Medical Sex Manual and Thai History of Sexuality: Remarks from an Inquiry into Sexual Education Publications in the 1960s-70s

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to understand the social context that gave rise to the emergence and widespreading of Thai language sex manuals in the 1960s-70s. The paper rests on the premise that the history of sexuality is the history of medical knowledge as much as the history of communication or the history of printing. In this regard, the paper considers two related approaches of understanding a history of Thai sexuality, which are, a history of medical knowledge on sexuality from the rise of modernity in Europe to its large-scale expansion in Thailand in the 1960s-70s, and a history of sexual education publications. In short, I argue that to understand a Thai history of sexuality is to understand the widespreading of modern sexual knowledge across the modern world.