Our story starts with Salawat, a police officer that falls asleep during his shift somewhere in Bangkok. In his dream, he meets a blue man wearing a meat suit and a mascot’s mask, Nuisance. He is Salawat’s subconscious, the dominating manifestation of his kinky sexual fantasies, from foot fetish to bondage and sex spit—we’re in Salawat’s wet dream, and you can rub yourself on it. Literally.
Bangkok Wet Dream is a homoerotic-political collaboration between the ever-controversial twenty-five-year-old photographer Harit Srikhao and IWANNABANGKOK©, a movement promoting the city in a fresh and irreverent way, powered by an equally young and forward-thinking crowd. “We quickly matched because we have the same rebellious and naughty spirit,” Srikhao says. The surprising result of the match is a collection of towels. “A sexy and functional product for daily usage,” as Adisak Jirasakkasem, founder of IWANNABANGKOK©, puts it. “And a new way of digesting art,” he adds.
Each towel depicts a different incident in Salawat’s sexual chimera through graphic prints. As it happens in a dream, Salawat cruises through different worlds, meeting other ultra-kinky men in boots and uniforms, while fulfilling his craves of masochism, domination, and submission. Beyond their erotic allure, uniforms carry different layers of meaning in Thailand. “Here, these uniforms are perceived almost as sacred and untouchable. In reality, everybody knows that most men who wear them use their power to abuse ordinary people. It’s nonsensical in this era to praise people in uniforms,” says Jirasakkasem.
It was by luck that Salawat became the main character of the series. The original idea was to have different “episodes,” as Jirasakkasem calls the various editions of the towel, featuring other uniformed power figures. But the team was thrilled with the first batch of photos of Salawat, and they made him the center of the campaign. “His face and features reminded us of Kake, Tom of Finland’s main character. It was perfect, we couldn’t get enough of him,” says Jirasakkasem.
The team mused on Tom of Finland’s hyper-masculine hunks, their costumes, and poses to compose the series. They also borrowed aspects from Saint Seiya, such as the glowing aura surrounding all the uniformed characters, just like with the mythical warriors in the manga series, to indicate their alleged holiness and purity. Diamond tears and other quirky elements also compose the oeuvre, including behind the scenes or instant shots with an amateur, Grinder-esque aesthetic.
The catch is that the role-playing is ultimately inverted in Salawat’s dream; he and his uniformed peers often find themselves in submissive positions and overpowered by Nuisance. They can be on their knees, down on all fours, or tied up, for instance. One picture shows three of them sticking their tongs out while a suggestive white and milky substance drops in their faces. Another image shows Salawat touching himself while sniffing a men’s boot. “Bangkok Wet Dream wants to express the notion that we have more power than the police or the army. We hope our images make adrenaline rush through the audience’s blood, and it would be cool if it becomes their fetish too,” says Jirasakkasem.
To Srikhao’s, the theme of how political power relates to sexual fantasies is a growing interest. He looked at social-political turmoils in Thailand throughout his work, exploring the relationship between good and evil. As he explains, this notion relates to the very concepts of merit and sin, heaven and hell, used as weapons of societal control. However, Bangkok Wet Dream provided a new perspective for this exploration, a more playful approach to a subject matter that he’s already well accustomed to.
Paradoxically, their underlying theme came from a place of freedom. Jirasakkasem explains that Thailand is exceptionally tolerant when compared to other Southeast Asian countries regarding sexual expression. The country is home to a large LGBTQ community that, past their particular worries, also fights against any other conformist pressures in society. “This support system is becoming the norm in our generation; if someone is against it, we will stand up for it,” he says.
Bangkok Wet Dream comes from this very fierceness. It playfully twists power roles to expose abuse by specific society sectors, and it does so with incendiary and deliciously unashamed humor. The campaign appears in a time of strong anti-government sentiment across Thailand. Activists, mostly students, have been taking the streets in revolutionary demonstrations with loud pro-democracy calls and demands for monarchy reform. Despite the peaceful nature of the protests, there have been accounts of arbitrary arrests and police coercion. Jirasakkasem says that, so far, they haven’t faced any resistance from the authorities. “But why?” he asks. “We didn’t do anything wrong, right?” he laughs.
*Towels come in big size (140x70cm) and small size (70x30cm), velvet touch, and can be ordered through the Bangkok Wet Dreams account on Instagram.
Authors:Tomás Pinheiro and Lucas Tinoco