Commercialized Intimacy
Throughout Trading Women several clips from advertisements and film show how Asian women and girls are hyper-sexualized in film and other media. In one instance, the viewer of the film sees General William Westmoreland explain trafficking in Thailand by saying, “Well the oriental doesn’t put the same price on life as the Westerner. Life is plentiful. Life is cheap in the Orient.” “Cheap” can mean “disposable” or it can mean “inexpensive.” Also consider this statement from Trading Women by Dr. Saisuree Chuticku from the National Committee on Combating Trafficking in Children and Women in Thailand: “The sight that I couldn’t stand is when they have young girls put on numbers and sit in a glass window and they say I want number thirty-two and to me that is almost like an animal and I couldn’t take it.” Putting girls in windows in a line treats them like objects to be considered, selected, purchased, and consumed.
