24 nov 2003

The fashion show was meant to be spectacular, and the dress designed to be daring. That one of Methinee Luk-Ket’s breasts slipped out was, well, simple physics. The photographers did their job: they snapped it. The sensationalist press did its job: it sensationalised it. Now the Ministry of Culture wants to send police to fashion shows and tighten up legislation to prevent repetition of such “un-Thai” behaviour.

Drafting the legislation, and defining what exactly is “un-Thai” here is going to be difficult. The problem seems to be the nipple. After all, most of the rest of Luk-Ket’s body is already in the public domain. It appears regularly in the most public places in the kingdom - especially Thai Rath’s front page (visited by half the population) and countless magazine covers. We have seen the top of her breasts, the sides, and, only a few days ago, a cheeky glimpse of the bottom part. On a recent magazine cover, only the nipples were obscured by nothing much more than typography. But none of these appearances were deemed threats to the national culture.

Perhaps the problem is that in the fashion-show the breast was more dynamic. At work, as it were. But again, other examples have not excited such concern. Recently another starlet appeared on Thai Rath’s front page in the process of, ummmm, testing herself for breast cancer. No outcry. Last week on Channel 7’s Saket Khao, an old village lady was filmed breast-feeding her pet cat. The camera angles were “Thai” so the nipples were always discreetly disguised behind cat fur, but we knew they were there, and certainly at work. But again, no outcry.

But if the problem really is the nipple, what about the case of katoey? As any beach-goer knows, they like to show off their breasts because these represent a significant investment. Technically they are still male, and hence the nipple is a male nipple and should not be a problem. But does all the silicone or saline behind the nipple in fact change its legal status? Is the problem not in fact the nipple but the breast? Drafting this law is going to be tough. Over to the Council of State….

Calling this breast’s public appearance “un-Thai” suggests it contravenes Thai traditions. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Europeans who arrived in the early nineteenth century found Siamese women left their breasts uncovered as a matter of course. Upper class women might wear a loose upper cloth but “it forms an imperfect covering for the bosoms which are much more frequently wholly exposed and unprotected”. Peasant women often donned a singlet while working for practical reasons, but took it off when the work was over.

The Europeans were horrified by all this exposed flesh, both male and female. One European mistook King Mongkut’s brother for a “savage” because of his brief clothing, and was gobsmacked he was such a learned and sophisticated man. Under this prudish European gaze, both Siamese men and women began to wear more clothes. By the late nineteenth century, women in Bangkok usually covered their breasts. In the villages the change came much slower. Even today in more remote parts, older women still leave their upper body uncovered as a matter of course.

So what is being labelled “un-Thai” here has nothing to do with history and tradition, but is totally modern, rather urban, and very western-influenced. This kind of “culture” is being re-created all the time. The historical dramas which have become so popular in cinema and TV play a part. Take the current TV series, Sai Lohit, set in the final days of the Ayutthaya period. The costuming is splendid, and its exoticness lays a quiet claim to authenticity. The bare torsos or the males, resplendent with tattoos, might be close to historical accuracy. But to render the females authentic would mean cropping their hair short, blackening their teeth, and leaving their breasts exposed. Yet this would be, ummmm, “un-Thai”. Also the audiences would not like it and the starlets would revolt. So instead they have luxuriously long hair done up into funny styles in order to appear different from today (and hence “authentic”), while their teeth gleam, and no more flesh is exposed than a single shoulder.

The point is not whether these dramas ought to be authentic. The point is that “culture” is being created and re-created all the time. The Ministry of Culture is not engaged in preserving something. Rather it is creating it, reflecting a modern, urban, middle class, prudish view of the world.

And maybe a bit more than that. Most societies try to discipline women by imposing codes of behaviour. In the past, it was easy to distinguish between good girls, who were conservative and demure, and bad girls who wore too little and did wrong things. But Luk-Ket’s publication of her own body is a key part of a wider movement which is wrecking these old codes. She takes most of her clothes off in public again and again, but you cannot mistake her for a bad girl. Rather, she is a symbol of female independence.

After the nipple crisis, she was interviewed on TV. Her story was strikingly familiar. She needs to work to buy her mother a house, and to put her sister through education. She had a chance to have a sugar daddy patron, but she prefers to work, be independent, and have a more egalitarian love-life. Above all, she comes across as someone in command of herself.

Is it a coincidence that this nipple crisis blew up just when the Ministry of Culture changed from female to male hands? If Thai women are allowed to use their own surnames, flash their nipples, and whoever knows whatever next, then it probably won’t do much damage to “Thai culture” (whatever that is), but it will chip away further at the old belief that women are the property of men.