Dual Action or Dual Standards?

Everyone would probably agree South Africa is a country of many distinctions which probably seem out of place to an outsider. Having English, 9 home languages, and the Blue Bulls dialect Oostefourieskabeljoudonders Fontein probably seems slightly unresonable.

Likewise having some people living outside all of the time, while others only go outside to work on their tan, again, probably seems like the kind of thing we might want to address.


Classically, we've got a slightly divergent past and present.


In the Royal Kingdom of Thailand they have the same sort of distinctions in economic, linguistic and social spheres. Additionally, however, they draw a peculiar distinction between certain morally acceptable pastimes.

As my knowledge of the intricacies of this subject have been drawn through, um, oral, history & not first hand experience, I can't go into detail but what I've heard amounts to the following:

1)Catch a taxi to dubious place
2)Pay dubious amounts of money to dubious characters
3)Take various dubious ladies (and if you're not careful, men that look like ladies)to one of many dubious rooms
4)Perform a variety of dubious physical acts.

So I hear, anyway.

The aforementioned peculiarity comes in when you sit in the privacy of your own home.
Should you innocently attempt to:

1)Surf the internet
2)Stumble across Paris Hilton's collection of home videos, or the latest internet copy of Naughty Cheerleaders III
3)Attempt to perform dubious acts of physical nature on yourself
4)You will find yourself confronted by the inquisitive eye of Horus lookalike thing below.



Well. So I've heard.

Essentially an Orwellian Big Brother - it helps the Thai government protect it's subjects from all of the terrible things out their on the internet - ensuring that they'll never have to suffer through the watching Paris have sex on night-cam.

Strangely, whilst you're free to strut around downtown Silom with just about anything in fake nails, high heels less clothing than a miniature chihuahua on your arm, sitting at home on a sofa gently tugging the bishop is a sin. Really?

I mean, come the fuck on, it's not like I am sitting cross-legged on the leather couch in the WiFi hotspot of the local Starbucks wearing nothing but my Siam Hefster shower gown and Dsquared trucker...

In hindsight, much the same way Australia doesn't broadcast 5 day cricket to local area, I can only guess it's a clever economic ploy to get me off Google, put on some clothes and go swim with the sharks in the invested dive bars.