Disclaimer: This section has been written for a male audience and to serve the needs of our male readers.
It contains information that some (female readers) might find disrespectful. It is by your own choice that you have arrived here.
Thailand is an easy place for a sexperience, easier than in many places in the world, and a sexual paradise especially if you come from an over-regulated country like in Europe, for example.
But while it’s so easy, fun and cheap to engage in sexual adventures in Thailand, you want to stay on the safe side when it comes to hygiene, legality and ethics.
Officially, prostitution and businesses involved with prostitution are technically illegal in Thailand but in practice, it is common, widespread and tolerated. Soapy massage parlours can hold a license and pay taxes, officially it’s for อาบ-อบ-นวด [aab-ob-nuad = bath, steam & massage] but everybody knows what’s going on there.
In practice, you need not to worry about the legality of paid sex or any form of prostitution in Thailand because any establishment you go to will have dealt with it already, you’re just another customer. Even engaging in a private arrangement with sexual activity is not a concern, nobody cares and nobody knows about it anyway.
There is one big exception, and that is sex with underaged. Although the age of consent is applied differently in Thailand for different kinds of interactions, when it comes to the sex industry, as a simple rule, you should keep away from any girls under 18.
According to Thai law, the official age of consent is 15, but it will depend on the circumstances how this is applied and you can be sure to end up in trouble if you’d be walking around hand-in-hand with a 15-year and bringing her home.
Massage parlours apply the rules for employing sex workers or masseuses in different ways, some work with a minimum age of 18, others 20.
For you, as foreigner or customer, the safe age is simply 18. If in doubt, ask to see her ID card and when she hasn’t reached the age of 18 yet, better walk away especially when you’re in a place-of-ill-resort and even if it’s a just a personal date.
There is another big no-go in the sex industry in Thailand and that’s human trafficking, but this is more a concern for the business which is engaged in it rather than for you as a customer, as the responsibility to recruit workers is with the business.
SUMMARISED: In general, you don’t have to worry about the legality of paid sex in Thailand. Only watch out for underaged (<18). When in doubt, ask to see her ID card. Walk away from anybody under 18 and you’re fine.
Notice at love hotel in Chiang Mai prohibiting girls under the age of 18 from entering
Even if it’s clear that you don’t need to worry about the legality of paid sex in Thailand, you would also want her to have a good feeling about it on her end, being a responsible person with a conscience. I personally wouldn’t enjoy doing it if I knew that some of the action comes, in the end, at the cost of the girl, even though on the outside appearance she keeps smiling during her presentation and work.
And this is, unfortunately, a factor of difference between various places-of-ill-resort. Luckily in Chiang Mai, there aren’t many extreme cases of human trafficking or sex with underaged, but certainly, in my experience, there are notable differences between how fair businesses treat their girls, and their customers.
Here’s how practices vary from one end of the scale to the other:
| LESS ETHICAL BUSINESSES | MORE ETHICAL BUSINESSES | |
| WORKING HOURS | Force the girls to work really long hours (up to 10-15 hours a day) | Do not force their girls to work such long hours, even allow them to come in part-time for a few hours each time |
| NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS | Force the girls to accept any number of customers, even though actually their body (ie their genitals) can’t take it anymore. To cope with it, some girls take anti-inflammatory medicine on a daily basis | Agree with the girl how many customers she can take per day, and then let her rest when she reaches that quota. |
| BARE BLOWJOBS | Force the girls to accept BBBJ (bare back blow job, blow job without condom). This is ultimately unsafe for both the girl and the customer, even though it looks innocent and you can’t see anything on the outside, obviously you can get all kinds of STDs. | Don’t sell bare blowjobs and don’t force their girls to do so, even recommend not to do blowjobs bare but instead with condom. Of course, some girls will still give you a bare blowjob but that means it’s their own decision and your risk will be much lower than getting a bare blowjob after she’s just done the customer before you 20min ago. |
| CHEATING CUSTOMERS |
Typically post fake pictures of girls who do not even work in the shop on their social media timeline, not only fooling the customer but also defaming the girls depicted in the pictures.
Instruct Tuc Tuc drivers to bring customers first to their place, even if the customer wanted to go to another place. So you booked a massage at parlour A but the Tuk Tuk driver brings you to parlour B, and you’re late to get back to your your appointment in parlour A. |
Don't photoshop pictures of the girls Offer straighforward menu and prices, without hidden charges |
| NET PAYOUTS TO GIRLS |
Can be rather low, even less than THB 1000 per hour for full service including travelling to the customer's hotel room (in case of outcall) Make unreasonable cuts in the girls payouts |
Pay the girls a decent rate |
| INVESTMENT AND TRAINING IN THE GIRLS |
Don’t care much about training, don't invest in their staff Don't even provide proper lubricants to the girls Mainly sell superficial beauty in beauty classes |
Spend ample time and resources to train their staff, even (co-)finance their studies Even provide personal finance to staff |
| CONTROLLING GIRLS | Some businesses go as far as taking the personal phones of the girls to check if they made a personal arrangement with a customer |
Respect the girls private life Don't restrain the girls to meet customers after working time |
The list could go on but these are some of the most common ways I've found in which girls and customers are being treated very unfairly on the one end of the scale versus very fairly on the other end of the scale.
Now you might think how would this thing concern me? If I happen to go to a place with lower business ethics and do my thing, am I not also helping the girls? Yes, you can think that way and there won't be any problem for you, but obviously you're keeping a system in place where the girls and/or customers are being treated unfairly and if you have a choice, you could also opt for the more responsible businesses where the girls ultimately will have a better life. It's a decision for you alone to make, but I personally just don't feel as good if I know my pleasure comes at the cost of the girl. If she has to swallow anti-inflammatory medicine because I'm her 7th customer on that day because she just needs that money to support her family back home and she feels she has no choice but to stick to the 'rules' of the place that she ended up working for, I won't notice a thing because she kept smiling but under the surface things are not so good.
IT DOESN'T FEEL AS GOOD WHEN YOU KNOW THAT YOUR PLEASURE COMES AT HER EXPENSE
Anyway, even if you think that the unfairness to the girls doesn't really affect you, ultiimately it does and it will, because the main driver of an unethical shop is in the first place money. You might arrive at a parlour and find out that the girls that were promised to you are simply not there or look completely different, you might take a Tuk Tuk to parlour A but instead arrive at parlour B because the Tuk Tuk driver was bribed by parlour B to do so, you might enjoy guaranteed bare blowjobs and find out that you an STD 3 weeks later ...
In the end, the less ethical businesses are not just less ethical in their ways towards the girls, but towards everything and that will somehow affect you too as a customer.
The list above sketches a range from very unethical to very ethical, most businesses will position themselves somewhere on that scale. For reasons of avoiding defamation of individual businesses, no mentioning is made here of the names of businesses where girls or customers are treated very unethically, you can find out by yourself, but based on feedback from girls, business owners and customers, there clearly appears to be a higher concentration of lower business ethics in the area of Changklan Road and amongst those businesses with a mainland Chinese owner (as an ultimate beneficiary).
In Bangkok, there are many dodgy places with worn out rooms, but not as bad as I've seen in China in the old days.
A good way to find out how ethical a business in Thailand is, is by talking to the girls (Thai preferred) and find out more as I've done many times, but there are simple straightforward ways too. For example, if the receptionist in a full service establishment tells you that all or some of the girls guaranteed accept bare blowjobs, it's not a good sign. It suggests that the business puts pressure on the girls to do so and it puts them and you as a customer at risk. It's much better if the rule of the place is blowjob-with-condom, and if the girl by herself decides to give you a bare blowjob because she feels your device 'looks clean', the risk will be much lower for you than if she was forced to do it with every customer and just had another customer's dick in her mouth just 20min ago. Sloppy seconds blowjobs surely bear a greater risk of STDs.
On the positive side, there are a few full service businesses, especially in Chiang Mai which excel as very ethical and I mention them here: Dolphin Spa and Lola Love Massage. Dolphin Spa used to have tutoring meetings with the girls on how to to develop another career outside of the sex industry(probably, with limited success), and Lola Love Massage excels on all points in the table above and even has become almost something of a shelter for girls who were maltreated in other places and now found a fair and safe home in Lola Love.
When it comes to teen massage / happy ending massage places without full service (sex), places like especially All about Touch Massage are known for their continued investment in staff and excelling on the right hand side of the scale above. Other ethically fair businesses are Dream Massage and Senz~ Diva Massage.
When it comes to unpaid sex, let's dating a Thai girl, at first things may look more simple but they are actually more complicated, because now you enter the field of relationships with Thai women and that's not an easy one. In another article on this site, the issues with Thai relationships are extensively discussed. What's important as for ethical aspects is to keep in mind that, whatever you do and however much fun it seems to be to engage in sexual activity with Thai women, in the end they are people with a heart.
Thai people themselves always joke about having affairs (giks), and it's very tempting to enter a game of play, but at some point, Thai women tend to get hurt and then that karma comes back to you.
by Joseph G.
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