Social Changes In Thailand During The Last Decade

Among unmarried young people in Thailand, sexual behavior norms have changed substantially over the last decade. One important change has been the increased acceptability of premarital sex among young women, which has resulted in a trend toward earlier sexual initiation for Thai females.

Thai cultural norms generally have granted sexual freedom to males, but imposed constraints on female sexual behavior. In the past, unmarried males often experienced sexual initiation with female sex workers, and young unmarried females were expected to maintain premarital chastity. However, I believe that the norms governing sexual practices among Thai adolescents and young adults have changed. A growing proportion of adolescent females report having had sexual intercourse, while male patronage of sex workers has decreased substantially. Most Thai men now have their early sexual experience with noncommercial partners. Males' age at sexual initiation in Thailand does not appear to have changed in recent decades; however, as social controls have eased, young women appear to be having sex earlier. Yet a key difference remains: Young unmarried males usually have more partners, particularly more casual partners, than their female counterparts.

These shifts in sexual behavior have potentially adverse consequences for Thai youth, particularly for young women. In other countries, sexually active young people have an increased risk of HIV infection and other STIs, as well as elevated rates of unplanned teenage pregnancy and pregnancy termination. Understanding the factors associated with initiation of sexual intercourse is crucial in trying to design and deliver interventions for Thai youth, particularly females, who are likely to have sex at ages earlier than the norm.

Growing up without both parents and having sexually experienced friends were found to be associated with premarital sexual initiation. For females, urban residence and going to nightclubs were associated with a greater likelihood of having premarital sex; for males, poor family relationships, living apart from family or living with parents, and high levels of alcohol consumption were related to a greater likelihood of premarital sexual activity.

Thai females are initiating sexual intercourse at a younger age, a trend that coincides with premarital sex for females becoming more accepted among Thai youth.

Most of this shift in sexual behavior for Thai females appears attributable to the increased acceptability of premarital sex among young women. Although attitudes regarding premarital relations for women have become more permissive in the past decade, gender norms continue to dictate passive roles for females within intimate relationships, thereby limiting opportunities for sexual self-assertion. Hence, women are not expected to initiate discussions about sex, display sexual knowledge or initiate condom use. In general, expression of sexuality is more widely accepted in Thai culture for males than for females, and these norms tend to be maintained even by Thai women. Thai men and women also tend to view men as having much stronger sexual drives and needs than women.

Thai men have greater freedom in their sexual lives than women, as exemplified by the society's tolerance of sexual experimentation and patronage of female sex workers by men. The age at first sex for males has changed little over the past decade. However, dramatic changes have occurred in males' premarital partners. Sex worker patronage among young Thai men has declined, and sex workers are no longer men's most common first sexual partners. Steady partnerships with girlfriends have become common, although substantial numbers of young men also have casual partners. The declining patronage of sex workers occurred with the rapid emergence of the HIV epidemic among Thai sex workers and their partners, which was accompanied by media campaigns that linked HIV infection to sex workers. This may have contributed to the increased frequency of noncommercial sex partners and accelerated the trend toward greater acceptability of premarital sex for young women, which had begun before the start of the HIV epidemic.

It is suggested that social variables appeared to be associated with earlier sexual initiation, although some influences were markedly different for males and females. Coming from an agricultural background was associated with delayed sexual initiation for both genders. Living in a rural village in Thailand typically provides more opportunities for parents and others in the community to monitor and oversee courtship among adolescents and young adults, although this has diminished in recent decades. Rural villages may also present adolescents with fewer opportunities to engage in sexual relationships, although travel to vocational schools in urban area would widen these opportunities. The Thai population remains predominantly rural, yet mass media, transportation and migration to urban areas by villagers have reduced the influence of rural values, and increasing urbanization will likely continue this trend.

Other associations between family characteristics and sexual initiation were gender-specific. For males, those whose parents did not live together tended to initiate intercourse earlier than those in intact families; for females, not having a family member as a confidant and living on one's own were associated with earlier sexual initiation. On the other hand, dual-parent families, higher levels of parental monitoring and the quality of parent-adolescent communication were associated with the postponement of sexual initiation. I believe that having been raised in a two-parent household was associated with later sexual initiation among Thai adolescents. Furthermore, parental monitoring of courtship has focused primarily on daughters, which would appear to be consistent with the fact that earlier sexual initiation among females was associated with not having a family member as a confidant and with living away