Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys: Male and Female Homosexualities in Contemporary Thailand

Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys: Male and Female Homosexualities in Contemporary Thailand

Haworth Press, 10 Alice St., Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. 237p., bibliog., index. (Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, volume 9, no. 2/3 1999). ISBN 0-7890-0656-1, 1-56023-119-Xpbk. $49.95, $19.95pbk.
edited by Peter A. Jackson, Gerard Sullivan. 1999.

Tourists to Thailand may think that male and female homosexuals lead happy, normal lives in this "Land of Smiles." Lovers can be seen walking hand-in-hand and there are many bars, saunas, restaurants, karaoke parlors and discos that openly cater to the many gays that visit this country. Unfortunately, the gays in Thailand are not free from prejudice, criticism, ostracism and discrimination. These individuals exist in a legal limbo since there are no laws against them. As a result, visitors to Thailand are having a very visible negative impact on the gays by introducing them to STDs and AIDS. In the area of HIV/AIDS education and prevention, "homosexually active men are ignored, with unprotected heterosexual sex and intravenous drug use often being represented as the only risk activities." In Thai society, "ignoring a problem is often considered to be a traditional method of solving the problem."

The nine chapters in this book speak to all of the problems that are now encountered in Thailand: "A Panoply of Roles: Sexual and Gender Diversity in Contemporary Thailand," "Same-Sex Sexual Experience in Thailand," "HIV/AIDS Projects with and for Gay Men in Northern Thailand," "Increasingly Gay Self-Representations of Male-Male Sexual Experiences in Thailand," "Masculinity and Tom Identity in Thailand," "Transformations of Transgender: The Case of the Thai Kathoey," "Rehearsing Gender and Sexuality in Modern Thailand: Masculinity and Male-Male Sex Behaviours," "The Friends Thou Hast: Support Systems for Male Commercial Sex Workers in Pattaya, Thailand," and "Between Money, Morality and Masculinity: Bar-Based Male Sex Work in Chiang Mai." This is a recommended book for academic libraries.

Keywords: Thailand; Transsexualism; Male Prostitution
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