Genders and Sexualities in Modern Thailand

by Jackson, Peter A.; Cook, Nerida M.

• ISBN13: 9789747551075
• ISBN10: 9747551071
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr

Summary

Many foreign observers of the "Land of Smiles" are familiar with a narrow range of gender relations and sexual practices in Thailand, from the fanciful portrayal of 19th-century harem life in The King and I, to recent media coverage of sex tourism and AIDS. Yet serious study of patterns of sexuality, femininity, and masculinity in Thailand is relatively new. This book is a rare collection by scholars from around the world and across social disciplines who are tackling these issues. The essays urge the reader to look beyond fantasies of Thailand as an "oriental sexual paradise" or "land of sexploitation" to historical and contemporary forms of gender and eroticism. Studies of the changing opinions and practices among villagers and urbanites, the creative expressions of novelists and aristocrats, and the concerns of early women's magazines and recent AIDS-prevention campaigns, reveal the extraordinary diversity of debates about gender and sexual issues in 20th-century Thailand. Avoiding simplistic approaches to gender studies and sexuality research, the authors discuss how interpretations of gender roles, marriage, and intimate relationships differ between men and women; cultural regions; Thai and immigrant Chinese communities; and heterosexually and homosexually active groups--as well as between residents of Thailand and their foreign observers. By questioning accounts of Thailand as a place where gender is fluid and sexuality is free, the book unravels the complex processes by which Thai men and women understand themselves, appealing to both general readers and scholars of Thai society. Peter A. Jackson is fellow in Southeast Asian history at Australian National University. Nerida M. Cook is lecturer in sociology at the University of Tasmania.

Table of Contents

Contributors	v
Notes on Thai Language and Dates	x
Introduction/ Desiring Constructs: Transforming Sex/Gender Orders in Twentieth-Century Thailand	1	(27)
Nerida M. Cook
Peter A. Jackson
Changing the Rules: Shifting Bounds of Adolescent Sexuality in Northeast Thailand	28	(15)
Chris Lyttleton
Women and Capitalist Transformation in a Northeastern Thai Village	43	(20)
Andrea Whittaker
Reconfiguring Chineseness in Thailand: Articulating Ethnicity Along Sex/Gender and Class Lines	63	(15)
Jiemin Bao
``Prostitutes are Better Than Lovers'': Wives' Views on the Extramarital Sexual Behavior of Thai Men	78	(15)
Chanpen Saengtienchai
John Knodel
Mark VanLandingham
Anthony Pramualratana
Sexuality, Sexual Experience, and the Good Spouse: Views of Married Thai Men and Women	93	(21)
John Knodel
Chanpen Saengtienchai
Mark VanLandingham
Rachel Lucas
``Who Am `I' In Thai?''---The Thai First Person: Self-Reference or Gendered Self?	114	(20)
Voravudhi Chirasombutti
Anthony Diller
Proto-Feminist Discourses in Early Twentieth-Century Siam	134	(20)
Scot Barme
Romances of the Sixth Reign: Gender, Sexuality, and Siamese Nationalism	154	(14)
Thamora V. Fishel
The Madonna and the Whore: Self/``Other'' Tensions in the Characterization of the Prostitute by Thai Female Authors	168	(23)
Rachel Harrison
Genealogies of Exotic Desire: The Thai Night Market in the Western Imagination	191	(15)
Ryan Bishop
Lillian S. Robinson
Developing Culturally Appropriate HIV/AIDS Education Programs in Northern Thailand	206	(20)
Prudence Borthwick
Tolerant But Unaccepting: The Myth of a Thai ``Gay Paradise''	226	(17)
Peter A. Jackson
Buddhism, Prostitution, and Sex: Limits on the Academic Discourse on Gender in Thailand	243	(18)
Nicola Tannenbaum
On the Gendering of Nationalist and Postnationalist Selves in Twentieth-Century Thailand	261	(14)
Craig J. Reynolds
Repositioning Gender, Sexuality, and Power in Thai Studies	275
Penny Van Esterik