Bangkok nights (trip report) and more

[macaroni21]

As the saying goes, "All work and no play makes Jack/Mack a dull boy". 

In Bangkok recently for work, I made sure my evenings were free. Then tacked on a few more days in Pattaya. The first of four trip reports is up at http://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog with one new report a day. Beware  -- these are long reads.

Sunday evening upload: Bangkok bars

Monday evening upload: Bangkok massage

Tuesday evening: Pattaya bars

Wednesday evening: Pattaya massage.

[fedssocr]

welcome back?

[jason1975]

Love your writing style! Very descriptive and humorous! Thanks for sharing!

[CurtisD]

2 hours ago, jason1975 said:

Love your writing style! Very descriptive and humorous! Thanks for sharing!

I second that. A great read thanks.

[PeterRS]

Quite superb writing! I hope there is a novel or a travelogue - or even a series - lurking somewhere on your wish list. (I would have said bucket list but am sure you are not yet at that more advanced age.)

It is so good to have you back! Yet the tales of your visit do make for rather alarming reading, in particular what the bars are offering in their new locations, the types of boys available and the lack of customers. We have known that over the last 15 years or so both the dancing on stage and the customer base has changed dramatically. Same for the introduction of boys from neighbouring countries who are often more fussy about what they will and will not do compared to the Thais who strutted their stuff years ago. O tempora! O mores!

I remember in your earlier incarnation in a thread about the changing nature of the gogo bar business, you gave a splendid description with a detailed diagram of the type of bar you believed should not just be considered but would be a success. If my memory is correct, this involved breaking bar areas down to much smaller sections, each with a different type of activity. For a supplement customers could enter a room with boys dancing naked as they used to do aeons ago. With the increasing Asian customer base and its different male to female balance, I wonder if you think this might still work. Or has the market changed too much for that business model to work?

I do hope that at some time in the near future you will consider an article giving us your thoughts on the differences between those times and the present,  as well as offering your predictions a to how you see the gogo bar business evolving over the next few years.

[ggobkk]

Having recently been in Bangkok, I enjoyed reading your take on the clubs and agreeing with your descriptions. I offed the Hot Male coyote you mentioned. He was exceptional. 

[GWMinUS]

Great to read your Blog again. Very much missed it!! 

And hope to follow your other installments!!!

 

[spoon]

Nice write up on arena, sabaidee and natural massage. Only been to arena before, and i was assigned much larger room that as what you had, twice. The second time, there was two massage table and the masseur combine the two making an extra wide massage table for me lol. 

[Boy69]

Great report one of the best I ever read. hilarious, Witty and informative.

The administrator should put this thread at Timeless info Thailand and the World forum .

[vinapu]

Great , witty and sexy reads about your recent adventures, too bad you did not go to Senso as I would be happy to read about your take on the place

[macaroni21]

Responding to PeterRS above:

Yes, I vaguely remember that I had posited the idea that to balance the conflicting interests of customers who are ready to off boys, and those who are only interested in a show, a bar might do well to divide itself into at least 2 sections. Each section might be half the size of today’s Hotmale or Fresh Boys.

The gogo section would have boys on rotation all four hours from 21:00 to 01:00, make money on drinks and off fee. Because the space would be a lot smaller after division, there should be greater intimacy with the gogo boy moving around the bar (if possible) and giving something like lap dances to patrons (tips expected naturally). Interaction increases the chances of an off.

The show section would have its own ticket pricing (which may or may not come with a free drink). Perhaps two 45-minute shows a night say, at 22:00h and 23:30h. The show performers can be outsourced rather than rely on rice farm kids to be dancers. Of course, right now, every time we think of “outsourced”, we think diva-type performances, but it doesn’t have to be so. There could well be very masculine groups doing striptease and explicit shows and making money on that without any interest in being off’d.

Why did I suggest something like the above? Because right now, the interested-in-offs patrons who don’t care much for shows are being asked to pay a price that includes shows.  And the interested-in-shows-only patrons are actually subsidised by the first group.

At today’s prices maybe it should be something like 250 baht for entry and first drink in the gogo section, and 600 -700 baht a show ticket.

The show space being small, there will be an intimacy to the whole performance, with audience participation even.

Is this still a workable idea? Hard to say. Sometimes, a concept needs to be experimented with to know for sure.

[macaroni21]

Responding to PeterRS above:

Interesting that you raised the issue of gender balance. This was one aspect that particularly struck me after a long hiatus from the scene, and indeed I have quite a bit to say about that (how did you guess?)

I think this will be the real death knell for the bars. And I hope some bars begin to experiment with a “Men Only” door policy.

Here are the social realities:

Straight women outnumber gay men at least 10 to 1. Ditto straight men. Once straight women start getting comfortable in these bars, more and more will follow and gay men will be flooded out. Straight men, chasing women, will start to follow the straight women into the bars.That 10:1 demographic imbalance is such that we cannot pretend that a place can ever remain a gay safe space once the women start coming in numbers.

We shouldn’t forget that even today, many gay men are still guarded about their sexual identities. I think it was here on Gay Thailand forum when, in another thread, an issue was made about a bar being careless with its videos, exposing faces of customers. This only shows how delicate the matter is.

I had a friend who once noticed a (male) work colleague coming into the bar. He was almost freaked out when their eyes met (from nearly across the room). But at least he could say to himself, "well it’s a case of mutual assured destruction if he outs me. If he is in the bar, he’s gay too. To tell anyone that he saw me in this bar is to admit that he too was in the bar." So in that sense, it was still a safe space.

But imagine if my friend noticed a straight female work colleague coming into the same bar (perhaps with a gaggle of other women). Immediately, he would be at a serious disadvantage. She could claim the moral superiority of being heterosexual and interested in the male form (socially fairly acceptable), but he would be exposed as gay (in many countries, still socially unacceptable). The threat of mutual assured destruction is no longer there; it is asymmetrical: a risk to the gay man, not a risk to the straight women.

I think in the long run, the bars will need to implement either a men-only policy or have differential pricing where women have to pay twice or thrice what men pay.

From some idealistic quarters I can hear people cry “discrimination”. Well, how about calling it “affirmative action” to protect a vulnerable group from being swamped out, and keeping a space safe for them?

In any case, why is no one screaming hell and damnation for the discrimination that occurs in so many bars and dance clubs every week where, on “Ladies Nights”, women get in free or real cheap?

Read this story from ThaiVisa https://forum.thaivisa.com/topic/645338-sometimes-you-go-to-a-women-only-lounge-and-its-just-kind-of-depressing/  Ignore the details of the story. The point is that it describes a bar with a policy to exclude male patrons. If it’s OK to forbid entry to men, it should be OK to forbid entry to women.

I come back to an earlier sentence: We shouldn’t forget that even today, many gay men are very guarded about their sexual identities.

There is no doubt that there has been an Asianisation of these bars. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg. Consider three factors:

• The populations of China, India and Indonesia are huge;
• They will grow steadily wealthier;
• Their societies remain socially conservative.

If we are seeing 200* gay men arriving each day from other Asian countries, some time down the road, we may see 2,000 a day. There is a future for these bars (and massage parlours); the potential market is there. But because their societies are socially conservative, it is important to keep the bars a safe space for them, otherwise why should they come?

*A wild guess, not that I have any data.

Edited June 11, 2019 by macaroni21
tidied up some sentences for clarity

[spoon]

Very fair point being raised here on gender. My country are conservatives on both sides of women and gay alike. Of course lewd women arent persecuted as bas as the gays but it is still not easy to see women in a male bars. So at least for me, seeing a female colleague in a silom gay gogobar is very unlikely enough to not make me feel worried about going there. But this might not applied for the chinese though. Again, i have no idea lol. My main grudge against women in gogobars are mostly the boy i want cant take their eyes off women, so my chance of getting boy of my dream goes to almost zero lol. While this also happened when a guy offing my dream boy in front of me, but i cant just compete with girls when the boy is straight. 

Anyone going to a gogobar is risking exposure in one way or another. You are in a quite a public place where there is no restriction on who can enter. Ive seen straight men comes into the bar with his wife/gf too. I guess if one truly afraid about being outed, will have to avoid bars and stick with massages places. I have a virtual friend here who only goes to freelance who take incalls, because he is afraid of going to the massahe centers in the off chance someone he knows also goes there and they might meet at the counter. Going to gay sauna or bar is definitely out of questions. 

I am just glad that my country is conservative enough (both straight/gay of both genders) regarding sex tourism that i dont have to worry of meeting someone i know at one of these bars. Cant say itll never happen but lets hope it never will

[fedssocr]

I think I need a body type system refresher course.

[joshhb]

Me too. Please could ShamelessMac2 add a tab on body types.

 

 

 

 

[PeterRS]

12 hours ago, macaroni21 said:

Interesting that you raised the issue of gender balance. This was one aspect that particularly struck me after a long hiatus from the scene, and indeed I have quite a bit to say about that (how did you guess?)

... I think this will be the real death knell for the bars. And I hope some bars begin to experiment with a “Men Only” door policy ....

There is no doubt that there has been an Asianisation of these bars. We’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Thanks for your comments. I have singled out the two main issues for i believe there are two simple reasons. Economics being one. Failure to adapt being the second!

Because for decades, well - at least two and a half decades, the bars survived well using one business model, they failed to adapt as their traditional customer base declined. This is a point you made some years ago. This model depended on lowish drinks prices and a goodly number of offs each evening/week. As has been stated on this forum before, until the early 2000s that base was largely a mix of westerners and Thais. From my observations, the Thais were the first to drift away, followed much more gradually by some of the westerners. I cannot pinpoint exactly when this occurred. Perhaps it was during the first Thaksin era Social Order campaigns in the early 2000s. As a result, the number of offs started to decline. To make up their revenues, owners started upping drinks prices. I believe this was the first time red flags were waved about the gogo bars perhaps facing long term trouble.

Soon after this, the number of tourists from neighbouring Asian countries began to increase dramatically. Some obviously were gay guys wanting to sample Thailands gay scene. The ethnic customer balance began to change. From my occasional observations, the first of this group appearing in the bars were either solo travellers or small groups of friends. Most came from the richer countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan etc. For them higher drinks prices was no obstacle. Their objective seemed less in finding a boy to off. It was to experience the gogo scene and have a bit of fun. Many of these guys preferred to hit the increasing number of gay saunas and the massage spas, have sex there and then move on to the gogo bars later in the evening just to have a drink or two and see the shows. After one or two shows during their visit, the bars are forgotten in favour of the dance clubs like DJ Station. From other non-Thai chat rooms it is obvious that saunas, massage and clubbing remain of far greater interest to the solo/small group gay Asian travellers.

So the number of offs dropped even further, other than perhaps at high season weekends. The result was that off income declined further. Instead of experimenting with different business models, most of the bar owners resorted to the traditional remedy. Bar prices had to be increased yet again.

Fast forward a few years and mass tourism from Asian countries begins to flood Bangkok and Pattaya. A large percentage of this lot is on group tours for whose members gogo bars are a new and different experience. As spoon rightly points out, their home societies are more conservative. So even for the women, the sight of scantily clad boys and a few enviable erections is an excitement they can enjoy and talk about with all their girlfriends back home. Gay guys are probably also part of these tours. For them going into a bar with others from their group can mean their sexuality remains hidden. They are just enjoying a night out with their friends. Will they come back again, this time on a solo tour only to spend time in the bars? I think this is unlikely. 

For the future, I believe the gogo model is unlikely ever to return to what it used to be 25 years ago. The bar owners have to make money. They have been caught in a spiral of their own making. They have no choice but to cater to the new customer base. In my view that will continue, at least In theory, to depend on Asian guys and Asian women. This is the group with cash for whom it matters little if the off price is 1,500 baht short time or 3,000 baht short time. It also matters little if the boys up there on stage are Thai, Cambodian, Vietnamese or Lao because an off is not the objective. It is the women flashing 1,000 baht tips for the flash of a smile and some gentle attention from the boy of their dreams in Moonlight 2018 that are likely to be increasingly seen in bars. The danger then is the gogo bars become much more like the women only male escort bars in Japan. But that is a different topic.

The one unknown I cannot fathom is: what happened to the western gay tourists? With the total number of tourists to Thailand having expanded humungously over the last quarter century, there should, again in theory, be far more solo western gay tourists coming to Thailand for the first time for whom the traditional gogo bar model ought to remain a key part of their vacation. Has word got out that the bars are just too boring in this era of much greater gay freedom? Or has a vacation in Thailand  become generally too expensive? Or do we yet again place the blame on the apps?

[spoon]

Most western gay tourist has moved to sunee plaza and jomtien is my guess, where fem twinks are abundant and drink prices still reasonable.

[GWMinUS]

For a different perspective. I visited Bangkok and brought my 25 yo Filipino friend. He loved Bangkok but had no interest in the Go Go Bars. He wanted to go Disco!! And he was also hunting for an older man to be his Daddy. Asian men need not apply...

[PeterRS]

44 minutes ago, spoon said:

Most western gay tourist has moved to sunee plaza and jomtien is my guess, where fem twinks are abundant and drink prices still reasonable.

A fair suggestion. But both are in Pattaya. From reports Sunee Plaza is almost a dead zone now compared to ten years ago. Winner Bar has twinks, Nice Boys is popular and there are at most one or two more gogo bars. Also from reports, most of the boys in the many Jomtien bars are from other countries. And Jomtien has no gogo bars.

[anddy]

the western clientele of the past 25 years are simply a declining species. The bulk of this clientele (actually both gay and straight) is/was older guys well past their prime and/or not in the best of body shapes (no offence to anyone, here or outside this board). They become too old to travel and eventually pass away. There is hardly a new generation of such people following in their footsteps as those grew up gay into a much more open society when it comes to being openly gay. Also, being younger, they are much more likely to embrace first the internet (think Romeo) and now the apps. Yes there are younger western gays going to the gogo bars, but their numbers are minimal compared to the previous, older group.

This is just my personal theory. There will presumably be other factors at play, too.

[anddy]

On 6/10/2019 at 12:17 AM, macaroni21 said:

Wednesday evening: Pattaya massage.

Quote

A brilliant business idea thus came to mind. These M2M places should offer one more service: pubic bush trimming — or shaving if that’s what a customer wanted. 

Well there are in fact such grooming services available, at least in Bangkok. At Up2You Hair Salon, 2nd floor of Charn Issara Tower (off of Soi Thaniya, there's a back entrance to the building) as well as Cutey&Beauty in Thaniya Plaza. The do waxing (which I have done), but I have no doubt they would to trimming and shaving as well

[spoon]

Great accounts of both bangkok and pattaya scenes. I also wish for a refresher course on the body type lol

[Travellerdave]

13 hours ago, spoon said:

Most western gay tourist has moved to sunee plaza and jomtien is my guess, where fem twinks are abundant and drink prices still reasonable.

Agree with you there Spoon. My last trip was centred on the Jomtien Complex plus several visits to Winner Boys to off boys. I did go to BT but only occasionally whereas over the previous 10 years I was a regular in BT.  Going back a long time (10 to 20 years) spent a lot of evenings in Sunee.

[Londoner]

I am one of the 90s generation....falangs who experienced a vibrant Pattaya scene and fell in love with it.  At the age of seventy-two, I count myself lucky- I am one of the survivors, aiming to grow older more disgracefully.

I am not alone in one respect and it is one that is sometimes forgotten.

Look at the today's gay Thai/falang couples in Thailand; one thing has changed since the 90s. More of them are of an older falang (nothing new there) with a Thai who is in his 30s or 40s rather than 20s. No longer "offs" intent on making a1000bht for an hour's work but partners. Friends. In some cases, even married. Perhaps , one day long ago, the Thais  were go- go dancers looking for that fortunate falang. Some  found their man  and are now  in some sort of long term relationship. In my case, it's one of fifteen years.

We don't go to go go bars but spend our money in restaurants and we don't restrict ourselves to gay hot-spots, such as they are. Krabi, Chiang Rai, Luang Prabang have been recent destinations. Usually, we are "the only gays in the village"....but nobody seems to mind. I suppose that people like me are some of the "lost" gogo bar punters and the ones partly  responsible for an almost deserted Boyztown.

 

[Patanawet]

On 6/12/2019 at 11:08 AM, GWMinUS said:

For a different perspective. I visited Bangkok and brought my 25 yo Filipino friend. He loved Bangkok but had no interest in the Go Go Bars. He wanted to go Disco!! And he was also hunting for an older man to be his Daddy. Asian men need not apply...

I was chatting to a, no spring chicken, friend of mine and i mentioned D.J. Station as a 'DISCO'. He said "God how old are you? -- disco indeed".