Patpong, Bangkok's Red Light Area
Sex Shows and Prostitution in the Space of a Few Streets
The red-light district of Bangkok, the well-known Patpong, actually consists of only two streets with some clubs and go-go bars in nearby side streets.
Bangkok's Patpong is the gaudiest and most unrestrained red-light district in Asia, probably the world. It is a by-word for all that is unpermissible, and much that isn't, to seekers-after-pleasures of the flesh. For years tourism officials have tried to play down Patpong's lurid attractions, but it remains one of Bangkok's most visited areas.
Lying between Silom and Suriwongse roads, the four acres of bars and massage parlours that lie within Patpong's two main streets are crowded nightly with seekers after sexual pleasure, as well as curious tourists who come to gaze on the glittering neon and the boy and girl bait set to lure punters into the bars.
Patpong and Vietnam War
The original owners of the site were, and still are, a Thai-Chinese family named Patpong, who have owned the site since 1946 when it was bought as a banana plantation. However, with the Vietnam war in 1960 hotting up, the bars and massage parlours moved into the houses that had been built on the plantation, in order to cater to USA servicemen on R. & R. in Bangkok.
Sex Shows and Prostitution in Thailand
Technically what happens in Patpong bars is against the law. Prostitution is illegal in Thailand, but Patpong is a law unto itself.
Activities downstairs are relatively tame. Go-go girls sit in a row waiting to move in on a singleton, movies are screened from wall-mounted giant plasma screens, sex-shows from TVs on one wall, International rugby and football from the other wall.
Upstairs is a different matter. What you may have heard about the live sex-shows is true, but exactly who is the exploited and who the exploiter is a moot point.
The Customers
Sweaty, red-faced, and invariably fat men in sleeveless vests and shorts (the obligatory garb for the sex-tourist), bottoms and thighs bulging over bar stools while drinking beer from bottles, ogle tiny Thai girls (or boys) who gyrate around poles in the centre of the room. The performers pout prettily, smiling falsely back at the punters who through the intoxication of the beer and the beauty of the girls and boys, believe in their own attractiveness.
The girls tell sad stories, most often fiction. Many men fall in love with Patpong girls but the men's stories then become more poignant than the girls. They run out of money and the girl runs out on them. C'est la vie!
You can walk safely through the neon-lit streets, avoiding the touts who will proffer a calling card listing, in up to four or five languages, the stuff of porno magazines. You can ignore them and do some shopping instead, or have a meal at one of the excellent restaurants in the area, You don't need to even look inside a club to feel the buzz.
Patpong is unique. It is a red-light district with a sense of fun and almost as many women tourists are to be seen there as men. The Thais, even the “working girls” will not work unless there is “sanuk” involved (i.e. fun), and Patpong is innately Thai.
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