Supply & DemandIn This Corner -- by Brian Knowles
Once sleepy fishing village in Thailand has now become a global focal point of sin and vice. Pattaya is commonly viewed as a "sex & sand resort" with some 30,000 hotel rooms -- more even than Singapore boasts. On a typical day, some 3000 of Pattaya's 400,000 inhabitants are working prostitutes. They use the hotel rooms and about 800 bars to ply their trade.
Between January and June of this year, Pattaya attracted some 2 million visitors from as far away as Germany and the United Kingdom. They came because they'd heard of the place from half a world away. Thousands were participants of organized "sex tours" which offer samplings of South East Asia's most notorious red light districts.
With vice goes crime. In 1996 and 1997, 45 foreigners died in Pattaya under mysterious circumstances. A 54-year old Englishman, for example, was found dead in the water last year. Police ruled his death suicide, but the fact that his arms and legs were bound, and a rock was attached by a rope to his waist, gave the lie to that notion.
From a Biblical standpoint, Pattaya is a modern Sodom. It's a place that caters to the lusts of sexual adventurers and risk-takers. They compass land and sea to "make" one prostitute. Wherever they go, they are on the hunt for fresh flesh.
Most of the flesh they sample is anything but fresh. The man who "sleeps with" these prostitutes, some of whom are mere children, sleeps with everyone they have slept with prior to his turn in the sack -- whether it be hundreds or thousands. The "gift" of exotic germs they bring home to wives and lovers is frightening to think about.
Pattaya is only one of hundreds of centers of prostitution and vice around the world. Each exists because people demand what is offered there. It is the demand that creates the supply.
In this case, the first demanders were American GI's on leave. On June 29, 1959, four truckloads of them pulled into what was then an obscure fishing village. They scoped it out, discovered some beautiful young women, and stayed for a week. When they returned to base, they spread the word. Some of the locals lost no time in recognizing that their young women could earn them more money than fishing. Thus was born one of the most famous beach resorts in Southeast Asia. Since that time, the city's sexual wares have been sampled by GI's on "R&R" from the Viet Nam War, UN peacekeeping troops working the Cambodian mission, and sex tourists from around the globe. Business is booming, and aggressive Pattayan marketers are now developing new market niches. At the moment they are targeting Japan's vast army of 12 million handicapped. Says Pattaya's tourism director, Sethaphan Buddhani, "That's a huge potential market. If they want the beach, relaxation, top restaurants, we'll put together packages. If they want sex tours, we'll arrange special guides." Buddhani says the city plans to install ramps and handicapped facilities in bars, restaurants and "everywhere."
In Pattaya, sex is big business. The demand is growing and barrels of bahts -- Thailand's currency -- are rolling in. No matter how many Sodom and Gomorrah's go up in flames, others rise to replace them. Why? Because there is a demand. Crime and vice in this world are all about supply & demand.
Years ago, I heard an interview with a leading Mafia figure. He was asked why organized crime exists. "It's a matter of supply and demand," he explained, "We supply what people want. If what they want is illegal, we take more risks in supplying it. Therefore the risks, and the costs, are higher -- both for them, and for us."
Most government programs targeted at drugs and prostitution are ineffective. Throwing tax dollars at a social or moral problems rarely works -- unless those dollars are spent on things that make a difference. Throwing hookers and their pimps in jail overnight isn't going to get the job done. Throwing Johns into the clink, and giving them a bit of adverse publicity, isn't going to work long term. The pimps, hookers and Johns just relocate to places that are more user friendly.
If we're going to stop these societal blights anywhere in the world, we're going to have to start where they start -- at the point of demand. End the demand, and the supply will soon dry up. And make it more costly for the suppliers to participate in vice.
So where do we start?
- Make it culturally hip to preach the Gospel again -- anywhere, any time, on government property, or off it. We need a revival of Biblical values in the world (or in some areas, an introduction of them).
- Educate, educate, educate! We live in a culture that is driven by feeling rather than facts.
- Increase the price of vice. For a hooker or a pimp, a few days in jail is merely an inconvenience, a minor part of the cost of doing business.
- Publicize the plight of those who contract STDs as a result of visiting whores.
- Tell stories of shattered marriages and broken homes that have resulted from dollars for dalliances.
- Minister Christ and His truth to those who sell their bodies for bahts or bucks.
If children are taught from an early age about the immorality and dangers of pre-marital, or extra-marital, sex, they might grow up thinking differently about it. The instructions of a loving parent are:
"To keep you from the evil woman, from the flattering tongue of the seductress. Do not lust after her beauty in your heart, nor let her allure you with her eyelids. For by means of a harlot, a man is reduced to a crust of bread; and an adulteress will prey upon his precious life" (Proverbs 6:24-26).
Speaking again of the harlot, Proverbs says,
"For she has cast down many wounded, and all who were slain by her were strong men. Her house is the way to hell, descending to the chambers of death" (Proverbs 7:26-27).
Today the city of Pattaya is seeking to clean up its image by sprucing up its roads, sewers and beaches. An American is even building an upscale restaurant to cater to the wealthier visitors. But you know what they say about a sow's ear…