Vietnam again.

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Vietnam again.

Postby thatindianguy » Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:20 pm

http://www.cracked.com/article_22204_5-facts-life-you-learn-as-prostitute-in-vietnam.html

Yeah so this happened.

Look I'm fully on board with Cracked's views on prostitution (mainly because that's the only way I'll ever get laid and the girls NOT being treated horribly will be the only way I'll be able to live with myself) but this one just seems a bit.... off.

I'm having a hard time believing that some pissy turf wars are the worst thing underage Vietnamese prostitutes have to deal with.

Just to clarify I'm not saying happy prostitutes don't exist in Vietnam but this kind of makes it seem like that's the norm.
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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby Australia » Sun Apr 19, 2015 2:56 pm

thatindianguy wrote:I'm not saying happy prostitutes don't exist in Vietnam but this kind of makes it seem like that's the norm.


It will be once I go there.

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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby Tuli » Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:03 pm

Uh, yeah. It struck me as a very flippant and one-sided handling of a serious and multi-faceted issue. The least they could do is put a disclaimer that it's not intended to be representative of prostitution is SE Asia. Or better yet, make the fact that Symon had to ask 40 prostitutes before finding one willing to talk about it a part of the article instead of an afterthought in the footnotes. Instead the impression I was left with was that it's completely fine to employ an underage prostitute if you travel in SEA, no harm done!

This woman's story might be true and I'm glad for her if it is. But the truth is that there absolutely are families who are driven to sell their children out of desperation and poverty... girls who have no other choice... trying to sweep that under the rug as a 'myth', just seems dangerous. It makes me question why?
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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby Anglerphobe » Sun Apr 19, 2015 3:12 pm

It certainly fits with my assumption that this series of articles has simply been a thinly veiled method for Evan Symon to expense prostitutes to the company.
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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby Kivutar » Sun Apr 19, 2015 4:27 pm

The current top commentor apparently worked with trafficked kids. I'm not saying this woman's story is invalid, but they should probably talk to the commentor or someone like her next.
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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby blehblah » Sun Apr 19, 2015 7:15 pm

Just read the article and all I can think of saying is, "Huh". Not, "Huh?", and not, "Huh!", just, "Huh".

To put it in perspective, it's the sound one makes when finding a long-dead bird next to the house. "Huh". Not a question, not an exclamation, just, "Huh".

Like, I don't know how it got there, and as curious as I may be about the back story, I'll never know it, but - there it is.

I don't expect high levels of investigative journalism from Cracked. Hell, I don't even expect good titles (from the perspective of "something to do with the content of the article vs. clickbait") buuuuut, "No Fat Tourists: 5 Rules of Life as a Prostitute in Vietnam" is rather flippant. I'm not sure which was supposed to be a 'rule of life', but I'm pretty sure not one was. I somehow doubt that it could even fly as, "Life as a Prostitute in Vietnam" because that would be miserable read. Maybe, "Five things one Vietnamese prostitute, of the forty we could find within ten seconds of totally serious 'research' and didn't tell us to fuck-off, related, and we wrote down without batting our pretty eyelashes".

After reading it, I'm left scratching my head. The article about the American escort was interesting and insightful. This one - and maybe it's my own perceptions of the sex trade in places like Thailand (insert Bangkok joke a la The Hangover Part II) that are skewing my reactions - just seems sort-of off.

I've never been to Vietnam or Thailand. At the same time, when chatting to a single man who has vacationed there solo, I can't say I view the person the same way as before. Sure, it was probably for the beautiful beaches, cheap everything, and other legitimate reasons... but... there's that perception/reputation.

Anyhow, from the title, I expected something different. Yeah, sure, here in the land of sunshine and lollipops there are happy and safe escorts, and there are also tragic, downright horrifying, stories from the sex trade (the sex slave story on Cracked being one example of the latter). Yet, touting this - even by implication - as somehow representative of the sex trade in Vietnam is... odd... to say the least.

Kids, don't believe the hype. If you figure you'll be on the receiving end of a glamorous scooter-owning lifestyle by heading over to Vietnam to become a high-class call-person, think again, or at least look into the exchange rate first.
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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby NathanLoiselle » Sun Apr 19, 2015 9:59 pm

Come to Vietnam! Me love you long time! Sucky sucky! 5 dolla! Me sucky sucky!! You want story? I give you story! I give you story looong time!
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Last edited by NathanLoiselle on Mon Apr 20, 2015 3:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby OrangeEyebrows » Sun Apr 19, 2015 10:19 pm

Yeah, this article left me with a very uncomfortable feeling. I don't necessarily doubt the source's experiences, but there's this sort of Stockholm Syndrome-like behaviour I've seen exhibited by drug addicts, alcoholics, people in poverty, people in cults, people in abusive relationships, etc, in which they insist that they're happy with their choices and that they are indeed choices, almost as if acknowledging their misery would make it that much more profound. You don't see that in people who've left those lifestyles behind. Like, ever. It feels to me as if something like that is going on here.

If the source really is blithely happy about sucking off sleazy strangers who've travelled abroad specifically to have sex with little girls (and little boys), and Lord knows it takes all kinds to make a world, the article is still tremendously, irresponsibly one-sided.
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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby Absentia » Mon Apr 20, 2015 1:59 am

Meh. I don't doubt that some prostitutes are happier about their situation than others, and doing an interview by definition will only get you one individual's perspective. Maybe this woman is an unusually happy outlier, or maybe she represents a majority of sex workers, or maybe she's lying her ass off. But it's an interesting story, and that's what Cracked is trying to get with these personal story articles.

The reality is that being poor and uneducated in a third world country is a pretty bad situation no matter how you slice it. I can certainly imagine choosing to be a hooker instead of working in a sweatshop or a rice paddy and being relatively happy with that choice. Evidently she was able to save enough money to open a moped shop, so it may well have been her best path (however moist and sticky) to what we would consider a decent standard of living.
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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby ShuaiGuy » Mon Apr 20, 2015 3:17 am

<Redacted>
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Last edited by ShuaiGuy on Sun Jan 03, 2016 8:45 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Vietnam again.

Postby blehblah » Wed Apr 22, 2015 3:01 pm

ShuaiGuy wrote:I really tried to be impartial when I first went to the forums, but it really feels like criticizing the status quo is something that isn't allowed. At all.


Get your own status quo!

Sorry, knee-jerk reaction.
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