Why this man will never catcall another woman after living in Thailand

WHEN Dylan took off for a solo trip around Thailand, he never expected to be stalked and sexually harassed by men. He says he now knows how women feel.

Dylan (to the left of frame) says he faces constant sexual harassment in Thailand and now has a better appreciation of how women feel.

HAVING travelled around Thailand for the past few years, 28-year-old Australian Dylan* has plenty of amusing stories from his travels; many of which include him being followed and propositioned by gay men.

Surprisingly, he says it’s something that has taught him a lot about the experiences of women. “In Australia, it’s kind of unusual for a guy to have these experiences, but it’s pretty normal in Australian culture for guys to do that [to women],” he said. “I guess some girls get used to it, but I realised [after my time living in Thailand] it would be hard to be a girl and go through this every day,” he says, as we chat over Skype one evening. “In Bangkok it would happen to me a few times a week. I’d smile at people on the street — just being friendly — but when you do that in Bangkok, gay guys are like ���this guy is down for sex’. “I think in Australia, maybe gay guys would be a bit more afraid that they’d get hassled if they cracked onto a straight guy, but in Thailand I don’t think that happens so much.” Like many women around the world, Dylan has experienced street harassment many times over the years while living in South-East Asia; whether walking home in the evening, riding his motorbike around town or simply having fun with friends at a festival. “I remember one night, me and a friend were riding our motorbikes home and these ladyboys stepped out onto the road in front of us and threw powder in our face — it’s something they do at Songkran — and then they groped us ... on the balls!” he says with a bewildered chuckle. Among some of his most memorable moments — and there are many — he lists the time a man followed him into a toilet block, suggesting that Dylan come inside his cubicle. “He was wearing rainbow pants — I don’t know why I remember that detail,” he laughs, trying to inject some humour into what was, at the time, a very uncomfortable situation. Luckily however, Dylan escaped without having to use violence; instead getting rid of the man in a rather ... amusing way. “I wasn’t feeling very well, and as I rushed to the toilet I thought, ‘this diarrhoea is probably a good thing. I guess I’m not so attractive to this guy when I’ve got ferocious diarrhoea’,” he laughs. “He gave up and left.” Then there was the time Dylan had to run into a random hotel and befriend a security guard, in an attempt to lose a man who had been following and harassing him. “He looked me up and down and made this noise,” he said, making a clicking sound with his tongue. He shudders somewhat, shaking his head at the memory of the man. “I went into this hotel and said to the security guards, ‘do you mind if I just sit here for a while?’” Being a friendly guy, Dylan found it somewhat funny the first few times it happened; but gradually, the frequent and brazen harassment — including graphic sexual requests from men — began to grate on him. “There was a night where I was confronted by a group of gay guys — around five or six — and as I tried to walk past, they reached out to grab me and called out ‘hello handsome!’ I remember [feeling uncomfortable and] thinking, ‘I have to walk past them. Do I walk around?’ “The first few times it makes a funny story, but then you just get sick of it. It makes you feel like you’re just getting watched all the time; like you’re a piece of meat,” he says seriously. And while he normally feels reasonably safe, Dylan does admit that the harassment can leave you feeling uneasy. “I mean, he’s a guy, I’m a guy ... whenever you confront someone in a dark street, you never know what the outcome will be” he says. It was at this point that Dylan began to ponder on how women in his home country, and around the world, must feel on a daily basis. “After what I’d experienced, this thought kept coming to me: this is what girls would feel like. This is what guys like me, Australian guys, do [to women]. “A lot of Australian guys, when they’re in a group, it’s like this pack mentality; ‘Hey there’s some pretty girls, let’s call out to them, let’s beep or whistle at them, let’s yell out: Hey sexy where are you going?’ “How I feel, is how women feel too. I hate that.” These days Dylan tends to avoid a lot of harassment, although it’s required him to modify his behaviour, and even his clothing. Like many women, he also finds himself having to pretend to have a partner in order to avoid the advances of men. “One time I just lied [about having a girlfriend] and then he walked off. I thought, the poor bloke is probably just really lonely, he probably didn’t mean any harm; but because it had happened a few times I was getting sick of it. “I’ve had to modify things ... for example, I like wearing singlets on a hot day, but that’s seen as a very gay thing in Thailand — especially in Bangkok — and I’ve had guys ask, ‘is Dylan gay?’” So, I don’t wear singlets out anymore. “I used to smile at people, and a lot of them in Bangkok would just look away; I’d think ‘why is the city so unfriendly?’ But now I realise, it’s just what you’ve got to do. “If a guy walks toward me and appears to be looking at me, I either just look at him like ‘don’t look at me,’ or I walk away,” he explains. “Or sometimes I put on crazy eyes and they just do a U-turn and leave.” “So is that your advice to Australian women?” I ask, laughing. “It’s a good defence mechanism, they don’t quite expect it,” he quips back, trying to laugh at the experience before returning to a more serious tone. “Back in Australia you hear guys say things like, ‘girls are so unfriendly!’ And I think, ‘well yeah, they’re probably unfriendly because they’ve had so many experiences [like mine]. Nodding my head, I echo Dylan’s thoughts. “I think that’s how a lot of women feel,” I say. “That feeling that if you’re friendly and you smile, guys might take it the wrong way, but if you don’t smile, they think you’re rude.” “Yeah totally,” Dylan says. “I now understand why, in Australia, if I look at a girl and smile they often just look away. I used to think, ‘that girl is so bitchy, just give me a smile, it’s not that hard,’” he admits. “But now I realise, she’s probably had 10 guys smile at her before me, and ask for her number or tell her she’s sexy; so when I smile she thinks, ‘Oh here we go again’. “I’m sort of grateful for the experiences I’ve had, because I can really sympathise with girls now.” Jas Rawlinson is a Brisbane writer who is passionate about social justice. You can read her blog, Thoughts from Jas or follow her on Facebook. * Dylan asked for his surname to not be published