Sunday 17 February 2013

Thailand - the Virgin trade

This is a bizarre but undeniably entertaining film that set out to blow the lid off the Thai Sex industry. The makers admit that they had some preconceptions about what they would find and were gracious enough to concede that their research made them think again. There is plenty to admire as presenter challenges some of the mythology, such as "where did they get that much quoted figure that there are 2.8 million sex workers in Thailand."
At times it almost ranks as semi-serious journalism, but there are far too many flaws. The film's title "The Virgin Trade", is simply a snappy phrase to attract more YouTube hits, the Blair Witch type scene as they flee from Mae Sai is obviously staged and the "scientific" experiment of hiring a bar girl for a no-sex weekend leads nowhere in particular. The film focuses on the mainstream go-go bar scene yet they choose a girl forced to work in a brothel to represent the experiences of Thai sex workers. Using a hidden camera to film inside a go-go bar probably made them feel like "proper" journalists but the footage obtained was poor quality and doing this is hardly respectful to the girls who, typically, do not want their faces to appear on the internet.
This film is a mishmash of interesting stuff about the Thai sex trade, but if you watch it you will probably be no better informed than you were when you started. It shines a light down a few dark alleys but is likely to create as many misconceptions as it resolves.

It seems that the original video has been removed - but as at the time of writing you can still watch it in sections. The first part is here : Virgin Trade Part 1

I have not posted a link to each part - you should be offered the next part as each one finishes. There are six films in all

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