History of Soi Twilight

[Armando]

Thank you ....and I bet they actually danced in those days! Sic transit gloria.

Actually dancing in Twilight was not the norm in the 1980s. The bar had probably 60 - 80 boys with 40 or more on duty on a weekday evening and almost all at the weekends. The stage behind the bar was tiny and I never recall more than four being up there at any one time. Most boys knew they were there for one thing - to be offed or at least to get a drink or two, and so the nearest they came to dancing was an occasional soft shoe shuffle. Some were shy at being naked on stage and would cover their assets with their crunched up underwear. That is until one of the two mamasans would bark an order whereupon all was slowly revealed. Once they had done their bit on stage and on the mirrored pillar in the centre of the bar, they became far more friendly. Inviting one or more to have a drink, all their inhibitions disappeared.

The next four boys waiting to go on stage would be hunched down behind the bar desperately trying to work up even a mini erection. They always seemed to be laughing and enjoying themselves. But once on stage, quite a few just seemed to be embarrassed. This was so different from the much smaller Apollo Bar in Soi 4 where in the mid-1980s all the dancers did do a bit of dancing on the catwalk even when nude and all seemed to be having fun.

The only bar with real dancing was My Way off Rama 4. These boys were great, constantly smiling and almost all aggressively cute. The stage had two or three poles and most of the boys would use them to enhance their dancing feats. Barbiery was somewhat similar in terms of dancing, although in that bar it was the shows which were the main draw. Barbiery had nearly 100 boys at the weekends when the place would always be packed with as many seats as possible crammed in. The shows featured nudity and the boys always seemed to be having fun. I don't recall any of the boys revealing all in My Way.

[Armando]

For a description of the bars on Soi Twilight in 2011, the year it attained its peak

Sorry I cannot agree that 2011 was when Twilight attained its peak. Yes, perhaps it had more bars that year (although I actually doubt it) but then many had opened and closed in between 2000 and 2010. Sitting in Dick's Cafe, some will remember a bar diagonally opposite with some sort of technology theme. Can't remember the name but it did not last long. I only remember it because one of the boys always outside was aggressively cute and as I later found out completely hairless apart from on his head and lower down. What a turn on! It became a billiards bar.

Then there was the short lived X-treme Bar. This was run by a white haired Englishman who I believe had worked in some position for the Church of England. He tried a different theme. He did have some regular gogo dancers but the main 'act' was a group of 8 or so young professional dancers or dance students who put on a different dance show every week. There was never nudity but these boys were great dancers and the shows were really fun. They would also mingle with customers after the shows. When the bar closed - probably around 2003 - the boys moved over to the German owner's bar across the soi. But even he found the act did not bring in the customers and so they migrated once again to the old Rome Club in Soi 4, then called Roxy. Again I think they did not last long.

We really have to remember that nightlife definitely changed after the Thaksin government's Social Order campaigns in 2001 and the new rules they laid down. One result was that many of the Thai customers who had been quite frequent bar hoppers in the 1980s and 90s began to disappear. By the turn of the millennium, gay saunas and massage establishments had been operating for well over a decade and they also tended to take customers away from the traditional gogo bars. In 2006 an article in The New York Times mentioned Bangkok's dwindling number of night spots. It also highlighted the increased number of raids on nightlife establishments. These were always accompanied by a media scrum. Who can forget the raid on Babylon led by some senior Minister who was photographed outside gingerly holding a condom and pronouncing that this was evidence of illegal sexual activity? The fact that another branch of government had been actively promoting the use of condoms for years as an anti-HIV measure seems not to have occurred to him!

The NYT article even quoted Kurt Wachtveitl, the legendary manager of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, who that year spoke out against the social order rules, especially those that mandated the closure of bars and clubs at 1:00 am. "If Bangkok continues to be the kind of city that begins to look sleepy after midnight, it will be wasting all its advantages to the upscale foreign visitors. They'll go to Beijing, Shanghai and now Singapore," he lamented.

https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/01/t...m-bangkok.html

[goji]

This archive has a pretty impressive collection of scanned Thai gay magazines from the 80s, 90s and 00s
http://thairainbowarchive.anu.edu.au/catalogue.htm

This contains references to 600 dpi tiff files. Has anyone found the location of those ?
Having seen the wonderful pictures above, if I see anything worth posting, it would be good to get the best resolution.

[Oliver2]

In 1995, the year of my first visit, dancing was the norm in all the go-go bars I visited and I can assure you that I visited a hell of a lot- though not Twilight- in Chiangmai, Patong, Bangkok and Pattaya. . Even the very small ones like Superboys (Patong) and Moonlight (Pattaya) had small dancing areas for three at a time.
Dancing of various levels of enthusiasm continued for another ten tears or so, as I previously mentioned.
I cannot recall any where the guys stood around and posed as they do now.

[daydreamer]

Armando, the technology themed bar across from Dick's Cafe may have been Boys.com, that was in that area of Soi Twilight around the year 2000. I think it was on the ground floor underneath Blue Star bar, what would later be the X-Size Bar on the second floor. I remember they played music at an ear splitting volume. The next year when I was in Bangkok, I believe Boys.com bar had closed.

At that time, several bars added a year to their name, Future Boys F-2000, Jupiter 2002, and there was also a boy bar named Y2K Bar in Sunee Plaza in Pattaya about that time.

[Armando]

Armando, the technology themed bar across from Dick's Cafe may have been Boys.com, that was in that area of Soi Twilight around the year 2000. I think it was on the ground floor underneath Blue Star bar, what would later be the X-Size Bar on the second floor. I remember they played music at an ear splitting volume. The next year when I was in Bangkok, I believe Boys.com bar had closed.

Thanks daydreamer. I am sure you are correct with the name, but it was certainly still operating in late 2002. So I expect it must have closed around the end of that year.

[a447]

I cannot recall any where the guys stood around and posed as they do now.

That's because they didn't have mobile phones!

[Oliver2]

True.... though I do remember a guy at a Soi Twilight bar way back in the late 90s who had somehow got hold of one of the earliest mobile phones. It was huge. Obviously unwilling to leave it in his locker, he had stuffed it down his briefs. Not a good look....there was barely room for the damn thing. Nor for anything else.

[daydreamer]

Thanks daydreamer. I am sure you are correct with the name, but it was certainly still operating in late 2002. So I expect it must have closed around the end of that year.

Armando, no doubt you are correct about the date. I remember the bar was open around the turn of the millennium, I most likely got the date off by a year or two. After so many years and so many trips, It's difficult to pin down an exact date for me. Around that time, I was visiting Bangkok about six times a year, as my home was only a two hour flight from Bangkok.

[Blueskytoday]

What was the name of the bar that had Fish Nets all around inside, anyone remember...I forgot exactly the name...