are reputed to be an estimated 100,000 girls working any night of the week. Even at 7 a.m. in the morning, as some drunken, ragged relic of a human deluded by alcohol into believing he is having a good time, stumbles from one of the city’s many bars, there are girls along Beach Road waiting to offer their services.
Many tourists come to Thailand for one simple reason: to party and to take advantage of the country's relaxed attitudes to prostitution and the unique physical attractiveness of its people. That he was pilloried for doing much the same at an age when he had fulfilled most of what was expected of any responsible adult, worked most of his life, brought up his children, was absurd.
The propriety or otherwise of his private life would have been little known if not for the the grotesque invasions of his privacy and the propagandizing efforts of Bangkok’s mafia and their willing media cohorts. Part of this propaganda was propelled by the spy cameras Aek installed in his computer and later he realized were placed throughout the house, even in his bedroom and bathroom.
“You should see what he looks like with his shirt off,’’ was one comment he would sometimes overhear. No, he didn’t look terrific with his shirt off. Most people his age don’t, but nor do they have their physical imperfections broadcast to the world.
This level of personal invasion would never have been tolerated in his own country or in much of the rest of the world due to privacy legislation or out of simple respect. In Thailand he became public entertainment.
The official and unofficial obstructive behaviour endured by the author and the public ridiculing of him, which pandered to the nation’s worst xenophobic instincts and celebrated dishonest conduct, was scandalous but indicative of broader problems in the industry.
On the other hand the author ignored the many warnings about Thailand’s sex industry or simply did not think the cautionary tales applied to him. He had no idea how easy and practiced the tricks played on foreigners were.
The vicious end games against one of the few foreigners foolhardy enough to speak out publicly on the subject, accompanied by a blizzard of slander and often enough outright lies to conceal their own crimes and to discredit the author, all played out before an easily manipulated public, were something to behold.
No guest of any country, however naïve, elderly, stupid, ugly, drunk or even stoned they may be, should be subjected to the systematic removal of their money and assets as if it was a blood sport.
If as a tourist you find yourself on Soi Twilight you should take care to understand the motives of those whose bodies you are admiring - that unlike you, the boys are not looking for love, companionship, friendship or sex. They are just working. They want your money. Or as a massage boy later quipped to Michael as he passed an establishment in Pattya in the midst of the controversy that continued to pursue him: “We love you, we love your money.” But you would do well to follow the advice delivered by one of the protagonists in this book: “Don’t believe half of what you hear or half of what you see.”
From the author’s experience many of the boys working on the Twilight Soi are at once charming thieves and aspiring gangsters. Do not join the long queue of the unsuspecting. Protect yourself. Do not be fleeced.
The world class massage parlors that dot Bangkok often represent better value for money than the go-go bars. The massage boys tend to work hard to make sure you are happy, even if their only motivation is the size of the tip. They are doing a straight forward job, not creating the illusions the go-go boys are such masters at creating.
Hopefully The Twilight Soi will highlight some of the more dubious practices of Thailand’s go-go boy industry and contribute to its reform, moves which would improve the country’s image as a whole. As well it might help prevent other travelers, both gay and straight, from falling for the practiced lies trotted out by Thailand’s sex workers.
The bars and their sometimes exploitative management, if the boy’s complaints are to be believed, are guilty of failing to take proper care of their staff and of leaching as much money as they can out of the young men they fill their catwalks and stages with each night.
The municipal authorities and the Thai government are also guilty of failing to reform Bangkok’s go-go boy industry, commonly described as being run by "mafia" like interests.
The police are guilty for protecting establishments whose practices should be exposed. The poor wages of the Thai police by international standards means bribery is a standard and well accepted part of civil practice which helps to provide services that might not otherwise be available. However police wages is an issue which should be re-examined as a priority to ensure they fulfill their duties on the part of the public as a whole, not just for vested interests with money and power, as occurs for example with the go-go boy industry.
The local Thai media and entertainment industries were guilty of the outlandish lampooning of a sick and emotionally distressed guest in their country. Making fun of a foreigner for acting abnormally following the breakdown of what that individual was naive enough to have been led into believing was a genuine relationship was an utterly tasteless display by segments of Thailand’s popular media.
The industry’s wiser heads should have known better.
The author is guilty of the recurrence of alcohol and addiction problems which have plagued him since early adolescence. He should have had the wit, the wisdom and the maturity not to have relapsed in the first place or to have taken prompter action to remedy his personal situation. His relapse allowed those opposed to what he had to say an easy hook on which to discredit him.
Thailand’s international reputation is also tarnished by the continued operation of well known bars where under-age boys can be easily bought or arranged for; such as Bangkok’s Night Boys in the network of streets of Silom’s Soi Six, managed by Aek's mentor, protector and teacher, a thug, pedophile and mafia figure known as Tong - one of the people most determined by his rumor mongering to discredit the author and the story he had to tell.
Months after he had been near the stuff these people were still peddling the the propaganda he was smoking that uniquely Asian drug yabba, a drug with a well deserved reputation for driving people crazy, and that he “lop loohen mak mak”, deceived greatly.
The author deceived no one, admitted his mistakes and simply objected to having had money tricked and stolen from him. He may have not been entirely sober or always substance free, but nor was he a liar, a thief or a cheat. He did not hurt anyone, except himself. He did not issue death threats. He did not intimidate anyone. And he did not steal, as those who spoke so strongly against him had done.
Tong twice assaulted the author despite his previous generosity and hospitality. A simple request for the name of the bar’s lawyer was met with a flurry of calls in a determination to have him bashed. Such criminal organizations should be closed down if for no other reason than the interests of the tourist industry as a whole.
The cascade of hostility manufactured against the author began inadvertently. A story on the author’s blog, volume two of the series simply called Days, which originally and inadvertently brought him attention from some of the nastiest elements of Bangkok, was titled “Night Boys on The Bewildered Soi”. It described how easily under-age boys could be bought.
As a restless spirit and hopeless insomniac who rarely slept more than an hour or two a night, but stuck at home in Sydney minding young children as a single father, the author had since 1994 begun the habit of doing a daily blog. He would often write 600 or more words at about three in the morning, before taking the dog for a walk while the children slept.
He had been doing the anonymous blog for so many years with little or no consequence
