The Bangkok Podcast – Confronting Thailand’s Problem with Violence Against Women

I recently appeared on The Bangkok Podcast as a guest for their episode on sexual violence in Thailand.

The host, Greg, reached out to me for an interview and asked me to recommend a Thai woman appear alongside me, and I immediately thought of my friend Nana Wongsawang. As the founder of ThaiConsent and a survivor of sexual assault, she is the best possible person to talk about this topic. We ended up talking for so long that they had to turn the interview into a two-part episode.

Topics we discussed include:

Nana’s work with ThaiConsent.
Some of the personal experiences Nana and I have had with sexual violence
What to do if someone you know tells you that they’ve been sexually assaulted
What to do if someone you know is a perpetrator of sexual assault
Why people in abusive relationships find it so difficult to leave
How to support someone you know who is in an abusive relationship
Thai society’s attitude towards domestic violence, rape and sexual assault
Sex education in Thai schools.
Gender roles in Thai society
The misconception of Thailand as a haven for the LGBTQ+ community

Each episode of The Bangkok Podcast ends with a ‘Love, Loathe or Live With’ feature, in which the hosts take one aspect of living in Thailand and discuss which category they’d put it under. At the end of part 1, the subject of Love, Loathe or Live With was traditional Muay Thai music.

“Emma Thomas (Under the Ropes) and Nana Wipaphan Wongsawan (Thai Consent) are two women who are fighting to change this. In part 2 of a 2-part interview Greg sits down with both of them to discuss why Thai culture is like this and the issues and frustrations that arise from trying to help it evolve. In the course of the conversation we hear stories about how dismissive the police can be when a victim comes forward, the role Thai languages plays in preventing the problem from being understood, how bro culture often just lets it slide, and insights into why sexual assaults are sometimes treated as a minor annoyance rather than a serious attack.”