Thai homoeroticism
Written: Sep 11 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: entertaining glimpses into Thai mail-Thai mail sexual experiences (and fantasies)
Cons: one has to guess about who writes the stories and why
The Bottom Line: ---
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| Stephen_Murray's Full Review: The Dove Coos II: Gay Experiences by the Men of Th... |
Like Peter Jacksons Dear Uncle Go, the Dove Coos books (only the second of which is in the muze/epions database) providesEnglish translations of indigenous gay Thai materials, specifically, sexual autobiographical narratives from three gay Thai magazines (Midway, Neon, Weekend Men) These materials are more recent (1988-95) than the (apparently early-1980s) letters to the advice columnist Uncle Goh translated by Jackson--although the events recounted also may have occurred years before, so dates are less useful for tracing changes in attitudes than they would have been in the case of Gohs columns.
Both for first-person stories and for letters to an advice columnist, what gets published may not be representative of what gets written, and those who problematize sexual identity and/or encounters to write about them are not likely to constitute a random sample of Thai men who are sexually involved with men. (Are writers anywere ever typical?) There is probably a mixture of wish-fulfillment and recollection of liaisons that occured, but aside from their entertainment value (which will be particularly high for those who are excited by male-male Thai sexual goings-on), the Dove Coos books provides outsiders relatively unmediated native representations that seem to me to be valuable cultural materials conveying much about Thai attitudes. Still, caution should be exercised in generalizing about male homosexuality in Thailand on their basis or taking the stories as accurate report of actual experiences.
As in Boyd Macdonald's compilations of materials sent to Straight to Hell (the closest American analog), in the Dove Coos books it is difficult to distinguish fantasy from "objective" reporting of what happened as one after another desired man seduces one after another narrator, and as pain turns to rapture as cobras, doves, dragons, locomotives, swords, spears, riders, etc., penetrate previously tightly shut backdoors (sometimes exalted to being "Heaven's Gate"). Forced -- by press censorship that forbids not only vernacular but technical terms for sexual conduct and apparatus -- to use metaphors for sexual parts and acts, the authors pound away relentlessly within whatever metaphorical set they have chosen. Martial metaphors abound. The recurrent one for ejaculation (the dove stretches its neck when it coos) does not seem very bellicose to me (in contrast to, say, eagles, or, for neckiness, the cranes that winter in Thailand), perhaps because it signifies the imminent collapse of the erection outlasted by whatever orifice it has visited. Dragons and tigers returning to caves they have found pleasant seem to me metaphors of more dominant, less fragile phalli.
Gatuhys, Farangs, and Commercial Venues
None of the stories in Dove Coos I and only two in Dove Coos II involves the overtly gender-variant ga'tuhy, and one in the latter involves anal-insertive ga'tuhys. The writer of "A ga'tuhy's grand entrance" was "amazed that his [the ga'tuhy's] 'little brother' [penis] was much larger than mine.... Since then, I've played with at least ten different ga'tuhys and that all had bigger 'brothers' than me, and many like being a king and a queen" (II:92-3), i.e., playing insertive as well as receptive sexual roles.
Only one of the stories involves (indirectly at that) a commercial sex venue. (There are no off-boys in the letters to Uncle Go analyzed by Peter Jackson, either.) In story 22 in Dove Coos I two friends from the Northeast are "auditioned" by a club owner. Two stories in Dove Coos II involve farang: an Australian (in 2) and a pair of Japanese tourists (in 24). One story in Dove Coos I involves a threesome with a French photographer and his Thai lover. (In these representations, all four fārāngs are hungry for (i.e., readily orally receptive to) Thai penises. Two of the three narrators reciprocate by fellating the fārāng (s) None are anally penetrated by any of the fārāng (one is anally penetrated by a compatriate), and only the Australian is anally penetrated by one of the Thai males. Like hard-core videos (and, indigenously, "Rak Toraman"), the encounter with the Australian challenged assumptions about gender indicating sexual role.
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Increasingly "Gay" Homosexuality
The norm in the "true life experiences" in The Dove Coos collections is for both partners to "reach heaven" (often in close synchronicity, if not simultaneously). Reciprocity in manual and/or oral sex is common, being mentioned in 10 of 34 stories in the first collection and in 18 of 37 in the second. Alternating roles in anal sex is uncommon, occurring only in two stories from the first collection and in 6 from the second.However, those being anally penetrated in 19 of 34 stories in the first collection and in 18 of 37 in the second also ejaculate either spontaneously or from manual stimulation (including all but one of the narrators in the first collection who recall being anally penetrated).There is not sexual reciprocity in the two stories involving ga'tuhy. In one the ga'tuhy is exclusively insertive (17), in the other he is exclusively receptive (8).
Although there are two passing mentions in Dove Coos I of Buddhist motivations for satisfying another's (more pressing than one's own) desire"I thought it would be a sin to give up and deny him this pleasure", I p. 70; "If you're so horny, why not just tell me? I'll do it for merit," I p. 96generally that both insertee and insertor receive pleasure from anal penetration. All told, 30 of the 34 stories in the first collection include anal sex, twenty-seven include oral. In the second, 28 of 37 include anal penetration, and 35 of 37 include oral sex (in one of the other two a tongue precedes a penis into an anus).
Complaisance: Not Taking the Initiative
Usually (in 23 of 32 instances of sexual encounters in the first volume, in 32 of 40 in the second, and in 32 of 36 instances in Jackson's Dear Uncle Go letter), the narrator attributes the initiation of sexual behavior to someone other than himself. In recollections of first homosexual and heterosexual experiences gathered in a pretest of a survey of those engaged in same-sex sexual behavior in Thailand, I have also found this to be the caseregardless of the relative age, relative status, whether the initial act is insertive or receptive, and even the sex of the partners. I think there is a tendency for Thais to attribute sexual and other kinds of behavior to what someone else wanted (or what they thought someone else wanted). Notably, complaisance is inseparable from preferring to attribute responsibility, including responsibility for one's own action, to others.
Relative Social Status
Contrast of the three sets of data suggests a decline over time in the (reported or desired) social status of partners. However, although there is an increase in reports of sex with lower-status partners, there is little change in the proportion of encounters with status equals across the three.
In quoted dialog in the Dove Coos I (but not in the sequel volume), the narrator is frequently addressed as náwng (younger brother), i.e., as someone who should defer to what the male of higher (senior) status wants.
Ambiguities of the "gay" label
Although Eric Allyn (Trees in the Same Forest argued that gay in Thai has taken on connotations of effeminacy to such an extent that it is not a polite term , narrators refer to themselves as "ga"y on pp. I: 47, 49, 84, 102, and (arguably) 20, 29, 66, and 122 (along with typification of the narrator by a gay sexual partner on p. I:96). Narrators on pp. I: 22, 37, 55, 79, and 94 distinguish at least their past selves (before the relationship they are writing about) as aware of but distanced from the category (and another three attestations, on pp. I: 55, 61, 76, neither embrace nor reject the term). The same corpus shows some men distinguishing "gay "from gā'tuhy (e.g., "I had sex with some gay guys and a few gā'tuhy " on p. 55; the recollection that earlier "I didn't know what was 'gay' and couldn't imagine what the 'gay life' was like. I only knew about effeminate men, the so-called gā'tuhy " on p. 61; the distinction between a gā'tuhy "sissy type" and butcher "closety type" on pp. 96, and 76 for masculine-appearing non-gā'tuhy "gay" men who enjoy being penetrated). These provide additional evidence for Peter Jackson's conclusion that "gay men in contemporary Thailand are in the process of negotiating this ambiguous psycho-cultural space and, in general, are attempting to overcome the stigma that attaches to homosexuality by aligning themselves with the gender-normative status of 'men' and distancing themselves from gender-deviant kathoeys [ga'tuhys]."
Conclusion
Although it impossible to be sure how much can be generalized from the material in Thai gay magazines, such material provides an alternative source of insights to the rhapsodies of Western sex tourists based on experiences (including conversations) in Bangkok commercial venues. Together, the two collections and the two editions of Peter Jackson's book indicate both a lot of what is represented (by the Thai authors) as complaisance to the desires of others, and a decline in gender-stratified conception and enactment of homosexuality in Thailand. The latter parallels the gender-to-gay transformation of homosexuality around the world. The word "gay" is diffusing around the world and a referent for it, the homogender model of homosexuality is developing and becoming more prominent in many places, includingThailand.
Recommended:
Yes
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