Walking Street

I’m not sure what to say about Pattaya’s Walking Street. I’d heard the city was a little rough, and I’ve reported on my share of stories about sex trafficking and rape. But to see the realities of what seemed like an entire nation prostituting out it’s own girls was sickening. Usually in port I see a large majority of young, American guys. But here in Pattaya the American foreigners were grossly outnumbered by European, Indian and Middle Eastern foreigners. And I mean GROSSLY outnumbered. As in easily sleazily outnumbered. At first glance Walking Street was almost a novelty—hee hee! Girls dancing on bars everywhere! And when it started to rain we ducked into “Best Bar” and had a Thai beer and watched groups of shell-shocked-looking American guys walking by. Then I started noticing all the old, beer-gutted foreigners creeping along, looking lecherous and disgusting, sizing up the girls (who looked like they were about 15 years old, tops) or pulling one along by her hand. As it rained harder and harder the street cleared out. This was inconvenient for us because all the gross guys selling sex shows would block my path and shout out graphic advertisements for the raunchy live shows available for my viewing pleasure. Ignoring them didn’t work—they’d just stand in my way until I was forced to stop or physically push past. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and beelined back to the hotel as fast as I could. What other options do these young girls and guys have? Do they have any other choices? How can all these disgusting, pot-bellied old men come here and take advantage of this country’s people like this? It made me nauseous. Many of these guys would pointedly NOT make eye contact with me, one of the few foreign women around. But once in a while a nasty old guy dragging a girl or guy behind him would peek over his shoulder to see if I was looking. This was interesting to me. Why does he care what I think enough to look back? I wasn’t glaring at anyone or looking around with little beady eyes or anything. I was kind of dazed and taking it all in. But it was such an obvious, “Do you see me? Am I exposed?” type of look. I just made level eye contact. They always looked away quickly. I wanted to say, “Yes, I am judging you a sleazeball because you came here to take advantage of other humans. You were given money and privilege in life, and instead of bettering the world you’re making it more hellish for this nation, and that person in particular.” I’ve listened to multiple first-hand accounts of sex-trafficking and forced prostitution and have little tolerance for it. Can you tell?