It is estimated that almost 3 million Thais are in prostitution out of a population of 65 million inhabitants where, although prostitution is illegal, culturally, contexts of tolerance have been established, reaching the point of creating favorable scenarios to encourage economic growth. based on trips and sexual tourist events.
Bangkok's nightlife scene is majestic, with its lounges, such as The Pimp, Sherbet, Pegasus, St. Moritz or Le Pent, which copy the model of Japanese host bars in high-net-worth environments. Large, elegant nightclubs, with shows and luxury in abundance. You enter a place like this and at the door you already see that the matter is going to be expensive. They are places frequented by the upper and wealthy Thai class.
Inside, it's all tables where you watch the local guys drink high-priced liquor, accompanied by customers, both men and women, extremely smiling and pleasant. The hosts say whatever nonsense. The customers laugh. One drops the glass of drunkenness. His partner wipes his shirt and caresses his cheek.
Designed to receive groups of friends, and when I say friends I mean all male, the waiters of the also known as gentlemen's clubs greet the visitor with two cards. The one for drinks and the one for the hosts. But it's not a brothel. Hosts are not on the menu for sexual reasons. If you pay the high price, what they will do is sit with you at the table, serve you drinks and make you laugh all night. If you pay good drinks, you might touch some meat, kiss, munch, and you can even bite the neck and leave a mark as a souvenir. But no taking something home, at least at the price listed on the menu. It is paid by the company.
There is certainly some similarity with Japanese host clubs. But while in Japan you sit down with your rented girl or boy to tell her your sorrows and what stresses you about work, in Thailand it's for dancing and getting drunk. The hosts entertain the client by making them play rock, paper, scissors while laughing, or a video game on their mobile phone. Whoever loses, drinks. And the client always pays.
Of course, all this has a price. The guys in the lounge are carefully selected and have to be fun as well as remarkably attractive. Don't expect to drink a cheap beer either. The normal thing is to buy reserve whiskey.
How much can a joke mean in a lounge? Quietly about 5,000 bahts, 125 euros, if you don't lose control with what the hosts ask for. And that's knowing that, unless a miracle happens, they will go home like almost everyone else in a normal nightclub. Alone.
I think of all this when I watch 'Deep Night' ('Khuen Ni Mi Khae Rao'), the Thai series that bears the indisputable seal of "Cheewin" Thanamin Wongskulphat, the actor, director and owner of Copy A Bangkok, the production company and agency of casting, who is credited as the first producer of the Y series in Thailand, and who also made successful works such as 'YYY' (2020), 'Why R U?: The Series' (2020), the three seasons of 'Make It Right: The Series', all from Line TV, and 'Love Sick', his first drama, from 2015.
I think of all this when I watch 'Deep Night' ('Khuen Ni Mi Khae Rao'), the Thai series directed by "Cheewin" Thanamin Wongskulphat.
The series tells the exciting and stormy story of Khemthis, played by Shogun Paramee, the latest letter of introduction of GMM 25 in full ascendancy in his first leading role, who plays the beloved son of Madame Freya (Tanya Thanyaret), the owner of Deep Night Club, the most important host bar in the country, and Wela Ratthakorn, characterized by First Piyangkun, an already established figure within the genre with dramas such as 'War of Y' and 'Y Destiny', always in leading roles, this time representing no not only the number one artist on the trapeze, but also the host preferred by clients.
The series will attract the attention of many for different reasons, including the incredible chemistry in front of the camera of the two main characters.
A new aspect for BL fans is the social and cultural landscape of Bangkok nights and, especially, the elegant nightclub that represents the setting, a kind of acrobatic cabaret that serves as a backdrop to address a topic. new within the world of BL: male prostitution and escort services, since Wela and the other club hosts are auctioned and offer sexual and companionship services to clients who pay for their attention, without reaching penetration.
'Deep Night' shows us a form of male prostitution typical of Thai nightclubs. Since prostitution is illegal, these establishments seek to hide this social phenomenon when the prostitute, here called the host, is not paid directly or in cash, but rather through the payment of sexual services to the establishment and through the purchase of alcoholic beverages with those in which the client manages to spend the night being accompanied by the young sex worker.
The series shows how Thai rentboys are auctioned off in nightclubs. The hosts of the Deep Night Club are sex workers, although they only participate as mere companions or escorts. Who says that a person in the conditions shown in the series who receives money for their services, for not having penetrative sex, does not practice what is known as the oldest profession in the world?
Wela cannot do anything to prevent the provision of sexual services that the client demands. You can't do anything to avoid a drunk who insults you, someone who bites your neck, mauls you, touches you in an impudent manner, kisses you, and puts their hands under your clothes.
You can only ease your luck a little by frequently asking the client's permission with the excuse that you need to go to the bathroom. The host needs to ask permission from the person who paid, and justify leaving his table, even for a few minutes, hoping that the night goes by quickly and he is finally free.
The client acts like the client of any prostitute in any brothel anywhere in the world. He is the owner of the situation gained by punching bills or gulping drinks, which in this case is the same thing. The legal limits are set by the club. The sex worker cannot be a minor or be an undocumented alien or other violation of the laws.
Being exposed, Wela is forced to recognize that he has had to carry out this work in order to obtain the money that would allow him to pay off the debt left by his father. Then, new approaches arise: The main annoyance, anger and wound of a person in his place is due to reasons that the series hides, denies or ignores: the suffering of the prostitute for having to get ahead with his life, pay debts, be able to carry a plate of food on the table, being able to dress and put on shoes for his son, being able to pay for his elderly mother's surgery or his little brother's studies through this job.
Wela never questions the reality that life has brought him to. Wela never has a thought about what she is doing with her life, whether she has chosen the right path. He knows it's not the right way. For some reason, he has been hiding everything related to his work from his mother and everyone else for years, because he is aware that it contains both illegalities and shameful, defamatory, degrading, immoral content.
Instead of questioning himself about his behavior, of making the viewer understand why he has been forced to prostitute himself, which would be consistent with a person in his place, what he does is praise his sponsors, applaud the good things he has done. the club has been towards him or how kind the owner of the club has been in giving him the job.
The series does not offer us lessons, which would be extracted from focusing on specific issues like these. The main character does not give hope to people in his place. Wela does not redeem herself, she does not find redemption. He does not seek redemption.
I don't like that the series has approached this whole phenomenon of prostitution so lightly, in a festive tone, in which we will never get to know the human suffering behind the fact that a person decides to enter the world of prostitution .
And I understand that the creators have decided to face the issue in this way so lightly, so superficially, and not with crudeness, with realism, as the problem deserves to be exposed, because otherwise the series would be moving away from the BL genre to become an LGBT+ drama with greater depth, realism and complexity than this other genre would propose.
I also regret that the majority of fans of the genre prefer to ignore the obvious, and instead of joining the debate and reflection proposed by the creators and producers, they dedicate themselves to commenting on whether Japan would look good in a sequined suit or if Dai should touch up her hair. beard frequently.
With his resignation as host No. 1, Wela will no longer be bitten on the neck by a client, nor will he be groped, groped, kissed or touched in his private parts by someone who paid to do precisely this with him.
When the time comes, Freya has to admit mistakes in allowing prostitution in the club and apologize to the hosts "for the chaos that was previously in our club until today's special event occurred."
Whether or not it was their interest, the creators have given their opinion regarding the debate that is being waged today within Thai society about whether or not to legalize prostitution.
To all of these, I was hoping that Japan and Seiji would save the series from my disappointment. If Seiji always considered Ken only as a friend, if he had thousands of occasions to have a romantic or sexual relationship with him and he was never interested because for him Ken was nothing more than a friend, why does Seiji's sudden interest in Ken? ? When did Seiji realize that he loved both of them at the same time, when he always showed interest in Pan and never in Ken, despite the latter's constant hints first and statements later?