The idea that Bangkok is a center of sex tourism is something that is now widely known.

If I remember correctly, the first time I learned anything about this was through (the late) Spalding Gray’s 1987 film, “Swimming to Cambodia,” in which he talks about, among many other things, going to a sex show in Bangkok (probably on Patpong Road) and seeing a woman shoot ping pong balls out of her vagina.

More recently I found a soft-porn movie from 1976, “Emanuelle in Bangkok,” that included a scene of a visit to a similar sex show.

So the idea that Bangkok is a place where one can go to see people “cross certain boundaries,” or where one can oneself “cross certain boundaries,” is something that has existed since at least the 1970s. And my guess would be that this “awareness” is directly linked to the Vietnam War years and the fact that Bangkok was a place for American soldiers to go for “rest and relaxation.”

Honolulu, Hawaii was also one of the places that American soldiers could go to for “rest and relaxation” at that time (and it is one of the places were new recruits went first before heading off to Vietnam), and in looking at some newspapers from Hawaii from the early 1970s, I was struck at how “sex oriented” the entertainment in Honolulu at that time was.

For instance, as in Bangkok, there were live sex shows.

You had Troy and Danielle as “Eric and Eve” doing their “act of love” 4 times a night!!

Ira and Zelma did it 4 times a night too!!

And then you had “the 3rd sex ‘them’” – ½ man ½ woman – for “the very broadminded.”

And then there was “Marilyn and her dog”. . . Really??? Is this sh#t for real??!!!

Then there were movies. Of course, “deep throat [was] it.”

As it was “the very best porn film ever made.”

But certainly “Fornicon: Pattern of Evil,” must have had some merit to it.

And “Mona the Virgin Nymph” must have been educational.

Then there was Japanese porn, like “Felonious Sensuality.”

“Fire of Lust.”

“Co-Ed Pirhanas”. . .

And, of course, “Backside of 17.”

So there was a lot to watch. But there was no need to keep one’s hands entirely to oneself in Honolulu in the early 1970s, because if you were lonely, you could find a “date.”

And if you were stressed out, there were ways to “relax.”

And best of all, if you had to fly from Honolulu to Bangkok, or from Bangkok to Honolulu, there was no need to repress your horniness for even a minute. . .

Because TWA offered two films – “one for general audiences, one for mature.”

And when the film ended, there were hostesses in new uniforms, and that “helped.”