Patpong Girls

I used to enjoy drinking my soft drink straight from the bottle. Until one fateful night in Bangkok, my friends and I stumbled upon the horror of horrors – a Live Sex Show in Patpong. Since then, I could never look at an innocent Coke bottle the same way ever again.

Lying between Silom and Suriwongse roads, Patpong – the night market and infamous red light district of Bangkok, is usually a must-see tourist destination. It is a seething mass of market stalls, massage parlors and gaudy strip joints with glittering neon signs like “Hot Go-Go Girls”

As a Patpong virgin, I found it all quite overwhelming. Indeed, it’s not a place for the fainthearted. A young tout was rudely dogging us, shouting from behind, “Ping-Pong show! Ping-Pong show!”

I told him to go away. We just wanted to go shopping. “But shopping can be done till 2 AM. Right now is happy hour. Watch show and get Singha beer free,” he insisted. I shoved him aside.

We haven’t gone more than 10 steps when another tout thrusted to our faces a slightly tattered sheet of paper which looked like a restaurant menu. It was indeed a menu, but not of food. Rather it was a graphic selection of acts that super Thai vajayjays can do like “P*ssy write letter”,”P*ssy shoot pingpong ball”, “P*ssy pop balloons”, P*ssy blow birthday cake”, “P*ssy open Coke bottle…”

We could only stare. “A coke bottle? No way!” Women have made great strides in history, true. But these I’ve never heard of. The curious cat in me was hooked. Man, we’ve got to see this. If only to see if it were for real.

The young man guided us to the second floor of an overrun building. Once inside the dimly-lit room, we saw girls onstage scattered around the poles doing… well, you couldn’t call it a striptease since they were already naked. It wasn’t sexy dancing either since the girls were all twig thin and just sort of… bounced. Most of them looked bored, some were chatting while the rest just did what they had to do.

Then the show began. So it was true. The girls took turns showing off what they can do with their you-know-what -- blowing candles, writing words, shooting out ping pong balls, popping balloons with darts, and yes, opening a capped bottle of Coke. I have to admit I was impressed. I don’t think I could ever in this lifetime shoot darts across the room with that kind of accuracy. I alternated being awed, impressed and horrified. When the razor blades came out, I looked away, sipped my Singha beer, then remembering, put it aside.

All this culminated in a live sex show by a male and female couple highlighting different sex positions with such amazing flexibility that I believe would make any gymnast or dancer turn green with envy. As I mentally counted the beat of the dance, I looked around and wondered, “Could the guys be honestly turned on by this?” Like Patpong itself, it was just so cold and calculating.

For the curtain call, the girls lined up once again on stage and started shuffling. I looked at each naked girl staring straight ahead the wall of mirrors at the back, with nary a smile on the face. What were they thinking? Do they recognize the face of quiet desperation?”

Just then, my eyes were drawn to a commotion on the side. One of the girls was playing again. A ping pong ball just popped out of a girl’s vagina and missed. The horrified man in front jumped as if a snake just landed on his lap. He wouldn’t touch the ball despite the pitiful appeals of the girls on stage. The crowd – a good mix of men and women- guffawed.

What was so funny? I wondered. Yes, all this was fascinating but truly, this was the saddest show I’ve ever seen in my life.


-- SunStar Weekend, 23 January 2010