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An in-depth portrait of Thailand’s billion-dollar sex industry.
Thailand is known internationally as a popular sex tourism destination. Yet, despite its size and reputation, remarkably little research has focused on the country’s sex industry over the past two decades. Based on original ethnographic data and other sources, Sex Tourism in Thailand is an expansive yet nuanced study of diverse sex markets and their moral economies.
Ronald Weitzer shows that although some of the central pillars of Thailand’s sex industry remain unaltered over the past four decades, in other respects there has been a profound transformation. In the sector oriented toward foreign visitors, the number of sex businesses and independent operators has grown numerically and geographically; customers are increasingly diverse in race and nationality; paid sexual encounters are no longer confined to young Thai women and older white men; transgender women comprise a significant share of the workforce; and technological advances give participants more autonomy than ever before. Sex Tourism in Thailand explores these developments in conjunction with related structural and experiential dimensions in an illuminating account of sexual commerce in Southeast Asia.
Author: Ronald Weitzer
Paperback Published 7 November 2023 352 pages
"Ronald Weitzer has done it again! Sex Tourism in Thailand is a fascinating, innovative study of the socioeconomic organization of the Thai sex industry that is sure to be of interest to scholars. This is by far the most detailed account on the market of the everyday realities that structure the Thai sex industry." ― Susan Dewey, co-author of Women of the Street: How the Criminal Justice-Social Services Alliance Fails Women in Prostitution
"Weitzer presents an authentic account of Thailand’s contemporary sex industry, one that challenges prevailing stereotypes regarding the relationship between sex tourists and local sex workers. A fine example of field work that should inspire all who seek to advance social knowledge and to influence public policy." ― Sheldon X. Zhang, author of Chinese Human Smuggling Organizations: Families, Social Networks, and Cultural Imperatives