Sunee Plaza Nice Boys

[PeterRS]

Just now, a-447 said:

I didn't know that those publications were stopped. I do remember seeing them on sale on Suriwongse.

Luckily, they are still available online.

There were many of them. I remember searching for one particular magazine with some photos I really liked around 15 years ago. There were no street vendors selling the magazines any more. I finally got it from a seller who sat on the pavement outside the 7-11 at the end of Soi Twiight. He went into his iron box and found it for me! It's the only one I still have.

Someone in Australia (the noted author on things gay in South East Asia, Peter Jackson?) started a vdo collection. I'm sure it's still there but it is far from complete. 

[PeterRS]

I just checked and it is Peter Jackson who has digitised around 2,000 of these magazines under the title The Rainbow Project. They cover the period 1982 to 2009. Being based in Thailand it seems to be impossible now to access that website - 

https://southeastasianlibrarygroup.wordpress.com/2014/10/15/thai-rainbow-archives-project-a-digitised-collection-of-thai-gay-lesbian-and-transgender-publications-now-online/

Posted too quickly. This link should provide 46 pages with 15 magazines per page of some of the old Thai gay magazines once you have proved you are human!

https://eap.bl.uk/collection/EAP128-1/search?page=0

But after a very quick check there are a lot of titles that seem to be missing. For example, I cannot see Heat or Door anywhere, and these were very popular gay photo magazines in the 1990s.

[macaroni21]

I've had the pleasure of meeting Peter Jackson, but it was socially and in Sydney (or was it Canberra?  too long ago now), though I understood that he was normally based in Bangkok. Unlike my haziness about the year or the city we met in, I have an indelible memory of the man being a fount of knowledge about gay culture in Thailand. Have never since met anyone as knowledgeable as he was.

[macaroni21]

22 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

Would you all agree that Thailand has a vested interest to try to save its "outside of Bangkok" gay economic zones?

Sorry to be a wet blanket but I think it's very difficult to imagine that the powers that be see any value in such salvage attempts.

[PeterRS]

6 minutes ago, macaroni21 said:

I've had the pleasure of meeting Peter Jackson, but it was socially and in Sydney (or was it Canberra?  too long ago now), though I understood that he was normally based in Bangkok. Unlike my haziness about the year or the city we met in, I have an indelible memory of the man being a fount of knowledge about gay culture in Thailand. Have never since met anyone as knowledgeable as he was.

I would love to have met Jackson. He is the Emeritus Professor of Thai History and Cultural Studies at the Australian National University's College of Asia and the Pacific's School of Culture, History and Language (I wonder how he gets all that on to a business card 😵)! He is also a member of the Hong Kong-based editorial collective of the HK University Press' Queer Asia series of monographs.

The histories of Buddhism, gender, sexuality and globalisation in Thailand have been his primary research. His books include Queer Bangkok and The Language of Sex and Sexuality in Thailand. A more recent book is  Desiring Thai Men: Asian Gay Media and Transforming Masculinities.

He has frequently made the point that rather than being "traditional", the country's queer communities only came into being in the latter decades of the 20th century. He has also written books about other countries in South East Asia.

[bkkmfj2648]

3 hours ago, daydreamer said:

There was one resource that was widely read, and available outside of Thailand.  It was a small pocket sized book titled The Men of Thailand or TMOT, as it was commonly known.  Although small in size, it had extensive information, with maybe 250 pages.  This book by Eric Allyn was available for sale in Thai bookstores, and worldwide, through mail order, and in some gay bookstores outside of Thailand.  

Wow @daydreamer, this is truly fascinating and amazing - TMOT seems to have been a precious resource - like a gay magazine + yellow pages all in one thick book.

6th Edition published in 1997

 

I know that I may sound like I am continually "beating a dead horse", but this still begs my earlier question:

This 250 page TMOT featured gay resource and listing for 15 Thai cities was instrumental in the success of many gay businesses scattered throughout Thailand.

So, if I was a small new gay bar in Phitsanuloke (spelling taken from the above TMOT cover) I could simply pay from a few hundred to a couple thousand Thai baht to place a small ad in this TMOT publication and reach the gay community of the world to give my new business some visibility for future gay tourists/expats to come and visit.

My question (again) is what is the equivalent of this in the year 2026?

Many of you had already stated that it is X, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, etc.  But those are individual marketing initiatives and not a bundled global packaged initiative that TMOT offered.

In my opinion, what is missing for Thailand in the year 2026, for a TMOT equivalent - like a Thailand Gay Chamber of Commerce (TGCC) - where all gay businesses could subscribe and advertise in TGCC.  Then TGCC would take care of publishing and curating this information on the world stage.

Then those small gay businesses out in the 15 hinterland cities and towns in Thailand would have a mechanism to be visible in the larger gay world.

Since the death of the print versions of these many gay magazines in the early 2000s we have seen/witnessed the shrinkage and closure of many gay businesses in numerous places in Thailand (Chiang Mai, Koh Samui, Phuket, etc.).

 

[macaroni21]

I don't think it is useful to speak of gay tourism to Thailand as a generalised, homogenous thing. By that I mean we need to distinguish the different market segments and (catering to them) the different business segments. Each of these segments have/had a waxing and waning cycle non-synchronous with the others and for their own reasons, e.g. the economics, politics or demographics of that segment at that point in time.

Restricting my comments to Pattaya,

On 6/17/2026 at 12:07 PM, bkkmfj2648 said:

• Sunee Plaza - I saw old maps that showed like 30 bars, hotels, and massage shops existed back in the day,
• Boyztown area - I believe that the number of bars was fewer than Sunee Plaza had?
• Jomtien Complex - It now has in excess of 30 bars - but I believe that its footprint on the local gay scene only took off after the decline in Sunee Plaza ?

I have never been a frequent visitor to Pattaya, but I have visited irregularly since the early 1990s. That decade I think I only visited the Boyztown bars, and stayed mostly at Le Cafe Royale Hotel (did I get the name right?). I can't directly answer @bkkmfj2648's question about the distribution of patrons among these 3 distinct areas in the years 2000 to 2010, but I think it would be misleading to think of a single market that moved from one area to another depending on their relative popularity. 

When I visited, just by looking at the offerings in the Sunee Plaza bars, one could surmise that Boyztown and Sunnee served different market segments. Most Sunnee bars, for most of the period, had barely-legal skinny fem twinks. For a short while, some bars went too far (more on this below), but as @a-447 said, the clampdowns came before long. 

My main memory of that period, 2000 to maybe 2010, was that the inside bars of Sunee had so-so crowds, but the open-front bars (very similar to format of bars in Jomtien Complex today) always had plenty of customers sitting for hours, with skinny fem wait staff flirting among the customers, almost all of whom were silver-haired caucasians with pot bellies. The customers seemed to know each other. So, to answer @bkkmfj2648's question to a degree, Sunee Plaza was pulling in the residents or semi-residents of Pattaya (snowbirds who only came during the northern winter) who had a fancy for skinny fem twinks, but for whom Sunee was also a community space.

15 hours ago, a-447 said:

I remember going to an upstairs bar and having peek inside.

I immediately rushed back down the stairs, feeling physically ill at what I'd just witnessed.

I would hasten to add that in my opinion, @a-447 described an extreme case, though I myself had a similar experience in one bar. I too was horrified. Let me segue a bit here and describe my experience:

I was sitting in bar (can't remember which one now) and the mamasan noticed that I wasn't showing any interest in the boys (they were too skinny and too fem!), but s/he came to the wrong conclusion as to why I wasn't showing any interest. S/he then said, we have more boys, they not dancing now, they at the back. Follow me, I show you. I stupidly followed without digesting what s/he might be saying. Down a short corridor, we came to a curtained doorway. S/he pulled back the curtain to show me a filthy, untidy room with four obviously teenage boys inside. I was outa there like lightning.

While the raids severely damaged the reputation of the precinct and made it risky for customers to be seen there, I doubt that it was the primary factor for its decline. I think the primary factor was the demographic receding of the type of customer Sunnee appealed to. In short, many of them died. They were not sufficiently replaced by new residents with similar tastes in boys. The new residents that came were less likely to be looking for skinny fem twinks.

That taste is an artefact of time and place. It's a generation (for want of a better term, I call it the rice queen generation) that paralleled the heterosexual market for mail-order brides: men who bought into the stereotype of Asians being more effeminate and submissive compared to non-Asian partners. By the turn of the century, a great cultural shift away from that stereotype was gradually happening in the background, and Sunnee's allure was being left behind by that cultural shift.

My guess is that Jomtien Complex added to Sunnee's decline. It offered a safer set of bars without the odium of underage activity. It was also less fem and twinky (but not by much). I think Jomtien Complex sort of inherited Sunnee Plaza's market segment, but a more updated, less rice-queen kind.

On the other hand, Boyztown always appealed to a completely separate market, though there was some overlap. Boyztown had more straight-looking boys, in fact actual straight boys. While it had open-front bars that also attracted people sitting for hours people-watching, my sense was that (no less due to the density of hotels in the area) Boyztown attracted the short-term visitors more than the residents.

But "short-term" is a relative thing. A short-term visitor from Europe or America might stay for 3 weeks. A short-term visitor from Asia, barely a week -- which has implications.

Another great shift was happening that began to sound the death knell for Boyztown: the rise of the Asian tourist to Thailand and the decline of the white tourist. The bars absolutely failed to adapt to serving the Asian tourist and continued to rely on the shrinking white market. But it's a chicken and egg question too, because with an ever-shorter visit duration, the Asian tourist was much less likely to venture out of Bangkok (unless they were of the packaged tour kind), and so unless they showed up, why would the bars start catering to them?

But some do show up, as can be seen from the large numbers of screaming Chinese girls in formerly-gay BoyzBoyzBoyz.

And then still another great shift: the Asian tourist is relatively younger and is more than happy with the dance clubs of Soi 2 in Bangkok for nightlife. They are not great fans of the gogo bars (maybe also they see these bars as poor value for money, which is true, actually), which explains why the gogo bars of Soi Twilight began the decline, and now in Patpong, they're often in a sorry state. Boyztown's gogo bars are just the more tattered/shuttered version of this general decline of gogo bars.

[macaroni21]

I feel I should clarify that my shorthand use of the term "rice queen generation" does not mean an entire generation, but a tiny subset of a generation, in the same way that straight men keen on mail-order brides are a fraction of straight men in general. 

[PeterRS]

5 hours ago, macaroni21 said:

I don't think it is useful to speak of gay tourism to Thailand as a generalised, homogenous thing. By that I mean we need to distinguish the different market segments and (catering to them) the different business segments. Each of these segments have/had a waxing and waning cycle non-synchronous with the others and for their own reasons, e.g. the economics, politics or demographics of that segment at that point in time.

Before considering @macaroni21's point, let me add another example of my own. 

From what I can deduce, The Men Of Thailand went through several editions starting around the mid-1980s and ending around the mid-1990s (give or take a year or so). What I also see is that this publication was for western men of a certain age. While most will have been stuck in Bangkok or Pattaya, some certainly will have enjoyed travelling around Thailand. But how many? Not many IMHO.

Although I never read any edition of that book, when I went to the stunning Ubon Ratchathani Candle Festival in 2007, I found the one gay sauna in town close to the river. I cannot now recall where I found the information and I did not know about it till I arrived in the city. Mind you, finding the sauna itself was a real expedition which had me on the point of giving up largely because road signs were not in the correct order. For example, Prommarat Road was numbered 1, 3, 2, 4!

5 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

This 250 page TMOT featured gay resource and listing for 15 Thai cities was instrumental in the success of many gay businesses scattered throughout Thailand.

But was it in fact instrumental in driving gay business to most of those cities? I really do have to wonder. In my view there has to be more than a gay bar or a gay sauna to attract a gay tourist. I was going to Ubon Ratchathani simply for the Candle Festival. The fact that there happened to be one gay sauna I did not even know about till I got there would certainly not have influenced my decision to make the trip. Similarly when a friend and I went to Khon Kaen, we could not even find the in-town sauna. We had more luck finding willing gay students in nearby Maha Sarakham.

As for Chiang Mai I do not know what has happened to that city which used to be so gay. From my early days there at Coffee Boy the gay scene just seemed to explode. Staying at the then relatively new D2 hotel, we wanted to find a new gay massage spa. So we just asked the concierge and he pointed us to an excellent one near the river. For me, Chiang Mai is now basically dead, although there are still some gay venues. But it has completely changed and the gay scene is a fraction of its former size.

Honestly, I do not beieve what the TOT would like us to believe: that gay tourists come here for the culture, the food, the sun, the beaches and so on. These may be on their lists, but top of the list is unquestionably sex. 

So back to @macaroni21's very valid point. Thailand can no longer be regarded as the place where gay western expats come for 2 weeks holiday or to retire. The market has changed. That change has come relatively slowly at the outset, although most venue owners shut ther eyes to it until after covid, but it happened and it is continuing. Many westerners have found other more fun destinations which, frankly, are now less expensive than Thailand. I mentioned South America and should have added Central America.

For my first 12 years in Hong Kong, it was against the law to be gay. So, many gay westerners like me would fly to Bangkok for long week-ends. They wanted as much sex as possible - go-go bars, massage spas, discos etc. After 1991 when the law changed, so did the gay scene. Saunas opened, bars opened and there was less need for locals to travel.

At that time very few Japanese went anywhere except Hawaii, and that was definitely not for sex. It was for sun, sea and relative freedom from the boredom of everyday hard working life. Besides, they had their own gay ghettos in Shinjuku ni-chome, in Ueno, some in Shibuya etc. I once met a Japanese gay tourist in Bali and another three in Kathmandu. But sex was not high on their lists. Try as I might, although a very frequent visitor to Seoul in the mid-1980s, finding gay bars and saunas was like the proverbial needle in a haystack. Martial law did not help. In comparison, Seoul is almost a gay paradise now. Taipei is the same. Martial law and one park for cruising in the mid-1980s; now one of the gayest cities in Asia.

To my thinking as one who first visited Thailand in 1979, take away the burgeoning massage spas and gay Thailand has gone backwards. The answer of venue owners to the reduced number of gay tourists is close establishments and increase prices. It has always been that way. The very fact that this Board has had a considerable number of threads and posts on The Philppines, on Vietnam, on Taipei, some on Malaysia and some on Japan, for example, surely  points to the fact that readers of this forum generally don't want the same old, same old. They want some variety. Agreed, variety in the form of visiting Japan where one canot speak the language can be challenging. But as more than one series of posts has made clear, that country has a vast amount to offer the gay tourist primarily after sex. And the Japanese ¥ exchange rate remains extremely attractive.

How to solve the Thailand problem?  One book that offers details of gay venues in multiple cities is not going to achieve it. And frankly I don't believe TMOT or Spartacus ever did achieve it! Apart from Bangkok, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Hua Hin and to a certain extent Samui, no book ever enticed visitors to other cities. That was 6 locations and Samui barely scraped in. How many gay tourists actually took in Korat, Udon Thani, Khon Kaen, Songkhla, Hua Hin, Loei (even for its amazing Ghost Festival), Chiang Rai, Sukhothai . . . and so on. Precious few I believe.

I believe it is going to take a new breed of venue owners before Thailand changes tack and becomes seriously attractive to new markets. But hold on - don't Thailand's laws make this all but impossible? I cannot believe the government will ever make sex for cash legal. I cannot believe it is ever going to change its immigration laws to give sex workers long term visas. It's not in their interests because they know there is a thriving Thai sex market which foreigners never see and which so far perfectly satisfies their own needs. So foreign tourists are well and truly f--ked!

[a-447]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

At that time very few Japanese went anywhere except Hawaii, and that was definitely not for sex.

Gays probably didn't go there for sex, but heterosexual guys certainly did!

When 'Deep Throat' came out, there were lots of weekend tours to Hawaii to see it.

Their weekend consisted of watching the movie, golf, watching the movie again, a visit to a brothel, watching the movie, golf and a final visit to the brothel. 

They came back in total awe of the size of Harry Reem's cock. Late night TV shows discussed it at great length (pun intended). 

I was a beneficiary of all the fuss, as being a foreigner, I was thought to be similarly endowed.

And although not true, I happily played along!

 

 

 

[daydreamer]

7 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

Wow @daydreamer, this is truly fascinating and amazing - TMOT seems to have been a precious resource - like a gay magazine + yellow pages all in one thick book.

The listings were extensive, however unlike the yellow pages, they were an integral part of the book, not paid ads.  There were a very few paid ads in the book, but less than 20.  This provided fair and unbiased coverage to every business.  Along with the business name and address in Thai script,  phone numbers, operating hours, and a short description, it was a valuable resource for many people. 

 

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

And frankly I don't believe TMOT or Spartacus ever did achieve it! Apart from Bangkok, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Hua Hin and to a certain extent Samui, no book ever enticed visitors to other cities. That was 6 locations and Samui barely scraped in. How many gay tourists actually took in Korat, Udon Thani, Khon Kaen, Songkhla, Hua Hin, Loei (even for its amazing Ghost Festival), Chiang Rai, Sukhothai . . . and so on. Precious few I believe.

 

Maybe TMOT didn't entice visitors to other cities, but it was a very useful tool for those who do travel to areas of Thailand outside of Bangkok and Pattaya.  I certainly used the listings in TMOT to locate businesses in Chiang Rai, Khon Kaen, etc.

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, a-447 said:

Gays probably didn't go there for sex, but heterosexual guys certainly did!

When 'Deep Throat' came out, there were lots of weekend tours to Hawaii to see it.

In half a dozen visits to Honolulu, the only Japanese I ever saw were a gazillion young couples either on honeymooon or about to get married, with some others surfing on the rather shallow waves! I was once taken to a gay bar but we are talking about the start of the 1990s and I do not recall one Japanese being there.

[PeterRS]

1 hour ago, daydreamer said:

it was a valuable resource for many people. 

Maybe TMOT didn't entice visitors to other cities, but it was a very useful tool for those who do travel to areas of Thailand outside of Bangkok and Pattaya.  I certainly used the listings in TMOT to locate businesses in Chiang Rai, Khon Kaen, etc.

I am sure it was valuable and not only to you. But I respectfully think your post kind of backs up what others have been writing -

"Maybe TMOT didn't entice visitors to other cities"

This is all history and so it is impossible to back up comments with figures. I am sure TMOT was very useful for some. But in all my many, many dozens of visits to Bangkok during which I chatted to many hundreds of western visitors enjoying Bangkok's nightlife, I never once chatted to any westerner who was planning to visit or who had visited any other parts of the country apart from Phuket, Samui, Chiang Mai and Pattaya - and Ayuddya. Most had no clue if a town/city was in Isaan, in the far north or in the south. Mention of Ubon Ratchathani, Sakhon Nakhon, Phitsanulok and other cities brought questioning looks!

Let's just agree to disagree. 

[daydreamer]

The TMOT series was popular in its day, evident in the fact that seven editions were published and sold. 

No doubt the vast majority of gay tourists in the 1990's did not venture further than Bangkok, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, and Phuket, however those locations were thoroughly detailed in the applicable sections, so TMOT did benefit gay businesses in those areas.  The maps were excellent, and the city listings also included recommended hotels in each area.

Certainly the planning of many trips to Thailand was assisted by the coverage provided in this book, useful both before gay tourists landed at Don Mueang Airport, and small enough to be carried while in Thailand.  In the days before the Thailand gay websites began on the internet, TMOT was the most complete and detailed resource available.

 

[llz]

I still have the TMOT 7th edition which was I think the last one ; it was issued in 1999 just before the so-called "social order campaign" of Interior Minister Purachai in 2001. 

This last edition had three books : one with general information about Thailand and hotel listings, one with gay venues listings and one with maps. 

I remember that it was announced that there would be no new edition in 2001 due to new government policies. and then internet took over. 

[bkkmfj2648]

8 hours ago, llz said:

This last edition had three books : one with general information about Thailand and hotel listings, one with gay venues listings and one with maps. 

When I try to imagine the amount of effort that someone (or a team of someones) had to exert to cover all of these gay economic locations in 15 distinct cities/towns throughout Thailand it is amazing and monumental.  This was truly remarkable to have had all of this information consolidated into one single information reference document.

8 hours ago, llz said:

I remember that it was announced that there would be no new edition in 2001 due to new government policies. and then internet took over. 

And here is the irony, "then internet took over".   Has it really?  Where on the internet can you find a single consolidated source for gay information throughout Thailand that is catalogued by zone/city/town?

Yes, a lot of this information is available here in:

• gayguides.com, 
• sawatdeenetwork.com, 
• christianpfc.blogspot.com,
• https://llz.blogspot.com/
• and many others, but the amount of effort that is required to extract and locate the gay travel information that you require to plan a trip to some of these far away places (i.e., Phitsanulok, Nakhon Ratchasima, Hat Yai, etc.) requires an enormous amount of effort.

Whereas, prior to the "social order campaign" of the early 2000s, much of this information was readily and easily available in these various Thai gay magazines; Thai Puan, TMOT, Mithuna Junior, and Desire Magazine.

Perhaps the only "true" remaining centralized and organized information about gay destinations in Thailand is

 

https://www.utopia-asia.com/tipsthai.htm

where the gay information is organized by region, city, town/village and the information provided is updated by anyone who may have visited the gay business and can report back if it is still open, is it still good, has it changed, and this information displays the date so that you can know if it is current or dated information.

So perhaps, is the substitute/replacement for the gay travel information that was readably available in the former gay magazines?

[PeterRS]

I agree I may have come down too hard on TMOT. 7 editions is no mean feat, that's for sure. Clearly some gay visitors did indeed benefit from it. But I really do wonder how many actually used it to go outside the Chiang Mai, Bangkok, Pattaya and Phuket areas. I suspect that taking away these four, as @daydreamer suggested above the number who travelled beyond was extremely limited. Just my view.

I can only go by what I have seen on my own travels within the country, although the two I will mention came after TMOT's demise. Yet both events are widely publicised as two of the major events to see in the country. Earlier I mentioned the Ubon Ratchathani Candle Festival. This is one of Thailand's major attractions, a simply stunning day or two that you cannot see on that scale anywhere else virtually in the world. When I was there in 2007, during the whole of the main day - the Saturday - in all the crowds of Thais I saw just two other westerners - and they were ladies! I also wonder: have any of our existing readers actually been to that Festival given that there used to be a gay sauna in the city (I have no idea if it is still there now)?

I can ask the same of the amazing Dansai Ghost Festival. I know many cities have their own ghost festivals but Dansai is the biggest and the most impressive. When I was there for three nights in 2014, I saw not one other westerner - true! I do accept that Dansai is just a small countryside town and there is really only one decent hotel on the hillside above. But most visitors fly into nearby Loei and get a hotel there where there certainly used to be more than one gay-friendly bar. Buses ferry viitors to the Festival. Bordered on the Mekhong, being hilly and with a major vineyard, Loei Province itself is well worth visiting. But as with Ubon, I wonder how many existing readers of this Board have ever been to the Dansai Festival?

I have posted before photos of both events. As there is one member who seems to resent photos being posted even after a dozen or so years, I will refrain from reposting.

5 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

Perhaps the only "true" remaining centralized and organized information about gay destinations in Thailand is

 

https://www.utopia-asia.com/tipsthai.htm

So perhaps, is the substitute/replacement for the gay travel information that was readably available in the former gay magazines?

I agree Utopia can be a useful resource. But it is not just the readers who contribute. The owner also does and he has his own whims as to whether or not venues are included. As a regular visitor to Taipei, I once wrote to him a few years ago asking why he had not included two Taipei saunas. He wrote back basically stating that he objected to the pricing policy of one and alleged racism in the other. Well, my view is that he was perfectly entitled to include these as his opinions in the descriptions, but deliberately to omit two popular saunas in an alleged gay guide was unfair. I do not recall any reply.

As @bkkmfj2648 has rightly pointed out, keeping information on a very large number of gay venues up to date is a near impossibility. On Utopia-Asia, there is a very long entry on the Huang Tzu Hot Spring (Emperor). This was great because it was the most popular such facility for gay guys since the really raunchy one further up the hill Huang Ding was closed about 5 years ago. But the site still states it has a "steam room (some discreet action)" and that there have been "reports of activity after midnight until dawn." Yet the steam room was pulled down more than a year ago and the owners do not tolerate any action whatever! I hate to complain too much about this site, but it also states in the section under the sauna most popular with twinks and younger guys Soi13in "busiest between 6:30 and 9:00 with happy hour prices." Yet westerners have all but given up on this sauna as there is a dual entry price with foreigners paying four times the price of Taiwanese all day (that's NT$1,000 - US$32) and there is no happy hour for foreigners!

Under Hong Kong's Kowloon District it lists just one sauna named Star. Yet other sites name five or six including one that used to be compared  favourably with Babylon in Bangkok - Hutong. Utopia does not even mention it!

So in my view Utopia is good but like all such guides it has to be taken with a decent sized pinch of salt. At the same time I have no idea how anyone can obtain so much information about so many countries and keep it anywhere up to date! 👍

[ichigo]

8 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

When I try to imagine the amount of effort that someone (or a team of someones) had to exert to cover all of these gay economic locations in 15 distinct cities/towns throughout Thailand it is amazing and monumental.  This was truly remarkable to have had all of this information consolidated into one single information reference document.

And here is the irony, "then internet took over".   Has it really?  Where on the internet can you find a single consolidated source for gay information throughout Thailand that is catalogued by zone/city/town?

Yes, a lot of this information is available here in:

• gayguides.com, 
• sawatdeenetwork.com, 
• christianpfc.blogspot.com,
• https://llz.blogspot.com/
• and many others, but the amount of effort that is required to extract and locate the gay travel information that you require to plan a trip to some of these far away places (i.e., Phitsanulok, Nakhon Ratchasima, Hat Yai, etc.) requires an enormous amount of effort.

Whereas, prior to the "social order campaign" of the early 2000s, much of this information was readily and easily available in these various Thai gay magazines; Thai Puan, TMOT, Mithuna Junior, and Desire Magazine.

Perhaps the only "true" remaining centralized and organized information about gay destinations in Thailand is

 

https://www.utopia-asia.com/tipsthai.htm

where the gay information is organized by region, city, town/village and the information provided is updated by anyone who may have visited the gay business and can report back if it is still open, is it still good, has it changed, and this information displays the date so that you can know if it is current or dated information.

So perhaps, is the substitute/replacement for the gay travel information that was readably available in the former gay magazines?

I've found https://www.travelgay.com to be useful at times

[PeterRS]

13 hours ago, ichigo said:

I've found https://www.travelgay.com to be useful at times

I think most gay guides can be useful - indeed are useful. But most are incomplete, no doubt because of the enormous difficulty in updating. So I think it is best to check 3 or 4 sites. The one I have never liked is thegaypassport.com as way too much of its material is out of date. For example, Hans Mens Sauna in Taipei is still listed as being a small 1st floor sauna.  But as I posted here on May 30 2023, Hans moved to a much bigger location on the 8th floor of a shopping mall more than three years ago! In the hot springs section, it does indeed mention the gay friendly Huang Tzu, but also lists the very gay unfriendly Kawayu Hot Spring virtually next door.

Under Hong Kong, it lists just two of the several gay saunas, and the popular Hutong is not one of those two!

[PeterRS]

On 6/19/2026 at 11:50 AM, bkkmfj2648 said:

When I try to imagine the amount of effort that someone (or a team of someones) had to exert to cover all of these gay economic locations in 15 distinct cities/towns throughout Thailand it is amazing and monumental.  This was truly remarkable to have had all of this information consolidated into one single information reference document.

@daydreamer may recall that there was a thread back at the end of 2018 started by @abidismaili titled The Men of Thailand magazine.

This posts a considerable number of photos from various publications, including TMOT and Spartacus. And for me it perhaps illustrates the point made above by @bkkmfj2648. For example, in the 1991 Spartacus Guide much more information is given about Silom Sois 2 and 4 than to Soi Twlight on Suriwong. I am reasonably certain there was more than one go-go bar on Twilight in that year. But I was much more into visiting Barbiery bar and Babylon in those days. Does anyone recall: was Twilight the only go-go bar in that soi in 1991 and did the others all just begin to appear after that?

 

[Mavica]

Interesting discussion of information sources.  Yes, there is no inclusive, up to date guidebook ... be it a gay guide or one of the Lonely Planet's.  Most of us regularly posting here almost certainly consult multiple sources as we travel because the internet affords us those opportunities and information changes so frequently.  These gayguides forums are probably the most reliable resources because of participants generously sharing recent personal experiences. I think that sometimes we take it for granted we will have this space and know so many of us are grateful for this resource.

[bkkmfj2648]

1 hour ago, PeterRS said:

@daydreamer may recall that there was a thread back at the end of 2018 started by @abidismaili titled The Men of Thailand magazine.

Thanks for that link to that 2018 thread - as I was able to learn something new (but it is old information) as to why the guys may keep the number that they wear.

I love this history stuff @abidismaili - as it helps us newer entries into the scene understand better as to how things evolved to be what we see and experience today in 2026.

 

[a-447]

I made a suggestion to Neal when he ran Happy Place in Pattaya - one that he actually took up.

I said some customers - size queens like myself - want to know which guys are well hung, so why not use their numbers to indicate who they are. The bigger the number, the bigger the cock.

He implemented my idea the next night!

[floridarob]

So much for being #1 🥺

[vinapu]

7 hours ago, bkkmfj2648 said:

 

I love this history stuff @abidismaili - as it helps us newer entries into the scene understand better as to how things evolved to be what we see and experience today in 2026.

 

clear case of overregulation