The Thai language has extraordinarily rich, varied, and multi-levelled vocabularies for sexual anatomy, sexual behaviours, sexual identities, and attitudes to sexuality. The authors of this in-depth study of 21 keywords deal directly and unflinchingly with the language of sex in Thailand in all its raw, sometimes humorous, and often derogatory immediacy. The registers of spoken Thai (phasa phut), the language of the marketplace (phasa talat), as well as official discourse (phasa ratchakan), literary usages (phasa khian), and technical and academic vocabularies (phasa wichakan) are all covered. Much more than a vocabulary list, this book engages the language of sex and sexuality in Thailand from critical feminist and queer studies perspectives. The authors take the positions of women, men who love men, women who love women, and transgenders as standpoints from which to critique the dominant male-centred and hetero-normative structures of Thai sexual culture. Thai Sex Talk showcases the path-breaking research that a new generation of Thai scholars is conducting on the country's sexual cultures, representing a direct challenge to the pathologizing, negative approaches that characterized much 20th-century Thai research on sexuality.
Thai Sex Talk: The Language of Sex and Sexuality in Thailand
ISBN
9786169005353Authors
Pimpawun Boonmongkon; Peter Jackson (eds.)Extent
236Format
PaperbackYear
2012Publisher
Mekong Press