Prof. Kenneth Ng speaks, defends controversial website
October 5, 2010
Kenneth Ng
associate professor
BigBabyKenny.com was never a site about or promoting “sex tourism.”
These sex tours, mainly organized for Chinese and Japanese men seeking commercial sex, were never mentioned, discussed, or promoted on BigBabyKenny.com.
Instead, BigBabyKenny.com was about discussing and photographically documenting marriage, dating, love, and sex in Thailand and Asia—The Thailand Girl Scene in BigBabyKenny.com speak.
Integral to the discussion was the relationship between love, sex, dating, money, wealth and social class in Thailand and Asia-a relationship much different to the norm in Western (predominantly Judeo-Christian) societies.
Thailand is a rigid class-based society where the traditional paths average and disadvantaged Western women use to advance economically and socially are blocked or unavailable.
Marrying, dating, or becoming emotionally and/or sexually involved with foreigners is one the few open avenues to social and economic betterment for middle and lower class Thai women.
Thai women have a long tradition of finding happiness and improved lifestyles through marrying, dating, and having consensual and, sometimes, commercial sex with foreigners.
They have an equally long and parallel tradition of combining sex and the weak Thai legal system to scam money from foreign men.
BigBabyKenny.com contained articles, advice, and uncensored discussion about all of these aspects of The Thailand Girl Scene plus articles and discussion of politics, economics, and Expat life in Thailand.
Included in the discussion were articles, photojournalism, and discussion of the intertwining of love, sex, and money in traditional Thai relationships and a view into the daily lives of everyday women in a society where culture and class keeps them down both economically and socially.
Documented and discussed were the marriage customs and sex lives of affluent Thai men, e.g. the mistress market, the expectations (or lack thereof) of monogamy in Thailand and other non-Christian Asian societies, and the prospects and handicaps facing lower class Thai women trying to advance themselves through marriage, dating, and sex in a rigidly class-based society.
The CSUN Asian American and Women’s studies departments claimed BigBabyKenny.com “perpetuates the cultural prostitution of women in Thailand” but I think they got it wrong.
Anyone reading BigBabyKenny.com, got an eye-opening education about what it really means to be a woman in a country and culture where not only do most women start off life poor but where most of the normal paths to upward economic and social mobility are blocked by age-old laws, customs, values, and government interference in the free market.
Although not intended to be an educational site, regular BigBabyKenny.com readers received the most accurate and comprehensive real life look at the nitty-gritty details of Thai women’s lives available anywhere on the Internet, or in mainline books, newspapers, and magazines—-and learned more about women’s issues in Asia than they get in a semester long women’s studies course at most universities.
BigBabyKenny.com readers also got an honest, no holds barred, uncensored, photographically documented, eye opening look into a non-Western culture and way of life few will ever get to experience firsthand.
Read “Sense and Sensibility” for a look at women’s lives in Victorian England. Read BigBabyKenny.com for a look at women’s lives in poor Asian countries.
Plus the articles and discussion were hugely entertaining, engaging, and funny — which explained the sites growing popularity over time and, eventually, why BigBabyKenny.com came to the attention of the mainstream press.
What is truly sad is that external forces impinged on the university’s normally free market for ideas and opinions, led to the removal of the information, photography, and uncensored discussion of The Thailand Girl Scene from BigBabyKenny.com.
To see the news story on this controversy, follow the link below.
