Genders & Sexualities in Modern Thailand

by Peter A. Jackson

Author	: Peter A. Jackson
Publisher	: University of Washington Press
Total Pages	: 316
Release	: 1999
Genre	: History
ISBN	:

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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.

Male Homosexuality in 21st-Century Thailand

by Jan W. de Lind van Wijngaarden

Author	: Jan W. de Lind van Wijngaarden
Publisher	: Anthem Press
Total Pages	: 280
Release	: 2021-02-15
Genre	: Social Science
ISBN	: 1785276271

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This book presents the very first analysis of male homosexuality in modern rural Thailand that is based on sociological/anthropological research directly with 25 young same-sex attracted men. It explores changes in the way men view and describe their sexuality over time by interviewing them three times over a period of around 18 months. The men are followed during an important transition in their lives: the end of their high school years and the end (in most cases) of their life as a child with parents or extended family at a rural home. Nearly all decided to move to a city to continue their education or to find work. Some also had stints with sex work in one of Thailand’s well-known centers for prostitution. For nearly all men, this transition brought them into contact with new ideas about gender and sexuality, and many experienced an abrupt increase in their opportunities to have sex, leading to a readjustment of their moral universes. The book presents significant new insights about the Thai sex/gender system, particularly on how it is affected by processes of globalization and the ascent of the Internet and mobile phones as tools for dating and romance.

Cultural Politics of Gender and Sexuality in Contemporary Asia

by Tiantian Zheng

Author	: Tiantian Zheng
Publisher	: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages	: 241
Release	: 2017-07-31
Genre	: Social Science
ISBN	: 0824852974

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In globalizing Asia, sexual mores and gender roles are in constant flux. How have economic shifts and social changes altered and reconfigured the cultural meanings of gender and sexuality in the region? How have the changing political economy and social milieu influenced and shaped the inner workings and micro-politics of family structure, gender relationships, intimate romance, transactional sex, and sexual behaviors? This volume offers up-to-date, grounded, critical analysis of the complex intersections of gender, sexuality, and political economy across a diverse array of Asian societies: China, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam, India, Pakistan, Hong Kong, Thailand, and Taiwan. Based on intense ethnographic fieldwork, the chapters disentangle the ways in which gendered and sexual experiences are impinged upon by state policies, economic realities, cultural ideologies, and social hierarchies. Whether highlighting intimate relationships between elite businessmen and their mistresses in China; nightclub performances by Thai men in Bangkok; single women’s views of romance, motherhood, and marriage in Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Tokyo; or male same-sex relationships in Pakistan—each chapter centers around the stories of the gendered subjects themselves and how they are shaped by outside forces. Taken together they provide a provocative entrée into the cultural politics of gender and sexuality in Asia. By foregrounding cross-cultural ethnographic research, this volume sheds light on how configurations of gender and sexuality are constituted, negotiated, contested, transformed, and at times, perpetuated and reproduced in private, intimate experiences. It will be of particular interest to students and scholars in anthropology, sociology, political science, and women’s and LGBTQ studies.

Toms and Dees

by Megan J. Sinnott

Author	: Megan J. Sinnott
Publisher	: University of Hawaii Press
Total Pages	: 286
Release	: 2004-06-30
Genre	: Social Science
ISBN	: 9780824827410

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A vibrant, growing, and highly visible set of female identities has emerged in Thailand known as tom and dee. A "tom" (from "tomboy") refers to a masculine woman who is sexually involved with a feminine partner, or "dee" (from "lady"). The patterning of female same-sex relationships into masculine and feminine pairs, coupled with the use of English derived terms to refer to them, is found throughout East and Southeast Asia. Have the forces of capitalism facilitated the dissemination of Western-style gay and lesbian identities throughout the developing world as some theories of transnationalism suggest? Is the emergence of toms and dees over the past twenty-five years a sign that this has occurred in Thailand? Megan Sinnott engages these issues by examining the local culture and historical context of female same-sex eroticism and female masculinity in Thailand. Drawing on a broad spectrum of anthropological literature, Sinnott situates Thai tom and dee subculture within the global trend of increasingly hybridized sexual and gender identities.

Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys

by Peter A. Jackson

Author	: Peter A. Jackson
Publisher	: Psychology Press
Total Pages	: 272
Release	: 1999
Genre	: Education
ISBN	: 9780789006561

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Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys will help you understand how cultural, political, and economic systems shape sexuality and gender roles in Thai society and offers you effective prevention and intervention methods for Thai clients. Drawing attention to European models that may hinder cross-cultural collaboration for Thai-Western service provisions, this book offers information that provides you with the necessary knowledge for providing successful services. Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys will help you increase awareness about HIV/AIDS and create successful and relevant intervention programs for your Thai clients.

Queer Bangkok

by Peter A. Jackson

Author	: Peter A. Jackson
Publisher	: Hong Kong University Press
Total Pages	: 321
Release	: 2011-03-01
Genre	: Social Science
ISBN	: 988808304X

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The Thai capital Bangkok is the unrivalled centre of the country's gay, lesbian and transgender communities. These communities are among the largest in Southeast Asia, and indeed in the world, and have a diversity, social presence and historical depth that set them apart from the queer cultures of many neighbouring societies. The first years of the 21st Century have marked a significant transition moment for all of Thailand's LGBT cultures, with a multidimensional expansion in the geographical extent, media presence, economic importance, political impact, social standing, and cultural relevance of Thai queer communities. This book analyzes the roles of the market and media - especially cinema and the Internet - in these transformations, and considers the ambiguous consequences that the growing commodification and mediatisation of queer lives have had for LGBT rights in Thailand. A key finding is that in the early 21st Century processes of global queering are leading to a growing Asianisation of Bangkok's queer cultures. This book traces Bangkok's emergence as a central focus of an expanding regional network linking gay, lesbian and transgender communities in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines and other rapidly developing East and Southeast Asian societies. Peter A. Jacksonis associate professor in the School of Culture, History and Language at Australian National University. "The myriad faces of Thai gender/sexuality culture have been an attraction for both pleasure-seekers and researchers/scholars/activists. Exploring the rapidly changing LGBT cultures and Thai queer identities, the essays collected here provide insightful analyses of historical continuities as well as developing variations within the highly complex erotic/economic texture of Thai society. A must-read for anyone in the booming field of gender/sexuality studies." -Josephine Ho, Chair Professor, Center for the Study of Sexualities, National Central University, Taiwan

Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys

by Peter A. Jackson

Author	: Peter A. Jackson
Publisher	: Routledge
Total Pages	: 256
Release	: 2020-11-25
Genre	: Antiques & Collectibles
ISBN	: 1317994590

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Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys: Male and Female Homosexualities in Contemporary Thailand offers methods that will help social workers, researchers, and students create HIV/AIDS intervention services for gay men, lesbians, and transgender individuals in or from Thailand. Many of these methods can also be used by practitioners or HIV/AIDS educators in North America and developing countries to address issues of culturally diverse clientele. In response to Western and Thai sexuality studies that fail to accurately represent the diverse sexualities of Thailand, this book discusses and describes certain factors that need to be taken into consideration when developing intervention programs. Demonstrating how cultural and social factors influence services, Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys will help you provide clients with effective and relevant services. Drawing attention to Eurocentric ideology that may hinder cross-cultural collaboration for Thai-Western service provisions, this book offers you information that will help you understand how cultural, political, and economic systems shape sexuality and gender roles in Thai society. Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys provides you with the necessary knowledge for providing successful services, including: how Thai sexualities are identified by examining the meaning of terms such as “toms” (masculine Thai lesbians), “dee” (feminine-identified women who have relations with other women), “kathoey” (males that dress like women and wear make-up), or “lady boys” (transsexual or transvestite males) how Thai society actually defines ”having sex” and recognizing the differences from Western connotations of sex to effectively teach individuals about the risk of HIV/AIDS ways Western views of confidentiality and privacy differ from Thai views in order to understand why individuals hesitate to get tested for or seek counselling about HIV/AIDS the relationship between occupation and sexual identity in movies and magazines that reveal how sexuality is characterized in Thailand the unique social identity of “toms” and how Thai society labels what is masculine and feminine reasons for hiding sexual identity, such as rejection, fear of stereotypes, and having a relationship that is viewed by society as wrong and meaningless protecting commercial sex workers (CSW) from infection by developing culturally appropriate interventions One of the only books to address HIV/AIDS issues of gay and transgender individuals in Thailand, Lady Boys, Tom Boys, Rent Boys will help you increase awareness about HIV/AIDS and create successful intervention programs for clients.

Deities and Divas

by Peter A. Jackson

Author	: Peter A. Jackson
Publisher	: NIAS Press
Total Pages	: 325
Release	: 2022-01-22
Genre	: Religion
ISBN	: 8776943089

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In central Thailand, a flamboyantly turbaned gay medium for the Hindu god of the underworld posts Facebook selfies of himself hugging and kissing a young man. In Myanmar’s largest city Yangon, a one-time member of a gay NGO dons an elaborate wedding dress to be ritually married to a possessing female spirit; he believes she will offer more support for his gay lifestyle than the path of LGBTQ activism. The only son of a Chinese trading family in Bangkok finds acceptance for his homosexuality and crossdressing when he becomes the medium for a revered female Chinese deity. And in northern Thailand, female mediums smoke, drink, flaunt butch masculine poses and flirt with female followers when they are ritually possessed by male warrior deities. Across the Buddhist societies of mainland Southeast Asia, local queer cultures are at the center of a recent proliferation of professional spirit mediumship. Drawing on detailed ethnographies and extensive comparative research, Deities and Divas captures this variety and ferment. The first book to trace commonalities between queer and religious cultures in Southeast Asia and the West, it reveals how modern gay, trans and spirit medium communities all emerge from a shared formative matrix of capitalism and new media. With insights and analysis that transcend the modern opposition of religion vs secularity, it provides fascinating new perspectives in transnational cultural, religious and queer studies.

Ghostly Desires

by Arnika Fuhrmann

Author	: Arnika Fuhrmann
Publisher	: Duke University Press
Total Pages	: 271
Release	: 2016-05-19
Genre	: Performing Arts
ISBN	: 0822374250

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Through an examination of post-1997 Thai cinema and video art Arnika Fuhrmann shows how vernacular Buddhist tenets, stories, and images combine with sexual politics in figuring current struggles over notions of personhood, sexuality, and collective life. The drama, horror, heritage, and experimental art films she analyzes draw on Buddhist-informed conceptions of impermanence and prominently feature the motif of the female ghost. In these films the characters' eroticization in the spheres of loss and death represents an improvisation on the Buddhist disavowal of attachment and highlights under-recognized female and queer desire and persistence. Her feminist and queer readings reveal the entangled relationships between film, sexuality, Buddhist ideas, and the Thai state's regulation of heteronormative sexuality. Fuhrmann thereby provides insights into the configuration of contemporary Thailand while opening up new possibilities for thinking about queer personhood and femininity.