PeterRS

The Taiwan law is for Taiwanese citizens and for Taiwan citizens who have a partner from an overseas country which itself permits gay marriage. You cannot just go to Taiwan and get hitched!

Great news! Two years ago Taiwans Supreme Court gave the government two years to implement a gay marriage law. After two years talking and conservatives seeming to get the upper hand, this morning the legislators passed the most liberal of three possible bills. And it passed by a large majority - 66 votes to 27. Gay marriage will become legal from Friday next week. So which Asian country will be next?

....... and if an aircraft crashes, thats it. Boom! End of life in many cases. But with Prep you may be virtually protected from HIV but not from all the other STDs out there. Thats what I do not understand about those believing Prep is the be all and end all of protection. We know Thailand has seen a considerable rise in cases of syphilis in msm. But more problematic is likely to be gonorrhoea. Two thirds of countries around the word have reported gonorrhoea cases that now resist all down antibiotics. Personally I dont like those odds. This is not the case in Thailand - yet. But it is true in Myanmar, China, Indonesia and India. Will Thailand be far behind? https://mosaicscience.com/story/gonorrhoea-gonorrhea-STI-Thailand-clap-USA-AMR-super/

Just out of curiosity. You are taking Prep and that cute guy you are with says he is also on Prep. How would you know he is telling th truth?

Another problem is that the 4 week window is not foolproof. It does work in most cases but there can be cases of false positives and false negatives. Also there are still older test kits out there which require more than a 4 week window. So the 3 month window really is vital. Gay men do not have to have unprotected sex. It is their decision. A man, woman or child undergoing invasive surgery has no choice. They must have blood.

Thanks KevKev01. Yes, the clinic on Silom is called Pulse. It is run by a handsome gay doctor. The website has a ton of information on HIV and STDs in general. It appears a second clinic will be opened on Suk 13 this month. https://www.pulse-clinic.com

Smalls looks as though it is located in the corner building which once housed the French bistro Chez Pepin. Chez Pepin was a wonderful little place to dine with one of the best hamburgers (I know, not exactly French) in the city. The patron was French but his Thai wife did all the cooking. One summer about 4 or 5 years ago they closed for a month whilst they returned to France allegedly for a a vacation and to sort out some visa issues. They never returned. I will certainly try out Smalls but I am not keen on live jazz when I am eating or drinking with friends. I prefer a bit more peace to chat. For those interested, Prince Massage is also very close. I have never been to Backstage. I wonder if there is any connection to the Backstage Bar in Singapore which I think is a great little gay bar. It is also theatre-themed, they mix great cocktails and serve a selection of food. Highly recommended. I have only once been in The Bamboo Bar at the Mandarin Oriental. Didn't like it one bit! Small and pokey! It used to permit smoking and a number of the rich patrons were puffing away at their cigars. A drink on the Terrace by the river is cheaper and far more pleasant!

Spoon is absolutely correct. Some people seem to feel that Prep is the magic bullet that enables unprotected sex with no risk. It certainly takes most of the risk away but only 92% according to official studies. That of course does not mean you can have unprotected sex 92 times before starting to take care. A tiny risk of HIV transmission is always there. What Prep will not do is protect you against other STDs. You are much more likely to get syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia, genital warts and a host of other nasties if you decide not to use a condom. In the USA alone 20 million are newly infected with one or more STDs each year and half of these are in the 15 - 24 year age group.

This is a good reason for getting a check for syphillis when you go to get your HIV test. The clinic on Silom (cant recall the name but it is across from Silom Complex and feels as though you are entering a nice club or hotel) usually tests for both.

Were all different. As I have said probably in another forum, the rubber band or whatever it is that maintains the erection puts me right off. Im probably in the minority.

Of course! But there are some people out there who seem to think that they are entitled to anything and everything in a hotel room, from the remains of a small bar of soap to towels and bathrobes. I am sure it is not restricted to Thailand.

I have never taken a drink from a mini bar, although I have regular taken the eats like Pringles or chocolate and then replaced them with items bought at 7 11. Do the 5 ml bottles of liquor also have a paper over the cap in Thailand? I reckon it should be easy enough to open that with a knife, unscrew the cap and replace the bottle so the paper looks unopened on a cursory glance. I doubt if hotel staff take each mini bottle out and examine it, but I may be wrong.

When you mention they get hard, do you mean naturally hard or were all the appendages tied off at the base to maintain hardness as has usually been the case for many, many years now?

I once stayed at the Pan Pacific on Rama 4 - now the Crowne Plaza. It was major 4 star hotel but when checking out I was asked to wait while the in room fridge was checked. I always think this is such a demeaning exercise. If you pay by credit card they can always add to it after departure for those who are not honest. The worst guests are those who drink the whisky and vodka and then refill the bottles with weak tea and water. That is much harder to check until the next guest wants a drink. The point of the post though is that after waiting for several minutes I was asked if I would please return the bathrobe. They refused to believe I did not have it. I had to open my case and let them look through before they processed the bill. That was a disgrace. I never stayed there again.

Thailand is full of very rich men and women who go to extraordinary lengths to develop relationships with the gals and boys of their dreams. Many married men (hiso and others) keep second wives and mistresses. They buy them apartments, give them fancy cars, dress allowances and goodness knows what else. Same with the boys. I know of one producer in the entertainment business. He is married with kids but showers his young proteges with the same level of favours. They may never achieve stardom but they keep their patron happy. Its a very different world from the one we inhabit!

Agree with Goldmember, Although also Asian for Asian Chakran accepts foreigners and is a lovely sauna with a good young crowd. No need for a taxi. Take the Skytrain to Ari station. From there is is about a 400 meter walk.

You have the correct name and location between Phipat and Convent. I heard that this is almost exclusively for Asians and that westerners are not encouraged. Did you pay the standard entry fee? Have also been told that if you are over a certain age - 50? - you must pay much more.

It certainly seems that the lack of a positive cash flow was a major contribution in the companys demise. I have a friend who works in Europe as an agent in the music business. Sometimes when he "sells' an artist, part or all of the fee is paid up front, usually many months in advance but it can be over a year. Others have their fees remitted to his agency by promoters immediately after the concerts. In tough times, he has told me it was extremely tempting to try and use some of the advance payments. But there is a law making it essential that agents ring fence all their clients income from general company expenditure. Penalties include jail time. That way his musicians are protected from the sort of problems that seem to beset the travel industry. I would even go so far as to say it also imposes a strong discipline on business owners to ensure they can manage their cash flows. I find it sad that customers who have paid large deposits up front for a holiday have to suffer when a travel business collapses. Sometimes the writing on the wall must surely have been obvious before it gets to that stage.

I read this with mixed views. In the early days before the arrest and imprisonment of his two partners when the company was named Utopia Tours and was based in the Tarntawan Hotel, I took a tour to Luang Prabang. All the details were excellent. I stayed in a lovely guesthouse by the river run by a gay Lao architect who had just returned after many years in Australia. The night tour with a cute guide was less interesting, perhaps because the eye candy and availability of young men in those days meant visiting the few gayish venues was not necessary to find company. The next year I took their tour to Phnom Penh. I have to add that the regular day guides with me on both tours were quite boring even though their local knowledge was obviously excellent. After the company was suspended due to the legal issues involving the partners, I contributed 5000 baht to the legal defence fund. When it finally got going again, I had started just making my own tour arrangements. I also realised their prices, particularly for hotels, were higher than I could get by booking on my own. Until I read the blog link, I had not realised Purple Dragon was a founder of the Bangkok Gay Pride. Sadly that was never going to work. I attended a couple of their Pride Parades. Far too commercial and virtually the only marchers were bar boys and ladyboys. Bangkok was not ready for a Pride Parade then. There were reports early last year of the Parade being revived lat November. That was then postponed because pf the proximity to the late Kings cremation. That idea now seems dead. The blog makes for dismal reading, despite its more upbeat tone at the end. I feel very sorry for those of his customers who have lost cash due to the company going out of business. I hope every traveller in future heeds his advice by making sure they have travel insurance. But one really has to question his choice of partners, the first two ending up being deported and, like the next one, leaving the till empty! To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose one partner may be regarded as misfortune , to lose both looks like carelessness! Frivolity aside, I wish him better luck in his new life.

I have been in Dreamboys several times over the last few years. I never once saw body painting. Obviously I was there on the wrong nights - or too wrapped up in one of the models! No idea! As for their being fully erect, I actually preferred the Barbiery version where there was no erection. The boys were just totally free and natural. As for being totally erect, I do think that is something of a misnomer. I do not remember when it all started, but getting a dick erect and then tying it off with a stretched condom or whatever so that it will not lose its erection during a show is a major turn-off for me.

Yes, I recall many such shows and I agree they really were artistic. I think they started in Barbiery with one or two boys being painted on each of its small stages. I recall the boys were always nude. Once painted, their dancing under the ultra-violet light was slinky and indeed sinuous. It certainly started in the 1980s although precisely when I cannot remember. A few other bars later began to copy the idea. I remember seeing it in Hotmale after its reincarnation from Twilight around the turn of the millennium. But the painting was more basic and the boys did not have the same artistry - nor did they seem to have the same enthusiasm. Wasnt that one of the great bonuses in Barbiery - how enthusiastic ALL the boys were? I dont recall any of the many dozens of evenings I spent in that bar when even one boy looked bored. There seemed to be a tremendous camaraderie amongst them - and there always were lots and lots of them! I dont know of any bar where this act can be seen today - or even in the last dozen years.

Ive written before that there was nude dancing in some form or another much earlier than 1991 and 1996. In 1980 the old Apollo Bar located at the end of Soi 4 had nude dancing from around 9:30 pm or maybe 10 pm. On my visits over at least 3 years there was never an evening without nude dancing. Soon Twilight (the original version of Hotmale) had nude dancing every night from roughly the same time. fFom the mid-1980s Barbiery, Super Lek and others soon had nude painted body shows and soap bubble shows. All this was in addition to the usual fuck shows. I know some posters are put off by nude dancing. The boys in Twilight never seemed to enjoy being nude, but those particularly in Apollo and Barbiery seemed to really enjoy it and they really did dance. Certainly those of us in the audience did.

Fantastic news! I doubt if any poster will be as warmly welcomed as you, dear Shameless Mack. Once you are settled in, please, please keep up your contributions with your own slant and details of the bars and massage spas. I still have your old body analyses and your proposal for a new go-go bar. Had someone followed your design - and been able to pay the tea money to the BIB - I believe it would have packed in the customers.

The only other gay place I recall in that area from long ago is Super Lek. Super A used to be across the soi from its present location. Barbiery relocated into the 3rd floor of a new building opposite Nature Boys after its move from the far better location on Suriwong opposite Soi Twilight around the year 2000. This was a disaster. Hardly any customers and dreadful layout. Having been one of the most in-demand gogo bars for 15 years or so, in the new location It died after little more than a year. I respectfully disagree. I dont think it an ideal gay location. There is no room there for roadside beer bars which have been a key part of Twilight for some years. Also the road going past Nature Boys and Golden Cock is often quite busy with traffic. Over the last 10 years I can recall 3 other bars that opened in that subsoi with Super A. Solid lasted around 5 years I guess. Neither of the other 2 attracted more than a handful of customers and quickly died. Definitely not the old Rome Club in Silom Soi 4. As another poster indicated, it died around 25 years ago!

Compared to today, I was raised in an old fashioned household. As executors of my will I have two close relatives (meaning relations who are close to me personally and know that i am gay). I am not into toys and so the only items of some concern might be a stack of porn vdos. These I keep in a toolbox (sic) securely locked with a padlock that would require a wire cutter to open. Clearly written on the front are the words "Do not open. Throw away after my death." I have no doubts that this is what my executors will do. If one happened to be the prying kind, he or she might decide to take a peek inside. But I will be dead and it will not concern me. The person who peeked will then feel considerable guilt, probably for quite some time, that my wishes were not carried out. But I know 100% that will not happen. If you constantly worry about these things, my guess is you will become totally paranoid - that is, if you have not already approached that state.