From: mptj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.thai
Subject: Prostitution, child selling and Phra Wet Sandorn- a survey
Date: 13 Dec 92 00:39:55 EST
Distribution: soc
Organization: Cornell University

In article <1992Dec11.150554.18431@eagle.lerc.nasa.gov>,
fstawit@icomp01.lerc.nasa.gov (Tawit Chitsomboon) writes: 
> In article <1992Dec9.231229.16432@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> 
> mptj@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
>>
>>> -- 88 per cent cited poverty as main reason while ten said poverty 
>>> and parental wish, one percent said they aren't poor but 
>>> voluntarily enter the profession .
>>
>>
>>What does "parental wish" mean? I am not asking for a translation, but for an 
>>explanation. Are their parents mentally healthy? This brings us to the 
>>case of parents selling their children. Are those parents normal? Are the
>>children normal when they go along with the parents' wish at any price?
>>Is something wrong with society if such behavior is normal?
> 
> 
> As to some Northern parents 'sell' their daughters to become P.
> I was told there still are pockets of cultures in the North that see 
> this as 'normal'. Assumed as true such hypothesis, we outsiders 
> still cannot judge them by our standards.
> I think they are not abnormal at all. I used to post about the Naca
> people (in Burma); people who reach puberty are encouraged by
> the society to have as many sex with as many partners as possible in
> order to find a person that they like most. How could you explain
> this? It should not be too difficult to the Naca girls at all to get paid
> for what they have all along offer for free. And a pocket of people 
> in Nepal and Ladakh still practice reverse-polygamy whereby
> a woman marries to all the brothers in an entire family. How could
> you explain that?

It is fine if a certain sexual behavior is cultural, even if it is not
what a person form another culture sees appropriate. The problem begins when
the sexual behavior that people are driven to is not accepted in their 
culture, whether because the behavior is new or the culture has changed.
That prositution is not widely accepted in Thailand we see in the next 
lines: 

> 
> Despite many beliefs otherwise, Thai society (especially the parents)
> strongly condemn the P profession. Few, male or female, would dare walk
> with them in the open (if the public knew that the person was a P).

I think it was in Tahiti that free sex was common when some famous English
explorer whose name I don't remember got there. The sailors found sexual 
paradise there, and quickly infected the local people with venereal diseases
that had not existed there before. It is easy, I guess, for some hill tribe
girls to become prostitutes. As Tawit said, they are just getting money for
something that is normal for them (maybe). However, when many of them become
infected with HIV and pass the virus to the people in their village, as 
they are the least educated about AIDS, then we have a problem. Also, I am 
not sure that "free sex" is the same in a village setting and in a brothel
setting. In the village both partners are still subject to some code
of behavior, and that they follow it is generally observed by society.
For example, I am not sure that rape would be acceptable, nor that a pregnant
girl would be left unmated with someone to help her to raise her child.
A prostitute, on the other hand, has little protection against simple 
violence. She has to have sex with anyone who comes along, whereas in her
hill tribe village she probably grew up with the boys whom she would
later have sex with, and both she and her parents knew them well. A
young man who is unacceptable to her or to the general opinion of the
village people would probably not get to have sex with her. 
Upon going to the city she becomes exposed to the Thai culture,
which does not view her profession with respect. She is exposed to the 
values of this society and to its new Western ideas of success, but her status
in it does not allow them to acheive this kind of success. Thus her background
is taken advantage of. She is expected to give her "free sex" culture to 
the need of the customers, but she is not granted the possibility to 
enjoy what the outside society has to offer, as far as her status in it goes.
  

> 
> I wouldn't rule out such implicit 'parental wishes' whereby
> the daughter herself was compelled by the family's precarious situations
> (paddy fields would be confiscated by the capitalists soon, severe
> illnes in the family which required costly treatments, etc.)
> and volunteer herself up to rescue the family. Given that Thais girls
> are very obedient and grateful to their parents, and that they
> often have no educations or other skills to earn money in the city
> , such scenario could easily happen.
>  
> 
>>I would appreciate people's opinion on this. Also, do you think that the 
>>story of Phra Wet Sandorn (the story of the one-before-last life of the
>>Buddha) is important in allowing such child-trade and "parental wishing"
>>to occur?
> 
> PWS didn't support child trading nor did he wish his children to be 
> as such. He gave away his children (free of charge)
> to be servants of Choochaka because Choochaka exploited the situation
> in which PWS had vowed that his whole life would be devoted to practicing
> charity and that he would not resist any request from anybody; this,
> it was said, was kind of merits he had to garner in order to become
> a Buddha so that he could save all the sentient beings in his next
> life. Lengthy texts have been wasted to portray the sorrow of PWS and
> his wife in losing the children to the greedy Choochaka. Many people
> cry when they hear monks narrate the sorrow of PWS and his wife.
> If anything, this tale should make parents love their children more.

Yes, but let me persue this further. I once talked to a man in a village in the 
northeast about this story. I asked him whether PWS was right in doing what he 
had done, and if so, whether this is a role model that everyone should make 
their best to follow. His answer he gave, after thinking about it for a while,
waws that ideally we should all try to be like PWS. However, none of us has 
enough merit to do so. Therefore ordinary men will never be able to give
their children away as charity.
Do you think that this story only puts people who have reached the degree 
of holiness of PWS in the conflict of the suffering of their child vs.
the lack of satisfaction of greed of a guy like Chuchok? Or is it a situation 
that anyone can be confronted with? (not in real life, just in the message
of the story). It seems that my friend from the north east gave the positive
answer to the first question. According to him, normal parents are not faced
with the problem of choosing one of these conflicting values. Supporting this
answer is the fact that by any standard logic (not that of one who is close to
enlightenment) PWS's deed was wrong. It is only when a person is so close 
becoming the Buddha that sacrifices of this sort become needed. However, the
importance of a story is not what its writer thought, but what it means to
the people who here or read it. My question is then: 
Do you think that parents who did sell their child to prostitution or any 
other form of labor, would be able to use the case of PWS to justify their
deed or make it look better in their own eyes or in the eyes of others?

	Abi