This essay will explore sex tourism in Thailand. In Thailand there is an orphanage with 300 children under 5 years old. Almost 80% of children are HIV positive. Who are these children? Where do they come from? Where are their mothers? These children are the result of sex tourism in Thailand. Although sex tourism exists throughout Thailand, for this project I chose to look at Pattaya, Thailand. Pattaya is a seaside resort renowned for sex tourism. Sex tourism includes men, women and children and can lead to human trafficking and sexual slavery. Human rights organizations credit sex tourism with promoting the illicit sexual exploitation of non-consenting adults and children. I want to focus on the women within Pattaya's sex tourism. One of the issues is who, in the sex tourism relationship, has power in the global political economy. Chambers identifies that prostitution and modern tourism are closely integrated (2009:64). This union is supported by legitimate organizations and the substructure of mass tourism through the media, the creation of brothels and tours reinforce the sexual exploitation of women and their lack of power. . Governments support the existence of sex tourism even at the macro level. The tourist, of course, is an active supporter of sex tourism. Prostitution is nothing new in Thailand, but tourism has had a vital influence on trade. Pattaya was a fishing village until it became a favorite destination for the US military during the Vietnam War. Military forces have created a demand for sexual outlets for their soldiers. This led to a boom in prostitution that spread across the country as a profitable enterprise. The Americans had pushed Thailand to become known as… half the paper… the sex tourism trade was not. These women suffer from an inequality of opportunity and agency that results in a range of complex consequences with their involvement in the sex trade, from lifestyle dangers, to sexually transmitted diseases, to HIV/AIDS and pregnancy, to name a few. Works Cited Barthes, R. (1984 ; 1981). Camera Lucida: Reflections on photography [Chambre claire.English]. London: Flamingo.Chambers, E. (2010). Native Tours: The Anthropology of Travel and Tourism (2nd ed.). Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press.Macleod, D.V.L., Carrier, J.G., and Association of Social Anthropologists of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth. (2010). Tourism, power and culture: anthropological insights. Bristol, UK: Channel View.Ortner, Sherry B. “Is Female to Male as Nature is to Nurture?” Ed. Ellen Lewin. Feminist anthropology: a reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2006. 72-86. Print