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Mother sold food, daughter sells her body: The cultural continuity of prostitution

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  • Muecke, Margorie A.

Abstract

This article provides a cultural interpretation of female prostitution in contemporary lowland Buddhist Thai society. The heterosexual transmission of AIDS through prostitution has exposed the shallowness of our understanding of prostitution as a sociocultural phenomenon. The data were collected through case studies, participant-observation, and review of Thai language media and texts. It is argued that in the past decade or so, the simultaneous rapid growth of prostitution as a lucrative sex industry and of the Thai economy as an emerging newly industrialized country (NIC) have, paradoxically, enabled female prostitutes to conserve the basic institutions of society. This has occured at a time when landlessness, rampant commercialism and poverty have threatened the survival of traditional lifeways among the majority rural agricultural population. Prostitution, although illegal, has flourished at least in part because it enables women, through remittances home and merit-making activities, to fulfil traditional cultural functions of daughters, conserving the institutions of family and village-level Buddhism, as well as of government.

Suggested Citation

  • Muecke, Margorie A., 1992. "Mother sold food, daughter sells her body: The cultural continuity of prostitution," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 35(7), pages 891-901, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:35:y:1992:i:7:p:891-901
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    Cited by:

    1. Ushma Upadhyay, 2000. "India's New Economic Policy of 1991 and its Impact on Women's Poverty and AIDS," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(3), pages 105-122.
    2. Orchard, Treena Rae, 2007. "Girl, woman, lover, mother: Towards a new understanding of child prostitution among young Devadasis in rural Karnataka, India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 64(12), pages 2379-2390, June.
    3. Emma Tomalin, 2006. "Religion and a rights-based approach to development," Progress in Development Studies, , vol. 6(2), pages 93-108, April.
    4. Md Kamrul Hasan, 2012. "AIDS-Related Stigma in Thailand," Millennial Asia, , vol. 3(2), pages 187-206, July.
    5. Vanchai Ariyabuddhiphongs & Joseph Li, 2016. "Buddhist Good Karma of Giving, Optimism, and Happiness Among Thai Female Sex Workers," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 903-917, June.

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