The vicious end games against one of the few foreigners foolhardy enough to speak out publicly on the subject, accompanied by a blizzard of slander and often enough outright lies to conceal their own crimes and to discredit the author, all played out before an easily manipulated public, were something to behold.
No guest of any country, however naïve, elderly, stupid, ugly, drunk or even stoned they may be, should be subjected to the systematic removal of their money and assets as if it was a blood sport.
If as a tourist you find yourself on Soi Twilight you should take care to understand the motives of those whose bodies you are admiring - that unlike you, the boys are not looking for love, companionship, friendship or sex. They are just working. They want your money. Or as a massage boy later quipped to Michael as he passed an establishment in Pattya in the midst of the controversy that continued to pursue him: “We love you, we love your money.” But you would do well to follow the advice delivered by one of the protagonists in this book: “Don’t believe half of what you hear or half of what you see.”
From the author’s experience many of the boys working on the Twilight Soi are at once charming thieves and aspiring gangsters. Do not join the long queue of the unsuspecting. Protect yourself. Do not be fleeced.
The world class massage parlors that dot Bangkok often represent better value for money than the go-go bars. The massage boys tend to work hard to make sure you are happy, even if their only motivation is the size of the tip. They are doing a straight forward job, not creating the illusions the go-go boys are such masters at creating.
Hopefully The Twilight Soi will highlight some of the more dubious practices of Thailand’s go-go boy industry and contribute to its reform, moves which would improve the country’s image as a whole. As well it might help prevent other travelers, both gay and straight, from falling for the practiced lies trotted out by Thailand’s sex workers.
The bars and their sometimes exploitative management, if the boy’s complaints are to be believed, are guilty of failing to take proper care of their staff and of leaching as much money as they can out of the young men they fill their catwalks and stages with each night.
The municipal authorities and the Thai government are also guilty of failing to reform Bangkok’s go-go boy industry, commonly described as being run by "mafia" like interests.
The police are guilty for protecting establishments whose practices should be exposed. The poor wages of the Thai police by international standards means bribery is a standard and well accepted part of civil practice which helps to provide services that might not otherwise be available. However police wages is an issue which should be re-examined as a priority to ensure they fulfill their duties on the part of the public as a whole, not just for vested interests with money and power, as occurs for example with the go-go boy industry.
The local Thai media and entertainment industries were guilty of the outlandish lampooning of a sick and emotionally distressed guest in their country. Making fun of a foreigner for acting abnormally following the breakdown of what that individual was naive enough to have been led into believing was a genuine relationship was an utterly tasteless display by segments of Thailand’s popular media.
The industry’s wiser heads should have known better.
The author is guilty of the recurrence of alcohol and addiction problems which have plagued him since early adolescence. He should have had the wit, the wisdom and the maturity not to have relapsed in the first place or to have taken prompter action to remedy his personal situation. His relapse allowed those opposed to what he had to say an easy hook on which to discredit him.
Thailand’s international reputation is also tarnished by the continued operation of well known bars where under-age boys can be easily bought or arranged for; such as Bangkok’s Night Boys in the network of streets of Silom’s Soi Six, managed by Aek's mentor, protector and teacher, a thug, pedophile and mafia figure known as Tong - one of the people most determined by his rumor mongering to discredit the author and the story he had to tell.
Months after he had been near the stuff these people were still peddling the the propaganda he was smoking that uniquely Asian drug yabba, a drug with a well deserved reputation for driving people crazy, and that he “lop loohen mak mak”, deceived greatly.
The author deceived no one, admitted his mistakes and simply objected to having had money tricked and stolen from him. He may have not been entirely sober or always substance free, but nor was he a liar, a thief or a cheat. He did not hurt anyone, except himself. He did not issue death threats. He did not intimidate anyone. And he did not steal, as those who spoke so strongly against him had done.
Tong twice assaulted the author despite his previous generosity and hospitality. A simple request for the name of the bar’s lawyer was met with a flurry of calls in a determination to have him bashed. Such criminal organizations should be closed down if for no other reason than the interests of the tourist industry as a whole.
The cascade of hostility manufactured against the author began inadvertently. A story on the author’s blog, volume two of the series simply called Days, which originally and inadvertently brought him attention from some of the nastiest elements of Bangkok, was titled “Night Boys on The Bewildered Soi”. It described how easily under-age boys could be bought.
As a restless spirit and hopeless insomniac who rarely slept more than an hour or two a night, but stuck at home in Sydney minding young children as a single father, the author had since 1994 begun the habit of doing a daily blog. He would often write 600 or more words at about three in the morning, before taking the dog for a walk while the children slept.
He had been doing the anonymous blog for so many years with little or no consequence in the real world apart from the odd compliment or query from the few friends who knew he was the author, it never occurred to him it would have any local consequences or be read in Thailand. It was just a personal outlet. He felt better once he had untangled the thoughts swirling through his head; and there was always the thought that maybe one day it might all fall into a place as a book, a record of a decade, something.
Unfortunately the story showed up readily on internet searches and led to a series of events he had no desire or intention of provoking, attracting the attention of some of Bangkok’s nastiest elements.
Bars such as Bangkok’s Night Boys, which are by no means unique in a country where poverty is endemic amongst the rural sections of the population and in the provinces boys as young as 12 or 13 can be bought for ten dollars or so, are in direct contravention with the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child and the UN's campaigns to eradicate child prostitution in the region. Thailand is a signatory to the Convention.
He opened it with a quote from Dies Irae (Day of Wrath), a famous thirteenth century Latin hymn thought to be written by Thomas of Celano. The poem describes the end of the world and the Day of Judgment. At the time he often played it at home as it suited his mood.
The hymn read in part:
“Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
See fulfilled the prophets' warning, Heaven and earth in ashes burning!
The day of wrath, that day Will dissolve the world in ashes
Lo! the book, exactly worded, wherein all hath been recorded: thence shall judgment be awarded…
When therefore the judge will sit, whatever hides will appear: nothing will remain unpublished.”
The author's attempts to repair the damage he had done, bring a stop to the propaganda war directed against him return some semblance of normality to his life all failed.
Firstly, in Aek's company and in what he hoped was a conspicuous display, he withdrew the complaint he had made to X-Size. It made no difference. He also took the material which had offended some of the city’s most dangerous people off the internet.
The author also talked to the bar’s owner, explaining what had happened and how he had no wish to take on the gay mafia of Bangkok, something beyond the capacity