The decline and fall of naughty boys in Pattaya

[Guest reader]

18 minutes ago, jason1975 said:

But not my first time in a seedy bar. Boys Nighclub is similar to defunct Golden Cock in Bangkok.

Doesn’t leave much then to the imagination. 🙂

[vinapu]

2 minutes ago, reader said:

Doesn’t leave much then to the immigration. 🙂

you mean 'imagination" ?

[Guest reader]

10 minutes ago, vinapu said:

you mean 'imagination" ?

Thank you. And it came in time for me to correct it. AI isn’t so intelligent….and neither am I. 🙂

[vinapu]

8 hours ago, reader said:

Thank you. And it came in time for me to correct it. AI isn’t so intelligent….and neither am I. 🙂

don't cut yourself short, likely it was auto corrector which changed your ' imagination to immigration'. it does notoriously change my ' boys' to ' buys"

[siriusBE]

4 hours ago, vinapu said:

it does notoriously change my ' boys' to ' buys"

Are you sure your autocorrect is not intelligent?  🤣

[vinapu]

51 minutes ago, siriusBE said:

Are you sure your autocorrect is not intelligent?  🤣

I'm because it even changed boys to buys in sentence  " I don't like skinny boys barely qualifying for driving license"

[Keithambrose]

2 hours ago, vinapu said:

I'm because it even changed boys to buys in sentence  " I don't like skinny boys barely qualifying for driving license"

Mine always changes 'guys' to 'guts'!

[AussieTop90]

On 3/9/2025 at 8:32 PM, Londoner said:

Thanks, Reader , for raising this interesting issue.

I agree that the age factor is central; my generation of gay men spent their younger years in  a homophobic and legally-perilous environment. To us, Pattaya meant freedom and liberation. Younger guys don't need to travel thousands of miles for that now. 

Yet today's Pattaya, admittedly bland compared with the past, still offers us an enormous amount, particularly  if  it means  time spent with a loved one. The hotels remain cheap, embarrassingly so compared to the UK, the dining opportunities numerous, offering even better value. Even the beaches are cleaner. It provides an escape from  a northern winter, the denizens remain friendly and welcoming and the travel easier from the airport than back in the day.

My ninetieth visit is iminent  and I am still like a little boy looking forward to Christmas. The Pattaya/Jomtien  to which I return hasn't got the "edgy" flavour it once had but probably that makes it even more suitable for someone who has aged in three decades years as much as the city has changed.

The question on my mind is what will happen to the gay scene when my generation has gone. 

This is such a good point. I’m in my early 30’s and none of my gay friends have ever expressed interest in travelling to Asia for sex and entertainment. It would probably be such a foreign concept to them. 
 

It does make me wonder what the future of the gay scene will be like and makes me nostalgic for another era. 

[Keithambrose]

On 3/18/2025 at 1:25 PM, vinapu said:

don't cut yourself short, likely it was auto corrector which changed your ' imagination to immigration'. it does notoriously change my ' boys' to ' buys"

And guys to guts!

[Keithambrose]

1 minute ago, Keithambrose said:

And guys to guts!

Sorry, realised I said that 6 months  ago!  

[Olddaddy]

I have noticed the early 30's gay guys visiting Pattaya or Bangkok are not consumers of moneyboys

They prefer the saunas ,Grindr etc for free meetups 

My boyfriend 32yo is with me from the Philippines and has had sex 4 times free since Wednesday arrival with guys around his age from around the world 

[vinapu]

4 hours ago, AussieTop90 said:

This is such a good point. I’m in my early 30’s .........
 

It does make me wonder what the future of the gay scene will be like 

you are guaranteed that in time you will learn what happened  to the scene in say, 30 years, luxury greatly denied for those in 70 ties and 80 ties unfortunately

[vinapu]

4 minutes ago, Olddaddy said:

I have noticed the early 30's gay guys visiting Pattaya or Bangkok are not consumers of moneyboys

They prefer the saunas ,Grindr etc for free meetups 

My boyfriend 32yo is with me from the Philippines and has had sex 4 times free since Wednesday arrival with guys around his age from around the world 

good news is , he still travelled to Thailand to immerse himself in all that debauchery

[Lucky]

Wonder what happened to the OP, @reader. He hasn't been here since June 10th.

[Keithambrose]

On 3/9/2025 at 11:53 AM, Keithambrose said:

And the empty roads.

And the first class drainage  system!

[PeterRS]

19 hours ago, AussieTop90 said:

This is such a good point. I’m in my early 30’s and none of my gay friends have ever expressed interest in travelling to Asia for sex and entertainment. It would probably be such a foreign concept to them. 

I know I am regarded by some as a glass half empty guy when others talk of their times in Pattaya and Thailand as glass half full. But at least i have been consistent 

I too fear for the future once the present elderly generation (of which I am one) shakes off this mortal coil. I do not have many young gay friends in my home country. When I ask where they plan to spend gay holidays, they mostly mention parts of Europe and South America. They seem to feel that Asia has gone out of fashion for gays, unless it is primarily for sightseeing. When I ask why, they usually mention the increasingly high cost of airfares, even though I tell them accommodation prices are mostly much cheaper. One friend did mention he had been saving up for several years to visit Sydney. His reason? The annual Gay Pride Parade! When I mentioned that Taipei and Bangkok have the largest in Asia and show photographs, he has little interest. Sydney has been lodged in his mind for years and he will go. A prime example of the power of advertising and reputation!

It has been mentioned before but I have long considered the lack of advertising outside the country by Thai gay venue entrepreneurs as well as the (let's face it) pathetic efforts of the Thai Tourism Authority is now actually deterring visitors. Add to that inaccurate and often flat out lies in an increasing volume of youtube videos. The more negative PR that individuals overseas see, the less chance they will actually spend hard earned cash to visit the country. 

I accept that external advertising has to be sensitive while at the same time informing readers of what is actually on offer. And the problem basically lies, in my view, with the entrepreneurs themselves. For decades they have merely had to open a bar, sit back and wait for the money to roll in. Now they should be working flat out to fill their bars and generate those profits again. But getting any group of bar owners together - and to invest in some sort of campaign - seems to be anathema to them. If they don't help themselves, who will?

[Marc K]

29 minutes ago, PeterRS said:

But getting any group of bar owners together - and to invest in some sort of campaign - seems to be anathema to them. If they don't help themselves, who will?

No one. Look guys we have to come to terms with the fact that the bars from the ‘90s are artifacts of the culture of  OUR age and are not appropriate for the new age. The youngsters are not interested. The evidence is staring us in the face. 

[PeterRS]

It's been said before, and not just by me, that in the 1980s (my first glorious decade visiting Bangkok) and 1990s, many bars had as many Thais as farang as customers. Some had more. Twilight on Soi Twilight and Barbiery actually had a significant majority of Thais at the weekends. The original Babylon was opened particularly to cater initially for Thais, not foreigners. Where are the Thais now? From what I read and hear, few are in the bars which now cater almost exclusively for westerners.

[vinapu]

On 9/21/2025 at 10:37 AM, Lucky said:

Wonder what happened to the OP, @reader. He hasn't been here since June 10th.

He is doing well and word is , he may be planning next trip to Bangkok, not worrying about perceived decline in gay scene I gather.

[vinapu]

11 hours ago, PeterRS said:

..........The original Babylon was opened particularly to cater initially for Thais, not foreigners. Where are the Thais now? ........

in places which cater to them. Don't lose from sight proliferation of upscale and priced accordingly spas in areas we  tourists consider  to far and obscure - Glam, Jey , Klover, Xclub etc

[jimmie50]

I don't think this is just unique to Thailand or Bangkok.  Even in the US there has been a decline in gay establishments.  I am in my mid-70's.  The gay community was very closeted and the only place to go and meet people was the gay clubs.  Cell phones, personal computers, social media...none of it existed.  There are any number of reasons for the changes that have taken place, and I imagine some of those would be applicable to Thailand as well.  The growing acceptance of gay people in mainstream society has allowed many to feel more comfortable socializing in mixed or even straight venues.  This has decreased the reliance on dedicated safe spaces for the gay community.  We have all discussed here in other threads the online dating and various location-based apps.  These have changed how people meet and provides an alternative to bars and clubs.  The clubs are no longer the primary connection point for the younger generations.  And, as is always the case with any type of business, economic factors play a part in their success or demise as well.  Economic concerns hit small businesses hard.  Businesses fail and instead of a new business moving in, they are pushed out of the area to make room for new hotels, shopping malls, etc.  Indeed, the future of 'our gay community', as we have known it, is gradually fading away.  

 

[vinapu]

43 minutes ago, jimmie50 said:

 Indeed, the future of 'our gay community', as we have known it, is gradually fading away.  

 

 

and so do we, slowly but surely , sigh

[daydreamer]

Don't discount that as the younger western generation ages, and approaches retirement age, some of them may be inclined travel to the same type Thai boy bars that we frequent today.  

As the younger western generation ages, some of them may choose to look for younger Thai, Lao, Khmer, or Viet guys.  I suspect the younger Asians will be more appealing to the current western youngsters in the future, as they get older, instead of other fellow retirement aged western gentlemen.

[PeterRS]

12 hours ago, vinapu said:

in places which cater to them. Don't lose from sight proliferation of upscale and priced accordingly spas in areas we  tourists consider  to far and obscure - Glam, Jey , Klover, Xclub etc

Agreed! But I was specifically referring to gay gogo bars (with the exception I noted of the original Babylon). I have some gay Thai friends but they know of no gogo bars aimed at Thais and patronised by Thais. Mind you, we all know there is a gay world especially in Bangkok where foreigners are either not permitted or even know virtually nothing about. If they happen to exist, I expect entrance will be limited only to the very rich. On the other hand if in fact there are no exclusively Thai gogo bars, have Thais - in general - lost the desire to see boys performing in a public setting in various stages of undress? I do know of one wealthy Thai in the entertainment business who 'trains' young aspiring actors in a specially purchased house. But that is purely for his personal 'entertainment', I am told. 

There were always one or two bar bars where gay men congregated even in the 1950s. But from what I have learned, these attracted mostly western expats living here, like Jim Thomson. I know there is at least one book that covers the period from the 1950s but regret I cannot recall the title. Were there bars even earlier in those times when well-known gay men like Somerset Maugham and Noel Coward were visiting and praising Bangkok's delights during their stays at the Oriental Hotel, their visits now celebrated in the hotel's famous Author's Lounge. I suspect not and assume they found company in their hotel (always the Oriental) or on the streets nearby.

We know that Patpong did not exist at that time. It was in fact a banana plantation purchased by the Patpongavich family in 1946 for US$300. By the mid-1960s Air America and the CIA had set up shop in Patpong. It was in 1972 when the family took over Patpong 2 that bars offering nighttime delights opened in the balcony area. So Patpong became a virtual tapestry of espionage, nightlife and colourful characters, the latter including the French-Vietnamese fraudster and serial killer Charles Sobhraj whose modus operandi was to befriend western tourists, drug them, rob them, murder them and dispose of their bodies all around Bangkok. Finally apprehended and jailed in India in 1976, he escaped. Sought worldwide he was eventually discovered in Nepal in 2003, convicted of murder and jailed for life. Even then, though, he beat the system and was released in 2022 on account of old age. He was just 78! He now lives in France.

Always in the background, though, we have to remember that Thai society and Thai sexuality has emerged very differently from the western values the older generation of us were brought up with. Anna Leonowens, the 'Anna' in The King & I, told of her horror of Thai society of that time. After nearly six years at the Thai Court she wrote in the mid-1860s, "Here were women disguised as men, and men in the attire of women, hiding vice of every vileness and crime of every enormity - at once the most disgusting, the most appalling and the most unnatural that the heart of man has conceived." It had been far from uncommon for murals in temples to include scenes of intimate love making. The lack of visible differentiation continued to concern western visitors into the start of the 20th century. It was only a couple of decades later as it attempted to join the western world that Thailand decreed that men and women dress differently. At the same time, belatedly stricter Victorian-era attitudes began to affect Thai society. But it was only after WWII that western homophobic views began to have an affect in Thailand. An anti-sodomy law was introduced into parliament but never passed.

We also know that very soon the Thai media, using data from physicians and psychologists mainly drawn from western sources, combined to have a large scale outing of gay men in the 1960s which pushed the gay scene more underground. By the 1970s it slowly re-emerged, but it was really in the 1980s that it started to blossom. And it was Thais to which it was initially aimed. So I am guessing but I suspect it was Bangkok's gogo bars which really started the gay travel movement to Bangkok.

[Marc K]

It was indeed a glorious time. It was liberating, exhilarating and fun to come to Thailand and be able to at least partially drop one’s inhibitions. The old Soi Twilight. The old Saphan Kwai. The old Boystown (yes with an ‘S’ not a ‘Z’). Ah nostalgia, yes. Nice memories. But now we live in a different world and we must adjust.