I belonged to a meet-up writing group since late 2019 or early 2020.  My departure occurred this past Saturday, the twenty-ninth of August, following over seven years as a member, due to my perception of certain group members as overly restrictive. I liked every person in that group, including the “sphincter police.” Who did not always act that way.

My breaking point wasn’t from one sphincter police incident. It was from several episodes spread out over years.

Sphincter police is slang, a derogatory term for overly strict, uptight, or micromanaging authority figures, security guards, or gatekeepers who act tense and obstructive. The term became famous from a line in the 1990 movie Pretty Woman (I’ve seen the film several times), where the character Kit De Luca uses it to describe hotel staff or security who won’t let her pass the front desk.

Figurative Use: Sphincter Police is used broadly in casual conversation or online to mock anyone behaving with rigid, humorless enforcement of rules—effectively describing someone who is “uptight”. People labeled as “sphincter police” frequently censor others. This happens because their primary goal is strict control over behavior, language, and rules.

I remember one scene in a science-fantasy epic I’m still writing where King Arthur married Guenevere.  She was 14. He was in his 40s.  The first literature about King Arthur appeared around 1136-1138.  From that historical chronicle is where I first read that Guinnevere was that young when King Arthur married her soon after they met when he was in his 40s.  In 1469-1470, Sir Thomas Mallory wrote a scene where Merlin warns Arthur not to marry Guinnevere, that she is not “wholesome” for him.  No mention of the age  being an issue in that ancient literature.

The “sphincter police” from that writing group I belonged to protested and warned me I’d lose readers because Arthur was a “pedo” (pedophile). The suggestion to fix that “pedo” issue was to make Guinnevere older, like in her twenties.  I’m not going to do that.

In another book I wrote and published, The Patriot Oath, the main character Josh is involved in rescuing some young girls who have been kidnapped by sex traffickers. One of the girls is 14. She gets a crush on Josh, who was 19 at the time, and the girl tries to seduce him.  The “sphincter police” protested again.  To prevent readers from viewing 19-year-old Josh as a pedophile, the girl’s age had to exceed 17. So, I changed what happened so they wouldn’t get together until she was much older, years after she was rescued.

Last Saturday, the “sphincter police” pounced again when it was mentioned in one scene in a work in progress, set in 2021, that one of the characters had consensual sexual relations with a 15-year-old girl in Bangkok, Thailand in 2010. The main character, Josh, didn’t know this until the girl, now 26, revealed what happened between her and Derrick eleven years earlier. The woman tells Josh she’d like to get together with Derrick again.

The “sphincter police” wrote in her critique that Derrick was a “pedo,” which is technically wrong.  To be convicted of being a pedophile means having sex with someone 13 or younger. If someone aged 15 consents to intimacy with someone aged 19, a conviction would result in statutory rape charges, regardless of consent. Derrick avoided this fate, evidently. Statutory rape carries felony charges when individuals differ by more than three years, with prosecution possible three years following transgression. Derrick is a fictional character, but he still wasn’t safe from the “sphincter police”.

A day later, a friend who does not belong to that group suggested I leave the scene the way it is but don’t mention the girl’s age when she’s 26, and when she was 15, when Derrick and her were lovers in Thailand. That way, readers who might be “sphincter police” and write a critical review of the thriller, the fourth in the Josh Kavanagh thriller series, when it’s published wouldn’t have an issue with what happened between Derrick and Dao in Thailand when she was 15, because they won’t know how old she was.

As I’m writing this post, The USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group (with 5,000 to 5,680 military personal) is scheduled to remain in Thailand for a five-day port visit from September 2 to September 6, 2026. The Military Times reports, “Sailors will primarily visit Pattaya (a major coastal resort city near the port) and surrounding areas, including Bangkok.”

The average age of sailors serving their country on a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike group is about 20 to 21 years old — my age in the Marines when I fought in Vietnam in 1966. Having visited Hong Kong for rest and recuperation, I understand the typical activities of sailors during their R&R in Thailand today. I hope they’re cautious, avoid getting caught, and don’t end up with an STD. Two Marines from my 1966 unit, during R&R in Bangkok, returned infected.

Local reports and regional assessments estimate that roughly 60,000 workers operate within Pattaya’s entertainment and sex industry, with more sex workers in Bangkok. The legal age for being a sex worker in Thailand is 18, but research indicates girls 12 to 17 also work in this industry, while the median age of a standard sex worker in Bangkok is 23 years old, who can realistically look as young as 14 to 16 due to a combination of genetics, lifestyle habit and skincare practices. Estimates place Thailand’s underground sex industry revenue at roughly $4 billion to $6.4 billion annually.

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