Jomtien complex

[bkkmfj2648]

Last night in the Jomtien Supertown Complex - I encountered many Russian guys.

What is notable is that they are much younger than us retirees  :>))

[reader]

I’m sure some of them were hot but all of them are smart.

[Boy69]

49 minutes ago, vinapu said:

With shortage of tourists only expats cal keep it alive but it looks thay prefer Jomtien.

I guess slow death is all awaiting Sunee.

Sunee is already dead dark,empty with very few bars left and the only thing keeping Boyz Town barely alive is its prime location in the center of Pattaya. 

[PeterRS]

On 10/17/2022 at 9:23 AM, PeterRS said:

Barbiery on Sukhumvit

Apologies. The original Barbiery of course was on Suriwong just across from Soi Twilight.

[Travellerdave]

I made a trip to Pattaya during late June/early July which was right at the end of Covid restrictions, visiting Sunee (Winner boy bar) and Jomtien Complex, offing boys from both and also from internet sites ( Romeo and Grindr). The bars were very quiet but I anticipated that by now tourism, specifically gay tourism, would have recovered to “normal” levels, but that is not evidently the case. I think two factors are negatives at the moment, the price of airfares (checking Expedia I see that a return ticket U.K. - Bkk, late November / early December is around £1250, double pré-Covid. Also there has been a lot of publicity on U-tube about the floods in Thailand.  The Complex is supported to a large degree by expats rather than tourists like myself, but they are more cost sensitive than the latter, particularly as regards drinks. 

So maybe the Complex, like the other 2 gay venues is doomed to fade away, as far as the farang trade is concerned anyway. I will have to decide whether to make the trip soon. - a friend asked me to accompany him to Spain so that is an option, but there are no Asian boys there !

[Olddaddy]

What's going to happen to this area in Sunee /?

I though developers will take it over ?

 

[vinapu]

3 hours ago, Olddaddy said:

What's going to happen to this area in Sunee /?

I though developers will take it over ?

 

I heard rumors ( spread by me) that it, s where Walking Street will be moved

[iendo]

14 hours ago, zoomomancs said:

I was there 2 weeks ago and my memory is in the 110/120 bt area for a beer. More for a boy drink obv. My focus was elsewhere so my memory may be wrong.

3 USD doesn't sound like much, but it is, especially for a host bar in Thailand.

I guess the fewer customers, the higher the prices.

Paul from Winner got it right a few years ago. He charged 100 THB per drink, and that would already been cheap 10 years ago.

But yes, I'll be on holiday and will not worry about a dollar more or less. I can see that the expats don't like it.

[gerefan]

7 hours ago, Travellerdave said:

I think two factors are negatives at the moment, the price of airfares (checking Expedia I see that a return ticket U.K. - Bkk, late November / early December is around £1250, double pré-Covid.

That’s peak season, so it will be high. I’ve just checked Eva who, I am using this time, and see that if you return early January it’s an amazing £920....just for the return flight.

That’s  high season for you.

You don’t say how long you are staying but if it’s for 90 days then the full return fare with Eva, departing 1 December and returning 1 March, is still only £800.

[gayinpattaya]

20 hours ago, zoomomancs said:

I was there 2 weeks ago and my memory is in the 110/120 bt area for a beer. More for a boy drink obv. My focus was elsewhere so my memory may be wrong.

If you are drinking chang/leo/singha bottles, 100b is the highest you will pay. The Venue and M2M are higher because of the shows. 
If you drink Tiger or Heineken you may pay a 10b to 20b baht premium in bars. 

@home bar, 4T Bar and Cocka2 bar serve draft Chang beer. Glasses are 70-75 baht. 1 Litre Jugs 170-200 baht and towers (3 litres) are 600+ (depending on the bar). @homebar is the most expensive. 

It's the expat centric bars that serve draft beer. The tourist bars can't get through a keg quick enough before it ruins (3 days). 


 

[gayinpattaya]

18 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

Last night in the Jomtien Supertown Complex - I encountered many Russian guys.

What is notable is that they are much younger than us retirees  :>))

But most of them dog ugly. 

[vinapu]

2 hours ago, gayinpattaya said:

But most of them dog ugly. 

Beauty is in the eye of beholder or something like that

[reader]

Dog ugly? Would like  to meet them.

[Olddaddy]

Oh so cute 🐱💜💚💚💚

[vinapu]

2 hours ago, Olddaddy said:

Oh so cute 🐱💜💚💚💚

Just like those Russian boys in Jomtien Complex? 

[Boy69]

I wonder if all these young Russians didn't flee Russia so they wouldn't be drafted into the war in Ukraine 🤔

[vinapu]

15 hours ago, Boy69 said:

I wonder if all these young Russians didn't flee Russia so they wouldn't be drafted into the war in Ukraine 🤔

Quite possibly some did. Any sane person would prefer  to get good fuck in Pattaya to being killed in Ukraine to satisfy some sick militaristic minds imperial ambitions. 

[Londoner]

The Bangkok sex-scene which so many enjoy ( and yes, I know the Thais were doing it well before us) owes its success to the American soldiers on R &R from Vietnam, turning Khun Patpong's  banana plantation into...well, whatever it is now. And then, requiring a beach as well as bars, Pattaya from fishing village to Commercial Sex Capital of the World.

Indeed, where would prostitution be without the contributions of soldiers on leave? or just running away? Sensible warriors, like Alexander the Great, took the brothels with them on their expeditions. 

[PeterRS]

12 hours ago, Londoner said:

The Bangkok sex-scene which so many enjoy ( and yes, I know the Thais were doing it well before us) owes its success to the American soldiers on R &R from Vietnam, turning Khun Patpong's  banana plantation into...well, whatever it is now.

With respect, I'm not sure that is entirely correct. The Americans leased U-tapao for their B52 bombers during the Vietnam War. With so many randy young men, they naturally wanted an outlet for their sexual urges.  It was I believe this group that resulted in the sex scene in nearby Pattaya. R&R quickly became known within the forces as I&I (intoxication and intercourse) in of course the girlie bars for which Thai enterpreneurs had noticed a big demand and the big profits that could accrue! That war ended in 1973. Some GIs no doubt visited Bangkok and helped develop the commercial girlie bar scene here in Patpong. But the numbers were I believe far fewer than in Pattaya.

Bangkok has had a sex scene for gays and straights from time immemorial. Foreigners rarely get near it for the very simple reason we are not wanted there. With the adoption of democracy in 1932, we know that several gay groups did then develop, but they were condemned by society as a whole. With so many gay personalities visiting Thailand  from around World War I - Somerset Maugham, Noel Coward and the at least bisexual Joseph Conrad etc. - there may have been a gay haunt or two, or did these men either stay with their partners of the day or just find young Thais happy to spend time with them?

After WWII we know that there was a farang gay group which included Jim Thomson, the Thai Silk King, and which did meet quite regularly. Eventually there was a gay bar. I have seen its name as Sea Hag but can not be sure. But this was also a time when the Thai media was very anti-gay and outed quite a number of well-known gay personalities. This lasted well into the 1960s. Although the original Twilight (not in its later Soi Twilight location) and one of two other gay venues started in the late 1960s, it was not tilll the late 1970s that the gay explosion started. And as stated earlier, most of the clientele in those days were Thai. 

[Londoner]

Thanks.... interesting. I wonder how much of  pre-mass tourism to Thailand (if any) had a sexual motivation? In his autobiography, (The World, the Flesh and Myself) the journalist and foreign correspondent Michael Davidson found a more welcoming attitude to his sexuality in Asia (specifically Bali, Malaya, Burma and Japan) than in the UK.

I have heard it argued that there is a religious element to this, in that far-eastern faiths are less masculinity-orientated  than  the monotheistic ones which dominate the West and  Middle-East.

[Olddaddy]

1 hour ago, Londoner said:

Thanks.... interesting. I wonder how much of  pre-mass tourism to Thailand (if any) had a sexual motivation? In his autobiography, (The World, the Flesh and Myself) the journalist and foreign correspondent Michael Davidson found a more welcoming attitude to his sexuality in Asia (specifically Bali, Malaya, Burma and Japan) than in the UK.

I have heard it argued that there is a religious element to this, in that far-eastern faiths are less masculinity-orientated  than  the monotheistic ones which dominate the West and  Middle-East.

Where is that book link ?

Is it a good read ,I'm not really that intellectual but some books are ok 

[Londoner]

It's available on Amazon. UK posters may recall the Gay Men's Press which, sadly, closed about twenty years ago. It had a superb list of gay novels, many of which are difficult to come by now.

Davidson's book is more about his travels as a journalist than his sexual experiences... his time in pre-war Germany is particularly interesting , as are his dealings with the UK government in Cyprus when he bravely revealed the torture our forces dished-out .

The sexual escapades are mentioned rather than described. Its the autobiography of a journalist who was gay rather than of a gay man who was a journalist.

[vinapu]

2 hours ago, Olddaddy said:

Where is that book link ?

Is it a good read ,I'm not really that intellectual but some books are ok 

I like my check book immensely

[macaroni21]

6 hours ago, Londoner said:

I have heard it argued that there is a religious element to this, in that far-eastern faiths are less masculinity-orientated  than  the monotheistic ones which dominate the West and  Middle-East.

I agree, there is a religious element to this, but casting the issue as one of masculinity, in my view, does not lead to a helpful explanation. I'm sure many of us have noticed that Asian societies can be as patriarchal and male-centric as any, and there are huge sections of the male population who can be boorish and aggressive and boastful of sexual conquests. 

Where the religious element comes in is from the fact that Christianity is the cultural foundation for European societies. One distinguishing feature about Christianity (and Islam, as you have alluded to) is its great discomfort with sex. In addition, Islam has a great discomfort with display of skin - but that's a separate conversation. Although during the last 100 years or so, European societies have become sexually liberated, it's a recent phenomenon when considered in relation to the centuries of history that has formed attitudes that remain under the surface (among certain sections of society today) despite any new liberalism.

The fundamental tenet in Christianity is that sex and the erotic are plain bad. Sex is seen as addictive and distractive and lead the mind astray from worshipping God. Unfortunately, sex is needed for procreation so, for a long time the Church's teaching has been that procreation was the only acceptable justification for engaging in it. For a long time too, the teaching was that even as husband and wife had sex, they were not supposed to take their clothes off and they were not supposed to enjoy it. Any other kind of sex was/is equated with sin, even masturbation. This is the root of that long history of sodomy laws, and wave after wave of moral panic over prostitution and pornography (and miscegenation - but that too is another matter).

In Asian societies, their religious underpinning may be Hindu, Buddhist or Confucian (which are vastly different from each other in their teachings), but the interesting thing is that none of them have strong words about sex. This doesn't mean they are necessarily tolerant. But it does mean that if there is disapproval of, say, extra-marital (heterosexual) relations, homosexuality, or prostitution, it tends to spring from anxieties over family security (including inheritance rights) or social order, and therefore the disapproval tends to be (sometimes, depending on the era) "softer", and more situational. The disapproval does not take the fire-and-brimstone variety that so characterised Western precepts for centuries.

One example of what I mean by "situational" would be an Asian community appearing semi-tolerant of foreigners engaging in homosexuality, but take a firmer line should one of their own sons do likewise. Foreigners can be labelled "they don't know any better", whilst the scion of the family has a duty to uphold the respectability of the family name, get married properly and bear heirs. 

A simple way to put it is this: Western history saw the issue as sex and unChristian enjoyment, and disapproved of it in a blanket way for that non-negotiable reason. Asian history was not so much concerned about sex, but about the consequential effects of sex. Since consequential effects were greater or lesser depending on the situation, so disapproval could be calibrated or negotiated.

[pong2]

6 hours ago, vinapu said:

I like my check book immensely

Wow-do you still have one? In my country these are abolished since at least turn to 2000-or when this € came (2, 3 yrs later). Or is it also now a musem pice without real value.