CHALENGES IN GENDER AND SEXUALITY DISCOURSE IN THAI SOCIETY
Organizer: The Southeast Asian Consortium on Gender, Sexuality, and Health
It is evident that globalization has influenced not only economics and politics, but also
socio-cultural aspects of Thai society. Global culture has cut across borders and
brought about social changes as well as changes in people’s lifestyles and their
behavior and attitudes regarding gender and sexuality. Specifically, there are
influences on gender and sexuality discourse resulting from the Internet, including
webcam chatrooms such as Camfrog. In addition, as has been widely argued,
globalization has also brought about new economic inequalities and widened the gap
between the rich and the poor. These effects give rise to push and pull factors
underlying migration and mobility within the Southeast Asia and the surrounding
region. This panel brings together four different research studies that depict various
changes concerning gender and sexuality in Thai society and that address the
emerging issues behind such changes.
Three areas affected by globalization in Thai society: sexuality education, popular
media, and cross-border mobility will be highlighted to pinpoint the critical changes
in Thai society and these changes transform individuals and the society in terms of
belief and value systems with regard to gender and sexuality. This panel intends to
reconstruct mindsets, beliefs, and value systems concerning gender and sexuality
lying beyond those three aspects of globalization that shape, control, and direct the
lives of Thai people.
Camfrog and Sexuality of Thai Young Men Who Have Sex with Young Men: Space,
Sexual Agency, and Power Structure
Ronnapoom Samakkeekarom, Pimpawan Boonmongkon, and Wachira Jantong, Center for
Health Policy Studies, Mahidol University
Camfrog, a webcam chatroom, is a space where young homosexual Thai men express
their sexual agency by dancing in Coyote style and display their sexual gratification
by masturbation. Camfrog is the space that young homosexual Thai men can express
their homosexuality to an online audience. This area of cyberspace is thus used by
young homosexual men to resist and negotiate with the Thai state and society, who
have viewed cyber sex and homosexuality as immoral acts. The paper aims to explain
what it means to young homosexual Thai men when they display their bodies and
express their sexuality in Camfrog cyberspace. The paper also articulates the interplay
between their sexual agency on the one hand and their potential exploitation on the
other. The authors also analyze the power differences among key players in this space
of cyber sex, namely the DJ, programmers, users, and the State. The study employs
qualitative research methodology and utilizes discourse and textual analysis, as well
as participant observation. In-depth interviews with the Camfrog users are also
employed.
Camfrog and Sexuality of Thai Female Youth: Sexual Agency vs. Sexual Exploitation
Pimpawan Boonmongkon, Wachira Jantong, and Ronnapoom Samakkeekarom, Center for
Health Policy Studies, Mahidol University
Webcam chatrooms such as Camfrog have become popular among some Thai teens
and young adults as a form of cyber sex. This paper aims to explain what it means to
Thai female youth when they display their bodies and express their sexuality in
Camfrog cyberspace. The paper also articulates the interplay between their sexual
agency on the one hand and their potential exploitation on the other. This interplay
occurs within contesting discourses on femininity and feminine sexuality that are
shaped by the state, consumer values, and the media as well as by young women’s
individualized discourses. We use feminist research methodology, which includes
discourse analysis, textual analysis, in-depth interviews, and observation. The
research informants are young women and men between the ages of 18 and 24 who
have participated in Camfrog chats. Snowball sampling technique was used to recruit
informants. Government policies, regulations, and research reports relevant to
Camfrog are analyzed as is the language used by participants and critics. Based on a
poststructuralist feminist standpoint, we deconstruct the behavior and “performances”
of Camfrog participants. Examining the language used in these encounters gives
insight into issues of gender and sexuality under the existing social and cultural
context of the Thai state, capitalism, and patriarchal society. Young women’s own
voices and the meanings of their behavior that they assign themselves clarify the issue
of whether cyberspace is a space for young women to exercise their sexual agency.
Implications for promoting healthy sexuality in Thai society are also identified.
Beyond the New Path of Thai Sexuality Education: Its Influence and Impacts
Monruedee Laphimon, Sirinya Singtongwan, Urairat Nayai, and Pimpawan Boonmongkon,
Center for Health Policy Studies, Mahidol University
Materialism has an impact on the changes in many aspects of Thai society ranging
from beliefs, meanings, and significations of gender and sexuality and socio-cultural
structure. In addition, the increasing of number of HIV/AIDS infections in youth has
led to the reformation of sexual education in the formal education system. In this light,
PATH, an international non-government organization that works on sexuality
education and AIDS, has developed a pedagogy and contents for a sexuality education
course entitled “Teen Path” to be used in schools in Thailand. This approach aims to
enhance sexuality education in the formal education system by emphasizing
participatory learning, building their capacity, and providing full and appropriate
sexuality knowledge that responds to learners’ circumstances and lifestyles.
This research study aims to analyze and understand the mindsets and beliefs related to
sexuality and gender that are communicated through the contents and
teaching/learning methodology of Teen Path by resource persons involved in the
learning process, such as academic officers, teachers who serve as master trainers and
coaches of teachers, students, and their parents. It also examines the development
process of program implementation and how it can contribute to the sexual health of
youth groups through the promotion of sexuality education in schools and institutions.
This paper will utilize qualitative research methodology and research methods such as
textual analysis and discourse analysis to examine the social discourse on sexuality
and gender from a sexual education curriculum and associated pedagogy.
Researching Cross-Border/Cross-Ethnic Sexual Relations of Thai Men
Suchada Thaweesit, Dean, Faculty of Liberal Arts, Ubon Ratchathani University and
Director, Mekong Sub-Region Social Research Center (MSSRC)
This paper is part of the collaborative research project on cross-border sexuality
entitled, Men Search for Sex: Cross-Border Sexual Relations in the Greater Southeast
Asian Countries. 1 The paper highlights the interweaving of migration, sexuality,
gender, social class, modernity, economy, politics of citizenship, and ethnicity in the
context of transnational migration. It primarily discusses cultural aspects of Thai
men’s intimate relationships with other Asian people. By applying a poststructuralist
framework of sexuality, gender, class, ethnicity, and border theory to the analysis of
focus group discussions with Thai men who engaged in cross-ethnic sexual
intimacies, this paper explores Thai men’s desires and their strategic engagement in
sexual liaisons with other Asian women and men. The study reveals that casual
intimate relationships between Thai men and other Asian people in a transnational and
regionalizing context are complex, open-ended, and context-specific. Most
importantly, it emphasizes that sexual relationships in a transient context are not about
sexual gratification per se. On the contrary, they are embedded within multiple sets of
cultural and social meanings. In addition to this, this study also portrays many aspects
of the engagement of Thai men in cross-ethnic sex and how they see crossethnic/cross-border sex, and the reasons behind their involvement in cross-ethnic
sexual exchanges.
1
Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, this collaborative regional research project is hosted by Gadjah Mada
University (Indonesia) and the Southeast Asia Consortium on Gender, Sexuality and Health. It involves teams of
in-country researchers from six countries namely Indonesia, Philippines, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, and South
China.