Is the gay scene dying off ?

[PeterRS]

59 minutes ago, reader said:

One of the areas we can agree upon. I did get to meet the owner on one occasion (he held court nightly at a large table in the back of Babylon's main restaurant). At that time it was certainly operating in the red with 300-400 paying 280 baht on weekends to pass through the turnstile. Drinks and food were.f course, extra.

Yes, we do agree. It's a pity that you were never able to attend the original Babylon in the building at the top of that soi where it joins Sathorn Soi 1. Perhaps ironically it's now the home of the French restaurant Le Bouchon that for decades was located in Patpong Soi 2!

The original Babylon which opened around 1987 I think was clearly more than just a gay sauna, for someone had spent a great deal of money on it - antiques in a tall glass case in the lobby, for example. The smallish restaurant on the first floor was always packed at weekends and the owner would usually engage a classical guitarist or flautist to play gentle music. Much of the music piped into the sauna area was itself quiet classical - rarely pop.  I was aways told that it was created basically for gay professional Thais to give them a private space to relax and unwind. Certainly on Friday and Saturday evenings there were always queues to get in. Then the owner expanded it by taking over the next door premises. But by the end of the 1990s, he decided to move it all down to its location in the much larger premises on land which I believe his family owned.

When a Thai friend told me about the original Babylon not long after it opened, I admit I became a regular. Every visit I made to Bangkok (several a year) included one evening at Babylon. Happy memories indeed! To begin with I liked the new premises, although for my taste they were too large. The pool, gym, restaurants and bar were great. But it became perhaps more like Hua Lamphong station rather than the niche little Hua Hin station. But that's progress.

I was aware of other saunas opening. Heaven down near the river (opened around 1995 I think) was very busy for a time and I believe is still on the go. Chakran quickly became my favourite, though. Once the Skytrain had opened, getting to Soi Aree was so much easier. And with its Moroccan theme, its small pool right in the middle, the bar where you could sip Singhas or cocktails on loungers as you watched the many boys in their towels descend the stairs on the other side - it almost eclipsed the oriignal Babylon. Somewhat oddly, as Babylon had became so much more popular with foreigners as well as Thais, Chakran slowly moved in the other direction - Thai for Thai/Asian.

But as you @reader have often said and perhaps I have not given you sufficient credit, time marches on. Some things change. I had a favourite sauna in Singapore named Rairua. It opened in 2002 and was out of the city centre. Like Babylon, it was very well decorated and laid out. It introduced SIngapore's first nude nights. These became so popular that other Singapore saunas had adopted the theme within a year. The clients tended to be better off, cute young Singaporeans - very few foreigners like me! Then virutally without warning it closed its doors in 2006.  Now that building happens to be the Singapore branch of the gay Pulse Clinic which started in Bangkok!

As I have written before, I was very much a regular at Bangkok's gay go-go bars for decades. When I moved to live here, I discovered that a gay friend from my Hong Kong days also had bought a condo here. So on Sundays we were regulars for dinner somewhere followed by a go-go bar or two. We must have visited almost all of them, even though we returned to our favourites. Our last outings were amost always to a bar whose name I am ashamed to say I cannot recall. It was on the same street as Nature Boys and on the corner just down from Mango Tree. It was not popular in that we rarely saw more than a handful of other customers. But drinks were cheap, some of the boys were great fun and the short time rooms upstairs were always clean. When it finally closed, we'd occasionally chat with one of the mamasans who had opened a small host bar on Soi Twilight almost next to Dick's Cafe. The other more efficient mamasan had earlier gone off to Pattaya to work in Dick's Cafe there.

My reason for not attending bars now is simply because I have no desire. Being partnered with a Thai whose only experience of gay nightlife had been a quick visit to Balcony Bar with his cute gay friend, we both prefer to meet our friends for quiet dinners, drinks and chat. Mabe we are lucky in that he really enjoys my friends and I his. On the other hand, I have free reign when I am away from Thailand. But that's another story!

[Olddaddy]

Can anyone tell me their opinion though 

Do the Go Go bars ....in your opinion...make a profit in Pattaya?

I wonder why they operate though if they don't,unless it's only high season?

[daydreamer]

12 hours ago, PeterRS said:

a bar whose name I am ashamed to say I cannot recall. It was on the same street as Nature Boys and on the corner just down from Mango Tree. It was not popular in that we rarely saw more than a handful of other customers. But drinks were cheap, some of the boys were great fun and the short time rooms upstairs were always clean. When it finally closed, we'd occasionally chat with one of the mamasans who had opened a small host bar on Soi Twilight almost next to Dick's Cafe.

Peter, from your description, it sounds like the bar may have been named Solid Bar.  Was the mamasan the same one who always wore the oversized blazer by chance?

[macaroni21]

2 hours ago, Olddaddy said:

Do the Go Go bars ....in your opinion...make a profit in Pattaya?

I wonder why they operate though if they don't,unless it's only high season?

Are you still thinking of buying a bar???

Not just in Pattaya, in Bangkok too, though it's pretty clear that Pattaya's gogo bars are in more dire straits than the capital city's. It's a real mystery to me. Considering these observations I've made (and I think most of us have made too):

- 20 customers a night at best in a Pattaya bar; 40 customers as best in a 2nd-rung Bangkok bar; 70 customers at best in a top-rung Bangkok bar;

- average spend per customer on drinks maybe 300 - 800 baht in Pattaya; 500 - 1000 baht in Bangkok;

- average number of offs, maybe 10 - 15% of customers, at about 500 baht each time...

The top-rung's numbers look viable, with revenue about 60,000 baht a night. Bangkok's 2nd rung bars look borderline, revenue about 35,000 baht a night. The Pattaya bars don't look viable to me.

On the cost side, rent in Bangkok is way higher than Pattaya. The shows they put up also costs money. However Hotmale does not use external performers (read: gatoeys) for its shows, and some Pattaya bars don't do shows at all - so they save costs this way.

Now that you mention it, 15 - 20 years ago, a Thai anthropologist whom I met at an AIDS event shared with me his theory (or likely inside information, more than just a theory) that at least some of the Soi Twilight bars  were not primarily intended to make money from their operations. They were owned by wives of influential people, and the black money that these influential power-holders received in the course of their "work", were booked as sales revenue in these bars. You see, these bars are all cash-based, and thus perfect vehicles for laundering dirty money. The power-holders were also in a position to protect these businesses though there was some sharing with the local police precinct, to keep everyone happy. I'm just repeating what I heard, but  it made sense to me then. Of course, I cannot swear it to be the truth.

[PeterRS]

4 minutes ago, daydreamer said:

Peter, from your description, it sounds like the bar may have been named Solid Bar.  Was the mamasan the same one who always wore the oversized blazer by chance?

Thanks so much @daydreamer. Trying to remember that name has been haunting me since I wrote the post. Sorry I cannot recall what the mamasans wore. I was much more interested in what the boys were not wearing 😵

I recall that on one of our quite regular visits, I was pissed off that one customer had hogged a table and was buying drinks for the 5 cutest guys. Fair enough! We should have arrived earlier.

What annoyed me more, though, was that he and a couple of the boys were smoking, as were a couple of other customers, this despite there being two large NO SMOKING notices. Eventually I walked over to him to point out the notices and politely ask if he and the boys would cease smoking. A few moments later he came over to our table. I was a bit concerned he might want to provoke a fight. But he was very pleasant. He was, he told us, the co-owner of the bar. Since we were regulars, we knew that they never had many customers and the bar was not making profits. It was for him an interesting sideline. But if he stopped customers smoking, he'd lose half the existing customer base and have to close down.

It was a very fair point and I thanked him. He offered us a free drink, but in view of the bar's financial situation we declined. I almost said I'd prefer to take one of the boys sitting at his table upstairs, but managed to restrain myself!

Thanks again.

[PeterRS]

19 minutes ago, macaroni21 said:

On the cost side, rent in Bangkok is way higher than Pattaya . . .

Now that you mention it, 15 - 20 years ago, a Thai anthropologist whom I met at an AIDS event shared with me his theory (or likely inside information, more than just a theory) that at least some of the Soi Twilight bars  were not primarily intended to make money from their operations. They were owned by wives of influential people, and the black money that these influential power-holders received in the course of their "work", were booked as sales revenue in these bars. 

You also have to add the montly envelopes handed over to the BIB. I have no idea what the rate is in Pattaya or the present rate in Bangkok. But some years before Soi Twilight closed, I was chatting with a mamsan I had known for years. He informed me that for an indoor go-go bar, 160,000 baht was the expected monthly payment. For a beer bar on the street, 40,000 baht. 

Following covid and the closure of Soi Twilight, I expect these payments must have been considerably reduced.

Mention of bar ownership, it was often claimed that Classic Boys at the end of Soi Twilight was owned by a member of the army. We know, too, that substantial payments are made on a regular basis to the BIB by the owners of the girl bars. Thanks to an arrest made by police in one jurisdiction some years ago, the man taken into custody had specifically made substantial "contributions" over the years to those in another juriiction to enable the police to build air-conditioned police boxes at traffic intersections. He created an almighty fuss and I believe the case swiftly disappeared. 

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, macaroni21 said:

Not just in Pattaya, in Bangkok too, though it's pretty clear that Pattaya's gogo bars are in more dire straits than the capital city's.

Found this map of Pattaya's Sunee Plaza dated 2010. The gay go-go bars are marked in blue. I can see 13 - and this was before Winner Boys opened. Of the rest, I think only Nice Boys continues to exist. I was only rarely in Pattaya but did sometimes enjoy walking through the Plaza and stopping at Yaya's bar for a drink before popping into two different types of go-go bars - Krazy Dragon and Happy Boys. I really wonder: how did it all disappear so quickly?

[macaroni21]

I don't mean to sound unkind, so please don't read judgement into my choice of words. Sunnee, I have long observed, was a kind of fetish place. Almost uniformly, the bars both indoor and outdoor had fem twinks, some bordering on anorexic. The clientele, almost uniformly, were white men. They were the first wave of rice queens whose erotic desire was shaped by mid 20th century Western stereotypes of Asianness as  caring, submissive... i.e. feminised. (We still see that in Hollywood where Asian male characters are often emasculated while the Asian female is prized for her exotic beauty).

This unique form of erotic desire naturally doesn't carry over to either the subsequent generation of westerners nor to gay male Asians.

So when the first generation of Sunnee lovers died off, no one replaced them. Quite unlike the Bangkok gogo bar scene where gay Asians are the majority clients today.

[revengeboo]

Interesting thesis and sounds close to the truth.  Beauty standards shift over time and between cultures and it makes sense that a certain "boom time" for a unique aesthetic is no longer as dominant.

[floridarob]

37 minutes ago, macaroni21 said:

Sunnee, I have long observed, was a kind of fetish place.

To me, the fear of pedophilia that was associated with the place in the 00's was what kept me and many I knew away..... 

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, macaroni21 said:

Sunnee, I have long observed, was a kind of fetish place. Almost uniformly, the bars both indoor and outdoor had fem twinks, some bordering on anorexic. The clientele, almost uniformly, were white men.

I am sure you are correct, although clearly there were exceptions. We popped in to Krazy Dragon precisely because the boys there were not the typical fem-type twinks. Quite the opposite in most cases. It was a pleasnt change from Happy Boys.

[Olddaddy]

2 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Found this map of Pattaya's Sunee Plaza dated 2010. The gay go-go bars are marked in blue. I can see 13 - and this was before Winner Boys opened. Of the rest, I think only Nice Boys continues to exist. I was only rarely in Pattaya but did sometimes enjoy walking through the Plaza and stopping at Yaya's bar for a drink before popping into two different types of go-go bars - Krazy Dragon and Happy Boys. I really wonder: how did it all disappear so quickly?

Your right ,how did it all disappear and why 

I think .....and I'm not sure ...but didn't madam Sunee not renew leases at one stage possibly because of offers from developers 

Look we all know that the area will be sold off and developed,even blind Freddy knows it's eventually going to happen 

[a-447]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

I am sure you are correct, although clearly there were exceptions. We popped in to Krazy Dragon precisely because the boys there were not the typical fem-type twinks. Quite the opposite in most cases. It was a pleasnt change from Happy Boys.

Masculine guys could also be found at Eros, Goodboys, Niceboys, Powerboys and Holiday 2.

[PeterRS]

35 minutes ago, a-447 said:

Masculine guys could also be found at Eros, Goodboys, Niceboys, Powerboys and Holiday 2.

I'm glad @a-447 mentioned these bars because it does rather give the lie to the view that Sunee basically died because it was a fem-type boy area. I have no doubt there was a preponderence of fem-boys. But that cannot have been the primary reason for the area's quite rapid decline. 

I always enjoyed sitting at Yaya's bar and people watching as I did at Dick's in Soi Twilight. There then seemed a considerable number of farang sitting at various beer bars, drinking and chatting, although we were never sitting there long enough to check if the customers offed boys. Clearly some did. But the fem-boy argument and the underage argument surely cannot have been the only reasons.

Re underage, on an early visit in the late 1990s we did enter a bar in Sunee - close to where #22 Memories Beer bar is on the map. We were both shocked and disgusted that some of those sitting at the side of the stage were clearly under age - some even considerably underage. But I understood this problem with Sunee was cleaned up early in the new century. Certainly we never saw a similar bar on future visits, thankfully.

I recall one of the regular posters on this Board used to have weekly meetings with several friends over drinks at a Sunee bar. Admittedly it was quite a few years ago, but there seemed no major problem with the area at that time. I do recall being informed that the owners of Krazy Dragon and Happy Boys (the latter being in a lousy location) just gave up because of lack of customers. But again I come back to the question: why did the customer base that could clearly sustain so many gay bars and go-gos in 2010 all seem to vanish with most closing pre-covid?

[reader]

6 hours ago, macaroni21 said:

Now that you mention it, 15 - 20 years ago, a Thai anthropologist whom I met at an AIDS event shared with me his theory (or likely inside information, more than just a theory) that at least some of the Soi Twilight bars  were not primarily intended to make money from their operations. They were owned by wives of influential people, and the black money that these influential power-holders received in the course of their "work", were booked as sales revenue in these bars. You see, these bars are all cash-based, and thus perfect vehicles for laundering dirty money. The power-holders were also in a position to protect these businesses though there was some sharing with the local police precinct, to keep everyone happy. I'm just repeating what I heard, but  it made sense to me then. Of course, I cannot swear it to be the truth.

I've heard that rumor about various Bangkok venues past and present. One more reason the power brokers who actually own these clubs have an interest in keeping them going. Others in their circle run very different "businesses" to gain the very same benefits. They have skin in the game so it becomes a "go along to get along" situation for all concerned.

[macaroni21]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

why did the customer base that could clearly sustain so many gay bars and go-gos in 2010 all seem to vanish with most closing pre-covid?

Try this other theory of change for size: I can't remember what its proper name is but I shall call it the tipping point effect. Applying it to Sunnee (and one might apply it to Jomtien host bars though they're at a different point in the trajectory for now), it goes like this: the market did not suddenly vanish. It declined gradually as Sunnee lovers aged or died. Plus, as @floridarob suggested, the fear of being caught up in the moral panic over paedophilia caused some to stay away. In the early stages of the decline, the businesses stay open, albeit with more and more red ink. However, because the neon signs remain lit, the impression one gets is that the market is healthy. It takes close observation of foot traffic to spot signs of strain if one has no access to the financial figures. 

Eventually a few business can hold on no longer. They close. That's the tipping point. Once their neon signs are switched off, the ambiance of the place changes. Customers notice and some of them decide to give the district a miss. With reduced traffic, more businesses close and the vicious cycle accelerates.

On the visible surface it may look like a sudden collapse, but under the surface it has not been healthy for a long time.

This is an overarching theory of change. Even the fall of the Soviet Union followed this path. Its decline started some 20-25 year earlier as Brezhnev and his circle consolidated power, but only became noticeable in the 1980s with Poland's Solidarnosc.

[macaroni21]

2 hours ago, a-447 said:

Masculine guys could also be found at Eros, Goodboys, Niceboys, Powerboys and Holiday 2.

I've been told that even during Sunee's heyday. Even checked out all of those bars except Holiday 2 which I don't recall at all. With due respect, what's "masculine" to Sunnee lovers fall way short of "masculine" to non-Sunnee lovers. With that gulf in expectations, there was no persuading non-Sunnee lovers to become Sunnee-lovers.

Consider for a moment the "masculine" boys of the still-surviving Nice Boys. Can we seriously imagine the clients who go to Dream Boy Bangkok or Jupiter to appreciate Nice Boys' ragamuffins?

[a-447]

4 hours ago, macaroni21 said:

Consider for a moment the "masculine" boys of the still-surviving Nice Boys. Can we seriously imagine the clients who go to Dream Boy Bangkok or Jupiter to appreciate Nice Boys' ragamuffins?

Not all masculine guys are "ragamuffins". 

Sometimes looks can be deceiving. Some of the guys at Niceboys (and the old Goodboys) look like escapees from the local juvenile detention centre but when you get to speak to them, they are some of the sweetest, loveliest guys you could ever hope to meet. 

The masculine guys I saw as a "Sunee lover" in its hey-day are exactly the same manly type I admire today in the bars in Bangkok.

[hojacat]

7 hours ago, PeterRS said:

why did the customer base that could clearly sustain so many gay bars and go-gos in 2010 all seem to vanish with most closing pre-covid?

Doesn't that coincide with the coming into scene of Grindr and other gay apps? Seems like none of you guys are counting it as a factor into the decline. I mean, it was quite revolutionary. It represents the fastest way to get a guy into your bed, especially if you're willing to pay and you are offered a much larger range of choice  that any bar can offer.. I guess some of the customers in those bars where not really interested in the whole shenanigans of the go-go scene, but were there mostly to off guys. If they could do that online much faster and probably cheaper , they stopped frequenting those bars and do something else with the rest of their night and maybe reduction caused that snowball effect that @macaroni21 is mentioning. 

[Lucky]

Lots of interesting posts here. I have been going to Thailand since 1987 but not since the pandemic began. I do wonder for my next trip what interest I might have in the go-go bars. I'd see a show at Jupiter since it is known for its cute guys. But just a bar with boys dancing lazily waiting to be offed? I don't think I have any interest in that anymore.

I think the massage parlors will interest me more, but right now, I just don't know. Mainly I am looking forward to nice hotels, scenic tours, and good food. Friendly people too, just not necessarily in a thong.

[reader]

The great thing about staying in the Silom area is that all of the things you've mentioned are available within walking distance. From Patpong, you can be on Silom Soi 6 where you can choose from among 70+ massage guys after a seven minute walk. Even less to Soi 4 and Moonlight.

Foodland is a minute away and other restaurants all within 5-10 minutes.

Hotels from budget to splurge are at your fingertips

Last boys I saw dancing were at Fresh Boy and they're best described as energetic.

[PeterRS]

7 hours ago, hojacat said:

Doesn't that coincide with the coming into scene of Grindr and other gay apps? Seems like none of you guys are counting it as a factor into the decline. I mean, it was quite revolutionary.

Revolutionary, but the apps were certainly not the first and only way to find guys on line. gay.com and gaydar were just two of the websites which had a wide selection of guys from all over Asia. fridae, the Singapore-run site, was for its first years a major way of finding guys and it listed many tens of thousands around Asia. There was also at least one Thai site mostly in Thai but a good way of meeting young cute Thai guys. I certainly used it for a while.

Perhaps more important surely is the rather sudden availability and spread of cheap mobile phones. Soon came grindr and the other gay daing apps. But if that was a reason for Sunee Plaza relatively quickly downhill after 2010, how is it that other gay areas in Pattaya and Bangkok have not collapsed so quickly?

[macaroni21]

8 hours ago, hojacat said:

Doesn't that coincide with the coming into scene of Grindr and other gay apps?

Good point. While I doubt if the regulars of Sunnee, being in the main of a certain generation, might adopt technology quite so easily, it is possible that the newer generation of twink-lovers did. So, as Sunnee's reputation went down the toilet, they stayed on the apps rather than travel all the way to Sunnee. This may have contributed to the non-renewal of the Sunnee scene.

 

4 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

But if that was a reason for Sunee Plaza relatively quickly downhill after 2010, how is it that other gay areas in Pattaya and Bangkok have not collapsed so quickly?

Good question. If I may speculate:

1. The association with paedophilia caused reputational damage to Sunnee unlike other places.

2. The "product offer" of Sunnee was unusually narrow (fem twinks) and held little attraction to the newer generation of western tourists and Asian clients.

3. As Asian traffic rose, Bangkok had an advantage. Asian tourists tend to make shorter trips, so staying in Bangkok made more sense compared to going all the way to Pattaya (which is also why Pattaya's Boyztown has also seen considerable decline).

[PeterRS]

2 minutes ago, macaroni21 said:

1. The association with paedophilia caused reputational damage to Sunnee unlike other places.

2. The "product offer" of Sunnee was unusually narrow (fem twinks) and held little attraction to the newer generation of western tourists and Asian clients.

3. As Asian traffic rose, Bangkok had an advantage. Asian tourists tend to make shorter trips, so staying in Bangkok made more sense compared to going all the way to Pattaya (which is also why Pattaya's Boyztown has also seen considerable decline).

Fair points. But my impression is that the pedophilia issue had all but disappeared for all but a very few by 2010. It was certainly front and centre around 2000 but ten years is a long time and memories can be relatively short if what is on offer is attractive enough.

Having visited so infrequently, I am hardly one to comment, but I did rarely see any Asian tourists in Sunee. Mind you, my last visit was close to 10 years ago. 

I am sure your third point is correct. As I have written in several posts, on the basis of what I read on other Asian-based sites and on what I hear from Asian friends, their gay interests are primarily on massage and discos. One reason perhaps is that the majority of Asian tourists like to travel in small groups and spend time doing things together. Bangkok offers much more.

One other Pattaya question from me. I hear that Jomtien Plaza is doing very good business. How many in the customer base there is Asian? My expectation would be very small.

[gerefan]

28 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

One other Pattaya question from me. I hear that Jomtien Plaza is doing very good business. How many in the customer base there is Asian? My expectation would be very small.

I now stay close to Jomtien Complex and so visit regularly.

I do not think I have seen any Asian customers. Most seem to be expats or Europeans.