Published on November 14, 2005

Watana’s puerile threat to station police outside motels only highlights the blind hypocrisy in Thai society. Thai society’s almost voyeuristic obsession with teenagers’ sexual activity and the inane public debate that accompanies it is both unhealthy and counterproductive.

Hardly a day goes by without a new, sensational study or opinion poll informing us about how youths are beginning to have sexual intercourse at an ever-younger age. Publicity-seeking academics and pollsters seem to be vying with one another to present the most hysterical headline-grabbing revelations on the subject that they can think of. Uncritical media tend to lap it all up and make sensational reports out of these supposedly scientific opinion surveys.

Next, agonising parents, teachers and social workers express outrage, lamenting Thailand’s cultural degradation and start blaming permissive Western influences for young people’s “loose sexual behaviour”. Such moral indignation does nothing to reduce the widespread hypocrisy toward sex that has always existed in this society.

These sermonising adults are inclined to paint an idyllic picture of a puritanical Thai society, which probably has never existed, where dutiful sons and daughters grow up under the watchful eyes of their role-model parents, keeping vows of celibacy until their marriage. So how can one explain Thailand’s oversized sex industry that has won for the country the notoriety of being one of the world’s major sex capitals, or the widespread practice of male polygamy?

It is not too difficult to figure out from whom many of today’s youths are learning their decadent lifestyle.

It goes without saying that children who are fortunate enough to have a proper upbringing in a loving home will grow up to be youths who have a sense of self-worth and discipline as well as a healthy attitude toward sex. These youths will have no problem leading a clean and healthy life, grow up to be responsible members of society, find suitable partners and lead a harmonious family existence.

But many of today’s youths are not that lucky.

It is undeniable that the economic and social transformations that have taken place over the past several decades, including rapid urbanisation and dramatic demographic change, such as in the family structure, make it that much more difficult even for well-meaning parents to provide a proper upbringing for their children.

Too many irresponsible parents, who have problems of their own, do not bother to think about how to raise their children properly because they do not know how.

Problems associated with such disruptive change, like dysfunctional families, single parents, child abandonment, are compounded by mental stress brought on by the harshness of fast-paced urban living and relentless competition. Add to this troublesome mix teenagers’ growing pains, confusion and vulnerability, and there is the recipe for youths behaving too recklessly for their own good.

In this context, there are valid reasons why immature youths should not be engaging in sexual activity until they know exactly what the act, a natural human function, can get them into: HIV/Aids and other sexually-transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, child abandonment and other social problems.

It must be admitted that there is no reliable way to prevent youths from having sex because the more determined among them will find a way to make it happen. That’s why appropriate levels of sex education must be taught among different age-groups of schoolchildren, starting at the youngest age possible before the raging hormones kick in.

It would help also for society to develop more open-mindedness and above all raise the quality of public debate on matters related to teen sex. Shedding deeply the entrenched hypocrisy will be a first important step. It seems inevitable that today’s youths are likely to have sexual contact earlier and more partners before they get married, if they don’t decide to stay single.

One of the ways to start to raise the quality of public debate is to get rid of the kind of politicians as exemplified by Social Development and Human Security Minister Watana Muangsook, who came up with the fantastically stupid idea of setting up checkpoints in front of all short-time hotels to prevent youths from indulging in sex during the upcoming Loy Krathong Day, and to do away with all this media circus about teen sex.

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