Originally published in Thai on the As the sun is setting, Silom Road is crowded with people, each with their own destination: office workers on their way home for the night, tourists heading to hotels, restaurants, and bars, hawkers going to Patpong, and finally, male sex workers heading to their workplaces scattered around Silom.
Each sex worker found a different way into the business. Most of them only take male clients, while some do take female clients and some can be either top or bottom. Some have a family, a wife and a child, but become service workers out of economic necessity. Importantly, lack of recognition of the status of LGBTQ still features in the stories of male sex workers.
All you have to do is have sex with your client. People forget other aspects of such service work, such as serving food and drink, massage, conversation, or how to please the client. Whether they are also sex workers depends on the specific establishment. SWING gives information to promote health of service workers. Chamrong said that most of them became service workers for financial reasons. For some male workers who are already attracted to men, or who are transgender or effeminate gay men, becoming dancers, strippers, masseurs, and service workers can feel more suited to their temperament than heavy work, such as construction or other types of work.
Nevertheless, there are some male service workers who are not gay. Some of them have a family with children and chose the profession out of economic necessity. Apart from Thai workers, there are some from neighbouring countries β Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Even though most male service workers choose their profession voluntarily, it cannot be said that sex work is entirely free of human trafficking. Reports of illegal human trafficking by criminal groups still appear in the press from time to time, not to mention oppression and violence from state officials.
Tri pseudonym , a former service worker now working with SWING, said there have been instances where service workers have been assaulted by foreign clients, but when they try to file a report with the police, they are not interested in the reason for the assault, but try to focus on how they met the foreigners, forcing them to confess to prostitution in order to charge them. In addition to this, he has friends who were fined but, because they could not afford to pay, had their newly purchased mobile phones taken away.
