Bridging the Gap

We went to a spa in Bangkok. It had been hot and humid and suddenly it was raining- the kind of torrential rain that only a tropical climate can produce. It seemed silly to try to do anything outside, so we hopped on the skyway and soon found ourselves confronting a menu of options for relaxation: traditional Thai massage, foot reflexology, oil massage, hot herbal compress, mud body mask. The women at the spa spoke no English, but the language of the place was familiar to us. Nearly every woman I know in the US has gotten a massage or two in their lives. In the last few years, Kacy and I have made a ritual of going to the Korean women’s spa outside of Seattle and I think we managed to take most of our friends there with us. The idea that women will go to spas to ‘pamper their bodies’ has now become commonly accepted in the US. In other countries it’s understood that this is something both men and women should do. I sat in public baths with whole families in Iceland and Hungary, and the men’s side of the Onsen in Japan is just as full as the women’s. But in America, at least, I don’t know many men who get massages, or sit in the steam room (except gay men, of course)- it is still primarily a woman’s realm.

So when the women at the spa in Bangkok led us into a room, we knew to take our clothes off and lie on the mat. And when they began pummeling our bodies, it felt immediately familiar. It felt, in fact, like we were crossing a giant communication barrier. We couldn’t speak the same language, but our bodies, ultimately, were the same as theirs. Our muscles strained in the same ways, our backs cracked with the same motion. The pure physical contact was immediately universalizing.

Of course, as I lay there in a Bangkok massage parlor feeling pleasure and familiarity in the physical contact of another person’s body, I couldn’t help but think about the sex industry. Bangkok’s red light district is famous. The sex industry’s annual turnover is nearly double the Thai government’s annual budget. I have heard it said that Thai’s are much less uptight about sex than Westerners. Does this universalizing feeling of human bodies come into play there too? Is sex a way for men to bridge the communication barrier as well? The language of sex does seem to be fairly universal, after all.

I’m not at all suggesting that this is the whole reason for this huge multi-faceted sex industry. There are so many different reasons why women get into this business (or are forced into it) and why men go looking to pay for sex… and I’m certainly no expert on the subject. But it’s hard to ignore that it’s here, after all. While getting massaged in a place like Bangkok, it’s impossible not to wonder: does the sex industry give Western men something of what massage can give women? And what is this exchange like for the Thai women who are involved?