Thai prostitutes

Prostitution is one of the things Thailand is best known for abroad, especially among those familiar with Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket. Spend just one evening at Nana Plaza, Soi Cowboy, Walking Street or Soi 6 and you will quickly realise just how visible the adult entertainment industry is in certain parts of the country. The term “Thai prostitute”, however, covers a wide range of very different situations: there are bar girls working in Beer Bars, Go Go dancers, freelancers who find their own customers, girls working in Gentlemen’s Clubs, masseuses offering full services and escorts operating at a considerably higher price level. The way they work also varies greatly: some receive a salary from the venue and earn commissions on Lady Drinks, others make most of their money directly from customers, while others have no fixed relationship with any bar at all. To really understand what we are talking about, you therefore need to know at least the main differences, especially because Thai nightlife follows a logic of its own and does not work exactly like what we are used to in Europe.

Prostitution and nightlife in Thailand

The first peculiarity is that prostitution in Thailand is not formally legalised, despite being so obvious in certain neighbourhoods that it can look like a normal part of everyday life. Much of the system revolves around entertainment: bars, discos, drinks, company, massages and nightlife venues, while whatever happens between an adult woman and a customer is handled separately. This explains how the barfine works, one of the terms you will hear most often when visiting Go Go Bars and Beer Bars. You are not paying the venue for a sexual service; the barfine is simply compensation for the income the bar loses because the girl leaves her shift before the scheduled finishing time. Whatever the two of you do outside the venue is between you, and any payment is agreed directly with her. Paying a barfine does not mean that a girl is obliged to leave with you either; it is simply an option provided by the bar, but if she does not want to go out with you, that is the end of the matter. Usually you first get to know each other, have a drink together, talk and see whether there is mutual interest, and only then, perhaps, “close the deal”.

Where Thai sex workers come from

Many of the women working in bars, nuru massage parlours and the nightlife of Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket come from the north-eastern provinces, especially Isan. It is a vast, mainly agricultural region from which workers have been moving towards the major cities and tourist destinations for decades. The main reason is economic: the difference between what can be earned from certain low-skilled jobs in the provinces and what nightlife can offer is considerable. A woman who would have access to relatively low wages back home may start working in a Bangkok bar with a fixed salary and a percentage of drink sales and earn in just a few days what would otherwise take weeks of work. Isan is by no means the only place they come from, however: in the venues you will meet women from all over the country and, in some destinations, also women from Laos, Cambodia and other Asian countries. Bangkok and Pattaya attract workers from every Thai province, so it would be wrong to imagine that all bar girls have the same story or come from exactly the same background, even if a large proportion do come from Isan.

Bar girls

The classic bar girl works in a Beer Bar, Pool Bar or another type of bar with girls. Her job does not simply consist of waiting for someone willing to pay her for sex. In fact, she may have to serve tables, keep things tidy, talk to customers, joke around, play pool, drink with them and generally help create the atmosphere of the venue. One source of income comes from Lady Drinks, the drinks customers buy for the girls. A Lady Drink costs more than a normal drink because part of the price is paid to the girl as commission. Buying one does not automatically mean that anything else is going to happen, because in practice you are simply paying for her company at your table and nothing more. From there she may show that she is interested, or she may even be the first to suggest going back to your room, but nothing may happen at all. Or, if you get along well, the evening may continue in other ways before eventually ending up in bed together. In Beer Bars the atmosphere tends to be fairly informal, and you can easily spend hours drinking, talking and playing games with the staff without necessarily taking any girl away with you.

Girls in Go Go Bars

In Go Go Bars the mechanism is more explicit. The girls dance on stages, often in bikinis or very revealing outfits, sometimes topless and in certain places completely naked. They then take turns coming down and walking around the room looking for someone who wants their company, or step outside near the entrance to grab something to eat and attract more customers. In very large venues there may be dozens of girls on stage at the same time and just as many mingling with customers around the room. If you see one you like, you can ask her to sit with you, buy her a Lady Drink and talk to her; if you then want to continue the evening somewhere else and reach an arrangement that suits both of you, the next step is the barfine. It is worth remembering that the same rule applies here: if the girl does not like you, she is free to refuse your proposal, although this generally happens less often than in other types of bar. In Bangkok, especially in the best-known venues at Nana Plaza, prices for the girls’ services are generally higher than in Pattaya, although this is not always the case. These places cater largely to tourists passing through, and the most famous Go Gos have very large line-ups, well-kept premises and consequently higher costs.

Lady Drinks, barfines, Short Time and Long Time

The vocabulary is fairly simple. A Lady Drink is the drink bought for the girl; the barfine is the payment made to the venue so she can leave her shift; Short Time, often shortened to ST, means a brief encounter; while Long Time, or LT, means spending several hours together, usually until the following morning. As a rough reference, in Thai venues a Lady Drink may cost somewhere around 150 to 250 baht, while a barfine can range from about 500 to more than 1,000 baht, with considerable differences from one place to another. At Nana Plaza, where prices have increasingly moved towards the upper end of the market, it is normal to find barfines of around 800 to 1,200 baht, Short Time at roughly 3,000-4,000 baht and Long Time in the region of 5,000-7,000 baht, although the most sought-after girls may ask for more. There is no national price list, however: prices can change according to the city, venue, time of day, girl and even the customer. Anyone who has been visiting Thailand for a long time knows perfectly well that two people sitting in the same bar may receive different requests from the same girl.

Pattaya

Pattaya is a world of its own. The number of nightlife venues is enormous, ranging from the Go Gos on Walking Street to the most basic Beer Bars, as well as Soi 6, LK Metro, Tree Town, Soi Buakhao and dozens of smaller side streets. Here the industry is far more widespread than in Bangkok, and you do not need to enter a large Go Go to meet a girl; in some parts of the city, simply walking around is enough. Soi 6 is perhaps one of the clearest examples: a street dedicated to male entertainment, with hundreds of girls spread across dozens of small bars within just a few hundred metres and, very often, rooms directly above the venues. The whole setup is therefore faster and more direct than in a Go Go or a more “normal” bar. Pattaya also tends to offer a wider range of prices because it does not live exclusively on occasional tourists: there are many foreign residents and regular visitors, so alongside the tourist-oriented venues there are countless alternatives catering to people who spend weeks or months there, or live permanently in the city.

Gentlemen’s Clubs

The Gentlemen’s Clubs of Pattaya deserve a category of their own. They are not exactly Go Gos and not simply Beer Bars either. The atmosphere is generally quieter, with sofas, televisions, pool tables, music and private rooms. Costs are often lower than in other venues such as Go Go Bars: a normal drink may cost around 60-150 baht, a Lady Drink 120-180 baht, and the use of a private room a few hundred baht. A Short Time with one of the girls working there may be around 1,000-1,500 baht; while a Long Time outside the venue may rise to roughly 2,000 to 5,000 baht, in addition to any barfine. These places are particularly popular with people who already know Pattaya because they allow you to spend time with the girls without the chaos typical of the most overrun areas and at less demanding prices.

Freelancers

Freelancers do not work permanently for a venue and manage their business directly. You may meet them in nightclubs, bars, through apps and dating websites, or in certain areas particularly popular with nightlife crowds. The advantage for them is obvious: they do not have to share part of their earnings with a venue, and there is no barfine. Customer and girl agree directly on the price and conditions. Again, the figures vary considerably: a Short Time may start at around 1,000-2,000 baht, while Long Time generally costs a few thousand baht. In more expensive areas or with particularly sought-after freelancers, prices can easily rise. You should also bear in mind that having no venue as a point of reference means the arrangement is entirely private, which is why it makes sense to be a little more careful with freelancers, especially when you first make contact online.

Erotic massage and Full Service

Thailand has an enormous massage culture and the vast majority of massage centres have nothing whatsoever to do with prostitution. Alongside normal Thai Massage, however, there is also a sector specifically aimed at erotic entertainment. This ranges from small massage shops offering a few extras to venues specialising in Body to Body, Soapy Massage, Nuru Massage and Full Service packages. The system here is generally different from bars: the customer chooses a treatment, pays a fixed price set by the venue and is taken to a room. In better-organised establishments, the duration and type of service are clearly stated. A Full Service Body to Body may start at around 2,000 baht, while Soapy and Nuru tend to cost more. In higher-end centres, a Nuru session may reach 3,500-5,000 baht, with even higher rates for longer treatments, Jacuzzi packages, two attendants or particularly luxurious venues. It is a very different market from that of bar girls: less conversation, less of the drink ritual and a generally much more clearly defined service structure.

Escorts

Escorts often occupy the upper end of the market. They work through agencies, websites, personal contacts or regular clients and generally focus on greater discretion and customer selection. Prices may start at a few thousand baht for a few hours and rise quickly: a high-end escort may ask 5,000-10,000 baht for a meeting and considerably more for an entire night. Appearance and presentation also tend to differ from those of the classic bar girl. Some speak good English, are accustomed to high-end hotels and restaurants and may also offer simple companionship in addition to sex.

Age

In Go Go Bars that focus heavily on appearance, most of the girls tend to be young, often in their twenties. In Beer Bars, Gentlemen’s Clubs, among freelancers and in massage centres, the age range becomes much broader. In Thailand there is practically a market for every taste: some venues focus mainly on younger women who are just over the age of majority or otherwise under 30, while others are popular precisely because their staff are more mature. Age also almost always affects the kind of work someone does. A woman may begin as a dancer in a Go Go and, as the years pass, move towards Beer Bars, venue management or completely different activities.

How much they earn

Trying to give an average income for Thai prostitutes would make little sense because the differences are enormous. A woman who is not particularly popular and works in a small provincial bar is in a completely different financial situation from one of the most popular dancers in a Bangkok Go Go. Those working in venues may receive a basic salary plus commissions on Lady Drinks and other incentives, but the most important part of their income can come from meetings with customers. A woman who manages several Short Times a week at 3,000 or 4,000 baht can quickly reach earnings far above the wages available to most Thai workers, and may often earn more than an average factory worker in Europe. Freelancers keep everything they earn directly, while massage parlours and similar businesses use different systems depending on the establishment. Seasonality and competition also need to be considered: December and January may be very different from the low season, just as a 22-year-old who has just arrived at a famous venue will have different opportunities from someone who has been working in the same bar for years. There are countless different factors determining how much a “Sciatthai” earns, but trying to explain them all in a few lines would be rather pointless.

The family

Many women working in nightlife and prostitution send part of their money back to their families. In Thailand it is normal for people working in the cities to contribute towards the expenses of parents who remain in their home province, and this is true outside the sex industry as well. In some cases there are also children living with their grandparents while their mother works in Bangkok or Pattaya. Part of the income may be used to pay for school, housing, medical treatment and everyday expenses. The family does not always know exactly what kind of work she is doing: a woman may say she works in a bar, restaurant or massage centre without going into detail, while in other cases relatives know perfectly well where the money comes from. There is no single rule that applies to everyone.

Education, English and the Thai language

Many bar girls from the provinces have a relatively low level of formal education, but it would be wrong to assume this is always the case. Modern nightlife includes women with extremely different backgrounds, and the internet has profoundly changed the industry. You will meet freelancers with good English, women who have spent years dealing with foreign customers, and others who independently manage social media, dating apps and a genuine network of international clients. Anyone who spends a long time working with farang will often learn at least enough English to do the job, and some end up speaking it quite well precisely because of the years they have spent in nightlife.

For a foreigner, however, knowing at least a few basic phrases in Thai can completely change the situation even in this kind of environment. You do not need to speak the language fluently: being able to say hello, joke around, ask a few simple questions, understand numbers, prices and common expressions immediately creates a different kind of relationship compared with the customer who communicates only in English. Often it takes very little to break the initial distance and show that you have not just landed in the country assuming that all of Thailand works like a tropical version of a European adult venue. And understanding even a few words of what the girls are saying to each other can be very useful when trying to read the atmosphere around you.

Choice, necessity and exploitation

Many sex workers, not only Thai ones, enter the industry voluntarily because, from their point of view, the relationship between hours worked and money earned is better than the alternatives available to them. It should always be remembered that, for the same number of hours worked, the average factory worker or employee earns far less than a prostitute, and this is true all over the world — in many cases, even a Thai sex worker who regularly works in a venue earns more than many of her Western customers. A woman may know perfectly well what she is doing, set her own rates, refuse customers and change venues whenever she wants. This does not mean that exploitation, economic pressure, debt or difficult situations do not exist within the industry. Individual choice and necessity can easily coexist: being formally free to work does not necessarily mean having a huge range of alternatives available. The reality is therefore much less cinematic than some people make it sound. In real life, not all of them are victims dragged into it against their will, and not all of them are living an easy life made up of money, drinks and holidays. Every story should be viewed and considered separately, avoiding the usual stereotypes.

Boyfriends, husbands and private life

Being a prostitute does not mean having no romantic life. Some women have a Thai boyfriend, some are married, others have children, while some maintain more personal relationships with regular customers at the same time. Inside the venue, however, it is not always convenient to talk about it. A customer who discovers that the girl he spends his holidays with has a boyfriend may lose interest, especially if he has started seeing her as something more than a worker. This is where many of the classic farang stories begin: she says she is single, he falls in love, returns to Europe and months later discovers that there was already a Thai partner or several foreign “boyfriends”. Sometimes it is simply a professional lie; at other times relationships are more complicated and do not follow the romantic categories we are accustomed to.

When the customer becomes a boyfriend

The line between customer and partner can become very thin. A foreigner spends several days with the same girl, takes her out for dinner, to the beach, perhaps travels with her and begins to experience the situation as a relationship. When he returns to Europe, they continue messaging and making video calls, and at that point she may ask for monthly financial support so she can stop working in the bar, support her children, pay the rent or help her family. It may all be completely genuine, and many couples have begun this way. But there is also the case of the girl who maintains several foreign “boyfriends” at the same time and receives money from each of them. With Line, WhatsApp, Messenger and video calls, it is much easier than it was twenty years ago to manage long-distance relationships with men living on the other side of the world. The problem is therefore not assuming that a bar girl cannot fall in love, because that can certainly happen; the problem begins when the customer takes it for granted that a relationship which started in a commercial setting has automatically become exclusive after three days on holiday.

Do they quit for love?

One of the most common promises in relationships between farang and bar girls is: “If you support me financially, I’ll stop working.” It may be true: a woman may genuinely want to leave nightlife behind and use a stable relationship as an opportunity to change her life. But more often the opposite happens, with her continuing to work while the foreign partner believes she has already stopped. Sending money every month is therefore no guarantee of anything. If the relationship becomes serious, it is far more important to spend time together outside those environments, become a consistent presence in her life, understand her everyday routine and family situation and, above all, calmly make sure that both of you are imagining the same future.

What they do afterwards

Prostitution is not necessarily a job for life. In fact, many women remain in the industry for only a few years before moving on to different work and a different lifestyle. Some become mama-sans and move into the management side of these environments, looking after staff and organising the girls; others open a small bar, restaurant, shop or beauty salon, or return to their home province. Those who manage to save money may buy a house or invest in a business, but earning a high income for a few years does not automatically make someone rich. Part of the money is sent to the family, another part disappears into normal day-to-day expenses, and nightlife itself can be expensive. Some therefore leave the industry in a strong financial position, while others end up with very little in savings after years of relatively high earnings, but the same thing happens in countless other professions and countries; it is certainly not unique to Thai sex workers.

Underage prostitution: Reality VS stereotypes

Underage prostitution is an entirely different matter from the adult and consensual activities described so far. Thailand does have laws covering this area and they are extremely strict, with very severe penalties, including prison sentences of up to 40 years in certain cases, and rightly so, I would add.

The debate surrounding underage prostitution in Thailand is often distorted by sensationalist journalism that feeds false myths, starting with the cliché that “they are all underage”. The exploitation of actual children, assuming of course that it exists because claiming otherwise would be equally foolish, certainly does not take place openly in massage centres, Go Go Bars or other public venues, but is generally assumed to occur in private and socially extreme environments.

As for media misunderstandings and the misinformation that spreads so easily, these mainly arise from two factors: the tendency of Asian women to look younger than their actual age, and Thai legislation that sets full legal adulthood at 20 — as well as the minimum age for consuming alcohol — therefore including among the “underage” group women aged 18 and 19 who, in 164 of the world’s 195 countries, are instead legally considered adults.

In openly operating commercial venues such as bars, nightclubs and Go Go Bars in the main tourist cities, the well-known tolerance of the Thai authorities towards adult entertainment disappears completely when minors are involved. Police checks are frequent, strict and unannounced. Since managers risk prison and the immediate permanent closure of their venue, identity documents (ID cards) are strictly checked for anyone working in the Lady Drink circuit. The fact that some girls manage to obtain false documents so they can work freely in certain environments before the age of 20 is a separate issue, but even in those cases we are certainly not talking about children. It may be difficult to understand for someone who has never set foot in these places, but if there really were a child inside one of these venues, she would blend into the surroundings about as well as a blue cube in a ball pit full of yellow balls, partly because in reality the average age of Thai working girls is often higher than many people imagine. This is where misinformation comes into play: in order to make stories more attractive, figures and statistics are mixed and rearranged at will, portraying the normal commercial sex market between adults as some kind of hellish circle filled with enslaved children forced into prostitution on every street corner and in every bar or similar venue.

Actual global data provided by police and judicial authorities instead confirm that around 90% of offences involving abuse and exploitation of minors occur within the family or close family circle, or are committed by authority figures in children’s lives such as guardians, teachers, coaches, supervisors, religious figures, acquaintances and so on, and are often linked to situations of extreme poverty and social hardship. But that is far less convenient and much less attractive for anyone trying to sell news stories.

Deliberately confusing adult consensual prostitution with paedophilia, and feeding stereotypes that do not reflect what actually happens in these environments, does nothing to solve the problem. Instead, it draws attention away from its real and dramatic hidden dynamics.

At the same time, accurate information about the situation can also protect travellers and discourage bad decisions by making them aware of the real risks if they happen to end up in bed with a girl who claims to be one age but in reality is another age that is not legal — perhaps without even realising it, because in many cases it can be difficult to tell someone who is nearly of age from a woman ten years older, especially if you are not exactly sober.

The point is that nobody denies that certain extreme situations exist and are real, but it would be far more useful to report the facts instead of feeding assumptions and clichés based on nothing simply because outrage sells and the average reader is always looking for something to be angry about and somewhere to unload their daily frustration.

And given the sensitivity of these subjects on a website that reviews brothels, I want to make it clear that yours truly, the Editor, has always abhorred and discouraged underage prostitution in his information spaces — the real kind involving poor, abused and powerless children — just as I have spent twenty years fighting the misinformation that does absolutely nothing to solve the problem. At the same time, I do not judge the nineteen-year-old Thai single mother who adds a year to her documents so she can drink alcohol and work in a bar. And I can say without fear of contradiction that anyone who cannot understand the difference between the two situations I have just described is an idiot.

What you really need to understand about Thai prostitutes

The world of Thai prostitution is far more complex than it may appear to someone who spends a single night in Pattaya. A bar girl does not work like a freelancer, a woman in a Gentlemen’s Club does not necessarily follow the same dynamics as someone in a Go Go, and a Full Service masseuse does a completely different job from an escort. Prices, clientele, environment and even the kind of relationship created with the customer all change. Some see it exclusively as work, while others end up becoming emotionally attached to a regular customer. Some women want to earn enough money to go back home, others remain in nightlife for years, and still others see a farang as a possible opportunity to change their lives.

From the customer’s point of view, the smartest thing to do is understand where you are and how that particular environment works. In a Go Go, the smile, physical contact and attention are part of the job; that does not mean a genuine relationship cannot develop, but nor does it mean one has already developed simply because you spent a pleasant evening together. Over the decades, Thailand has built one of the largest and most varied adult entertainment scenes in Asia, made up of bars, Go Gos, Gentlemen’s Clubs, massage parlours, freelancers and Sciatthai. Understanding how it works allows you to experience it with far greater clarity, avoiding both the moralism of those who judge a world they know nothing about and the naivety of those who immediately mistake a commercial relationship for a love story.