead silence.
Photographed on April 4, Nana Plaza, the most famous "red light district" in Thailand, was suspended (photo source AFP) After the neon light went out, more than 300,000 sex workers were unemployed, and some people had to go to the streets to solicit business in order to make a living.
"I'm afraid of the new coronavirus, but I need customers more." Pim, a 32-year-old transgender sex worker, once worked in a bar in Bangkok and has not earned for more than 10 days.
A sex worker stood outside the closed red light district in Bangkok (Photo source AP)
Pim's friend Alice also wandered on the street. "I used to earn $300-600 a week, but now I'm almost kicked out of the house by the landlord."
Nupchan's family has grandmother and two brothers, and they used to support them all by her. "After I lost all my jewelry, necklaces and rings.”
On April 4, a sex worker walked on the streets of Bangkok (Photo source AFP)
The Thai government introduced various measures to relieve Chinese people, including issuing 5,000 baht relief funds to all those who have lost their jobs due to the epidemic in the next three months, but porn industry practitioners cannot get the money and they cannot prove that they have a formal job.
Thailand's National Economic and Social Development Commission announced that in the first quarter of 2020, Thailand's GDP fell by 1.8% compared with the same period last year, and GDP is expected to grow negatively by 5%-6% in 2020.
From May 3, Thailand has allowed restaurants, roadside snack stalls, parks, grocery stores and beauty salons to reopen, and the lockdown will be fully lifted on July 1.
On May 5, in a restaurant in Bangkok, Thailand, customers dine under the protection of isolation membranes
The Ministry of Health spokesperson said that the "red light district" will be the last place to reopen.
Even if it reopens, the nature of the porn industry determines that it is difficult for it to meet the requirements of maintaining social distancing.
"The porn industry has contributed to the tourism industry, but it has always been 'an' elephant in the room’. " said Chilidapon, a professor of political science at the University of Law and Political Science in Thailand.
elephant in the room, but a metaphor for a problem that is very obvious, but no one wants to solve it because it is too troublesome.
Calidopong called on, "If Thailand intends to continue to rely on the porn industry to earn income, the government must take action to protect these people (pornography practitioners). ”
Reference:
sanook: ไม่แพ้ชาติใด คนไทยมีอัตราเข้า Pornhub เพิ่มมากที่สุดในโลกในช่วง COVID-19 ระบาด!
sanook:กางโพยอาณาจักรอาบอนวดทำเงินเท่าไหร่
coconuts:Thai sex industry has estimated worth of 260 billion baht, according to news site
reuters:Go-go bars gone as coronavirus hits Bangkok's sex districttml1
japantimes:Scared but desperate, Thai sex workers forced to the streetml1
voanews:coronavirus lockdown dims thailands once thriving sex trade
bangkokpost:Sex workers left in cold by outbreak
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