macaroni21

Dubai is not the kind of place one would go to look for any kind of gay entertainment or personal relief, but it's a business city where business people find themselves having to go to. I was one of those, though not lately. Naturally a certain percentage of business people swing "the other way" and thus there's a market for providers of solace and comfort. I have been tempted, but between being too busy (I never wanted to stay in Dubai any longer than absolutely necessary) and too conscious of the capriciousness of security people, I never tasted the offerings available there. I did hear from a business acquaintance about a raid on their office premises looking, not for cooked books or other evidence of fraud, but for pornography. Why pornography? No idea. The teller of the story had a theory that a business competitor was behind it. For a moment they were concerned about the stash of alcohol they had in the office - either they'd face consequences or the bottles would be seized and their vintage assessed personally by the raiding officers in the comfort of their own homes. In the end, the officers pretended not to see the lot.

To the best of my knowledge, Tokyo Kids does not have a bar. The member saying he had drinks with the boys might have taken the boys (more than one???) out to another bar.

Since these shops largely use freelancers, do you think any part of the shop's charge whether 350 or 550, goes to the boy? I have a suspicion that it may be the other way around - the the boy may have to part with some portion of his tip as "commission" to the shop. I saw a quick transaction recently at OneSpa where a boy passed at least one red note to Barbie. The boy wasn't the one who serviced me so I wouldn't be able to say what the context was. Maybe he had to pay Barbie a commission. An alternative explanation might have been that he had just done an outcall and was passing on to the shop what the customer had paid as the shop fee. All I knew was that money went from boy to Barbie. And that got me wondering....

@jeremy What time of day were your hookups? I ask because several years ago I was in a hotel (can't remember the name now) where the first two times I brought a boy back (late afternoon, early evening) they weren't a problem, but the 3rd guy whom I tried to bring in close to midnight, they wouldn't let him in. I had a bit of an argument with the security in which they said something about daytime OK, night not OK. I am just wondering whether I was just unlucky in my choice of hotel or it might be a more general policy among Manila hotels.

I just copied those links from the caption/description below the Youtube video, so folks here can find out more if they wish. I have no business connection with the ferry and am not trying to promote it.

Was there last month. Thus the new map.

He says the departure time is 2 pm. So that means it arrives Koh Samui 12 noon the next day. Sounds convenient for check-in into hotels on the island. Sea Horse Ferry Official : https://www.theseahorseferry.com/en/ Book Sea Horse Online on Facebook : / fb.theseahorseferryofficial Sea Horse Ferry Port in Bangkok : https://maps.app.goo.gl/NorMBmNmTtqRA...

Too many bars in Thailand rely on an old (gatoey-heavy) formula for entertainment. They also need to rethink the "showtime" model, trying to pull the crowd in at a specific time to watch a tired third-rate "show". Especially for a small bar like The One (Tawan) with a stage no bigger than a single-bed, trying to do a "show" is a challenge. Nor is there any point trying to pull in a "crowd" when there aren't enough seats for a crowd. A rapid turnover of customers/seats all through the evening is better revenue than a crowd at a single time. It is possible to entertain customers with fairly frequent acts throughout the entire evening, but management needs to come up with fresh ideas that do not need much space. Some suggestions I have would be: 1. Every drinks order also gets a lucky draw ticket. When ten or twelve tickets have been issued, a gogo boy comes onto stage dressed in two shirts (one an undershirt), jeans/trousers, two underpants and a condom. Six lucky draw numbers are called in succession. Each lucky customer goes on stage, gets a kiss and a hug from the gogoboy and gets to remove one item of clothing. The sixth lucky guy gets to remove the condom! Then wait for ten or twelve other customers to come in buy a drink and a new round follows. 2. Chair dance. Gogoboy gets onto stage, invites 2 or 3 customers in sequence onto a chair gives each a one-minute personal dance. 3. Juggling act. Maybe in the nude? Customers watch the balls 🤪 4. Bronco ride. Customer invited to ride pillion with a gogoboy on a bronco horse. Customers clutches gogo boy tightly for dear life for 60 seconds. 5. There are some plastic balls that stick when thrown at object. For 100 baht, customers get balls. Throw at underwear'ed gogo boy on stage. Three hits on his underwear from, say, 2 metres away (Strike!) and the underwear is lost. Gogoboy then gives a personal dance to the winning thrower, jiggling his assets in the latter's face. 6. As in midpoint of this video, gogoboy gets hot and sweaty doing a dance in front of a customer in the sitting area (not on stage). Customer gets a cloth to wipe off sweat. Plus many more ideas I am sure members of this board can come up with. All that's needed is for management to be open to new ideas.

I can see that @reader has answered your question, but in case it's of help to anyone else, there's an updated map of the area, with nine massage shops shown, at https://shamelessmacktwo.travel.blog/2024/06/05/map-of-saphan-khwai-and-sutthisan-winitchai-area-may-2024/

I never knew that! And so many have opened bars despite this? Out of idle curiosity, do you know if the Sunnee bars had/have liquor licences?

I have always stayed in District 1 and didn't think it to be a problem. In fact that's where the tourist- friendly cafes and restaurants are. Outside of it, you may find it difficult to even get an English-language menu. I have been into District 10 a few times and I agree there are a number of massage parlours there. But I wouldn't want to stay there. It's an ugly part of Saigon (roads with no pavements, repair shops for bicycles and home appliances, etc) with few allowances for foreigners. If I need to go there, I get a Grab car in and a Grab car out.

Based on what you described as the the activities for your February visit and what you seem to be looking forward to, then I think you are right in deciding on two shorter visits of about 10 days, within a year. The sights are seldom as much a wow thing the second time compared to the first. In any case, there aren't enough sights (not in Bangkok, anyway) to fill three and a half weeks. There's an endless supply of sex, but my experience is that desire will peter out after a week or so. The thrill wears out, it becomes a routine and soon enough, a boring one. And yes, you should try the massage offerings. But let me give you a bit of advice here when venturing into this area: There are roughly three kinds of massage parlours and it is hard to tell them apart from appearances. 1. Places that offer real massage and no sex (at most, if you are lucky, a handjob) 2. Places where the management pretends it is a real massage place, but most of the boys don't know the techniques, and are more interested in selling sex for big tips. 3. Places that have "massage" or "spa" in their name but are basically brothels. You may get a simple, reasonably satisfying massage or the boy merely goes through the motions (or sometimes don't have a clue how to perform a massage) and you need to think of the "massage" more as foreplay. Depending on which brothel you're patronising, the expected tip can vary tremendously. To make matters even more confusing, there are no hard and fast boundaries between one type and another. There are places kind of in-between. However, I find it easier to think in terms of these three types and classify the various places accordingly in my mind. Why? Because the business transaction operates somewhat differently depending on whether it is 1, 2 or 3, particularly the tip (or what I call the service fee). Closer to November when you are ready to dip your toe into Thailand's gay "massage" business, maybe you can ask for more information about how to navigate ths confusing sector. By the way, are you heading to Hanoi or Ho Chi MInh City in August?

There's no better or worse; a lot depends on what you're wanting from a visit. While you have explained your leave situation, it might help if you also said something about what you found fantastic from your February 2024 visit. Were you mostly enjoying the clubbing scene like lots of younger gay travellers? The commercial sex opportunities? The cruising saunas? Or were you going around the historical sites, the shopping malls, and soaking in the different culture, cuisine, traffic gridlock or air pollution (OK, maybe not the last two 🤪)? Are you hoping to get out of Bangkok to visit other parts of Thailand or neighbouring countries? There are some on this board who stay 3 to 6 months at a stretch and love it. Others choose more frequent but shorter stays - and also love it. A way to figure out what *may* work better for you may be to see if your interests align more with the long-stay fellas or the short-stay fellas. Personally, while I have done stays of several weeks, they always involved travelling to other parts of Thailand or a hop over to Laos or Cambodia. I can't imagine staying more than a week or 10 days in just Bangkok. So, I am a short-stay kind of guy, but I also have an advantage - work takes me to Southeast Asia regularly, and from wherever I am on one of these trips, it's a short hop to Bangkok.

Hmmmm... another bar in the roaring centre of gay nightlife where the average number of patrons per bar is 1.4.

I don't think reader has missed much by not having yet visited Jey Spa. Over several visits over the years, I have yet to have to a memorable encounter except perhaps the very first or second time I was there (easily >10 years ago). The guys are OK, the services OK, but I have yet to see twice as much value as the "more pedestrian places", considering that Jey Spa is setting its price level at twice those places. But I can see how those punters who set great store by how the body looks to the eye would rate Jey Spa well, whereas my experience has been that looks do not indicate the quality of service you get. I do understand though that if the partner does not look a certain way, they don't even feel any arousal, so they'd rate Jey Spa differently from me. I think I have mentioned it before, but my theory is that some of us are broad-spectrum players, others are narrow-spectrum players, needing a specific type.

My laughter of the day.

Me too.

@floridarob Thank you. It's probably the decision of the art director to pose them in similar ways, but the end result is they look rather like clones. But don't get me wrong. They're do-able clones.

I have seen a few of this duo's videos about other places and indeed they tend to be too "respectable". They're also too positive. Praises, praises everywhere -- their videos sound like oversell advertorials. And yes, there are those distractions. Not just their teeth (as mentioned) abut also the way they pronounce some words. I just can't get used to their pronouncing 'delicious' as DEE- lishuhs.

There simply isn't enough attraction in Thailand to make me want to stay 60 days. But if it also applies to the working boys from Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, etc, then it reduces the number of visa runs they make by half, which may then draw a few more of them into the business-that-we-all-know-about. That would be the best news.

Yes, you are right. The local market is also a wide price spectrum, at the upper end of which we call the "Hi-So" market. Clients there give 10,000-baht garlands to gogo boys and pay eye-watering prices for 60- or 90-minutes of fun.

The opening post was originally in the Gay Thailand Forum. The thread was moved to the Philippines Forum after we realised that Green Apple Boys was based in that country. As for the nice array of guys, I haven't seen any array since I do not have twitter. Should I find some other way to see their pictures?

By chance I came across this news story about three security guards assaulting customers at a straight bar in Pattaya Soi 6 on May 27, 2024. There is a video of almost the entire incident at https://www.reddit.com/r/ThailandTourism/comments/1d1auy5/full_merged_video_of_the_soi_6_incident_seems/https://www.reddit.com/r/ThailandTourism/comments/1d1auy5/full_merged_video_of_the_soi_6_incident_seems/ While the customers seemed to have started a bit of pushing, the guards' reaction seem totally disporportionate and I hope the police will see it that way too. What is interesting is that the guards weren't employees of the bar in question but were called in from somewhere else.

I think you mean if the boys at Saphan Khwai are only expecting... (not the shops). In addition to @reader's first point about the boys not having to spend the whole day waiting around, the shops in Saphan Khwai are largely aimed at the local market, so the boys working there adjust their expectations accordingly. I also have the feeling, based on my visits and attempts to book that the boys in Saphan Khwai get more business (two clients a day?) than the boys in Silom 6. @reader's second point is also germane. The Saphan Khwai shops position themselves more as knocking shops / brothels, and make clear a minimum tip that is for sex. The local market by and large understands what the business is about. The Silom 6 shops still largely pretend to be massage shops. They do not set minimum tips commensurate with sexual services, leaving the boys to negotiate their own tips and if the boys don't do that, there is a risk of undertipping by clueless foreigners. So, if the boys are going to negotiate, they might as well aim high.

This video is six years old, but it does show the quality of Fake Club's productions. The place certainly deserves all the success it gets.