Elättäjyyttä vai erotiikkaa : miten suomalaiset miehet legitimoivat parisuhteensa thaimaalaisen naisen kanssa?

Hannu Sirkkilä on tutkinut suomalais-thaimaalaisia parisuhteita 18 suomalaisen miehen kertomusten pohjalta. Kyseisten suhteiden syntyyn on liitetty vaimojen välitystoimintaa ja seksiturismia ja ne ovat saaneet kielteisen leiman. Haastatellut miehet haluavatkin tavallistaa thaimaalaisen vaimonsa ja parisuhteensa. Tämä tapahtuu kuvaamalla oma vaimo aktiivisena ja tahtovana naisena eikä alistuvana, kuten thaimaalaiset naiset esitetään stereotyyppisissä käsityksissä. Useilla miehillä on ollut jo ennen suhteen alkua suuri kiinnostus Thaimaata, sen ihmisiä, kulttuuria ja luontoa kohtaan. He puhuvat vältellen aiempiin matkoihin liittyneistä mahdollisista seksiturismikokemuksistaan. Suhteiden alku kuvataan tavalliseksi ilman voimakasta rakastumisen tunnetta. Miehet painottavat omaa sitoutumistaan suhteeseen, joka on ilmennyt vaimon oleskelulupa-asioiden hoitamisena ja vastuun ottamisena tämän toimeentulosta.

This study examines Finnish-Thai couples based on interviews of Finnish men. The material of this study includes 18 narratives based on 16 personal interviews and two email answers. The data was analysed thematically with the help of narrative analysis and analysis of narratives. The major aim of this research was to show how the Finnish men legitimatized their partnerships with Thai women because such couples have a problematic image. The common opinion is that men who have a wife from Thailand have a number of problems: they have found it difficult to find wives in Finland or are interested in sex tourism. In the interviews, the men needed to legitimatize themselves, their wives and their partnerships. The theoretical starting point of this study was men’s studies. In the theoretical section I present changes in men’s lives, practices and masculinity. I explain how partnerships are formed and changed and on what the relationship between husband and wife is based. Globalization has enabled this type of partnership, and bicultural marriages have become more common also in Finland. One example of the globalization of gender is sex tourism; some of these relationships did begin as sex tourism.These couples present an alternative to the Finnish gender contract. After the immigration of these Thai women, the new families conformed to the breadwinner-housewife model, which has been uncommon in Finland. At the beginning, the roles of husband and wife were strongly separated but, after the first few years, the couples became like any other couples in Finland. The men could be divided into three generations on the basis of how they legitimatized their partnerships. The oldest men described their partnerships as traditional, those of the middle-aged generation emphasized equality and the youngest generation had a post-modern flexibility on which to build their gender practices