By Amanda Erickson
The Atlantic Cities
Dec 19, 2011
Once, Cambodia's gay culture took place largely out of the public eye. As Global Post writes:
Gay life throughout Cambodia played out under a tree after nightfall. Or perhaps in the darkest corner of a public pool’s changing room. In much of the country, it still does. "Maybe it’s by the river, maybe it’s in the park," said Sopheara You, who is 38, Cambodian and openly gay. "Everyone knows the secret places."
Not so in Siem Reap, the country's fastest-growing city, where visitors comes to see the famous 12th-century temple complex known as Angkor Wat. As the story reports:
Once a dingy outpost, the town has built cachet as an emerging travel hot spot for gay men. And the influx of a Western-style gay scene, replete with cocktail bars and all-male bathhouses, is beginning to nudge the local gay scene out of the shadows of a society where Buddhist open-mindedness is tempered by societal concerns about marriage and reproduction.
Here's a quick timeline of how that scene has evolved over the last ten years:
2001: According to Global Post, "there were 1.1 million visitors to Cambodia and no gay bars."
2004: The country's first gay bar, Linga Bar, opened in Siem Reap. That same year, Cambodia's king released a message proclaiming, "I’m not gay, but I respect the rights of gays and lesbians." His son (now Cambodia's reigning monarch) is "a style-conscious bachelor and former ballet instructor in Paris. His mother has explained diplomatically that her son 'loves women as his sisters' and is not expected to marry," according to Global Post.
2007:The country's prime minister abandoned his adopted teenage daughter because she paired up with another women. The reason? He said he worried the girls would bomb his home.
2010: More than twenty gay-themed hotels, bars and saunas fill the city.
However, no one expects Siem Reap to turn into Bangkok. As Dean Williams, a former radio journalist, current owner of a Siem Reap cocktail bar owner told Global Post:
Siem Reap’s not about jamming yourself into pink hot pants and dancing all night, under a mirror ball, out of your mind on ecstasy ... tourists here get up at 5 a.m. to see sunrises at the temples. So I don’t think it will ever turn into Pattaya.
Amanda Erickson is associate editor at The Atlantic Cities.
3 comments:
thanks, it turns out there are many gay life in the country cambodia
Homosexuality exist in every part of the world throught out human history and society. It is not a new discovery. Obviously, humanity find this same sex love in a sexual way very taboo, very un-natural. It is consider to be as bad as incest, petiphile, rape, and beastiality. That is why it has been surpress. It is against most cultures as well as in religions. This idea of excepting homosexuality grew out from the west such as from Europe, America, and Canada. This homosexuality is spreading around the world like wildfire. Now, it is consider as part of Human Rights issue. Hillary Clinton issue a statement saying that if America is give any support to certain country, human rights such as gay rights will have attachment to it. It is part of America's freedom and democracy. It is part of a basic human rights. I say America is forcing its culture as it see fits upon the world. This is one of the reason why the world is becoming hateful of America and its western allies. It is being view as a new cultural colonization of the world.
AIDS will come back to Cambodia if we allow this type of behavior publicly. #1 death will be AIDS and not automobile accidents, if we embrace and endorse homosexuality.
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