Polyamory, pansexual, situationship—we have English words to describe a lot of different forms of love. What was one form of love that you struggled to translate?
I looked both ways before crossing the street to the renowned centralwOrld super mall, the ninth largest shopping complex in the world. Avoiding hordes of motorcyclists and slammed by the honking orchestra of city traffic, I glanced back and forth between the road and Google Maps on my phone, making sure I was headed the right way. Yes, that glittering, mammoth complex up ahead had to be the right place, but—wait, why was there a statue of the Hindu God Ganesh standing in front?
I had come to Bangkok because of Thailand’s infamous reputation around the world for infidelity and sex tourism. I wanted to better understand how an entire society could arrive at such a track record, what systems were at play, and how they affected the day-to-day relationships of normal citizens. Somehow, some way, my probing led me to a sit-down meal with the country’s former Head of Playboy.
King—yes, that’s his name—had left Playboy a few years back to found his own venture, Mr. Fox. To this day, I still don’t fully understand what it is that Mr. Fox does as a corporate enterprise, but it markets itself as an entertainment agency, often hosting parties, concerts, and events with skinny, sexily-clad women at the forefront of its promotional marketing. The company was hosting yet another massive event at centralwOrld mall that day, and I learned in real time that I was catching King in the one-hour squeeze of his lunch break.
I stepped into our agreed-upon restaurant, ushered in by his young, pretty assistant, Victoria, and various colleagues who were already seated at the table, suited up in business attire. I felt embarrassingly underdressed. I didn’t realize that our chat was going to be a group discussion, and my T-shirt and shorts left me feeling especially vulnerable.
Without much more time to dwell on my poor professional foresight, King walked in—a slightly overweight middle-aged man with a receding hairline. With bags under his eyes, he looked slightly haggard, presumably from the unrelenting demands of putting on the event that day. We exchanged brief, cordial introductions before he got straight to the point.
“What do you want to know?” he asked, his English accent thick but clear.
I explained my situation—how I had been given the opportunity of a lifetime to travel around the world for a year to study a specific subject, how I had chosen love and marriage, how I wanted to learn and prepare myself for my own long-term relationship. His eyes lit up then, the corners of his mouth curling upwards, staring at me, amused and curious.
“I will tell you my philosophy,” he said. “But my English is not so good, so I hope you understand me.”
“Don’t worry, King,” Victoria added. “I can always translate if need be.”
“I think that the purpose of life is to be happy, and at the most animal level, to have babies,” King began. “My parents always wanted me to get married, but from very young, I knew that it was something I did not want to do. Because why would I do something that I did not want to do? So I change my mind about romantic love when I was around 20. I knew I wanted to have beautiful girls around me, and I started to look for ways to make it real all the time.”
“How many partners do you have at the same time, on average?” I asked.
“Around ten partners.”
I tried to hide my astonishment. One of his colleagues stifled a chuckle. Plates of ornately adorned Western food—pastas, burgers, and salads—arrived at our table one after the other.
King described to me how there was a certain kind of ranking system with his partners, and the degree to which he’d treat each one like an actual significant other depended on how long they’d been together, how committed they were, etc. Many of his current relationships had been going on for multiple years, though the longest he had ever been with a woman was for twelve.
“But I do not never want to get married, because when you are married and you have multiple partners, that is wrong,” he explained. “That is when society looks at you like a bad person, because you are in an affair. I do not want to be a bad person; I am not a bad person. When I approach these girls, I explain to them my philosophy. They know I am seeing other girls. I am completely honest with them, and it is their decision to accept my terms. I never force them. It is a different story when you are married, because that is cheating.”
We dove into our meals. A splotch of pink sauce dripped onto King’s white button-down shirt. Victoria, like the most natural thing in the world, dabbed a napkin with some water and wiped away at the stain as we continued chatting.
“Are your partners also allowed to see other people?” I asked.
“It depends on the conditions,” he said. “If they want to be more like my girlfriend, then no, they cannot have more partners. But otherwise, it is no problem. And we talk about it and they accept it.”
He leaned in then, smiling. “Now I want to ask you a question.”
“Go ahead,” I encouraged.
“You say you want to be married one day. But when you are married, do you think you will stop being attracted to beautiful girls?” he challenged, leaning back in his seat, seemingly triumphant.
I paused to gather my thoughts, feeling the attention on me from all sides of the table.
“Well…no, just because I’m married doesn’t mean that I will suddenly never be attracted to anyone else for the rest of my life. I don’t think that’s possible, actually,” I divulged. King looked satisfied.
“But marriage is still a commitment I want to make, I think. At least for right now—I can’t speak for how I’ll feel in the future. Because when I think about the most fulfilling, richest relationships of my life, they’re also with the people I’ve known the longest. And I feel like there can be an entire world of depth that comes with building a life together with someone for 20, 30 years that is inaccessible to most of us. And I’m really curious about that, so yeah. I won’t stop being attracted to other people, but I’d never act on it. I’d still want to get married.”
My mind flashed back to John and Rachel, the young Maasai couple I lived with in rural Kenya a few months prior. How despite the endless taunts and jabs by John’s Maasai buddies for his only having one wife—the Maasai are a majorly polygamous peoples, after all—John was adamant about how he only wanted Rachel, how she was his best friend, how she was more than enough for him.
I took a deep breath.
“I mean…I understand that you like having many beautiful girls around you all the time. But do you think it will ever be enough?”
King sat across from me, staring. The clinking of cutlery hung in the air as the other lunch guests suddenly became extremely interested in the food on their plates, their gazes trained downwards. I waited.
“Maybe one day,” King said, breaking the silence. “Maybe one day, when my physical body is not like this anymore, when I do not have any more energy. But now is not that time.”
I was trying to get at a more metaphorical enough, an enough that leaves a contentedness with what one already has in life, but it was interesting to me that King had instead spun my question to more physical terms. Whether it was a linguistic miscommunication or whether he just didn’t want to answer me, I will never know.
“Just remember, marriage is a cultural thing,” he said, placing his fork down. “But my attraction for young, beautiful girls—that is the truth.”
***
Despite my efforts to remain as open and curious as possible during our conversation, I couldn’t shake the impression that King was somehow taking advantage of the women in his life to some degree. But then again, he had laid out his terms honestly and transparently from the get-go. And as far as I could tell from meeting four of his ten partners later that afternoon, he was telling the truth—and in front of all his colleagues, at that.
Consenting adults have willingly entered a relationship in which the terms have been set and communicated outright. So where exactly is the issue? Maybe there isn’t one. Maybe it’s my own cultural upbringing, my internalization of American expectation, that makes it hard for me to accept the fact that someone like King can exist with such influence, and that he’s able to lead an honest life.
I’ve had the opportunity to chat over the past year with couples therapists across the globe, and throughout all of our conversations, a common theme has emerged: that emotional honesty, above everything else, is key in guiding their clients to cultivate the lives they want to lead. These therapists never work to keep a couple together; that is simply never the goal. Instead, they aim to facilitate an open and honest conversation—one of respect, grace, and compassion—even if difficult truths are revealed, or even if the couple eventually decides to split. Whether two people stay together is inconsequential to their honesty with themselves and with each other. “Divorce can be one of the best possible decisions you make for your life,” as one psychologist put it.
Though it’s very hard for me to imagine myself in King’s shoes, I had to respect the emotional honesty he had with himself and the world. Technically, he practiced a form of polyamory: engaging in multiple romantic relationships at the same time with the consent of all involved. But I don’t have the words to translate the deeper phenomenon at play here—honoring one’s truest desires and truest self, no matter what those around us may think.
Could King’s actions, so taboo on the surface, actually be a manifestation of self-love? And if so, isn’t that the most essential thing we can bring to any of the most meaningful relationships of our lives?