In the public mind of most European countries, Nivea is understood as a company that sells products for skin support to get a proper tan in the summer. Therefore, I was surprised when I went to Thailand for the first time and came across skin whitening products. While we in the West are all concerned with getting a tan in the summer and regard this as the ideal of beauty, pharmaceutical and beauty companies have managed, especially in Southeast Asia, to sell the population a product that has exactly the opposite effect. So while big corporate has managed to establish different ideals of beauty in different parts of the world, the general problem in f.e. the Southeast Asian region is much greater.
Companies still manage to successfully sell the idea of having white skin and the desire to be white, and especially for women the idea, to be better prospects in terms of employment, marriage and social standing.
This essay will discuss how the West has managed to influence Thailand’s culture to establish a sex culture which is based on the idea of a white male supremacy. I argue that this sex culture and certain ideas of man are used to maintain economic dependence and to pursue one’s own economic interests. Additionally, I will briefly explain how social media in our data economy can support this influence.
Even though former colonization has ended, the orientalist gaze remains widely contested throughout modern society and deeply rooted within the idea of global modernity. Sex tourism in Thailand is not part of the indigenous culture, but is perpetuated by imperial hegemonic notions of colonised body and sex images from the West. Patriarchal systems, the neoliberal dynamics between “the West” and Southeast Asia and especially capitalism are the factors that justify the exploitation of tourism and services.
This essay explores how culture can be influenced in other countries by using sex culture in Thailand as an introductory example. Pattaya is by now one of the biggest cities in Thailand and several millions of visitors come to the city every year. This growth boom has its origins in the time of the Vietnam War, during which several army bases from the US were set up around the Pattaya region. In the post-war years, Pattaya was still a popular destination for soldiers and therefore both Thailand and “the West” (United Kingdom, Australia, United States) have already invested in this region.
On the one hand, Pattaya has thus become a booming city over the years; on the other hand, the influence of Western culture on Thai culture originated here, as the white rich man gained a foothold in Thailand. While some might argue its more effective to look at sex workers’ agencies and their reasons and choices, the focus should rather lie on : who fuels the sex industry, what means are used and what larger capital interests lie behind it? By changing the focus, I no longer refer to whether a sex worker is being exploited in an individual case or is doing this job voluntarily to earn money. Even within feminism, there are major discrepancies as to whether sex work in general should be legalised or even more prosecuted to be prevented.
While some argue, that prostitution was legal and common in Thailand already in the mid-1300s to the mid-1700s Thailand’s modern sex industry and the foreign exploitation of women has its origin post Vietnam War. The political economy behind sex tourism finds its origin in the imperialism of the globalised world. Therefore, we can consider this type of tourism in Thailand as a fundamental part of the global trade of products, ideas, destinations, cultures, and people. This rather political and economical approach explains the underlying structure that moves these actors and their international market value. After the colonial era of the 20th century ended, the West, which had already gained a foothold in the economy and culture in various ways, needed new ways to secure money and power. Neoliberalism, under the principle of free-market policies and the inducement of aid to the “South” through financial aids, was a new system to transfer, once more, influence and wealth from the “South” to the “West”.
So this system that in its roots requires cheap labor and only can operate with low state policies takes advantage of women’s lack of resources for justice, social status, visibility, and human rights. Neoliberalism is not only a school of thought, a free market economic order, we can understand it much more as a set of ideologies, whose unquestionable truth is the idea of freedom and unlimited resources. But the basic shortcoming is that this highly touted freedom is a freedom that only a certain group can enjoy and in order for that group to obtain this privilege, other groups and cultures must be systematically oppressed.
Sex tourism such as in Thailand is part of the “South” to the “West” relation where poorer states, with the support of their oppressor, have promoted (sex) tourism as a development strategy. While for developing countries it is an adaptation strategy, for developed countries it is also a strategy to make the other country dependent on them. By specifically supporting certain economic sectors, but above all by making ideas, like ideas about beauty, part of the culture, economic dependence can continue to be secured.
In order to compete in the global market the Thai state has capitalized on sexualized and racialized Thai cultural traits which reinforce the oriental depiction of Thailand as “a land of cheap, exotic women, carefree living and nightlife, and beautiful beaches”. By exemplifying three case studies which include Tourism, Thai Consumerism (i.e. skin whitening products) and International/ English Education, Persaud underlines that global modernity is systematically coined by the ideology of white supremacy, which I describe here as the oppression of the “West”.
It is important to understand here that this development is no longer only supported by the West, but that the Thai government and big business in Thailand also support this development and endorse this view. In a conversation with a Thai woman who imports sex toys and sells them in Thailand, she explained to me how the Thai upper class now profits from sex work. This Thai upper class can be understood as sex tourists in their own country. I used this final example to show how the western idea of Thailand as a culture being an “oriental and sexual oasis” has spread so far among the society, that even some groups of Thais believe and follow this view, even though they know that Thailand is a conservative country and sexuality is almost a taboo subject.
In the past, governments and other interest groups could steer public opinion through print media and introduce certain ideas and images into the culture. Through digital media and the society’s strong identification with social media, tech companies mainly from the United States and China, have the opportunity to specifically spread certain ideas and ideologies. An example of this social engineering is the Cambridge Analytics scandal, which represents only the tip of the iceberg. Tech giants in our data based economy, such as Facebook, are working specifically on developing methods to change personalities, emotions and fears in order to generate demand and strengthen their influence. In this way, cultures and societies are specifically influenced in order to achieve capital and maintain dependency structures.
Coming back to the example of Thailand, it is interesting to see that a truly fundamental change in Thai culture has failed to take place. Sexuality is still a difficult topic in Thailand, but the “West” and big corporate have managed to commercialize sexuality to such an extent that a huge business has developed for certain groups, while the majority of the society and culture stays unaffected.
Sources :
https://www.centrepoint.com/pattaya/upcoming/pattaya-history-and-modern-development
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1205077/no-sex-please-were-thai
https://aseannow.com/topic/358302-did-america-create-pattaya/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747730500202214?scroll=top&needAccess=true (Persaud, pg.216)
https://factsanddetails.com/southeast-asia/Thailand/sub5_8d/entry-3243.html
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/07/the-great-hack-facebook-cambridge-analytica/
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/29/facebook-users-emotions-news-feeds
Very interesting and exciting topic, especially from the perspective of a European living in Bangkok! I like the approach of your article as well as your position to this almost peculiar phenomenon. Additionally, I would be interested in the economic effects and dimensions of sex-tourism and the cultural shift in Thailand and how different cities in Thailand deal with this.
This article is a good representation of the effects of post-colonial influence. It illustrates how the West still influences developing countries through today’s economic and political means. Even though the Asian white beauty concept emerged in ancient times and I am not sure that a company like Nivea changed views on this matter radically , corporations definitely tweaked ideologies at their advantage. This had resulted in certain “cultures” that are detrimental to what it should be. Overall, I believe this is a good essay that supports its claims with good arguments.
Very interesting topic! However I do not see a direct link to urban economics. I would love to see more details about the example of Pattaya and to see the direct connections to urban concepts. However, it is a really interesting topic to read about especially now living the last months in Thailand and to view your observations.
very interesting topic especially for europeans experiencing the life in Bangkok for a few months. I think you could write way more about this, but this is such an interesting start!! You made me very interested also about the implemented beauty ideal by the west.