A future for Soi Pratuchai?

[fountainhall]

I doubt many boys have better oppertunities now. Prostitution is the most easy way to have a monthly income with not too much work..

We all know that there are two sex industries in Thailand - one for the Thais which westerners rarely if ever discover - and one for visiting tourists and expats. When gay go-go bars first started, they must have seemed like manna from heaven for many country guys. They could put out of their minds the fat smelly hairy western body humping them for a while and think only of the Baht they would be handed when they could go back to their mates.

Since the government's first Social Order campaign in 2001, far more Thais became far more openly aware of the foreigner-based "entertainment" business - the sex business, in other words. And the vast majority did not like it. Poll after poll showed that the curtailing of the industry through things like shortening of opening hours and the zoning of entertainment businesses were extremely popular with Thais throughout the country. Over time, being a gay prostitute was no longer regarded as that enviable source of oodles of Baht. Indeed, for many more boys there is now a stigma attached to it than there ever was before. Why do you think there are so many Cambodians, Lao and Vietnamese boys now working legally or illegally in the sec business here? Because they are in the same economic circumstances of the Thai boys of yesteryear. Plus they are far from home so there is no fear of stigma at home.

That's not to say young Thai guys are not as interested in sex as any others. They are - only most now prefer sex with other Thais. Accordingly there is now a thriving industry in catering for this new young market, largely in gay Thai saunas some of which have their own no-holds-barred shows.

Of course there will always be money boys. I just agree with BonTong that social conditions in this already very conservative country are changing faster than before. As has been said by many posters over the last two years or so, the go-go bar model which flourished at its peak 15 - 30 years ago can not last. The owners failed to keep up with the times and really had no idea what their audience base wanted. Like the dinosaurs, their extinction is only a matter of time.