Sexuality Studies in Thai Society

Let's be frank about sex

And that's exactly what happened at the Conference on Sexuality Studies in Thai Society. Just ask the blushing interpreter


Published on January 16, 2008

Last week's two-day Conference on Sexuality Studies in Thai Society, the first in what is planned as an annual exchange on modern sex, was largely an academic affair. But there were more than 20 decidedly non-academic speakers who made good use of the forum's onstage microphone to share their "sexperiences".

If government censors had been in attendance, such casual talk might have been abruptly shut down.

"This stage is challenging Thai society," declared Jaded Chouwilai, manager of the Friends of Women Foundation, who spoke frankly about being raised by a mother who made him do household chores and a father who encouraged macho stuff like boozing.

It took Jaded a long time to overcome his confusion and determine that mixing alcohol and sexuality is hazardous to health - individual mental and physical health and society's health as well.

Another speaker lay down on the floor of the stage to try and explain her inter-gender experience. Still another offered a litany of her bed partners.

One man related how he overcame years of loathing for people who were "different" before learning to accept diversity. A young woman explained how Japanese manga comics taught her about sex.

For the time being, weighty subjects like what the late French sexologist Michel Foucault discovered were set aside.

Each speaker had five minutes, though an extra minute was allowed if they brought along a sex toy that might need some explaining.

No recording was allowed. The meeting room at the Rattanakosin Hotel was a comfort zone.

The primary aim of the conference was to free Thai minds of conventional misperceptions about sexuality, and to promote an acceptance of diversity in sexual orientation. Wrong-headed ideas might be well established in this country, participants stressed, but they shackle the ability to enjoy life and in fact make things worse, by fostering such scourges as Aids and sex crimes.

Guest speaker Chalidaporn Songsamphan, a political-science professor at Thammasat University, said Thai society inherited its concepts of sexuality from Victorian Europe: freedom and control for men, submissiveness for women. That structure was abandoned long ago in the West, she pointed out, but it's still the norm here.

Most Thais remain unable to discuss sex openly, even with friends, and the result is widespread ignorance about it. Information comes from the mass media, which stick to outdated conventions. "You assume that this is healthy sexuality," Chalidaporn said, and people - preferring to conform - are "trapped" in an impractical social construct.

Escape, she said, lies in accepting that there is sexual diversity.

"Our problem is that the conservatives can't just let go of the difference. They want everyone to conform."

With at least 300 people at the conference, organiser Anjana Suvarnananda expressed hope that it would be a first step in changing people's perceptions.

"We want everyone to speak their minds without fear of being attacked by the audience or the public," she said.

"The speakers' stage," Jaded noted, "was created because people can't talk about sex anywhere else." But the stage has to become increasingly larger, he said, and extend well beyond the seminar rooms.

Few Thai wives are allowed to display their sexual desire, Jaded said, or, conversely, to reject their husbands' advances. Such submissiveness can lead to unhealthy sexuality and even domestic violence, he warned, but "speaking up will help ease the problem".

The onstage presentations were encouragingly relaxed. Speakers talked freely about their experiences and the audience nodded or laughed along in complete understanding.

Things got so casual at one point that an interpreter blushed while struggling to find the right English expressions for what the Thai speaker was saying. "Some of the words were uncommon," the interpreter said later, "and I was taught that they were rude!"

Overcoming the blush factor was, of course, the organisers' goal.

Sirinya Wattanasukchai

The Nation