#banglastreet

A couple days back, I found myself in Bangla Street, Phuket. It’s the heartland of Phuket’s night activities, defined by the sex shows, beers and skimpily clad ladies. Perfect if you are into such debauchery. I could go on about the sights and smells of the place but you can find all that over any generic travel website. Plus, that would confound the original purpose of this post so I will leave you to do that yourself.

Whilst walking along the street, we (my friend and I) were bombarded with advertisements to head into a sex show screening named rather self-explanatorily, “Ping Pong Show”. I will admit, I was intrigued. I’ve never seen or experienced anything of that sort. I mean of course I have the internet and whilst scrolling through Twitter and Tumblr, the occasionally porno gifs do get unceremoniously retweeted/reblogged onto my timeline. Come on, don’t judge. This is Tumblr, we’ve all seen it before. You know what I’m talking about.

Anyway. Sex show in Singapore? Unheard of. Plus, it was free. So, I did what every curious, young human would do. I went to the show.

I’m not going into detail on what the show entailed but there was… a lot. Things were coming out of body parts, there was dancing, spanking and just full on sex. Like I said, a lot. But it wasn’t erotic like “YAS PORN” but more like “oh. Wow okay.”. I have no other way to describe it other than: it was like watching a documentary. “Untold Life in Thailand” and while I knew this was supposed to be entertaining or erotic for the audience, all I felt was this reflexive guilt and pity for the girls on stage. Most of the girls were really pretty and I can’t help but wonder what kind of shit cards life dealt them with that forced them here. I’m sure few would come willingly unless circumstances in life forced them too.

And then the show ended and we left but I just couldn’t get back into the whole “party” mood. I felt heavy and sick all over. What if their parents saw that? Are they mothers? All these thoughts were jumbled up and my brain felt like a mess. I don’t write this out of judgement or to accost such shows and maybe I write this from a very puerile point of view from a kid who hasn’t seen enough of the world yet. I’m sure they serve their own purpose and there are people who choose to work there by choice. But I can’t help but feel so bad for the girls that don’t want to do what they’re doing. That are just trying to earn enough money for their family, to get through another day. And the worst part is there is no real way I can help them.