macaroni21

Thanks for elaborating. Excepting the case of Toy Boys (which I wasn't aware of) what you're describing isn't what I thought you were saying - that the boys were expecting Asian customers to pay more than farang customers. What you're describing is the well-known phenomenon where asking the mamasan about rates begets inflated figures. Many here have long suspected that the higher rate quoted is because she builds in an extra 1,000 for herself on top of the going rate, and she will demand her cut from the boy the next day. It just so happens, if I read you correctly, that Asian customers may be more likely to refer to the mamasan than white customers, though my observation is that the situation is not as simple as a cursory reading of your description might suggest. It's true, I have personally seen mamasans in action in exactly the way you describe. In fact, I wrote about one such instance (with a customer from China) in Pouffes ahoy at Fresh Boy. But I wouldn't suggest that it's a race thing. It's just a confluence of various factors, starting with the fact that perhaps 90% of customers in gogo bars are Asian visitors; many customers (whether East Asian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, Arab, European, or Latin American) are first-time visitors to Thailand and don't know how to negotiate directly with the desired boy (between the boy's weak English and the Asian visitor's weak English, it gets doubly hard); and so it will be unsurprising that most instances when we see mamasans over-quoting the rate to a customer, it will involve an Asian customer. Our observations are skewed by the statistical fact that the great majority of visitors to the gogo bars are Asian. I have seen European visitors ask the mamasan too about rates; they are probably new or infrequent visitors to Thailand, but European customers (both new and wizened) in gogo bars are uncommon. Mamasans are not going to suddenly become non-greedy just because it's a farang customer asking.

Can anybody here imagine these Jomtien Complex bars making money? Maybe the most profitable business is that of a redecorator, considering the way these bars come and go.

The bar under Hotmale is Midnight bar; it is not under Fresh Boys. All the other open-front bars in the area are either for men interested in boobs or men interested in getting sloshed. The "older Thai gentleman" you refer to is probably a barker for Hotmale, Fresh Boys or Dream Boy. Likely, there are more than one taking his job seriously.

First time that I am hearing this. Any idea what the rationale is? When you speak of "ST" it seems that you're referring to boys from the gogo bars; not the massage places. And are you referring to Pattaya or Bangkok or both?

@abidismaili - I hope you're not thinking that somehow boys treat some other forum members better (by quickly shedding their clothes) than they treat you 🤣 It varies depending on the shop's policy, and also may vary depending on the boy. Most Type 2 shops, e.g. those in Silom Soi 6, want to maintain an image of real massage, and the boys negotiate inside the room. Obviously, it won't make sense for them to strip until negotiations are successful. The Type 4 shops such as Prince and Arena are "all-inclusive" and so there's less need to maintain any image of wholesomeness. It can also vary with the boy, or with how familiar with boy is with you. My regulars, even at Type 2 shops, strip from the start because they know that that's where we're going.

Like @Vessey and @vinapu said, I think the most likely explanation is that the shop manager wanted to charge the boy for the extra half-hour of room use. It was fortunate that the boy had your number and could ask you to reimburse him. But as @zazzu said, the shop should have realised it then and there and spoken to you directly rather than take it out on the boy. It annoys me when businesses make a mistake and still expect customers to pay for their mistake. It's like "Oh the advertised price mentioned the wrong date for the special offer, so since it's not today, please pay the full price," or "We stuck the wrong price tag on the shelf, this product isn't $48, it is $75. Please pay $75." Such businesses do not deserve any respect and should be shamed. I would encourage @kentguy2025 to name the shop.

This can be misread. I think you mean 500,000 journeys cancelled. Airlines don't operate as many as 500,000 flights.

At last, somebody agrees 🤩 I have been saying the same for years, From a business perspective, bars should choose between being a showbar or an offing bar. The conflict between the two business models is such that any bar that tries to do both will have to walk a very narrow line with a high risk of failure. A showbar needs volume because putting up shows is costly. The nature of the shows also tends to feature drag queens who bring no erotic value to gay men (with only rare exceptions). They attract straight audiences, and the bars get addicted to the straight audiences because they need volume (it gets into a vicious cycle). It doesn't take long to drive away gay customers who are the backbone of any offing business model. Show bars also need floor area because they need to accommodate a surge crowd at show time (how else to monetise the hoped-for volume?), backstage space, maybe high ceilings too. Rent costs become significant as a result, yet outside of showtime, you're paying rent for under-utilised space. Banana bar is one such bar teetering on the edge. It succeeds as a showbar but I wonder how many offs the boys there get... and if they don't get enough offs, why work there any more? An offing bar doesn't need a show. It just needs a small, intimate space (e.g. the size of Thantawan bar) with a small stage in a corner. It needs a good slate of boys carefully selected to suit the tastes of whatever customer/market segment the bar is aiming for, from twink to twunk to chunk to hunk. I would recommend that boys go up to the stage one at a time for a 5-minute sensual striptease act (without going "all the way") -- so that customers can see what the physique is like in order to decide on an off. Without a show, there is no need to cater for any surge crowd, so a small bar will do, keeping rent low. There is no need to hire waiters or staff associated with show production. The business focus of such a bar is to get the boys off'd. The above (a pure offing bar) is actually a proven model. Toy Boys operates something similar except that they still have boys standing on stage bored to death. And clearly Toy Boys has staying power. The latest post on ShamelesssMack describes a pure offing bar in Tokyo, King of College. It is a successfull, long-running business. It doesn't even have a strip show. Many of the Sunnee bars were like Toy Boys too, with a primary focus on boys on offer. When they had dancing, my best memories were the bars where the boys moved around the room, dancing right at your table (or on it) thereby creating a personalised experience for the customer. Sunnee bars' demise was not because the model didn't work, it was because their selection of boys skewed strongly to the tasts of a particular generation of western customers and didn't evolve with demographic changes. When that generation of western retirees began dying off, the bars failed to tap into the huge growth in Asian customers in Thailand's tourism profile (which would have necessitated a revamp of the type of boys that bars had). Granted, it's a lot more complicated than that in that Asian gay males have been staying mainly in Bangkok and are much less interested in going to Pattaya. So it is a chicken-and-egg question too. But even this tells us something else - the utter lack of any marketing. Asian gay males will go to Pattaya if businesses would only advertise. But of course, they also need to understand carefully what type of boys Asian customers like and ensure the bar has the desired type. Look at Bangkok's massage parlours, from low end to high end. They're in rude health! They advertise furiously. If only the bars would learn from what they're doing. I have also previously said that an offing bar can add to its sales revenue (and the boys' earnings) by offering private dances in a cubicle: Ten minutes of stripping all the way, gyrating and inviting groping for a reasonable fee, say 500 - 600 baht. This is akin to the sort of personalised fun experience that the best Sunnee bars offered. Through private dancers, boys can earn extra income in addition to being off'd. Customers can "buy" 2 or 3 private dancers to check out 2 or 3 boys before deciding which one to off. Right now, the boys' earning model is more or less an "all or nothing" game. They're either off'd and earn big money, or they earn next to nothing during the evening. Forum members here on gayguides may say that the boys also earn drink tips or "you look handsome" tips, but boys can't earn enough from such tips alone. Furthermore, always bear in mind that fact the customer profile is mainly Asian. Look carefully and the truth is that most Asian customers don't tip as liberally. An Asian customer sees far less value in calling a boy down for a drink because it is unlikely that the boy can speak Chinese, Korean or Japanese. It's a rule of thumb: customers need to see value before they spend, and a private dance is one way of offering value. It's a mystery to me why it is so rare for bars to think about the value proposition for the customer. They do more of the same unthinkingly, without asking themselves how to ensure that customers see value in patronising my bar. More tricky perhaps, they don't know how to analyse value conflicts. What is value to one type of customer (the straight couple that want either a drag show or a gawk show) is disvalue to the gay customer who is prepared to off a boy (but is put off by the heterosexual vibe and the very public exposure he has to endure in a bar with gawking customers).

I can confirm that. In fact, I mentioned the sign in my post of August 2022, The screaming bar.

We probably have to accept that the idea of a muscle bar with boys who can be rented out are over. Even the non-muscle bars on Patpong 2 and the massage parlours I know, have increasing difficulty getting Thai staff. Where will new muscle boys come from? Not Thailand. But is it realistic to expect bodybuilders from neighbouring countries to come to Thailand to sell their bodies? Somehow, I think not.

Given how excessive numbers of Chinese tourists have in recent years annoyed the local Japanese, I have a feeling many locals think fewer Chinese will be a good thing; never mind the stock market.

@London Bear Sounds like you enjoyed Saigon mightily. Just one question, assuming you don't speak Vietnamese. How did you manage language-wise? If you used Google Translate, how accurate do you think the translation was? How did the Vietnamese communicate back to you?

Funfifties is probably right. Just put in the escort agency's address. I don't think anyone will check anyway.

Agreed! I could do four of the five in the front row.

I find it difficult to parse what you're saying. Could you rephrase your question? For example, what is a "Japan Web form" with those capital letters? What do you mean by "staying at a private room"? Do you mean AirBnB?

This is an excellent review and analysis of mass tourism in Thailand from its early beginnings around 1960 to the latest funk in 2025. The issues discussed here are definitely not what any Thai government would want to hear, because the two booming side industries featured (property investment via nominee companies and sex tourism) can only exist and thrive through hypocritical non-enforcement of laws, which the narrator minces no words about. I especially like his mention of how the whole sex industry has become a social safety net for large swathes of the Thai population, juxtaposing it with the relatively poor record of "formal" tourism filtering down to benefit working people (as opposed to the elites).

There's a laundry shop on Saladaeng Soi 2. Google reference: https://maps.app.goo.gl/weKZVc9kEbGPiEsi8 Easy walking distance from the Raya Hotel. Their Facebook page has not been updated for a long time though.https://www.facebook.com/s.t.laundryandalterations/ Here's what it looks like from Google Streetview.

I don't know what happened in my brain, but when I read "introducing iPads to the seats", I pictured every seat being cushioned with absorbent anti-incontinence pads. Might not be a bad idea considering the client profile in some bars.

I wonder who inherits the X-boys now. It would be a shame if the bar changes its business model under the successor.

One more: whilst Prestige Massage's rooms are on the upper floors, they have a lift. No need to climb stairs. Prestige is on the pricey side though, and I'm not certain if all the staff are willing bodies.

The Avarin shop that is not next to Tarntawan Hotel has massage rooms on the ground floor just behind the foot massage lounge. Chaichana on Patpong Soi 1 has massage rooms in the basement, just one floor below its foyer. The stairs down aren't difficult. Prime has ground floor rooms in its third building, though Prime is not known for offering a milking service to conclude a massage. There is also one shop on Silom Road under Saladaeng station that has ground floor rooms but unfortunately I can't remember which one it is. But you could easily walk that 100-metre stretch and ask the boys out front of each shop if their rooms are on the lower floor. Further afield from Silom, Prince has ground floor rooms as does Jey Spa. The above is based on memory which may be a little faulty, so please double check my information with the shops themselves.

Trump's condolence statement on Truth Social (may God forgive me for even quoting it) was terse to an extent that it seemed forced and insincere. “Rest in peace Pope Francis! May God bless him and all who loved him!” Whereas other leaders referenced Pope Francis' values, none of that from the orange man. BTW, anybody watched the film The Conclave? Did you like the twist at the very end?

A one-hour look at the work of the Australian embassy in Bangkok and the consulate in Bali. This may interest especially expats living in Thailand.

There's a usually a long gap between production and upload to Youtube, and this one is no different. The 59-minute documentary "Fairytale Of Kathmandu | A portrait of a fallen idol and the murky world of sex tourism" was made around 2007, but only uploaded this month. It opens with a charming and cheery tone: the celebrated Irish poet Cathal Ó Searcaigh makes regular trips to Nepal. He loves the exotic and simple life there, and over the years he has acquired many young men as friends who dote on him. But as the film maker follows him around, she captures scenes that raise many questions. And like the ominously dark monsoon clouds that come rolling in over the valleys of Nepal from the south, the tone of the film changes. The Irish police undertook an investigation starting from 2006 (see https://archive.ph/20130217192154/http://www.independent.ie/national-news/boys-were-damaged-by-sex-trysts-with-poet-1286378.html) but nothing came of it. Apparently there was no investigation by the Nepali authorities since no complaint had been filed and all the boys were reportedly of legal age.