Tag:Prostitution

The Hidden Lives of Geylang

In Geylang’s narrow lorongs, a quietly pulsing human story unfolds. On a humid Tuesday morning, 58-year-old Serene, a part-time outreach worker, ambles through the...

When the Trafficker is Your Mother

Tokyo’s nightlife can be chaotic, colourful, and occasionally shocking — but few stories have rattled both Thailand and Japan this week as much as...

The City of Female Shadows

Walking into Sonagachi feels like stepping into a different world: narrow lanes stacked with multi-storey brothels, the hum of lives lived in the open...

Women, Sushi & Souvenirs

Japan’s picturesque alleys may glitter with promise, but behind the glitz lies a shadow stretching far beyond the “power of kawaii” tourist marketing. In...

Sex Tourists Never Retire

In quiet corners of Vientiane or the picturesque town of Luang Prabang, the front-garden jasmine and rice-field breezes mask a growing storm. Rents for...

Koreatown After Dark

Dusk settles over Hanoi, but behind the neon karaoke lights and the hum of motorcycles delivering young women to massage parlours, a chilling underside...

Love Hotels & Legal Loopholes

If you thought the only thrill-seeking habit of salarymen in Tokyo’s neon glow was karaoke until last train, think again: in Japan, the concept...

When Pop Music Meets the Brothel

There’s something deliciously ironic about Thailand’s love affair with songs about prostitutes. In a country where sex work is officially illegal yet widely tolerated...
Auntie Spices It Out
Commentary

Cartoon Censorship Strikes Again

November 20, 2025

Auntie needs to have a stern word, again, with the self-appointed moral police who seem to think they’re the new headmasters of Asia’s playgrounds. You’d think, with everything going on in the world—economic troubles, political scandals, floods, real social issues—they’d have better things to do than policing cartoons. But no. A mermaid gives a peck on the cheek and suddenly the guardians of “public morality” come marching in like we’re on the brink of societal collapse. Please. Spare me the drama. Let’s get something straight, sweethearts: children are not fragile...
Commentary

Equal Boots on the Ground

November 20, 2025

Let Auntie adjust her dupatta and sip her ginger tea before diving into this one — because yes, I am a proud, card-carrying pacifist. I would rather see armies turned into libraries, barracks transformed into community gardens, and all those defence budgets redirected to health, education, and childcare. But reality has a funny way of marching on, boots thumping, uniforms pressed, and flags flying. And if the world insists on keeping its militaries, then by all that is sacred and sensible, women must have every right to step into those...
Commentary

Porn, Power, and the Badge

November 20, 2025

Oh, New Zealand. Sweet, quiet, well-behaved New Zealand — land of hobbits, good manners, and public agencies that supposedly sparkle with integrity. And yet here we are. Your almost-Commissioner of Police, Jevon “I-Swear-I’m-Innocent” McSkimming, has been caught with more inappropriate material than a bored teenager with unlimited Wi-Fi. Except this was not a bored teenager. This was the man sitting one step below the most powerful policing role in the country. Using work devices. During office hours. Darling, even Southeast Asian politicians caught in karaoke bars are shaking their heads....
Commentary

The Sex–Abstinence Paradox

November 20, 2025

Darlings, gather around. Auntie needs to sip her peppermint tea before she screams. Because once again, the guardians of 1950s morality—the same ones who still believe Elvis’ hips were the beginning of humanity’s downfall—are back to save us from that terrifying, scandalous concept called reality. Yes, the abstinence crusaders, pearl-clutchers, and self-appointed guardians of public virtue are marching proudly into the 2025 debate on sex education like they’re storming Normandy, armed with nothing but outdated pamphlets and fear of their own bodies. Honestly, I almost admire the confidence. Imagine waking...
Commentary

‘I’m Quitting Motherhood’

November 19, 2025

Sisters, allow Auntie to tell you something she has learned after decades of wandering through Asia’s kitchens, cramped apartments, community halls, PTA meetings, feminist circles, and yes — the occasional smoky karaoke bar where exhausted mothers sip a secret highball behind the neon. When have women in this region ever been truly free to choose their roles? When have mothers been allowed to breathe, to shape motherhood the way they want, rather than the way society scripts it? In Japan especially — and Auntie speaks as someone who has listened...
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