A term used to describe an epidemic of very, very young prostitutes in urban Thailand who are sold into prostitution by their families, usually to pay off debts. This class of prostitution is set up nearly exclusively for tourists and many people, particularily American, British, and Austrailian men, will actually take sex vacations for the ability to have sex with these girls, some of whom are as young as 13 years old.

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Yeah, and Teiresias, the sick thing is, it's been constructed for the benefit of the Western tourist. And, it seems, the majority of them are more than happy to oblige.

The Patpong is no longer really the centre of this trade, as it has turned into a total tourist trap, complete with tacky market selling knocked off clothing and tourist tat.

There are still loads of live sex showsdown there though, in fact you can't go further than about ten metres along the pavement without being grabbed by a tout who thrusts a menu in your face listing the activities that go on during the night at their bar (such as hookers putting razorblades in their vaginas, and shooting ping-pong balls out of them]). I got hassled by all the time, and I was walking along hand in hand with my girlfriend.

The area is worth going to just to see what it's like, but the sight of all of these prostitutes lined up outside the clubs in evening gowns, with numbers on their chests like they were on a menu reminded me of some sick and twisted takeaway.

Much of the western world has this strange perception that prostitution (in all its guises) in Thailand is a show put on particularly for the tourists, the farangs.

Sure, the glitzy bars that rancid_pickle describes with skill in patpong are for the foreign trade. However, Thailand has a massive prostitution industry, and the majority of it is for the locals. If you can bring yourself to believe the easily obtained figures, an estimated 75% of Thai men regularly visit prostitutes, and 44% of Thai men pay for their first sexual experience.

The US Secretary of State for Human Rights revealed that about 800,000 women under the age of 18 in Thailand were involved in prostitution (circa 1994). I'm not sure that sleazy tourists could account for this.....and how big is that number if you include over 18?

On average, the conditions for sex workers involved in the local trade are a tad bit worse than the girls who make it to the bars. Many of them are trafficked refugees from Burma, who come to Thailand in the expectation of quick money....many of them fully expecting to work in the sex trade....but not realizing the true nature of the plight they will find themselves in. Many of them come from Laos, same reason, same results.

Thailand also has a considerable domestic violence problem. There's most likely a link there. It's a big bad mixture of women and men who choose sex work as a viable means of securing a moneyed future, and those who are dragged unwillingly into miserable service of the needs of the uncaring.