And You Thought Red Light Cameras Were Bad

There are probably thousands of places to get a massage in Thailand. Some are completely on the up and up, no hanky panky goes on. Others will give you a happy ending for an extra fee, while others are nothing more than a front for prostitution. A massage parlor is a place that specializes in prostitution, usually for wealthy locals. According to my research, online not field, these places will sometimes accept foreigners for an extra fee.

If Bangkok governor candidate Leena Jungjanja gets her way, however, that smile that you leave the massage parlor with may cost you a lot more than a couple of thousand baht. Ms. Leena's pro-family platform includes installing cameras outside of massage parlors. The video would broadcast on the Internet so that wives can check up on their husbands.

Fortunately for the more philandering type, Ms. Leena will not be the governor of Bangkok. She is in single digits in the polls. Perhaps one might think that she might strike a cord with Thai women fed up with their cheating husbands. While her idea might appeal to some, it really goes against the grain of the Thai concept of saving face.

These cameras would broadcast the husbands infidelity not only to the wife, but to the rest of the world. It would be very humiliating to the woman to have it out in the open like that. I'm not saying that Thai women relish their husbands going to a massage parlor, but for many, a quiet tryst is much preferable to a public outing. I remember hearing a story about a Thai woman whose husband was having an affair. She might have suspected it for a while, and certainly didn't like it, but she accepted it. Men will be men is sometimes the philosophy. When the guy started doing it in the open and made no effort to hide it, that's when it was too much for her. He had humiliated her.

Its like that a lot here, as long as its not blatantly out in the open, people can contently ignore it. Thais are very good at blissfully ignorant.

If by some miracle Ms. Leena's idea became law, maybe Thais could borrow a page from the red light camera's book. Just send a picture of the offender entering the massage parlor along with a ticket. Its not like he is going to court to fight it and make you prove that he actually had sex there. Of course, if he's not the one who opens the mail, there could be hell to pay.