r/Thailand • u/Consistent_Yam2637 • 15h ago
Discussion The Independent's double fail: Prostitution is officially ILLEGAL in Thailand, and that skyline is Singapore
Take a look at this post from The Independent (see image.png). They managed to get two major facts completely wrong in a single piece of reporting.
1. Prostitution is NOT legal in Thailand.
The caption explicitly states that Pattaya is a city "where prostitution is legal." This is completely false. Under Thai law (specifically the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act, B.E. 2539/1996), prostitution is entirely illegal.
Yes, we all know the reality on the ground—enforcement is notoriously lax, and red-light districts operate openly due to systemic loopholes and corruption. However, confusing "tolerated by corrupt local authorities" with "legally permitted" is terrible journalism. Stating it is a legal profession misinforms the public and shows a complete lack of basic research.
2. That picture isn't even Thailand.
If you look at the illuminated skyline behind the ship in the photo, you can clearly see the Marina Bay Sands. That is unmistakably Singapore, not Pattaya. They literally used a photo of a carrier in Singapore to run a story about a Thai resort town.
Just a reminder to always question international media when they report on Southeast Asia. The editorial standards here are non-existent.
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u/The_Drongo_Dinger 15h ago
They probably should have said ‘de facto legal’, but the unpaid intern that fact checked the AI written article probably hasn’t heard that phrase before
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u/larry_bkk 14h ago
"de facto legal" is nonsense technically, no offense.
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u/ftqo 14h ago
There are real legal concepts, such as desuetude, where something is illegal but de facto legal. It's not nonsense. It's certainly not "technically" nonsense.
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u/Time_Look8276 11h ago
bro there's a difference between something being legal, and something that's not enforced for corruption reason. "de facto legal" is not a legal term. If you put a clear-cut prostitution case in front of a Thai judge, no sane judge is gonna deliver a not guilty verdict. The issue is with law enforcement by local officers, not with the law itself. "Desuetude" heh, cute.
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u/larry_bkk 13h ago
I'm not invested in this, I could be wrong, just thinking it thru. Many countries have zones of toleration and so forth. But the term as stated seems less than ideal. Thanks
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u/The_Drongo_Dinger 12h ago
No offense taken my friend, I left school at 15 and am likely even dumber than you are expecting!
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u/FUCKING_HATE_REDDIT 13h ago
Thailand has plenty of illegal but de facto legal stuff though
- Gambling
- Most street vendors are unlicensed
- Cannabis use before legalization
- Vaping
- Buying alcohol outside of permitted hours or during Buddhist holy days
- Bars open during holy days
- Underage drinking
- The Sangha, Monks handling money, owning cars, etc
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u/Time_Look8276 11h ago
"de facto legal" is not an actual term. It's illegal but sparsely enforced. There's a difference.
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u/th3orist 7h ago
exactly, i dont get it why its so hard to use the expression "illegal but rarely enforced"
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u/astrom1 8h ago
Its not defacto (or dejure) legal. Prostitution has been illegal for sex workers and pimps since the 1960 Suppression of Prostitution act. The wiki page on Thai prostitution is incorrect.
"prostitution" means sexual intercourse, or any other act, or the commission of any other
act in order to gratify the sexual desire of another person in a promiscuous manner in
return for earning or any other benefit, irrespective of whether the person who accepts the
act and the person who commits the act are of the same sex or not;-2
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u/mdsmqlk 14h ago
The ship is also not docking in Pattaya.
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u/th3orist 7h ago
where does it dock? does it even dock? is there a large enough pier?
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u/MasterEyeRoller 1h ago
The ship doesn't dock.
It will continually go 'round in circles for the next week or so.
It's up to the sailors at what point they want to jump off and try to swim to shore.
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u/Superb-Score-1072 14h ago
Wow that's bad. The Independent has really fallen. It used to be a decent paper.
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u/Kaszrak 15h ago
They’re scared that once onboard, all those STDs will spread like wildfire. lol
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u/Substantial-Song-841 13h ago
Dude no lie, I think I got an STD when we had liberty in pattaya in 2019.. i got super sick I felt like I was going to die and was in sick bay for 5 days... or I ate something bad, some street food
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u/Enji-Bkk 11h ago
That's not how I imagine life on board but I was never in the military so what do I know
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u/not5150 9h ago edited 9h ago
Folks. If you read the actual article at https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/uss-abraham-lincoln-pattaya-prostitution-thailand-b3042016.html - you’ll see the caption in the screenshot which states that was Singapore they went past on the way to Pattaya. You’ll also see the “prostitution is illegal” in the title
These days you have to be careful with trusting screenshots
The Facebook post has a different title than the article
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u/GravityGee 9h ago
Yep. Faux anger. OP doesnt click past FB that was probably posted by a useless teenager or a savvy SMM for clickbait.
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u/FlameHaze 4h ago
Ding ding ding, we have our winner. This is some ragebait that worked well. haha.
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u/longasleep Bangkok 12h ago
Why are we looking at Singapore
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u/live_right_always 12h ago
Pattaya and Singapore. There isn't much difference between the two cities. 🤣😉
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u/HerbalSiam 14h ago
200+ days in sobriety will turn the most straight dude into kinda controversial type IYKWIM.
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u/Saarfall 14h ago
Warning whom? Of what? Warning Prattaya brothels to order more lube and cancel time off?
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u/UpstairsArmadillo454 13h ago
Ahh the Hippocrates! And i got banned from their sub because i had facts they didn’t believe
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u/Lordfelcherredux 12h ago
If something is tolerated it's more or less legal. They should have stated that it was de facto legal to be more precise.
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u/HiddenLayerZero 7h ago
These people might scare real tourists who spend more. May hurt tourism more than a bad season
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u/Either-Lock2454 7h ago
They’re probably saying it’s legal because they don’t want their dim witted readers getting all moral and righteous and expecting them to go with the flow because…why wouldn’t they?
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u/illonlyfadeaway 5h ago
FYI, the author is Thai, Panarat Thepgumpanat...maybe hasn't lived in Thailand for a long time?
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u/nonolandtx 4h ago
You are all the same to "them". They are coming back to Pattaya for the same reason they built it.
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u/ActafianSeriactas 14h ago
Some people here can’t read. OP is fully aware that prostitution does occur in Thailand. It is officially illegal but authorities frequently don’t enforce it. By the letter of the law however, it is not legal in Pattaya as the article implies.
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u/Vast_Vegetable9222 12h ago
Also, as another commentator posted, it’s legal in Singapore (with restrictions). Ship isn’t docking in Pattaya as well
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u/GravityGee 9h ago edited 9h ago
Calm down. The article doesnt say that. And the article even references the pic is taken from Batam. Its a great pic as well. Read past a fb post which is click bait for sure.
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u/lolopiro 14h ago
i dont know the law, but ive heard a few dudes say that as long as its not penetrative, it cant be charged. if that is true, you could technically say prostitution is legal? no?
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u/Evening-Mess-3593 Udon Thani 12h ago
Poor journalism from the Independent, either not checking or ignoring facts.
I remember when it was a pretty decent newspaper.
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8h ago
[deleted]
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u/immunedata 8h ago
Did you read the article? What didn’t you like?
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7h ago
[deleted]
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u/immunedata 6h ago
The article isn’t about Pattaya, it’s about a naval ship. The picture isn’t of Pattaya because it hasn’t reached Thailand yet; the caption says “The US Navy aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln sails past Singapore as seen from Batam, Indonesia, Sunday” which seems reasonable for a story on the movement of the ship.
The subheading to the article is “The USS Abraham Lincoln will dock at Thailand's resort city of Pattaya, where prostitution is illegal” so not sure where the ambiguity is?
Your rush to accusation and your Russia/Ukraine diatribe seem to show quite troubling signs for your mental health. Maybe take a break?
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u/r-thai555 14h ago
Chill out, dude. Why are you so offended on Thailand's behalf, bruh? Afraid the girls are gonna ignore you for younger and healthier seamen?
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u/vittor7 13h ago edited 13h ago
When media coverage reduces a massive systemic crisis to semantic arguments over whether an industry is technically legal or illegal on paper, it completely misses the architecture ofin the trap. This isn't a cultural quirk, a policy accident, or a simple oversight, it is an engineered state-level addiction. The playbook mimics a dealer hooking a neighborhood down to the last detail, you manufacture deep structural precarity, choke out independent, self-sustaining pathways, and introduce a high-volume, easy-cash fix from transient foreign fleets, military bases, or hyper-capitalist sectors that people quickly depend on just to survive.
Beneath the surface lies a deliberate strategy of containment. By locking a nation into a self-destructive loop of servicing external appetites, external powers and complicit elites keep the population permanently held hostage. Ordinary people are left with zero margin to organize, no resources to invest in real independence, and no leverage to challenge the status quo.
The ultimate tragedy is the systemic theft of human talent, where generations are swallowed by the machine because alternative options have been deliberately starved out. In the end, just like an addict defending their supply, a dependency-locked society becomes so conditioned to the poison that it views its own true sovereignty with terror, terrified that if it ever tries to kick the habit, the entire system will collapse on top of it.
Superpowers have always relied on a simple, enduring playbook, rig the system from the ground up so that true independence becomes impossible. By locking nations into cycles of permanent instability and dependency, they ensure the playing field is permanently tilted, leaving people too exhausted by daily survival to ever really grow and challenge the the superpowers dominate position.
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u/meansamang 14h ago
Please cite to the specific section in the act where it says that prostitution in Thailand is illegal.
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u/xWhatAJoke 14h ago
Section 4 (definition) combined with Section 5 (the operative prohibition) of the Prevention and Suppression of Prostitution Act, B.E. 2539 (1996)
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u/meansamang 14h ago
That's not a citation.
If I cite to the relevant section in the Thai Penal Code on murder, here it is:
Section 288 Whoever, murdering the other person, shall be imprisoned by death or imprisoned as from fifteen years to twenty years.
This is the ENTIRE section on murder in the Thai penal code.
The act you mention is 16 pages, and 45 sections long. Why is that?
Section 5 does not prohibit the simple act of paying for sex between consenting adults.
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u/xWhatAJoke 14h ago
It prohibs solicitation though which covers 99% of cases in Thailand.
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u/meansamang 13h ago
It doesn’t prohibit solicitation. Only certain forms of solicitation
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u/k-phi 14h ago
Section 6
Any person who associates with another person in a prostitution establishment for the purpose of prostitution of oneself or another person shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding one month or to a fine not exceeding one thousand Baht or to both.
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u/meansamang 13h ago
Ok. Where does it say that prostitution is illegal?
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u/k-phi 13h ago
So, what you are saying that it's legal, but punishable?
That's.... unusual
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u/meansamang 13h ago
Nothing in the act prohibits a person from sitting down next to you while you eat your lunch and quietly offering to have sex with you for 1000 baht.
And nothing prohibits you and her from going to your place and doing it.
She can't harass you on the street doing it. She can't do it in a house of prostitution. Solicitation can't be done "openly and shamelessly."
There are other prohibitions in the statute relating to the act of prostitution, but the specific act of selling/buying sex between consenting adults is not prohibited.
It's legal to drive a car. It's not legal to exceed the posted speed limits while driving a car.
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u/mdsmqlk 11h ago
And nothing prohibits you and her from going to your place and doing it.
It very much does.
Solicitation is a minor offense (in any place, does not need to be in the street or a brothel), but the law is very clear that procuring a prostitute is a criminal offense. The law is much more severe on clients than on prostitutes.
Section 9. Any person who procures, seduces or takes away any person for the prostitution of such person, even with her or his consent and irrespective of whether the various acts which constitute an offence are committed within or outside the Kingdom, shall be liable to imprisonment for a term of one to ten years and to a fine of twenty thousand to two hundred thousand Baht.
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u/xWhatAJoke 14h ago
The Independent is a fucking joke now. Owned by a Russian oligarch and a Saudi prince.