When I first came to Thailand twenty years ago, men never wore shorts and women dressed conservatively while outside the house. Thais are still very prudish about personal nudity. They laugh at the Russian men in their tiny g-strings, while the men ogle the farang tourist sunbathers bare-breasting their bodies on the beach. There were go-go bars back then, but even those dancing girls were skittish about being naked in a room with a strange man.

Exposure to western movies and Thai porno have strained the nation’s conservative bent and recently a young actress attended the Thai version of the Academy Awards in a very revealing dress.

The dress left enough for the imagination and transvestites on Sukhumvit show more after bar closings, however the hypocrites or poo-say-saeng from the woman’s university were outraged by her public display of flesh.

Never mind that the event had nothing to do with the school nor had the woman mentioned the school’s name during the night’s activities. She had betrayed her school. Remember university students in Thailand are required to wear uniforms, which of course many men find sexier than the dress she wore to this party. My cousin loved Catholic schoolgirl outfits and brought a copy of his parochial school’s uniform, whenever he came to visit, however uniforms are meant to keep people in step and the school authorities ordered the young woman to do 15 hours public service in reading to the blind. Her film company edited her from a movie. Government officials also joined the fray, descrying the decline of moral due to western influences.

No mention of mia nois or men visiting massage parlors.

Long live the double standard

Another operative word na?a-wa?i-la?ng-lo?k or hypocritical.