spoon

It happened less than youd think. And mostly when it does, based on reports of those who were there, its mostly to arrest illegal immigrants or those who abuse their social pass to work. And this raids happened in both gay and straight places. The customers rarely gets charged. Now there are also raids with religious officers, but they can only charge muslims, and the sharia law here are only regarding those not covered by the civil law, and punishment were limited too. Yes it happens but not a hindrance for most of us here and its no where near brutal. The reality here, eventhough the soceity and gov dont want to face reality, if u go to any shopping malls, u can clearly see gays, trans, working in the many shops selling cosmetics and womens shoes/handbag. Go to the gym in the city, u can see gays working out, go to certain toilets in bus station or malls, u can see gays cruising. Ive been lucky enough to never face any raids myself, even though i used to regularly goes to the massage centers. But gay sauna and massage centers here are not so easy to find. It is often in shoplots upper stairs and no signs outside, locked door with cctv to see if u are customer or not. Lol

Gay life in malaysia goes on as usual. Since they are illegal anyway, u can still get massage, go to sauna, and covid restriction only happens outside the premises. So if i cant cross district previously, only those within the district can go to those places. Now, it has relaxed a bit. Almost all businesses can open including cinema, massage, gym etc. except night club and bars, which is only allowed to operate as restaurant. Legal Massage sop is strict, masseur will wear face shield, mask, and gloves and temperature check with apps check in made compulsory. The gay massage being illegal doesnt really follow any of this, but now only accept appointment, with no walk in. Some gay sauna limit the amount of people at a time with people wearing masks except when having fun. We cant travel freely yet, no interstate crossing allowed, but tour group tourism allowed on low risk states. One of my regular masseur did stop working due to covid. As far as i can tell, he hasnt working since december last year. He can afford to do this though, as i believe he has a local BF/daddy supporting him.

Sadly, no stimulus money here. There are gov helps but mostly for the poor. I guess i should be happy im not qualified, meaning i earn more than the national poverty line. My income is fixed but this year, no bonus nor salary increment. Usually this would be really bad as the bonus has been substantial, but since i cant travel, i have less needs for those bonus lol. Sad reality, still couldve saved those bonuses for upcoming trips but nope, no bonus this year. On the plus side, no mass retrenchment either. Having said this, i did buy a new laptop with external monitor mid last year, partly using my bonus last year. This year, no big purchases yet.

The few (very few) that i know travelled had to follow the quarantine requirement. Normal tourist travelling has been super limited here.

Many also went back to hometown and find work there. Essential industry like food agricuture etc. Of course the popular one with many regulars can occassionally asked from their regulars to send them money.

We had travel bubble with singapore before, sadly only for work. Vaccinated travel bubble sounds great

I dont have any on mine and im not a user of boytoy. Are u a member of both sites before it merges?

I believed when i research a bit on rules of having guests in laos before, there is a rule that prohibits local in foreigners hotel room. Whether it is still enforced, not entirely sure since i never tested it as i went there with a cambodian hehe.

Has been almost free last year october, then our politicians cant stop playing with matches, and now we are worst than most in asean except for indonesia and philliphines. Despite that, last week lockdown was relaxed and apart from observing SOP and inter-state travel ban, we are pretty much open. Of course international travel has been closed since march last year and no dates yet when itll be open. Vaccines has begun for medical frontliners and politicians as well as high risk teachers as school is now open as well. As for me, ill have to wait for second phase (should start in Apr) but there will be around 8mil people in this stage. Vaccine certificate/passport has been discussed and there is push for allowing interstatr travel between low risk states. As of now, only group travel tour is allowed. My state is still high risk though. Now, what ill do when im free. Right now, im pretty much free to go eat at restaurant with friends, go to movies, get massage, and hire money boy. Social distancing in movies and restaurants, masseur has to wear mask, protective face shield, gloves. Money boy is illegal here so no SOP, as long as you are not caught i guess lol. When im totally free, travel, travel, travel. I usally travel at least 3 times a year, more times if i count work travel as well, but for the past year and this year, ive not travelled at all, work and fun.

Thailand today halt the use of Astrazeneca vaccine over fear of blood clot. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/12/astrazeneca-covid-vaccine-suspended-in-some-countries-over-blood-clot-fears.html

While it is moving in the right direction, any amount of quarantine still deter normal tourist to come. 7 days is definitely a lot less than 14 days, but 3 month requirement is over the top. With current vaccine wait and shortage, anyone who had the vaccine early cant possibly go for another vaccine shot within 3 month. I dont even know if that is safe. How they decide on 3 month vaccine expiry date, im not sure. But perhaps they are again being overly cautious and want to see if this is doable and will revisit further relaxation afterward. One can only hope

I dont have really fluid sexual tendency, just stereotypical gays that like men since as long as i can remember. Even watching straight porn, i focus on the guy. Im at a point where my family is expecting me to get married and i cant possibly do that to any girls, to marry a guy who had no feeling towards her at all. Having said this, when watching straight porn, im not at all repulsed by seeing women naked, but not excited by them, or more like feel indifferent. Even my preference for men are those straight-acting manly men.

If u want to see me miserable, put me in the middle of that crowd lol. Id probably head to the empty top floor if my boy want to go there haha.

Gogo bar will continue to exist but currently, the one that focused on getting the crowd to come to the bar are the one that will survive. Tourists especially still want the gogobar experience, having fun in the bars, showing off they had money, having multiple boys surrounding them. I for one prefer to go to bars perhaps with friends or forum members instead of scrolling through profiles in grindr etc. I did that back home where we dont have access to gogobars and where i have more time to through the whole process of chatting and arranging a meet. For long term visitor and expats as well as those who are spending wisely, apps are definitely more attractive offers, although your continued success might be fueled by bar closure and lack of customers in bars too. And covid seems to also increase the amount of guys entering the scene as well. Though its undeniable that apps popularity does impact gay bars survival in many places around the world and have been replacing the dating/hook up scene at gay bars pretty well.

Thanks for sharing this. Im glad that i did get to enjoy their performance too when i visited siem reap. Will let my friend knows about this too.

Thanks for sharing this interesting history about the site. It has been a major help for newbies like me planning my first solo gay trip to thailand.

I guess i didnt made that clear. Its enforcing law against premarital sex on straight couple.

U know the saying that all asian looks the same? While its sounded racist, some thais figure this would work in their favor lol

I just hope there are 29 gay bars in bangkok and pattaya to visit by the time we can go there.

In case of malaysia, main reason of religious enforcement have been politically driven, and this is one of the product of democracy, where the majority gets their way. Malaysia are mainly sunni and doesnt recognize shia here, meaning any religion funding from the government are not accessible by shia community here. There are however few malaysians shia community, but rarely visible id say. I personally know one person only, an ex colleague in office. However, their number are really small, so i dont see how your statement about iran has anything to do with current situation. If anything, its just a bunch of religious officer exercising their power of course with blessing from their political leaders. Although i should add, not only gays are facing these, our religious department are also enforcing premarital sex where there have been raids done on low budget hotel based on reports/tips.

The ruling is not surprising at all, since the law hasnt change. Federal laws always superceeds state and religious laws, so if there is a conflict such as the case above, its an easy ruling. Whats surprising is that no one before this guy actually dare to challenge the religious state department on their authority to create and enforce such laws. Having said that, we still have in the federal law on "unnatural sex" inherited from the british gov that carries up to 20 years jail time (rarely enforced except during the infamous political attack on Anwar), and the guy can be charged under this law in civil court if the state gov wants to proceed with this. Interesting to see if it goes ahead or not. On the other hand, today, the same religious state department is launching a statewide witch hunt on a trans entrepeneur due to her failure to attend the islamic court proceeding for alleged insulting the religion. What she did was simply sponsoring a religious event, and attending the event while cross dressing. This is sad news indeed.

Since it is your money and food, i believe you have the say on how u want to spend it. If anything, seeing an acquaintance suffer until not having food to eat is tough, and id do the same as what u did if i were in your shoes. And you are correct to assume that u will not get the money back when you help them. What that also means is that you should only help more if you have can afford to do so, and clearly you are not in the position to do so. Cases like this should be dealt with by the embassy, so if you have their information, maybe a call to the embassy explaining what is happening to their citizen currently might move them faster to deal with the situation or make exception with their living situation back home. Taking taxi when not having money to buy enough food is a sign that their logical thinking is affected due to age. Perhaps more than money, they actually also need someone to help them explain their situation to the embassy. God knows when the last time they have been in contact but when you dont even have money for food, the last thing in your mind is to follow up with people with authority. Another thing you can do is refer them to some of the NGO or charity organization, or religious organization they belongs to? Im not familiar with thailand NGO and charities org, but here in malaysia, there are plenty of channel that one can go for help. Even enganging with local influencer or politicians might help too. There are places like food for homeless, soup kitchen, pay as you can restaurant here as well, although im not sure about thailand. Local mosque, temple, churches also have programs that gives out free groceries and food for the needy from time to time.

Did u by any chance manage to get the masseur name? If so, id like to know in PM. Thanks

Malaysia will be getting pfizer vaccine end of this month, with first batch goes to frontliners. High risk group will be second on the line estimated to start by april, and the rest will probably start in may earliest. The gov estimated to have at least 80% of population access to vaccine by end of feb 2022. Itll me a mix of pfizer, astra zeneca, sinovac, sputnik vaccines, with pfizer will be limited to those near the cities due to logistic issue. Cant wait to get myself vaccinated.

On a more serious note on this topic Biden Imposes Sanctions on Generals Who Engineered Myanmar Coup WASHINGTON — President Biden announced on Wednesday that he was imposing sanctions that would prevent the generals who engineered a coup in Myanmar from gaining access to $1 billion in funds their government keeps in the United States, and said he would announce additional actions against the military leaders and their families. It was the first concrete step the U.S. government has taken since Mr. Biden demanded that the generals restore democracy and release Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the nation’s civilian leader. Source