Sex, Southeast Asia & Gaga - Ooh la la

         I want your ugly, I want your disease

I want your everything as long as it's free

I want your love

Love, love, love

I want your love

My maid Sanom is a no-nonsense, 60-year-old miracle worker who has been with me for five years.
She has transformed my balcony garden from a pile of putrefied shrubs into the envy of my rustic apartment block – which, naturally, I have taken the credit for. She has kept my place gleaming, my clothes washed and pressed and generally prevented my home and life from degenerating into deranged shambles.

She’s also a mood and mind reader. During our recent kitchen cupboard renovation catastrophe, she took it upon herself to dissolve a Valium into my morning smoothie, aware that I was in serious danger of unraveling. As Helen Mirren remarked in ‘Gosford Park’ a good servant “knows how to anticipate.”

While Sanom is no Dame Helen, she has been a huge offline influence in my twisted Bangkok existence. If there were a Klout scoring system for maids she’d be in the top bracket. I couldn’t cope without her.

Sanom doesn’t speak a word of English, or so she claims, so we converse in Thai. But in the past few years, she’s picked up a few phrases.

No, not the essentials like “Should I squeeze a dash of fresh lime into your gin and tonic?” or “Shall I whip up 16 exotic Thai dishes for your dinner party tonight after I’ve dusted, mopped, washed, ironed, pruned, done your shopping, paid your bills, re-tiled the patio, mended your pants and upholstered the sofa? ”

Her phrases are not really phrases, they are sort of song lyrics, which she hums, whistles or croons despite not being blessed with any singing ability to speak of.

Among them:

“Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, caught in bad romance,” and “Don’t call my name, don’t call my name, Alejandra.” I’m tidying the words up a bit because her pronunciation is, ahem, unique. 
 And I have to confess it’s all my fault. I suspect she finally decided to bite the bullet and go with my grating gay boy ways, which include dance songs blaring morning, noon and night.

So I can state with certainty that Sanom, like myself, is now a die-hard Lady Gaga fan. We even have a little dance together occasionally during her 2-minute coffee break.

She is also partial to a few Kylie tunes and some early Pet Shop Boys hits, although she doesn’t much care for their recent releases. On the day of Gaga’s sellout Bangkok concert I arrived home to find my Lady Gaga t-shirt freshly laundered and hanging on the back of the chair for me. She knew the show was on that night. Everyone in Bangkok did.

Sanom is one of about 80,000 million Gaga fans in this part of the world. Sure, the Lady is an international superstar, but in many Southeast Asian countries her records and videos were banned. YouTube, iTunes and other social sites played an enormous role in her stratospheric ascent to stardom.

When she toured here a few months ago – Gaga, not Sanom – she managed to throw the entire region into uproar.

She was banned in Muslim Indonesia – again Gaga, not Sanom who has a small but growing fan base in Jakarta – allegedly because of a terrorist threat – and was warned to be on her ‘best behavior’ in Malaysia. As we all know, pop superstars have a history of impeccable behavior dating back decades.

In the Philippines, a group of plain-looking Christians (is that a tautology?) waved placards, and warned that Gaga would reduce the nation to a state of moral decrepitude should her concert go ahead.

When everyone ignored them, they toned down their demand that her performance be scrapped, but did stipulate she could not include the song “Judas” in her line up. She ignored them too.

But it was in tolerant Thailand where the fallout was farcical, in a fabulous kind of way.

An innocuous Gaga Tweet about “buying a fake Rolex” in Bangkok made international headlines and infuriated the government, which catapulted ‘overreaction’ to new levels by lodging an official complaint with the State Department in Washington.

“How dare she insinuate Thailand is a hub for piracy, counterfeit goods and cheap knock-off brands,” ministers trumpeted, conveniently ignoring the fact that Thailand is a hub for piracy, counterfeit goods and cheap knock-off brands.

Just when we thought things couldn’t get any sillier, they, ahem did.

In Thailand the terms “Culture Ministry” and “Ridiculous Buffoons” mean the same thing. Oh my god, I’m walking on thin ice here as Yoko Ono “sang” – I wonder if she had the same vocal coach as Sanom?

Anyone who has worked in media here for any period of time has, at one point, incurred the wrath of the prehistoric Ministry of Culture, who insist we only write or produce ‘nice’ stories about the Kingdom.

Okay maybe they are not buffoons, my apologies, but they aren’t the brightest crayons in the box.

Three weeks after Gaga had said Tata to Thailand, it was “brought to their attention” that she had appeared on stage in a black leather bikini, riding a motorcycle, draped in the Thai flag.

This, alleged the Culture Ministry in its grammatically flawed press release, had “seriously offended the sensibilities of the peoples of Thailand.” They had no choices (sic) but to report Ms. Gaga to the police, which they did. However, they did end on a conciliatory, if idiotic, note that they were not demanding she be arrested and sent to jail!

And I saw no evidence of the “sensibilities of the peoples of Thailand’ being offended at her arena concert, the biggest show ever staged in Bangkok.

I saw young, hip, cool Thais dressed in outrageous skimpy outfits screaming salacious Gaga lyrics, gyrating, dry humping and generally going wild.

In conservative Southeast Asia, young people are not as demonstrative as in the West. In some countries overt displays of affection in public are frowned upon, sex is rarely talked about and youth are expected to conform, behave and be quiet.

That’s beginning to change. There is, perhaps, a minor sexual revolution taking place. It’s time to get down and dirty, shake off the societal shackles, put on your party pants and run amok. At least it’s time for straight folk to do that, gay boys have been doing it for years, early adopters that we are.

I’m not suggesting Gaga is entirely responsible for this, but she certainly has played a big role. She typifies the new confident, sexy, independent generation, and young, along with some not so young, straight and gay people adore her. They can also now afford to go and see concerts like hers.

They didn’t discover Gaga on TV. Her fans found her online. And when they did, there was no turning back. The YouTube hits from Southeast Asia alone number in the hundreds of millions.

Four years ago, nobody in this part of the world had heard of her. Now, the mere mention of Gaga sends governments into apoplexy, leaves parents fearful that their children have abandoned ‘traditional values’ for a life of dance music-induced debauchery, and sparked a minor bonanza for purveyors of fake goods, who are doing a roaring trade in counterfeit Gaga t-shirts, dolls, wigs and black studded leather dominatrix get ups.

Sanom is even thinking of setting up a Gaga stall on my street. She has already logged on to YouTube for ideas, and is learning how to Tweet.

Hmm, do I really want my maid building up an online presence? If it doesn’t interfere with her home duties, why the fuck not!