The author travels to Thailand (and, briefly, London and Vietnam) as a tourist
and later a journalist. In terms of the dating scene, Thailand is a world away
from Vancouver.
Sex with attractive Thai men, in which the author enthusiastically partakes,
can easily be had by farang (the word Thais use for white foreigners) for a
fee, but for Gawthrop, encounters with sex-trade workers frequently become
complex exercises in economic and emotional dependence. More rewarding than
Gawthrop's laundry list of lovers is a week he spends with a Thai man whose
family consists of his businesswoman mother, straight(-ish) older brother,
transsexual sister, and her teenage boyfriend. This episode provides an
intriguing window into one gay Thai man's world.
But glimpses of life beyond the bars, bathhouses, and hotel rooms are few. The
author does, however, succeed in painting an intimate picture of the imbalance
of power that can exist in relationships bet?ween western and Thai men, and of
white male privilege in Asia. What begins as a hedonistic holiday ends in the
author's recognition of the damage that his former "boundless sense of
entitlement" has caused to his lovers and to himself.
