On any central street in Bangkok you can buy a pre-rolled joint the size of a straw from McDonald’s. You don’t even need to go inside a store because the vendors set up their stalls on the sidewalks. Discretion is not his strong point. They don’t need it either. Thailand is the first country in Asia to decriminalize cannabis for a reason. A joint is legally purchased. But if what you are looking for is a vibrator, like Satisfyer, to play alone or in company, you should know that sex toys are illegal, and that the seller of this type of pleasure device can receive up to three years in jail.
That is the penalty stipulated in article 287 of the Penal Code. But in the Buddhist kingdom they are on an electoral campaign and there are those who have thought that, just like regularizing cannabis at the end of last year, it had broad popular support, especially due to all the tourism that being the new Amsterdam of Southeast Asia attracts, in addition to the taxes that are collected, because many votes can fall to whoever promises to legalize sex toys.
That is the proposal of the Democratic Party, the oldest formation in the country, conservative and very monarchical, which has had up to four prime ministers since 1946. Representing this party for the general elections on May 14 is the current Deputy Prime Minister, Jurin Laksanawisit, who seeks to capture the electorate, especially the youngest, by including this peculiar promise in his electoral program.
“Sex toys are useful because they could lead to a decrease in prostitution, as well as divorce due to mismatch of sexual libido and sex-related offences,” a party spokeswoman said this week. “The government is also missing the opportunity to collect taxes on the legal importation of erotic stimulators,” she said.
The truth is that in markets like the one in Patpong, one of Bangkok’s red light districts, it is easy to find sex toys, many of them made in Japan. But another thing that the Democratic Party defends with the legalization of these products is that this way they can pass a quality control, and not like now, when anything reaches the hands of the customer without passing a filter.
As expected, headlines in the local media quickly highlighted the proposal. And some Thai commentators opined that it was a way of attracting attention by a party that already failed in the previous elections in 2019 and that now continues to plummet in the polls, with only a 10% intention to vote. vote.
There is no clear favorite to become Thailand’s new prime minister. The current leader, Prayut Chan-o-cha, after eight years in office, is running again under the banner of a new party called the United Thai Nation.
Prayut is a 69-year-old retired general who seized power after leading the coup to overthrow the democratically elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra. Using the formula of a military junta, he ruled the country for the next five years before general elections were held in 2019 under a new constitution drafted by a committee appointed by his military.
His main rival at the polls will be Paetongtarn Shinawatra (36 years old), the candidate of the largest party, Pheu Thai, which already won the majority of seats in the previous elections, but the general’s formation managed to form a government with other allied parties. Paetongtarn, for now, is the favorite in the polls.
If she managed to come to power, she would be the third Shinawatra to lead Thailand. Her father, Thaksin, fell in a military coup in 2006. Her aunt, Yingluck, was overthrown in a coup led by the current prime minister, then head of the army.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project