The first issue in December 2007 sold about 1,000 copies. In this Maphoto, lesbian editor-in-chief Khemanut Ronarut of the glossy, 200-page Tom Act, a lesbian fashion and lifestyles magazine, shows the magazines at her office in Bangkok. She credits international fashion trends that make it cool to look androgynous with easing public acceptance of gay women in Thailand. When it comes to homosexuality, Thailand is ambivalent but tolerant: Bangkok is known as gay-friendly but politicians and high-profile public figures stick to an unstated "don't ask, don't tell" policy of keeping their homosexuality hidden.Ĭoncerns about offending Thai society prompted Saratsawadee to delicately depict the sole love scene between her leading ladies, a pair of college roommates, with a brief, fully clothed kiss.Īnother emblem of changing times is the glossy, 200-page Tom Act, a lesbian fashion and lifestyles magazine that creates "a space for us to express ourselves," says editor-in-chief Khemanut Ronarut. Movies are censored for morality, women are often too modest to wear bathing suits on the beach, abortion is illegal and the government regularly censors websites deemed immoral. Thailand's freewheeling, anything-goes reputation has served its tourism industry well, but Thai society is far more conservative than its tourist sex shows and transgender beauty pageants suggest. Pop charts include hit singles from Thailand's first openly gay female singer, a waifish, androgynously coifed 22-year-old known as Zee who is typically described as "handsome." A popular new clothing store in Bangkok touts itself as the first for "Tomboys," the Thai term for the more conspicuous members of the lesbian community who act and dress like men. Thai newsstands now carry "Tom Act," the country's first lesbian lifestyles magazine. Women in this Southeast Asian country are expected to be gentle, polite, even demure, and gay women in Thailand traditionally have been more discreet than gay men, but that is visibly changing. "Now people are daring to express themselves."
#Thailand gay men fashion online shopping movie#
"It would have been risky to make this movie five years ago," Saratsawadee said about her directorial debut. They are quietly pushing boundaries to find space for their lifestyle, harnessing pop culture and introducing a Thai variation of Lesbian Chic.
These emboldened lesbians are not using Western-style activism. The film's recent success in outwardly tolerant but traditional-minded Thailand is part of a growing acceptance of lesbians under the influence of the Internet and fashion trends.