The sky is falling!

[bucknaway]

Im friends with a Thai guide I met when I first visited Thailand.  He asked my opinion of Thailand's gay scene.  I told him it seems the gogo end of it seems to be shrinking.  

He told me there are many more job options for guys now and it's hard to find guys to work the bars.  Now if they want quick money they can use the apps to meet paying guys.

I told him about Phuket and he talked about Bangkok and he thinks that gay gogo bars in Thailand will be close to gone.

[Londoner]

The popularity of  gay go-go bars has been declining for twenty years. An owner of one of the biggest and most popular confided me in about 2007, just before he

sold-up, that he saw no future in the game. Admittedly, that was before the major Asian influx and a few have  certainly been kept alive by straight Chinese tourists who

go to look  but only spend money on drinks. As the guide said, the apps have removed the need for money-boys to prance around (or nowadays, stand around) in

underwear. Some of them do well-enough from their apartments and some don't....but the same was true of go-go dancers.

Host bars in Jomtien are coping as are massage joints....but few traditional go go bars have looked busy for years. My impression of Nice in Sunee a couple of months

ago - a popular bar that has a devoted if elderly clientele- was that  the guys were making their money from services offered on-site rather than offing.  

[pong]

Also the influx of ever more workers/guys from neighbouring countries, not the least Vnam recently also confirms this. And there are fewer and fewer total nr of Thai guys in the required age-band.

The gay scene in Th is just a 100% copycat of the str8 ditto. So I wonder if anyone has any info re this for their sisters dancing along poles in agogo style-also too much in decline? At least several of those giant ob-ab-nuat (shower+massage) bunker-buildings along Phetburi rd in BKk have also closed and are torn down.

OTOH the nr of Thai massage-shops with more for m2m treatments is still more or less stable-some clsoe, others open.

[ggobkk]

Londoner's comment and pong's insight as well as a book review of gay life in Brooklyn caused me to think that ral estate values are a common decimator  of go gos.

Brooklyn had a thriving gay life centered around the docks and the nearby bars, then highways came and divided the town, I remember that there were four gogo places in New York's Time Square area (the Gayety, of many happy memories, being the most known) which have disappeared, their memories absorbed into office towers.  In San Francisco, the Nob Hill closed this past year, the Campus closed several years back, lost to gentrification.  Gogos prosper when  property is cheap enough for low rents, same property becomes a developer's dream.

Things are changing, we need to enjoy what we have, while we have it.  And, who knows, the scene may just change towns or countries.  

[abidismaili]

On 4/23/2019 at 10:32 AM, bucknaway said:

Im friends with a Thai guide I met when I first visited Thailand.  He asked my opinion of Thailand's gay scene.  I told him it seems the gogo end of it seems to be shrinking.  

He told me there are many more job options for guys now and it's hard to find guys to work the bars.  Now if they want quick money they can use the apps to meet paying guys.

I told him about Phuket and he talked about Bangkok and he thinks that gay gogo bars in Thailand will be close to gone.

Please ask him what extra job options the boys (many with only highschool education) have compared to the past? They could already work in 7-11, so what extra jobs are in 2019 possible I wonder for the boys we meet (many of whom only have a finished highschool education)? They can't become a doctor, or a police agent with only highschool.

[abidismaili]

On 4/23/2019 at 11:56 AM, Londoner said:

The popularity of  gay go-go bars has been declining for twenty years.

20 years ago was 1999. I understand it all started getting serious half way the 1980's, so then the high point of gay sex tourism was only a 10 year period or so?

Before that there is a build up phase, slowly news spreads to Europe, gays go Pattaya, tell about it back home, others go then too, till you reach the peek period of second half 80s, first half 90s? Then for some strange reason after 1999 it goes down (before the mobile phone era, before the gay app era).

[colmx]

1 hour ago, abidismaili said:

 Then for some strange reason after 1999 it goes down (before the mobile phone era, before the gay app era).

Thaksin came into power in 2001 and started the "social order campaign"

Purachai the interior minister, forced bars and nightclubs to shut by 1am, banned anyone under 20 from entry, prohibited the sale of alcohol after midnight, and corralled nightspots into a restricted number of areas in each town and city.

These new laws lead to months of police raids on bars and saunas, extra judicial killings and were the start of the decline in Thailand nightlife

As for the jobs that were previously unavailable.... in 2001 there was no family mart and the 7-11s were usually 500 meters apart (unlike todays 50), there were no mega malls or cinema multiplexes. SF cinema pays 14000 a month with decent working conditions (and free movies!) That sure beats selling your ass on a gogo floor with no guarantee of an off (or even a drink tip) at the end of the night.

As Bucknaways guide friend points out the buys can still freelance on the apps when rent us due or there is a birthday party or morlam coming up