Sexual networking in provincial Thailand
Havanon, N.; Bennett, A.; Knodel, J.
Studies in Family Planning 24(1): 1-17
1993
ISSN/ISBN: 0039-3665 PMID: 8475520 DOI: 10.2307/2939210Document Number: 326776
In Thailand a major HIV epidemic is spreading primarily through heterosexual contact and prostitutes. In the central region, 3 districts were chosen for interviews with 181 urban men (single and married blue-collar workers, single and married white-collar workers, and single college-level students) who had had sexual relations with at least 2 different women during the prior year. For further information, 50 women were interviewed: 24 service and entertainment workers, 18 students and unemployed teenagers, 6 wives of STD clients, and 2 village women who sometimes engaged in commercial sex. Only 1 out of the 181 male respondents had never patronized a commercial sex worker. 82% of the respondents indicated that they had drunk at their most recent episode and 74% said they had been drunk. 47% of the single men (excluding students) had noncommercial sexual relationships with more than 1 woman. Only 38% of the married men had no extramarital sex in the past year. Among married men, 38% engaged only in commercial extramarital sex, 22% had sex only with their wives and noncommercial partners, the remainder had sex with both commercial and noncommercial partners and also with their wives. 35% of the men reporting more than 20 commercial sex episodes in the past year usually used condoms. 58% of the men who had fewer than 5 episodes in the past year usually used condoms; 60% of the men who had 5-9 episodes did; and 65% of the men who had 10-19 episodes used them. 83% of the respondents mentioned fear of disease, while 35% cited HIV/AIDS as the reason for condom use in the last commercial sex event. More than 60% of the men showed very high- risk or high-risk behavior. The dominant pattern (64%) was a combination of commercial and noncommercial sex. The networking data revealed pathways for HIV/STD transmission and for intervention programs: 1) single men who have both commercial and noncommercial sex; 2) married men who have commercial, noncommercial, and marital sex; 3) married men who have noncommercial and marital sex.