Lives of/options for gay over-18 year old Thais.

[christianpfc]

I wonder how working Thais manage to go to late night venues and then to work next day. I do it about twice per month, if the place closes at 2 am (sangjan) or 3 am (DJ station), I am in bed an hour later and have to get up at 8 and start work at 9. I couldn't do it every week.

I met several gay Thais who would be a good intellectual match for me, but are not so much my type. None of them frequent the gay scene (bars, discos, saunas), all encounters were on the internet.

A friend B from Germany is in Thailand for holiday. He met with a Thai boy who works in a factory in Chonburi (I should have asked for details, especially how he can take several days off work) and came on his motorbike to meet B in Pattaya. They know from camfrog and now chat on skype. B is in his 60s, overweight, does not speak Thai and his English is limited. So is the Thai boy's. They have a common vocabulary of a few hundred words in English. I translated German/Thai for them. The Thai boy looks fine, with short hair I would consider him a potential sexual partner. B just compensates his travel expenses (and a bit more). It's a miracle how they found together.

B is chatting with another Thai boy who lives in Ayutthaya and writes good English. The boys earns about 10,000 Baht per month and is leasing a car for about 6,000 Baht per months. This is only possible because he stays with his parents and has no expenses for rent. Still, buying petrol is a problem. That boy will come by car to see my friend.

From my own experience, there is the boy whom I met in Babylon Sauna in September and have been seeing almost weekly. It took me some weeks to figure out that he does not sell shirts at the night market Dalat Klong Lot, but is a regular at Saranrom park. His English is very limited, we communicate in Thai only. Two weeks ago, he became an employee of Hotmale in Soi Twilight. Quite an upgrade! I went there to off him (400 Baht off fee, 1500 tip; expensive, but I had told him the week before that we could meet again next week and called that night to ask where he is, so it would have been rude not to go). Two days ago, we met again and he told me he left Hotmale because I was his only customer in seven days of working there. 500 Baht every day is better than 1500 Baht once per week? I told him about Classic Boys, where he would fit in better than Hotmale. But lack of English must a huge problem in any bar.

I think we are overestimating the extense of the Farang oriented gay prostitution scene. Let's assume there are 5000 (my estimation) boys working in Farang oriented gay bars (gogo or host) in entire Thailand, and each of them has 10 friends who know about their work, that makes 5000 boys with first hand experience and 50,000 who know second hand. If we assume that there are 10 million Thai males age 20 to 30, that means 1 out of 200 has a friend who works in the scene.

There is not a boy in every village who knows someone who works in a bar!

[Sooty]

I met several gay Thais who would be a good intellectual match for me ...

I'd have thought Thailand must be brimming with guys who meet that onerous criterion.

[Pattayamale]

This from THE NATION newspaper Dec 17, 2013

"Small and mid-size automobile businesses in Thailand are locked in an escalating battle for workers with big carmakers.
"Toyota is an important customer, but itтАЩs poaching workers from us with generous bonuses," said the manager of a small Japanese autoparts supplier in Thailand, after a college graduate the company had trained left the job after only a year to join a local Toyota affiliate.

Toyota Motor Thailand stunned the industry this year by offering annual bonuses of roughly 10 monthsтАЩ pay to its labour union.

The unionтАЩs position was fortified by the booming home market. The Thai governmentтАЩs two-year tax relief programme for first-time car buyers drove new-vehicle sales in the country to an all-time high in 2012. This kept Japanese automakers, which account for more than 90 per cent of the market, running their local factories at full capacity towards the first half of the year.

Following in ToyotaтАЩs footsteps, other carmakers and auto-part suppliers offered similar bonuses. This encouraged workers at smaller Japanese auto-part makers to jump ship to Toyota and other firms."

These are great opportunities for those that like this kind of work. As many here know, the auto industry UNIONS in America sure helped start the large middle class there too....which has been fading for several years now.

[ddsfo]

Most Tai Yai bar boys I've talked to were introduced to the bar through their friends and social connections

I agree with this being a common process. what i meant was that it is more likely for the boy to stay at a particular bar if he fits in well with the larger boy crowd at that bar. given the social shan network operating here in chiang mai, i wonder if each bar tends to only have boys from a particular gang working there.

[Yraen]

As a regular visitor to Thailand over the last 2 decades, I too have been invited to the non-gay "gay sanook" bars in Bangkok. As BonTong noted, most gay boys go out with their friends, male and female, gay and straight, and have a fun night out drinking and dancing at their table. The only negative for me was the incredibly low stool on which I had to sit - not being Thai, my legs were always in the way.

BonTong, I have read your article about CM twice now and you may find some resonance in this YouTube 'movie'.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHgS7IG9n8Q While it is pertinent today, it has its roots in the Sydney Gay Games 2002.
Enjoy.

[adman5000]

Christian said:

I think we are overestimating the extent of the Farang oriented gay prostitution scene. Let's assume there are 5000 (my estimation) boys working in Farang oriented gay bars (gogo or host) in entire Thailand

Christian, is this a statistical extrapolation from your sampling/census?

Also- what is included in the gay prostitution scene you refer to?
Do you include massage and spa places? (how many guys on thaimassageboy website?
Do you include Gayromeo and similar sites?
Do you include freelancers at parks, saunas, DJ stations, Jomtien beach and similar?

If I use your strict definition of listed go-go and host bars - you could count how many such places are on Dreaded Ned or similar(probably some not listed). Appear to be about 60+ just in BKK. You could do similar for CM, Pattaya, Phuket, etc.

I would be curious what type of totals you feel the total scene exposure is for Farang.

[christianpfc]

Adman500, you have a point, I raise my estimation to 10,000 Thai boys working in the gay prostitution scene aimed at Farang.

That would be in (order of decreasing number) Pattaya, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket. (I've never been to Phuket, and to Chiang Mai only three times, but from reading I know the scene there is much smaller than Bangkok and Pattaya. In other towns more or less absent, there might be a few bars in Hua Hin and a bar or two in entire Esaan.)

Bangkok: Soi Twilight and vicinity maybe 1000 boys working in gogo and beer bar (out of these only 500 present, others holiday, day off, absent for other reasons), let's assume another 2000 on gayromeo (and other online dating sites and apps), and 1000 massage boys in entire Bangkok

sauna: I never witnessed any form of prostitution in saunas, not even hints
DJ station, soi 4: there might be up to 50 boys, negligible
freelancers (park and street trade): negligible (Saranrom is not aimed at Farang, I have never seen another Farang there looking for boys)

Pattaya: gogo bars 1000, beer bars 1000, gayromeo 3000, beach negligible

Chiang Mai: 500

Phuket: 500

That makes 10,000

The criterion is if a boy is so much involved into prostitution for Farang that he makes a significant part of his living on it, and that he would tell his friends about it.

[Smiles]

" ... The criterion is if a boy is so much involved into prostitution for Farang that he makes a significant part of his living on it, and that he would tell his friends about it ... "

I think you assume too much.

Say what you want, but there is indeed a 'stigma' in village life regarding working in gogo bars or just general prostitution.
The stigma has not at all much to do with being in the 'gay' area of that, but being in that area at all. I am aware of many young Thai guys who are shipped off to Bangkok or Pattaya (et al) ~ or ship themselves off ~ who would never in million years let the folks (and by that I mean family as well as friends) back home in on where they work. They'll say "cooking in a restaurant" or "waiting tables" or "working in a factory" or "at the mall" etc etc ... or just be hopefully vague ~ they can get away with that if they send enough money back home to Mom.
But actually spouting out to the family that they work selling their bodies ... not so much. Thai (Isaan especially) family's have a reasonably high tolerance of the news that their kid is gay, but in general I doubt that tolerance would extend all the way to prostitution.

A Thai guy working in a GoGo Bar would be only very rarely be point of discussion in the village (even with 'best friends). The odds of family members losing face because of his honesty would be just too much to bear.

[scottish-guy]

.... I never witnessed any form of prostitution in saunas....

:-o

You're joking, right?

[lego]

newalaan2, thanks for starting this thread & for your very interesting posts!

I live in Bangkok and most of my Thai friends have decent (with regards to both reputation and salary) jobs. However, most of them are incredibly bad with managing money, and/or have to support their families, so I think a big part of the overall increase in salaries over the last years has been eaten up by inflation and higher debt.

Those of my friends who are originally from Bangkok are typically sort of mollycoddled: They had the option to study at university, they could (or still can) live with their parents without having to pay rent, it's usually their family that supports them instead of the other way round. On the other hand, those of my friends who moved to Bangkok to work, originally from Isaan or other parts of Thailand, are much different, they got their decent jobs they have now by hard work for many years, and most of their earnings have been sent home. That shows in many ways.

I'm not that old yet and I hadn't visited Thailand before "online hookups" became popular here. So it only seems natural to me that many of the younger generations of Thais who want to earn some (extra) cash by working as prostitutes use GayRomeo and the likes instead of working at a bar or massage shop. I think having a "presentable" full-time job and doing some freelance work also has some advantages as far as having to tell friends and family back home what they're doing is concerned.