Danny's Weblog

the Nation: Prostitution and elephants (2003-10-30, pp 5A, 17A, 18A

To: editor email at nationgroup.com (The Nation) Date: Thu, 30 Oct 2003 11:28:46 -0500 (EST)

Re "sex workers must be allowed..." – I am in agreement with all of the points raised by Rojanaphruk. I would only add that it would be amusing to try to legalize the *customers* of prostitutes instead of the prostitutes themselves. I envisage sex tourists needing to get a special visa and needing to carry an STD test report; and raids on brothels where sex tourists get carted off to jail instead of the prostitutes. Bwahahaha!

However, I was also struck by the article about the new Thai movie "Sanim Soie". I don't know whether the movie and the article about it are valid as history, but it sounds like many of the evils of prostitution today date back to the changes in the law made in that period.

Apparently bigamy had just been made illegal. Bigamy is probably a bad deal for poor men who can't find a mate because rich men have taken up the entire supply, but for women it's a pretty good deal: they continue to have legal rights and a home, not to mention companionship and someone to share the chores. In the absence of bigamy, what do poor women do? At best they can steal a husband from an older woman.

Likewise, it seems most prostitutes until that period welcomed men into their own homes. This allowed them to be independent of pimps and brothel owners, unlike today: now men get a rakeoff from the girls to handle bribery and marketing.

Oddly enough, this connects to your article about the children's book dealing with the plight of elephants in Thailand (p18A, "colorful Elephant Tale"). Now the law prevents elephants from being dragged along Bangkok's dirty, dangerous streets – except, of course, it doesn't.

Here's a proposal: instead of blowing billions of baht on flimsy, tacky Apec celebrations that have no relevance to Thai customs, why not establish a safe area somewhere in Bangkok where elephants *can* be paraded for everyone's enjoyment safely? Elephants are the symbol of Thailand and beloved all over the world. Some money and effort could create a safe pedestrian area – let's call it "Elephant Avenue" – that would allow foreign and Thai tourists to meet a happy, safe elephant as part of an ordinary day. I've heard a Thai say "Chaang, Chaang!" with absolute delight from just a glimpse of an elephant. Why not allow that in Bangkok?

The Nation: series on legalizing prostitution

To: editor email at nationgroup.com (The Nation) Date: Wed, 1 Oct 2003 12:11:38 -0400 (EDT)

I think most sex workers would much prefer *decriminalization* to legalization: that is, rather than having to undergo regulation by the government – probably involving registration, monitoring, fees etc – the existing laws are simply repealed.

If you have to have legalization, why not apply it to the client instead of the sex worker? Men would have to go down to the police station and register with the police as a sex buyer. This would be marked on their ID cards. Any man found having sex with a sex worker who had not registered with the police would be put on TV and heavily fined. Hospitals would provide regular testing and would put a date on the card which police could also check.

Tourists wanting to have sex while in the kingdom could get a special stamp in their passports by providing an extra fee when they get their visa.

...Bwahahaha!

The Nation 2003-08-02 5A "More Orwellian than you Think"

To: editor email at nationgroup.com Date: Sat, 2 Aug 2003 00:47:41 -0400 (EDT)

In his op-ed article, Mike Gonzalez of the Wall Street Journal attacks the BBC as Orwellian.

For some reason he omits the suggestion I have seen elsewhere that Orwell actually based the operations of 1984's "Ministry of Truth" on his experience of working for the BBC during WW2.

But it's funny: right now it's the backers of the war in Iraq who seem to me to be creating the situation of 1984: the giant power blocs, the ceaseless wars, helpless captives paraded before the citzenry and then sent to disappear in ghastly prison camps, the meaningless shifting of alliances, the permanent loss of civil liberties...

Gonzalez simply proceeds from the assumption that the war was justifiable, and uses that proposition to bolster the point that the BBC was tendentious. Most of the world thought that there was inadequate basis for an invasion even before the WMD claims lost all credibility; for him to continue to take that proposition as a given simply makes his argument ridiculous.

Note to the editor: I have an excellent dissection of the twisted history of the US position on Iraq on my website. It's not my own text; I copied it from a Usenet discussion. I quote the link below; if you use the material please don't print the link to my website, for privacy reasons.

www.panix.com [http://www.panix.com/~dannyw/weblog/2003/07/22#iraq1

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