Fridae

Wut has a secret: he's an international porn star.

It was business as usual at V Club massage parlor in Bangkok - buffed-out shirtless young men smiling eagerly, some almost aggressively, at the not-so-buff, not-so-young men who came through the door. It was 8 p.m. and Wut was on his way home. The manager signaled to him, and he pulled off the loose-fitting, old-fashioned shirt - a kind that most men wear in the upcountry but almost no one wears in the big city. The farm boy vanished when the call-boy's eager, attentive smile clicked on.

When he found out we just wanted to talk, the shirt slipped on again. He threw himself back into a pile of cushions and played shyly with his large hands.

You can find pictures of him - all of him - in back issues of several "men's magazines," Icon and Men, he says. Fans came from around the world to meet him, to have sex with him.

It all started while he was in the army. Some of his comrades had been in the sex industry before they were drafted. They convinced him that the money was good, the work was light, if you don't mind massaging gay men, and that the life was comfortable. Instead of going back to his family farm in Nakhorn Sawan province, when his stint was up he got himself a job at V Club, where he was discovered by a photographer out looking for models.

"I didn't really like it," he says nonchalantly, "But I needed the money." The shy and handsome smile continues, but it's clear that the media worries him. This evening, he wouldn't even let me take a picture of him fully dressed. Nakedness doesn't bother him; publicity does. Those magazines sold in other countries, not in here. But pictures from magazines have ways of finding themselves onto the Internet, and in the time since Wut first became a pin-up boy, the World Wide Web infiltrated Thailand. There is nothing wrong with being an international porn star. Being a local porn star - that's a problem.

A friend once told me that he would beat his wife if the need arose, but he would never argue with her. Of course not. If they argued, the neighbors would listen. In Thailand, you can do anything you want, some folks say, as long as the wrong people don't find out. Wut says his family knows about his line of work. Most young Thais are very devoted to their parents. They share their time and money, they talk often and help whenever they can. But caring doesn't imply closeness.

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In many Thai families, there is a tacit don't-ask-don't-tell policy, especially for boys, especially about sex. And if a strange secret emerges, one that doesn't fit the picture the parents want to see, sometimes it's easiest not to see it. Wut may have told his family what he does for a living, but he doesn't need to remind them.

Fortune doesn't always follow fame. Wut has worked at V Club for six years. Being a porn star helps pay the bills, but it doesn't bring in enough money on a regular basis to live on. He is quite happy with the income he gets at the Club. His pictures lead to some underwear modeling jobs and brought in some customers. It was a bounce in his income, but that was all.

Since the Thai economy crashed three years ago, the picture business as been very slow for Wut. But the sex industry grinds on. Wut has no qualms about his job as a prostitute. On the contrary, he says he feels it gives him a chance to contribute to society: in Thai culture, prostitution isn't a considered a bad thing. Most men seek extramarital sexual release from time to time, and paying for sex is completely kosher, even if being paid for sex isn't. On the other hand, homosexuality is not so popular, so keeping homosexual tendencies secret is. Wut sees V Club and the dozens and dozens of other massage parlours around Bangkok as serving an important function for men who need sex with other men, and who also need privacy. (Wut says he has worked for pop stars and MP's.)

The discreet men of Bangkok, and the less discrete who don't mind paying from time to time, and the foreign tourists have kept the industry going strong in spite of the economic downturn; a drop in the GDP may reduce the demand for imported cars, but it had no impact on lust. In the past few months, V Club has opened a second branch, Chakran, a large facility with a Moroccan theme. In the middle of enormous fanfare, Bangkok's largest sauna, Babylon, opened a new facility as well. New clubs, new saunas, new go-go bars are opening and closing around Bangkok - but they're opening more quickly than they're closing. It's big business in Bangkok, and part of the business is discretion.

The gay sex juggernaut rolls on. It creates international porn stars, it provides addresses of discrete spots for sexual relief, it feeds and clothes Wut and thousands of other boys, and it hides them - most of the time - from unwanted prying eyes.

"It's just work," Wut says, about the pictures, about his job at V-Club. I asked him about the future and his intimate, professional smile faded. For the first time that evening there was a little bit of emotion in his face and in his words. He said he'll retire in another 2 years. He talked about going back to his family and his village, described the house he wants to build up north, in Nakhorn Sawan. And the story that he was once an international porn star? That, hopefully, will stay a secret.