PeterRS

We'll just have to disagree. I cannot see how the Thai government is likely to do more than encourage its own agencies - traffic management, police etc. - to cooperate with the organisers. Since, let's recall, prostitution remains illegal in this country, unless it changes the law the government cannot be seen to be co-operating with sex venues as some bright spark in the elite will certainly bring the media down on its collective head. Secondly, most of the gay sex venues here in Bangkok already do little to market their own product. Someone has to get the owners into one room, bash heads together and make them realise that co-operating on a huge event like this will be great business for everyone. This is vital because when Bangkok started its first Gay Pride Parade in 1999, it was basically up to each venue to do its own organising. It went off like a damp squib as it was badly organised and there was virtually no marketing (I know the main organiser did try to get TV stations and the media in general interested - they weren't!). Just talking about an event like this will achieve nothing. Everyone has to come to the party and contribute. Will they? No idea. But it certainly needs a small group of passionate advocates to take on the job of overall organising. As for the TAT marketing to the Pink Dollar, it has been doing this for years with slogan after slogan after slogan. Without the government actively backing it up, as with previous campaigns the TAT will have little success. I am reminded of a Songkran event on Silom about 10 years ago. Some young ladies/girls got up on the top of a truck and danced topless. They were arrested and accused of corrupting Thai morals. Then some bright spark made the point that the front page of the Ministry of Culture's website had a painting of four young Thai girls in front of some traditional background - all naked to the waist. That was quickly taken down! Let's also remember what happens in Singapore. Now it is arguably the most cosmopolitan city in Asia. It has finally got rid of its old colonial anti-sodomy law - but it still will not permit a Gay Pride Parade in the city! In 2009 a group of dedicated LGBTQ volunteers decided instead to have a gay event which they named Pink Dot. The government now restricts them to a small city centre park - thinking that this would limit international exposure - but the event just grew and grew. It became a family event. International sponsors flocked to sponsor the event. After all, Singapore encourages international companies to move to the city state with a number of concessions including tax benefits. But after Pink Dot became a big success, the government even barred international firms from participating in any way. Foreigners also are barred from the event. Then in 2019 the-then Prime Minister's nephew (great nephew of founding father Lee Kuan Yew) not only came out as gay but got married in South Africa and attended the Pink Dot that year with his partner. His father, the PM's brother, and his family also attended pink Dot that year. As bad for the government, one overhead night shot showed a sea of pink in the middle of the city skyline with the words "Repeal 337A". This was the old anti-sodomy law which was in fact repealed 2 years ago. (both photos courtesy of Singapore pink Dot) R to L: Younger brother of then Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong with his gay son's partner, his gay son and other members of his family at the 2019 Pink Dot

As regular readers will know, I have attended seven Taipei Gay Pride Parades since my first in 2011. I think they are fabulous week-ends, with lots of parties alongside the Parades themselves. At my last there were 160,000 marchers. I believe that is now more than 200,000. Many are dressed up in all sorts of gear. Others, like me, stick to a fun T-shirt and just enjoy watching all the others as I march. In response to a post in another thread about Bangkok hosting World Pride in 2030, I suggested I post a thread of some of my old photos. Apologies that most have been posted over the last 13 years but it's sometimes fun to remember what a blast that afternon can be and how many gorgeously cute guys there are, both Taiwanese and those flying in just for the parade week-ends. Do try and get over there this year if you can.

Yes, it will be good bye to a lot of what we know and what WE used to love. But for today's younger generation, they have no - or only a little - experience of what we used to love. Their experiences are different. What do THEY want and what will THEY love? I really do not know - and I think most of us do not know. Our gay world has changed massively in the 45 or so years since I first visited Bangkok. For the gay tourist or gay retiree everything is totally different with a whole new range of gay possibilities. Thanks to air fares in general being a great deal cheaper (as a percentage of one's income) than they were around 1980, there is a new gay world out there. Did I know anything about specific gay bars/areas in Bangkok before I first visited? Only from what I read in Spartacus magazine and heard from friends. But I had discovered Manila first. Then again, most of Bangkok's gay scene only began to develop after I started visiting. Let's also recall that the government had nothing to do with the establishment of Pattaya as a sex centre other than leasing U-tapao airport to the USA during the Vietnam War. Nothing at all! Pattaya was a sleepy little village then. It was the entrepreneurs who realised that the many US servicemen were young, sex-starved, wanted to have a bit of a wild time in their R&R breaks and girls were needed. So the private sector opened the bars, hired the girls and raked in masses of cash. It is no coincidence that R&R rapidly changed to become I&I - Intoxication and Intercourse! As for the World Pride in 2030, it will not need any help from the government. There will be plenty of private businesses thrilled to organise Pride parties. A bit like the annual Taipei Gay Pride Parades, of which I have attended seven. All the week-end parties and entertainment around the Parades are privately and amazingly organised - as are the Parades themselves. If you have never been, please try to do so. They are always on the last Saturday in October. Although I have posted lots of photos over the years, later today I'll open a new one under the Taipei section just to remind everyone what a great afternoon that Parade is.

Sadly perhaps - zero.

The problem is, in my view, that the numbers attracted by our gogo bar experiences in our youth no longer exist. There is no reason now for any younger gay guys to retire to Thailand other than it is a very pleasant gay-friendly place in which to spend one's final years. But the government of Thailand does not want retirees to be attracted by gay gogo bars etc. (although why they differentiate between gay and straight with all the girlie bars around beats me). The government is now desperate for a much different type of retiree, one that is generally considerably wealthier, will spend a good deal more cash and be more attracted by other things that Thailand can offer. As we know, the country needs cash. Why keep trying to attract older foreigners who live on a monthly income of around the official retirement Bt. 65,000 monthly when we know from the Thailand Privilege people that their new Bt. 900,000 just for a visa for 5-years is selling like hot cakes. The fact that most are Russians and Chinese is not yet an issue it seems. More important is that they are rich and they spend. I think it is no accident that although Bangkok is awash with 5-star hotels, the recently opened Bangkok One was billed as having yet five more - all 5-star! People who stay in 5-star hotels spend a lot of cash! To a certain extent I think we can draw a comparison with The Philippines (although I am not quite sure why!) In the 1960s and 70s, most tourists looking for gay sex in Asia looked to Manila. Bangkok and Thailand were on few horizons. Now gay sex in Manila is not a patch on what it used to be. The city has moved up market.

I have earlier written a couple of long posts on the war in Laos but it certainly bears repeating. America's involvement in Vietnam really goes back to Roosevelt and then Truman. The corridors of power in America in those days had been massively anti-colonial, one reason why the US pushed Britain to get rid of its empire. That resulted in Britain bringing forward its exit from India by a year, a disaser which was to see a UK civil servant who had never been to India being tasked with partition of the country in only 5 weeks and the ghastly genocide of well over a million Hindus and Muslims as well as 14 million others being uprooted from their homes. As the leader of what became North Vietnam, Hồ Chi Minh wrote to both US Presidents all but begging them to ensure the French did not return to Indo-China. Whether they actually were presented with the letters is uncertain, but they certainly had no desire to see the return of the French to Asia. It was the French leader General De Gaulle who insisted, basically telling the US that if the French were not permitted to return, France would allow Soviet forces access to their territory. Having communist forces encamped in the other side of the Atlantic was anathema. For hatred of communism was quickly overtaking that dislike of Empire. Truman even provided covert support to the French after their return to Indo-China.. With Vietnam split into two in 1945, the French took over, little concerned at first with the North and the constant battles with Hồ's Việt Minh forces aided by the Russians. When China also became involved after the ignominious defeat of the French at Điện Biên Phủ, the US finally became alarmed. President Eisenhower had shown little concern about North Vietnam which he accepted was essentially a war of nationalism. Soon after becoming President, though, someone in his administration conjured up the "domino theory", one that Eisenhower quickly came to believe posed a serious threat - especially in South East Asia. Across the border, Laos also resented the return of the French. Whereas the country's government had largely been run by the upper classes, 90% of the country were peasants who had to pay high land rents and were overtaxed. Many joined the more popular Pathet Lao under the leadership of Prince Souphanouvong which had been formed in 1950 and quickly joined forces with Hồ's North Vietnamese Việt Minh. The French granted Laos independence in 1953, but retained control of all military matters. Meanwhile France was losing its grip and finally left Indo-China after its humiliating defeat in North Vietnam in 1954. Laos had previously been governed by a series of different ruling houses. Several came together under the Pathet Lao leadership. But that leadeship remained an amorphous group which virtually no one outside the country knew much about. All that was known was it was regarded, like North Vietnam, as communist as it was receiving help from the Soviets. Although its leadership generally came from the south of the country, the main bases of the Pathet Lao were crucially in the north and east - closer to Vietnam. Occasional fighting broke out between the Royal Lao Government in the south and the Pathet Lao in the north. But the big flare up occurred in 1963. The following year there were the Geneva Accords which split Vietnam into two. But Laos remained as one country. Even so, fighting continued to break out between the two main groups with the Pathet Lao gradually becoming the more dominant force. A crucial decision had been made by the USA earlier in 1954: it refused to sign the Geneva Accords. Privately US officials believed they were a disaster. It scrambled to establish a non-communist government in Saigon to counter Hồ's rule in Hanoi, providing it with substantial military and financial assistance. It was the belated start of what was to become a disaster for the USA - the Vietnam War. North Vietnam invaded North Laos, the territory mostly controlled by its ally the Pathet Lao in 1959. Another building block in the road to all out war in the region was now in place. The USA started its war in Laos that year. As he left office in 1961, Eisenhower told his National Security Council , "If Laos were lost, the whole of southeast Asia would follow." They key to US strategy at this point was therefore Laos rather than Vietnam. Virtually on the same day as that speech, he ordered the CIA into Laos to commence hostilities in the country, an incursion which, like Cambodia which was to follow more than a decade later, were totally illegal acts according to the US Constutition. The CIA's mission at first was to intercept and interrupt supplies of weapons being sent by North Vietnam to the Viet Cong in the South down the Hồ Chi Minh trail. At the same time the Pathet Lao was fighting the government in a civil war in the south of its own country. After President Kennedy came to Power, he tried to end hostilities in southeast Asia. A second Geneva Conference was called and all parties agreed to a peaceful solution. But that never happened. Within months the warring parties were at each other's throats again. The CIA then took on responsibility for ensuring the defeat of the communists. Again quite illegally, it assembled and trained a force of 36,000 troops mostly from the Meo tribe within Laos. This undeclared conflict became known as "The Secret War". During that war, the CIA constructed a new town at Long Tien to service what became known as the world's busiest airport, although air strip is a more accurate term. At one time, Long Tien was the second largest town in Laos with 40,000 inhabitants but it never appeared on any map. It was to be described as "the most secret place on earth." Long Tien was finally evacuated after the fall of Phnom Penh in Cambodia. During the Vietnam War, the CIA forced the North Vietnamese to redirect their soldiers through Laos to prevent them from attacking Americans. That way they could be bombed and killed. This was determined to be less risky than the earlier strategy of trying to cut off North Vietnamese forces on the Hồ Chi Minh trail. This policy was personally and again illegally approved by President Johnson. Largely as a result, as is now well known, Laos became the most bombed country in the history of warfare with one cluster bomb being dropped on that beleaguered country every eight minutes of every day for nine whole years. It is a disgrace almost without parallel in the history of recent warfare. In December 1975, the Pathet Lao took over the government of Laos and it remains its ruler to this day, although it is usually referred to as a term signifying Laotian nationalism.

I think that is an extremely sensible view. Even in the 'old days' (sorry to bring them up again!) I rarely hopped around. Once I found a bar I liked, I stuck with it - from Apollo, to Hotmale, to Barbiery, to Classsic, to Solid. Having a variety of bars added to the fun, but only for an occasional visit. On the other hand, though, I do think that Bangkok and Pattaya made their gay reputations on the basis of each having a significant cluster of gogo bars where nudity was more frequent and shows much more fun. This was what attracted many of the earlier tourists. And this I believe is the point made in @bkkmfj2648's earlier post. Without these clusters, are the Thai government and the Tourist Authority all but shooting themselves in their respective feet in terms of the future gay tourist market? I suspect not for, as others have pointed out, the gay sauna and massage spa businesses seem to be doing well. Whereas clusters of gogo bars used to be the main attraction for us much older folk, perhaps with just a few exceptions, the day of the true gogo bar is either over or coming to some sort of natural end, in Thailand as elsewhere.

I fear those days ended many years ago now and I cannot think of any reason why they should return. But then I'm a glass half-empty kind of guy. I'm sure @vinapu will have a more positive outlook!

There are certainly such bars around but you will be hard pressed to find any. There is a very large Thai underground sex scene but it is only for Thais. Exceptionally if you can find a Thai who knows where they are you might just be able to gain entrance. The nudity that was part of the gay Thai gogo bar scene for tourists existed from around the late 1970s until the government mandated a new social order campaign in the early 2000s. Thereafter virtually all the gay gogo bar scene eventually got rid of most of what had been regular nudity.

To go off on a bit of a tangent, one piece of marketing advice your bf may want - and another he definitely will not. First from the musical "Gypsy". And then of course if he runs out of ingredients, there is plenty of advice in Stephen Sondheim's musical "Sweeney Todd". This version was filmed at Sondheim's 80th brthday bash in 2010 and features the one-time Queen of Broadway Patti Lupone, the wonderful George Hearn and the equally fine Michael Cerveris. One beauty of this version is that Sondheim's genius as a lyricist is easily heard. Hearn was also the original and superb Albin in the Broadway production of "La Cage aux Folles" alongside Gene Barry in 1983. And it was in that show that Hearn magnificently originated what became the gay anthem "I Am What I Am."

Just realised that after decades in Asia, I have never tried duck's feet! Not that I want to, mind you. Chicken's feet are bad enough, but my Chinese friends all love them. Also never tried picking up ice cubes with chopsticks. I can understand the ice would be just too slippery. I'd probably just use a spoon!

Can I suggest that even though you have difficulty with chopsticks, sitting at the bar with all those cuties, they would notice your difficulty and you could ask one to help. I suspect more than one would have come over and become quite friendly. I am sure you have seen videos of how to use them. This one is quite useful - Once when I was in Beijing at a dinner with several guests not used to using chopsticks, I tried to show them how easy it can be and proceeded to show off by not only picking up one peanut but two. After three or four minutes, one of the others cut me down to size and outdid me by picking up three!

Thank you for that thought. Much appreciated.

I hate to disagree with you because what you say is really quite obvious. But the fact is that the revenues contributing to Thailand's GDP from gay gogo bars must be the tiniest fraction of the tiniest fraction of 1%. After all, how many gay gogo bars are there? A few in Bangkok, a handful in Pattaya, a couple or so perhaps in Chiang Mai and the same in Phuket. Think back 30 years when the gogo bars were really in their heyday and not only the b-in-b but the economy as a whole did no doubt gain a lot more. I have zero doubt that the multitude of girlie bars all around the Kingdom actually generates vastly more to GDP. From reading threads in other forums, it seems that gay gogo bars around the world have been vanishing at quite a rapid rate. As one who revelled in the variety available in Thailand all those years ago, I wonder why this is. On the other hand I can understand why saunas and massage spas have retained - if not increased - their popularity. Perhaps we should not isolate gogo bars and think of the sex industry as a whole (and this means not just in-person sex but other aspects like Thailand's large underground movie industry). We know that behind the tourist facade there is a very large sex industry in Thailand. It's almost impossible to find figures but I have seen it claimed the industry as a whole amounted to US$60 billion in 2012. Let's assume for the sake of discussion that this grew to $80 billion in 2024. This compares with 2024's GDP of US$2.2 trillion. In other words (if my math is anywhere near correct) around 3.6% of GDP. Let's also look at Japan where we also know that the sex industry is all-pervasive, extremely well organised and caters almost exclusively to the local population rather than tourists. In an article last month Kyodo News estimated that Japan's total annual Defence spending in 2024 amounted to approx, US$70 billion or around 1.6% of GDP. 13 years ago the Japan Subculture Research Center estimated that the total spend on sex in Japan then to be US$100 billion. If we assume that this could have risen by as much as 50% (given the particular circumstances in Japan I am assuming the annual trend will be higher than in Thailand), then Japan spends more than twice as much on sex as it does on defense! And that perhaps rather surprisingly equates roughly to the Thailand percentage of GDP. Yet I have seen a figure somewhere that Japan actually spends 5% of GDP on the sex industries. So it is very important to stress again that accurate figures are extremely hard to find and estimates on various websites show major differences. My point being that taken as a whole, the potential revenues from gay gogo bars in Thailand (locals and tourists) is as small as a mosquito compared to the komodo dragon we think it might be! https://english.kyodonews.net/news/2025/04/2ddf9dea797c-urgent-japans-fy-2025-defense-related-costs-to-total-18-of-gdp-minister.html https://www.japansubculture.com/sexnomics-japans-billion-dollar-sex-industry-and-the-pink-zone/

I had that joint procedure at BNH about 3 years ago. But please note that as with Bumrungrad, the total cost does not include the services of an anaesthetist should you wish one.

Isn't the real problem that people no longer want to examine facts? It's so much easier just to believe what they are told - or what they have picked up from social media.

What about the pesky quarter and half satang coins that still turn up occasionally in change in Thailand. I have a drawer full of them! Mind you, when I was a kid I started collecting what used to be called "bun pennies" in the UK - the oldest penny coins issued with Queen Victoria's likeness on them still in circulation. I assumed that over time they would be worth something. Then, of course, I had no idea that coin collectors only want mint condition coins. So I now have 100 or so of those worthless well-used coins!

My sincere apologies to one and all. I am so used to posting almost daily on just one Photos thread, i had totallly forgotten that there are in fact many of them. All that @bkkmfj2648 did was take my actual advice which i had not realised would mean one separate photo thread. Big istake on my part and again apologies. Sorry also to @spoon for wasting your time! I have asked the moderator to take down the nude photo i posted earlier.

Apologies for misinterpreting. I will try to fulfill your desire in the next day or so!

I thank you for trying to solve what seems to have become something of a mystery. But I am sorry to say I do not see how it works. Just now I just did as you suggested. I posted one nude photo in the members only Photo forum. I then clicked and pasted that url on to this post. And this is what I got - https://www.gayguides.com/topic/13298-photos/page/100/ i.e. no photo as such appears. The problem is that if you post a url you get the entire page which includes other photos. Is there a means of linking just one photo? I was inaccurate in that I should have stated a written link - not a url. But presumably @bkkmfj2648's photo should also be on that Photo Forum. But I can not see it there. If I have been wrong, then of course, i apologise to all. But I remain confused how that single photo can be isolated from other photos on a url link. The point I have made from the outset is that the rules are obviously the rules and this one is clear - This website is geared toward an adult audience. However, we are not an adult pornographic website. NO posting of nudity in any form is allowed. Any such posts will be immediately deleted. The only nudity permitted is in the Photo Forum. @bkkmfj2648's first post was in a general thread. There it could there be seen by any casual reader - even non-members - and that is why it was barred. Who barred it and why is the recent subject of the discussion with some members suggesting there is an algorthm that does this automatically. That cannot be true because the original post was up for quite some time before the bar notice was placed. In my post made well over an hour ago, i did what I believe is eactly the same process adopted originally by @bkkmfj2648. I added a nude pic into my post. Now if there is some sort of algorithm, my post would have disappeared within minutes if not seconds. Yet mine is still up more than an hour later. So I fail to understand why a barring notice goes up on one nude pic in one post unless the moderator has done it - and yet the nude pic I put up as a test still has no bar notice. The only possibility is that the moderator takes this role. There cannot be an algorithm, Any other thoughts?

I still have no clue what you are on about. You reckon I extracted concessions from my employer? That has to be one of your jokes! They were the benefits advertised by the employer for anyone who wished to be considered for employment. They were nothing like concessions! They were an essential part of the job! You reckon millions of readers to not get their paychecks on time? That is another joke?

I am merely testing what @bkkmfj2648 and @vinapu have stated. I have now - finally, I hope - proved that their comments about my posts and nudity are wrong. The Board rules are correct. Now 10 minutes have passed and the very obviously nude photo remains in place! PS: Now it has been 20 minutes since the photo was posted. There is clearly no system or algorhythm which automatically turns nude pics into an apology that the pic has had to be deleted! Case proved, and surely @bkkmfj2648 and @vinapu now have to agree. Besides, where is the message that @vinapu claims was automatically inserted in place of the nude pic he posted. I cannot see that notice anywhere. But as he posted a pic, it must have appeared. Please inform us @vinapu. Thank you. Finally, If @floridarob wishes me to go home, fine. Just confirm that and I will do so.

So you are wrong. My photgraph is still on the page and this is five minutes after I posted it. And I did do as you suggested - logged out and then in again. If there was an app or whatever automatically deleting nude posts, it would have been taken down minutes ago!

What must be going through the minds of those graduating cadets, when at the podium is a president who consistently lies, cheats and steals? . . . and who in the presence of immaculately dressed cadets behaves like the idiot he is by wearing a bright red MAGA baseball cap. Presidents are supposed to lead by example. God help America is this President gets into a war.

We know Trump is a liar. He lies all the time. White lies? Not a bit of it. Whopping great big iies on the international stage - and he gets away with it! Anyone who does not believe that is living in some weird fantasy world. Take his Oval Office meeting with the South African President last week, Cyril Ramaphosa. He accused Ramaphosa of the systematic killing of white farmers. Rubbish! He has already permitted several white farmers refugee status in the USA because otherwise they would be victims of genocide. Rubbish! He dimmed the Oval Office lights to show a video showing roughtly 1,000 white crosses. "They're all white farmers, the family of white farmers . . . those people are all killed." Rubbish! For these were not graves. They were props which had been placed during a demonstration as a protest some years ago. They were then removed, but of course the video does not show that. Trump then pulled out a blog post showing an image of South Afrcia. Only it was not South Africa. It was the Democratic Republic of Congo. After the meeting, Trump as he always does doubled down on his false claims. Also on that Trump trip was his DOGE, the South African Elon Musk who had earlier been party to the false allegations of mass murder of white farmers. Yet Musk's shareholders are surely now a very unhappy bunch. Not only are Tesla models worldwide being outsold by China's BYD cheaper electric vehicles (Warren Buffet's company had seen its 10% investment in BYD made in 2008 rise by a huge 41 times by June 2022), its sales are dramatically down. In Europe alone: 59% in France, 81% in Sweden, 74% in the Netherlands, 66% in Denmark, 50% in Switzerland and 33% in Portugal. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/may/24/elon-musk-doge-scott-galloway Britain is now seeing what has become quite an extended backlash against Brexit, the 2016 exit from the European Union. The verdict was extremely narrow and one reason for that were the lies told by the Brexit campaigners (called in an article in today's Observer newspaper "mendacious garbage"). Leaving the EU would free up £350 million per week to aid the National Health Service was one of their many false claims. Rubbish! To mention just two, there has been outrage in the UK from small businesses about the massive amount of form filling now required for exporting their products, and from individual Britons who now have to pass passport checks every time they enter and leave an EU country. I had to do that last year to get into Holland and then out from there to Switzerland. It was huge time wasting madness! Overall, the Observer reckons Brexit has already cost the UK "tens of billions of pounds." 55% of Britons now say Brexit was wrong. Now, though, the new government has taken the Brexit bull by the horns to undo some of that madness. A Brexit reset is finally under way. Immigration controls throughout Europe are being reconsidered, as are items like farming policy. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/23/britain-left-eu-reset-keir-starmer-tories Finally, Israel. During my education, the mass murder in Vietnam meant little. It was way too far away. The beleaguered state of Israel, on the other hand needed help and many students spent a month or two in the summer working in kibbutz - and were happy to do so. Now, though, the ghastly and disastrous actions of the Netanyahu government in the virtual destruction of Gaza and its inhabitants seems to concern none in power anywhere in the world to the extent that they will actually do something to stop it. Just today we learn of the family of a doctor, a paediatric specialist dedicated to saving lives, nine of whose ten children were massacred by a missile strike when sleeping in their own home. A tenth child and her husband remain seriously injured. And the Israel Defense Forces have the absolute gall to announce in the light of this particular massacre, "The claim regarding harm to uninvolved civilians is under review.” WIll any israeli be charged with murder? Of course not! Israel's constant lies are worse than Trump's. At least Trump does not kill - yet! When will all the killing and the lying stop?