This has come as an absolute shock. I’m not really sure where to begin with it all. Basically I’ve been put into a position whereby I feel I need to defend myself. This saddens me because I should never succumb to the pressure of a reader’s outbursts. I get a lot of e-mails; sometimes they are positive, sometimes negative. I don’t have a problem with this, but last night I received a comment on this blog that really disturbed me.

It began like this:

Dear MC, you wonder in your article how it´s going to feel like when you get back to the “Western” world, and what the opposite sex from back home is like. Let me tell you what´s the basic difference: we (me, I´m also a girl) do not consider ourselves inferior to the male sex.

Immediately this states that I have suggested that women are inferior to men, or is the idea here that Thai women consider themselves inferior and farang women are somehow more evolved? I had to scratch my head for a minute. Is this what my average readership thinks, and is this what my readers think of me? Is this what my female friends think of me? The comment was a response to the article ‘What’s it like dating white girls’. A bit of background on that article: Firstly, with a title like ‘What’s it like dating white girls’ I hoped that people would understand it was written to provoke. It was also somewhat tongue in cheek, as well as me sticking my tongue out at my readership. It was a joke; perhaps it was a joke that only I laughed at, but it was a joke nonetheless. The title was also a lead into a story that placed the emphasis on what it is like to have to readjust to life in the Western world.

Next up came this:

We do not give opportunities to guys who think that way. That´s why I have bothered to send your article to all my contacts as well as to some associations that dislike your kind of sexist ideas back home. I hope (and I will see to it as much as I can) that back home (where the white girls don´t feel like “small potatos”), the people will have it very clear, before they ever publish an article of yours, what kind of ideas you have about the “opposite sex”.

So now there is a one-woman crusade targeted at me with the sole intention of blackening my name in the UK. Great, that’s all I need. To me, this is ridiculous. Since when have I been sexist? I’m young, straight, and I’m fairly introspective. I don’t sleep around, and nor have I ever done. In Thailand I have never made myself promiscuous, although I can’t deny that I’m fascinated by Thai girls. But does that make me sexist? I’m fascinated by the Asian look. That’s it. I smile at girls in the street sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I sleep with them. I was beginning to feel quite angry reading this. My Lost Boy columns, of which this was one, are to be taken with a pinch of salt sometimes. They don’t always reflect my personal line of thought or experiences directly. The Lost Boy is a caricature, so to speak.

This had me frowning:

I have observed (I´ve been living in Thailand for a while now) that some (only some) “white guys” in this country get used to being treated by their girlfriends like if they were “disabled Gods”. Disabled to do the shopping, disabled to stand up to get themselves a beer, disabled to help carrying the luggage, disabled to open the door for the girls and disabled in general to treat the Thai girls the way they deserve.

I have never been treated by anyone like this, and nor have I expected it. Why would I? I can do all these things myself. In two years here I have had one girlfriend for six months, one for nine months, and currently there is only one girl who has my interest and I adore her very much. I’m 24, I’m not a sexpat. I don’t even go shopping for groceries. I treat Thai girls as I treat anyone. This reader seems to think that all of my friends are bar girls and prostitutes. As I said, I don’t sleep around, which is why I’ve really taken this comment to heart.

Maybe it´s better you stay in Thailand, have a kid with a Thai girl, and 30 years later continue without knowing a world of Thai language, drinking Shinga beer, with your thai kids not even speaking your language, and not having money to go back home (where, by the way, your family and friends are living) because it´s too expensive for your new life standards.

Why would I ever want children? I speak enough Thai to get by and I have enough money saved from working to be able to move on to another country, which is what I am planning to do. What do people think about me? And what’s wrong with drinking Singha beer? Yes, my family and friends are back home, and yes, I miss them dearly, but what does that have to do with the price of fish? What are my “life standards”? I live in a 4,000 baht apartment and save all of my money or use it to buy books or games for my Nintendo DS.

This really sums it up:

By the way, your Thai wife will not have the same “smooth, brown body, wanting , seductive eyes, innocent and inviting face” 30 years after. But you might as well continue hanging around soi Cowboy for a little bit longer.

Well, I have never been to soi Cowboy, and I never plan to. So the allure and mystique of Thai girls is something that enchants me. And? What does that mean?

About how it feels for the white girls to “have our sexual identity removed”, I can tell you, Dear MC, that I don´t feel like that at all in Bangkok. I find it as easy as back home to find a guy (farang I mean) to have sexual intercourse.

This angers me somewhat. This woman is asserting her sexuality. I have spoken to women who have iterated that they feel like they have had their sexual identities somehow removed in Thailand. I didn’t just make this all up.

To quote Lyle Walter (she’s a woman, living in Bangkok, married with children):

Sometimes I feel invisible in Bangkok… I hadn’t realised until visiting the States this summer how much my ego always has been gently stroked by innocent everday interactions with the opposite sex… These sparks happen drastically less often for me in Bangkok… “Invisibility” can strike women at certain stages of their lives.

I understand that Lyle is a mother and she says that her “days of mincing about on stiletto heels” are over, but her point remains. She goes on to say: “These guys seem to look right through me,” referring to some groups of farang men. Surely that in itself constitutes a removal of sexual identity. Anyway, the tirade against me continued:

And as much as my boyfriend is concerned, he doesn´t seem to be willing to exchange me (the small potato) for the “quirks of the Thai Girl” and their “sexual authority”. As much as Thai guys are concerned, probably you already know that they are quite fond of farang girls. And not all Thai men are unattractive, like farang men like to think. Neither are all of them gays or ladyboys, as farang men also like to think. So no, I don´t feel like my sexual identity has been removed at all in Bangkok.

I’m regretful that I’ve gone through this entire comment and broken it down, but I feel outraged that someone would think these things of me. Maybe the sexual authority of Thai girls is a figment of my imagination, but I spend most of my time daydreaming and so I see no harm in this illusion. I’m perfectly aware that not all Thai men are unattractive, and the thought had crossed my mind that not all Thai men are gay. This has become absurd.

The thrust of my article can be summed up thus: I find Asian women attractive. I haven’t dated a farang girl since I moved here. I think it might be a strange experience to go back home after being here for a length of time.

Maybe that equates to sexism, but to me it’s nothing. This e-mail came from another farang girl:

I wasn’t offended - more resigned. You don’t sound like you sleep with girls in 7eleven - however, on first reading does make it sound like you date a lot of thai girls and being a farang male in thailand you immediately get tarred with the same brush as that group of farang male who do seem to try to sleep with as many thai girls as possible. I re-read your article and that would be a harsh judgement. I know it wasn’t the point of the article.

Things will take adjusting to when we go home and one of those things for you will be dating white girls and for me (hopefully) it will be dating at all! A scary concept when it has been so long.

How could two women from the same country come up with such radically different perceptions of me? I’m not sure what else to add to this.