Sunee Plaza Happy Boys

[PeterRS]

9 minutes ago, kokopelli3 said:

Eros Bar in Sunee was one of the raunchiest of bars.

Is there now any bar that can compete with the raunchiness of Eros and Happy Boys?

[kokopelli3]

3 hours ago, PeterRS said:

Is there now any bar that can compete with the raunchiness of Eros and Happy Boys?

I have been told that X Boys in Boyztown area has a raunchy nightly show, but I haven't been there in many years. But nothing to compare  to the raunchiness of the goings on in Sunee Plaza  in years gone by.

[Londoner]

Is it possible that the guys themselves are now a little more circumspect? The unrestrained performances I recall from BKK (more than Pattaya)  were not given to audiences with mobile phone and access to SM.

 

[mauRICE]

1 hour ago, Londoner said:

Is it possible that the guys themselves are now a little more circumspect? The unrestrained performances I recall from BKK (more than Pattaya)  were not given to audiences with mobile phone and access to SM.

 

Actually, social media and smartphones have made independent, self-made porn videos and live shows possible where the performers have almost complete control as to how much they want to show and how much they want to charge (for eg through OnlyFans). Why perform in a circus with a gawking audience and receiving only a few hundred Baht per show while most of the money goes to the bar owners? With globalisation, the impact of the Internet and the influx of affluent Asian visitors, the guys have become more aware of their worth and are increasingly becoming their own agents.

[iendo]

1 hour ago, mauRICE said:

Actually, social media and smartphones have made independent, self-made porn videos and live shows possible where the performers have almost complete control as to how much they want to show and how much they want to charge (for eg through OnlyFans). Why perform in a circus with a gawking audience and receiving only a few hundred Baht per show while most of the money goes to the bar owners? With globalisation, the impact of the Internet and the influx of affluent Asian visitors, the guys have become more aware of their worth and are increasingly becoming their own agents.

You’re right, digital platforms have given performers more power. They can now act as their own agents, set their own prices, and keep a lot of what they earn. For some that is an improvement compared to the bar model. But in a bars the content can be controlled, what's online is there forever.

Also, only a small number of people make serious money from it. Most struggle to get noticed and many give up because it’s such a crowded scene. It’s a tough and very competitive. You can see the high turnover of new creators.

I know that in lower-income countries, even small amounts can make a big difference, but it’s definitely not easy money.

I'm a frequent visitor of Windmill, and there is no problem with mobile phones or cameras. No Thai men allowed either. Much saver for those who don't want the stigma of being a sex worker. 

[Enchanted_Elixir]

I have a working theory: the old raunchy go go bar (that is the heavy object of nostalgia on this forum) was a form that trained a certain kind of desire. It relied on darkness, anonymity, ritual cues, and a margin of social risk. Over the past 15 years that form has been hollowed out by three converging forces:

First, assimilation into respectable public life. As gay life has become more tolerated and assimilated into respectable society, the tolerance for transgressive spaces shrinks. The scene does not vanish. It is reformatted to fit bourgeois sensibilities, also in Thailand were especially Pattaya wants to be seen as respectable and not as sin city. 

Second, the phone replaced the bar as the organiser of eros. Grindr and Hornet turned chance into filtering. The bar became a lobby for pre-arranged meets rather than a theatre of discovery. Add CCTV, pocket cameras, and permanent searchability. People grow cautious. What once happened in the shadows now risks a screenshot.

Third, gentrification and liability. Rising rents favour clean, bright venues that maximise covers. 

The desire did not die. It migrated. You see it in private parties (called homepas in Thailand), pop-up nights, encrypted groups, and exclusive, ticketed  hotel gatherings with stricter boundaries, and of course in massage shops. When forms change, meanings shift. Raunch retreats from the public square to curated enclaves, and the culture loses one of its old training grounds for spontaneity and risk. The paradox of success is that it dissolves the very scene that made the success possible.

[PeterRS]

52 minutes ago, Enchanted_Elixir said:

First, assimilation into respectable public life. As gay life has become more tolerated and assimilated into respectable society, the tolerance for transgressive spaces shrinks. The scene does not vanish. It is reformatted to fit bourgeois sensibilities, also in Thailand were especially Pattaya wants to be seen as respectable and not as sin city. 

While not disagreeing in general with your observation, I think this answer would be more accurate to say that "respectable society" made sure it became impossible. The "social order" campaigns of the first Thaksin government and his religious homophobic minister of the interior were intent on getting rid of at least some of the gay nightlife. So virtually at a stroke, the government changed what owners could offer to the public and where what remained could be offered. That inevitably is a bit of a generalisation and I believe it affected Bangkok (where several bars had to close for quite a few weeks) more than Pattaya. But the offerings in Bangkok's gogo bars certainly were affected.

On the other hand, had those changes not taken place in the early 2000s, you are no doubt correct that over the longer term the tolerance of Thai society as a whole (especially the elites) was in the process of changing. The quite rapid growth of the economy and the similarly rapid reduction in child bearing since the Asian Economic Crisis in 1997 helped play their parts.

Yet the sleaze bars continued in Pattaya until much later. Only in bars like Nature Boys and Golden Cock did it survive in Bangkok.

[floridarob]

7 hours ago, iendo said:

I'm a frequent visitor of Windmill

The girl bar on walking street?

[mauRICE]

56 minutes ago, floridarob said:

The girl bar on walking street?

Do the girls walk around in Dutch costumes asking customers to milk their...err...cows?

[iendo]

3 hours ago, floridarob said:

The girl bar on walking street?

Yes sir! 

I love that place. I've done unspeakable things there in plain view. I never forget when my best friend came over (straight) and I took em to Windmill, which is now called Windmill 1. We had a seat just in front of a raised table. On the table there would always be two girls naked playing with weird things. Mostly things you can slap them with.  

That night was a wild night all around. Multiple people were having action in plain sight. As I said, that table is on eye or should I say tongue height. So if you move your head forward a little bit, you'll be licking carpet before you know it. Hahaha, that was a wild night. 

But I still go there often, never that crazy again, but a little bit playing is fun.

And yeah, I cannot compare it with and boy bar that I ever been too. There is always a party atmosphere. Not to name names now, but when I enter some boy gogos, it just feels depressing. 

 

It took me some time to get yours Maurice LOL

2 hours ago, mauRICE said:

Do the girls walk around in Dutch costumes asking customers to milk their...err...cows?

[vinapu]

16 hours ago, Enchanted_Elixir said:

 the old raunchy go go bar (that is the heavy object of nostalgia on this forum)

unfortunately