UK TV documentary may be worth a view if you have Channel 4

[RonanTheBarbarian]

Hi all

For those who can get the UK Channel "Channel 4" (presumably just those in the UK or Ireland, but maybe it is on satellite elsewhere?) there is a documentary coming up tonight (Tuesday) night on the channel at 10 pm GMT entitled 'My Boyfriend the Sex Tourist'.

Made by "acclaimed director" Monica Garnsey (no, i never heard of her either), it promises to "look at the global sex tourism industry through the eyes of working girls"

Well, I am guessing the issues wouldn't be THAT different from the boys perspective.

There are two programmes. The programme description states:

"In the first programme, set in Venezuela, John, Bob W and Bob F take a holiday - 'The Girlfriend Experience' - like no other. At the Total Satisfaction resort the men do what most holiday-makers do; sunbathe, sail and dine. But the guys also get to choose a girlfriend for the week from a line-up of stunning Venezuelan prostitutes. It's not just about sex, but a real 'girlfriend experience'. But what are the emotional costs for both the men and the women involved?

In Isaan, north-east Thailand , many local women have long since ceased to rely solely on the rice-crop to feed their families. Much more money can be made out of the sex tourists who flock to Bangkok or Pattaya. The second film explores the ways a typical Isaan woman can make a living from a foreigner, with the prospect of a foreign husband and a posh western house as their goal."


From that, it seems that the the Thailand experience will be in the second episode, (broadcast Wednesday on Channel 4).

Might be interesting, might be agenda driven rubbish, I don't know. Just drawing it to your attention.

[ikarus]

I always wanted to have channel 4 but it seems simply impossible to get it outside UK. I would greatly appreciate if somebody prove me wrong. I used to enjoy while in Stockholm many Channel 4 produced movies on Swedish TV.

[Lunchtime O'Booze]

I believe this phenomena of "sex tourism " has been around since time immemorial..the Royal families of Europe were into in a big way-shacking up with each other for any other reason than love.

The last time I watched anything similar was a real life doco about some deluded detective tracking down vile sex tourists in Asia.

By the end of the series he had left and divorced his English wife and married to a much younger Thai lady and living with her extended family-still ranting on about sex tourists and collecting his UK pension.

[colmx]

Ikarus:
http://www.channel4.com/4od/index.html

Welcome to 4oD
With hundreds of hours of TV, films and music to download, you can watch what you want, when you want.

Don't know if you can acceess the site from Stockholm though...

[ikarus]

Colmx,
Thanks a lot!

[Lunchtime O'Booze]

I didn't know 4 broadcast such appalling rubbish as Ugly Betty but I adore Shameless-reminds so much of life at home.

I switched over after 20 minutes of utter boring drivel - anyone sit through the whole thing?

[colmx]

I watched it all
Thought it was quite interesting
Especially when she asked the Yorkshire guy if he was a pimp!

The Issan part is on tonight at 10... Should be interesting!

... dunno if you have seen the Joan Rivers CD where she does stand up at the Palladium, but she says something about men and their first wives, i.e. they are always polite, etc etc, have a wonderful ring etc etc, she tells them to get real, she recognises when someone remarries and says their second wife are always switched on, "get me a ***** nice ring", give me some of your ****** money, a more switched on type of woman, they know what they want, so funny, then .... she says by the time a guy gets in his twilight years his third wife is always an oriental girl (although she doesn't put it like that, she calls them a "shiny girl"). So funny, is Joan Rivers.

[RonanTheBarbarian]

Especially when she asked the Yorkshire guy if he was a pimp!

Indeed. He did not like that at all!

The Venezuela programme was all very depressing I thought. The amount of control over the girls the resort had, as shown in this programme, was bound to cause them frustration. The girls would be better off in a more freelancer orientated situation, i think.


The Isaan bit was tonight. I was never in Isaan, but the scenes from the village reminded me of the villages around Chiang Mai when I was there a few years ago.

It was a more entertaining programme - I admit I did quite a bit of guilty giggling at it - guilty because some of the issues involved were obviously not that funny to the protagonists involved, such as the girl who maintained that her farang boyfriend was not an alcoholic, although she explained that he sometimes drank "three bottles of Hennessy a day, all by himself" and that his doctor in farangland was telling him to lay off it.


The bit about the bar-girls scrapping at the bar was a fascinating. No wonder the Isaan girl (who picked that night to scope out the place) went scampering back to the village as quick as she could.


And the "Best Foreign Husband" competition in the village was a hoot. This was basically a competition, held on a public stage, where the foreign husbands were interviewed and had to complete tasks - such as putting together an ant-egg salad - to prove how well they were fitting in to their new Isaan home. Their smiling Thai wife was at their side.

It reminded me a bit of the "Calor Housewife of the Year" on Irish television in my younger days.


Some straight men have no sense of shame!


Thinking about how it compared to the Isaan bar boy situation, I would say that it was very very similar to their lives and motivation, except that the boys would obviously be less likely to have the responsibility of a child.

[colmx]

Hi Ronan
I too Enjoyed the Farang Husband Competition!
Interesting mix of Nationalities :albino:

I think that the Issan village in question is a far richer place than the average issan Village that most Thai Bar boys come from

In fact it looked more like a town to me...
And the bar girls didn't seem to come from overly poor families...

The girl with the English Farang had quite a nice home and her mother drove a Jeep... So they are far richer than the average bargirls family
(and thats before any farang cash)

My favourite bit was the Issan woman hoping to meet a farang online. She seemed to think it was just going to be a simple matter of her placing the advert, inviting some random punter to her village... he would see her, fall in love immediately and they would marry and live happily after (despite her not speaking a word of English!)

However with the amout of Farang sponsored homes in the village - it seems that maybe the internet woman/translator has some sort of magic!

I also loved watching the Lesbian "Barman" stopping the fights... She looks like such a typical Tom, like the waitresses in Hollywood Rayong...(and cute - if only she was a boy!)

[bedbugy1-old]

for those who live in thailand you can download with this link

http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3939952/My. ... XviD-REMAX (http://thepiratebay.org/tor/3939952/My.Boyfriend.The.Sex.Tourist.Part.1.WS.PDTV.XviD-REMAX)

you need to have bit torrent