The Golden Land’s x-rated side
In the early 2000s, before the advent of video-hosting websites like Pornhub and XVideos, a video of a young couple in a Mandalay hotel room found its way onto the file-sharing program Kazaa.
“Mandalay couple,” as it was dubbed, featured a grainy depiction of the pair kissing and performing oral sex. As rumors surfaced of the young man’s alleged arrest, very little was publicized about the video itself—considered to be Myanmar’s first X-rated production.
Indeed, the silhouetted bodies, teak bed frame, and unpainted walls could have been anywhere in Southeast Asia. The audible dialogue, however, gave away the video’s location: “la ne bi la?” the young man said in Burmese. “Did you cum yet?”
Today, with the advent of video-sharing websites and instant messaging, Myanmar—like other countries around the world—is awash with pornography.
This became apparent earlier in the year when an Italian couple was charged with “defiling a place of worship” under section 295 of Myanmar’s Penal Code after they uploaded a video to PornHub of them having sex in Bagan.
Most Myanmar-produced porn videos, however, are neither so extravagant nor controversial. Despite the efforts of censors and lobby groups to have pornography banned, homemade amateur videos are becoming more popular among Myanmar consumers.
Though pornography consumption is by no means entirely unproblematic, the digital revolution taking place in Myanmar has made it easier to identify emerging interests and trends in erotic forms of consumption.
Village huts and hotels
A cursory Google search for “Myanmar porn” reveals six main sites, with XVideos, Tubesafari and X-Hamster being the most accessible without a VPN. Other international sites like XNXX, Pornhub, and Thumbzilla also host “Myanmar” videos but are less accessible to local viewers.
XVideos is the most popular site in Myanmar, with the term “Myanmar sex” bringing up a total of 271,644 videos. Searches for “Thai sex” and “Chinese sex,” by comparison, return 181,906 and 278,726 results, respectively.
The most popular locally produced upload on XVideos is titled “Myanmar traditional couple making out,” with 3.9 million views. Filmed inside a warehouse, the couple remain fully clothed as they do indeed make out—on a stack of folded-up cardboard boxes.
Like the vast majority of Myanmar-produced content, the video is very amateurish. Other videos are shot with handheld cameras and tend to focus on particular sex acts in commonplace locations. Some are filmed in bamboo huts, with women masturbating or couples having sex—with the sounds of daily village life audible in the background.
Other popular search terms include “Myanmar teacher,” “Myanmar couple,” and “Myanmar homemade.” These videos explore the class-based taboos of Myanmar society, highlighting fantasies (whether real or fake) involving disparities of power—such as “uncle and his maid” or the “university lecturer and his student.” Many are filmed in nondescript hotel rooms, with little or no sound, adding to the allure that the participants are—indeed—real people.
Despite the vast amount of low-quality “Myanmar sex” videos, the top-ranking video on the XVideos website is neither low-budget nor locally produced. With 2.5 million views and edited with Burmese subtitles, the Japanese soft-core film Call Boy (2018) tops the list.
The movie explores the life of a young university student called Ryo who, while working as a waiter at a Tokyo bar, is introduced to a female pimp. The mysterious older lady persuades him to become a gigolo, launching him into the erotic world of frustrated housewives and lonely city women. By embracing his newfound ability to satiate female libidos, the young shônen (“call boy”) discovers a new life of intrigue and adventure.
High-production Korean movies like What a Good Secretary Wants (2016) and Nice Sister-in-Law (2016) also fall into the soft-core genre, and on sites like XVideos, they seem to suggest a female-skewed interest in erotic, Asian-produced storylines among Myanmar viewers.
Sex scandals and sexy models
Aside from amateur sex and overseas soft-core movies, the other popular porn genres in Myanmar are the ‘sex scandal’ and ‘sexy model’ varieties.
The most famous ‘sexy model’ is perhaps Nang Mwe San, who made headlines last year when she was asked to quit the medical profession after posting racy pictures of herself on Facebook. Since leaving her work at the Malaria Monitoring and Evaluation office in Yangon, the 30-year-old now attracts millions of followers on social media and has her own pay-per-view site.
Nang Mwe San’s videos feature prominently on PornHub and TubeSafari but are mainly compilations of photos from hotel shoots. Many videos are also teasers, advertising links to pay-per-view services like “Dr. Hmone Gyi” and “Dr. Chat Gyi.” For just K5,000 per month, subscribers can access all of the so-called premium videos via an instant messaging app.
Other sexy models include Thinzar Wint Kyaw, a former actress and model who garners fans by posting revealing images from hotel photoshoots. Actress Tha Zin was known to have made her own sex movie several years ago, along with a number of aspiring actresses.
A similar genre to the ‘sexy model’ video is “sex scandal,” which ranks highly on PornHub and X-Hamster. “Myanmar medical students xxxxing” is a homemade video of students having sex on a bed in their university dorm. The video has attracted millions of views on multiple websites and is eclipsed only by the 2013 sex scandal video from Thanlyin Technology University.
Both videos created public controversy when they were (allegedly) leaked, with news of the students being expelled generating more interest and discussion on social media.
The ‘sex scandal’ video is more common overseas, featuring established celebrities (for example, Kim Kardashian, Paris Hilton, and Edison Chen) more than ordinary people. In Myanmar, where ordinary forms of sexual display appear more scandalous, celebrity status affords “sexy models” a greater degree of sexual freedom. In the public eye, where image is everything, this is particularly true for women.
Media flashpoints, and the need for dialogue
Four years ago, a production company called The Art of Myanmar released a movie titled The Violet of Myanmar. In what was to be another first, the company claimed it as Myanmar’s first-ever HD porn film.
The video is still accessible on video-sharing websites across the internet and continues to attract millions of views and hundreds of comments. Despite authorities taking down the producer’s main website in 2016, The Art of Myanmar Facebook page remains active—full of local requests for more full-length content.
Conservative views on sexuality have their place in society, but even mental health experts rarely recommend daily pornography consumption, so censorship has its limits.
In such a conservative country, these incidents (including Nang Mwe San’s dismissal and the sex scandal stories) serve as flashpoints where dialogue between traditional and emerging voices can occur.
But by looking at the vast amount of sexual content posted by Myanmar internet users, which now also includes websites selling sex toys, erotic fiction, and sexy lingerie, it’s clear that much of that dialogue is occurring online—rather than in the media or parliament.
This article was first published in The Myanmar Times
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