Fridae

Five gay guidebooks specifically on Thailand over the years - some kind of world record. The pioneer book - The Men of Thailand - went through seven editions. One guidebook was written in Mandarin, with a second edition in two volumes. Academic books by outsiders abound, from Peter Jackson's 1989 Male Homosexuality in Thailand to Megan Sinnott's 2005 Toms and Dees (Thai euphemisms for butch and femme lesbians respectively). Three gay festival/parades per year - more than in the rest of Southeast Asia put together. Five high-class transvestite shows, that pack in families from the tour buses.

Cruise bars, host bars, saunas, massage parlours, restaurants, hotels, coffee shops, cabaret shows. How many venues in Bangkok? We've lost count. No discriminatory criminal laws. As the government Tourism Authority (TAT) could say, Thailand has it all! But the TAT does not try to reach out to any 'niche' gay market, unlike governments in Australia, Austria, London, New York, Montreal and a dozen other destinations.

But, wait a minute! There are no gay magazines in the Kingdom. No 'out' political or media figures. No national gay or lesbian organisations. No anti-discrimination laws. No recognition of transsexuals by correcting identity cards or passports. No gay bookstores. No university programs in gay and lesbian studies or gender and sexuality. No academic Thai writings.

Thailand has its contradictions.

Having fun
What about "social order"? The social order campaign began in September 2001, with the Minister of the Interior, Purachai Piumsombun, leading police raids on bars and discos. He led the raids, because the police took bribes from entertainment venues and gave them a long leash.

Purachai made many moralistic statements, but the social order campaign boiled down to three elements: closing hours, underage customers and drugs. It never targeted gay venues. It never tried to end prostitution or host bars. The greatest risk for farang (Thai for foreign, typically to refer to foreigners) customers was having to wait in line for half an hour to give a urine sample, to check for drug use. Even that seems rare these days.

For three years the issue of closing hours was debated, over and over and over again. Finally in 2004 it seemed to be settled. One am. Even then, there was some flexibility. Phuket bars seem to stop serving at 1, but customers can hang on for another hour. A bit tighter in Bangkok. The early closing hour did not affect the host bars much, but was very bad news for discos.

In April, 2005, the Deputy Interior Minister said that they might extend closing by an hour within the newly created entertainment zones in tourist-oriented provinces. Tourism has been hurting since the December 26 tsunami and the bombings in Songkla and Hat Yai. So the business owners' organisation has again been pressing for extended hours.

Other than strict closing hours, and occasional drug checks, the gay scene in Pattaya, Phuket and Bangkok is just like it was five years ago. Some owners refer to the "colourful shows" being back - a euphemism of some kind.

Media
The Thai language newspapers love magic, murder and misbehaviour. Most Thai movies are gory ghost stories. In contrast the two English language papers, the Bangkok Post and The Nation, are thoroughly Western and liberal in their editorial and news policies. You get a much different picture of Thai society if you read Thai or if you read English.

In late 2004, Bangkok groups held the Rainbow Media Awards for the first time. Honours went to The Nation newspaper, which has a regular column "Out and About" on gay and lesbian issues most Fridays in it's Weekend supplement. It often runs stories from the Western wire services on GLBT issues. Both The Nation and the Bangkok Post covered Singapore's Nation.04 party (not covered in the Straits Times).

Thailand's first gay magazine, Mithuna, began in 1983. Five or six equivalent small format Thai-language magazines developed, the most successful was Neon, then Midway. They made their money on bar advertisements. Discrete photographs. No cock. No sex. They never got mainstream distribution. They were sold at street stalls in the capital and in smaller centers. Then, about five years ago, regular size magazines developed which gradually got bolder - and bolder. The older style magazines disappeared. In 2004 the new Ministry of Culture railed against pornography, and the newer style magazines disappeared.

The old style magazines did not reappear. The personal contact advertisements, a key part of the earlier magazines, were now old media. The Internet has taken over, and cyber-cafes are everywhere. Bar and sauna ads run in three give-away magazines - Variety, Max and the English-language Sticky Rice. Plus there are a couple of free English-language gay maps that come out every couple of months, with lots of ads.

The newest phenomenon is fake Queer. There are a number of elegantly presented Thai-language magazines devoted to fashion and style. Image Magazine, March, 2005, had a fake lesbian couple on the cover, wearing skimpy beach wear, and apparently interrupted in an intimate moment. Hi! Magazine, April, 2005, has three guys on the cover who may be wearing pants - you can't be sure. Eight pages "For Your Eyes Only" could have come straight out of Australia's upscale gay Blue Magazine. Plus 14 pages of the three cover boys, pretending to model clothes.

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The festivals
The first pride parades in Asia took place in Manila and Tokyo in 1994, the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. They were serious activist events. Metropolitan Community Church was one of the organisers in Manila. Foreign observers of Thailand were confident that the contradictions in Thai society - tolerance without approval - would block any such event in the Kingdom. Not so.

The first Bangkok Gay Festival was held on Halloween in Bangkok in 1999. The model was the Sydney Mardi Gras, not the activist pride parades. The founding figure, Pakorn Pimton, was a dancer and entertainer, who talked of holding a big street party for himself and his friends. What emerged was an alliance between Thai entertainers, on the one hand, and gay businessmen, on the other. The alliance was epitomised by Pakorn's own enduring relationship with the farang owner of a hotel and restaurant.

Pakorn would not share the organising and planning (or the staring role). He speaks very little English. He was elbowed out over about three years by a group of Thai and farang business owners. In politically correct style, the co-chairs are now one Thai and one farang. Both are men. No equal role for women. After all, there are no lesbian business venues. There are a number of events - pre-parade parties, bowling competitions, a fair in Lumpini Park, and the parade.

The Thai bar owners in Phuket jumped on the bandwagon immediately, choosing a February date. Unlike the Bangkok event, the Phuket festival is run completely by Thais. This year two handsome men, in elegant Thai costumes, riding an elephant in the parade, got big coverage in The Nation newspaper. Phuket always has the best parade.

Pattaya jumped on the bandwagon the next year, choosing December 1, World AIDS Day, as their signature date. The organisers are wholly farang. There's a coherent prosperous gay farang community in Pattaya, unlike anything visible in Phuket or Bangkok. At least half of them speak German.

The Pattaya parade attached itself to an existing AIDS day parade. First come students from the local schools - dressed as viruses, or devils, or sperm, or syringes, or condoms, or dying patients. One school class after another, competing for which one can have the grimmest impact.

The gay parade is the last half of the AIDS parade. The school kids are followed by ladyboys, barboys, kathoeys (meaning transgenders or transvestites), flamboyance, free condoms. From the start the Pattaya Gay Festival raised money for a local AIDS charity. Lots of money.

Police stopped the 1999 Bangkok parade before it could complete its full circuit in the central business and bar area. But since that time all three parades get police support.

GLBT organisations
Natee Teerarojjanapongs, a pioneering activist, is currently running for the Senate. He noticed how few votes some winning candidates gained in previous elections, and hopes for a solid gay and lesbian vote in the capital. For a while his new book, packed with pictures of himself sporting fine jewelry and visiting world capitals, was featured in the local 7-Eleven stores. He was appointed an adviser to the Bangkok mayor, a first.

But organisations? Not much. Two HIV/AIDS organisations have staff and offices - Rainbow Sky and Swing. Not so any of the GLBT organisations.

Bangkok Rainbow holds a few events - film showings, public talks. It co-sponsored the Rainbow Media Awards along with the Bangkok Pride Coalition. There is a local branch of the Long Yang Club. Anjaree, one of the pioneering lesbian organisations in Asia, is currently in hibernation. Two smaller women's groups, with limited English language skills, are around - Saphan and Lesla.

Silence and tolerance
In April 2005, the Deputy Permanent Secretary for Culture in the Thai Ministry of Culture was included in a two-day, informal discussion on sexual minorities funded by the Asia-Europe Foundation. I was startled to learn this. The Ministry of Culture had demanded self-censorship from television stations. It had cracked down on web sites and magazines. Not gay friendly. Yet there was the Deputy hanging around with vintage gay activists like Gert Heckma from the Netherlands and Dede Oetomo from Indonesia.

So what did he say? After some prompting, he told the group that homosexuality was not a problem in Thailand. After all, there had been two gay prime ministers. He could have added that both were highly regarded, and one remains the Chair of the Privy Council, a constitutional advisory body to His Majesty the King. Are they ever publicly identified as gay in print? I think not. Does everybody know? Sure thing. Same with another nationally important figure from some decades in the past, too high up to be named.

Thai society is not Confucian. The pressure to marry is much less. Unpleasant subjects are avoided. Gay and lesbian sons and daughters will probably never openly discuss their orientation with their parents. The parents, in turn, will not see what they do not want to see. In contrast to this discrete handling of family relationships, Thailand has the most open gay commercial scene in the world. I know no other place like it.

Douglas Sanders is a retired Canadian law professor, living in Bangkok. He can be contacted at sanders_gwb@yahoo.ca.