The no-pants gay internet cafe

Web cameras can be a curse.

My friend farang C, who does not have internet at home, drinks occasionally with a foreigner friend who is trying to find the mate of his dreams in internet chat rooms.

While his friend chats on the internet at home, he has his webcam going, so the person who is chatting with can see him.

'I have to duck whenever I head to his fridge for a beer, as my friend does not want people in the chatroom to know there's anyone else in the room with him,' farang C complains.

'When I walk past he hisses at me to bob my head, in case it appears in his webcam.'

One internet chatroom in Bangkok has a solution. It has opened its doors to gays who want to use webcam...and they don't have to leave their seat.

The internet cafe is close to the entrance to Ramkamhaeng University. It caters to the gay set. It allows them to display their goods when chatting on Camfrog, a Thai chat programme where users can enter a chatroom and open multiple webcam windows at once.

They don't have to talk. They can just look at each other's equipment, if chatters are willing to show. In fact, if everyone is prepared to show his goods, then why bother with the talk? You can just look at the talent on display.

The existence of this internet shop was unveiled yesterday by cultural watchdogs including an outfit called Ch--ild Watch, which is worried about the popularity among teens of internet games (not to mention cellphones, alcohol, family disunity, and other signs of social order in decay).

Bangkok, it says, has 5000 registered internet shops. Yet another 15,000 shops are unregistered, and can theoretically escape detection by authorities.

Young people under a certain age are not allowed in internet shops during the day, or after early evening. The government is worried the social fabric will come undone if the nation's youth spends too much time playing games.

I don't blame them, given the troubling stories of some of the goings-on at internet shops.

Still, this arrangement at Ramkamhaeng sounds fairly orderly - row after row of gay male tertiary students undressing for the webcam, and - er - paying attention to their private bits.

Customers are obviously not shy, though hopefully the shop posts a notice at the door warning newcomers that these kinds of things go on (มีการเปิดแคมฟร็อกปล่อยของหน้าจอ).

The social campaigners wonder why nothing is being done. 'It's individualism taken to extreme,' they complain.

Postscript: No, I don't have the exact address of that internet cafe.