That first time

[Oliver2]

Correct; and thinking back over my eighty or so visits, I can think of very few occasions in my my bar-hopping days when I was taken advantage of. Equally, I blush at my memory of trying to barter for a cheaper "off" on one of my early visits. The more Thai guys I met, the more trusting I became.

[Dodger]

I’ve hesitated posting on this topic, only because I’ve described “that first time” in Thailand so many times before that it plays like a broken record.

Aside from the sex during that very first encounter, is the fact that this was the precise time in my life where everything around me would be changed forever. Every single aspect of my life, including my career, my personal aspirations and lifestyle started changing the minute the boy left my room that night. And my life has never been the same since.

In brief summary, my first sexual encounter in Thailand was with a boy who worked at Thai Boys Boys Gogo in Pattayaland. I was in Thailand on a work assignment at the time and had never set foot in any of the gay areas before the night of that first encounter. What impacted me the most emotionally is that this was also the first time I had ever had sex with a male.

I spent the first 38 years of my life hiding from myself and others inside a closet with steel doors and no key. All of the sexual encounters I enjoyed with guys were confined to my dreams – which first started around the age of 12. I had a few touchy-feely encounters during my adolescence, but those were fleeting moments with no real substance, and few and far between.

I was playing in a classical rock band in Chicago, met a girl at a post-concert party, got her pregnant, married her, had two children, became a workaholic, advanced in a fast-paced career, made money, made everyone around me happy, but remained totally isolated inside myself – resigned to finding happiness only in my dreams.

My passion, for as long as I can remember, was for Asian guys. The guys in my dreams were always slim Asian pretty-boys with dreamy smiles, hairless chests, and well endowed. This was (is) my passion.

There’s an old saying that I’ve always remembered. I read somewhere that this saying was first quoted from Albert Einstein, and then read somewhere else that it was actually Francis of Assisi who first spoke these words, but in any event, these words have stayed etched in my mind forever. “If man believes in something which does not exist with enough passion, he can create it”.

Maybe that’s why my road led me to Thailand…and then to an area named Pattayland…and then up the steps of a place where all the players inside had been rehearsing in my dreams for so many years. Maybe I was there because my passion led me there.

After that first encounter I felt an overwhelming sense of freedom, which is almost impossible to put into words. I knew I had found what I was searching for.

One year after this life-changing encounter, I resigned my position with a corporation that some people spend their lives trying to work for, went to work as an independent contractor allowing myself 6 months a year to live the life that I had found, sold my home and all of my material possessions with the exception of my office equipment and trusty backpack, and launched a 20 year non-stop adventure in Thailand living the dream.

The sex was great with the boy during that first encounter, but that’s only the half of it.

[a447]

Dodger, your forbearance for all those years is admirable indeed!

Having to put on an act for 38 years is something I can't even begin to imagine. Incredible!

But you're obviously going out of your way to make up for lost time.

Good on you!

[dinagam]

The sex was great with the boy during that first encounter, but that’s only the half of it.

Dodger, was this first proper encounter a top or bottom role or both?

[Nirish guy]

Dodger, was this first proper encounter a top or bottom role or both?

Why on earth would that matter !?

[dinagam]

Why on earth would that matter !?

It matters if you're losing your anal virginity for the first time!

[Oliver2]

I was seven years older than Dodger when I first had gay sex. Whatever the average gay man feels about Pattaya, for me (and it seems Dodger too), the excitement is life-changing. It was enough to make me take early-retirement at the age of fifty-one. It's a long story....perhaps for another time.

But in this context, I recall that one of the interesting- no wonderful- things about my first three or four visits to Pattaya was to learn that I was not alone.

I was more sociable in those days and, sitting in a crowded Panorama every day before before the go go bars opened ( remember this was the 90s), I often talked with other falangs over a beer. Even today I can remember a guy whose first gay experience was after his wife died in old age (70s or 80s, I can't say exactly) . He'd repressed his sexuality all those years for her sake and shortly after her funeral, took a break; to Pattaya.

I'd notice him every day in Boyztown, where we were both staying, hand-in-hand with the same Thai guy. He'd started a new life.

There were others I met who , like us, had been denied, or had denied ourselves, the sexual activities that most take for granted. And for us, Pattaya was an adventure, a voyage of discovery, a new world....and a hundred other clichés I could use.

I shall always be deeply grateful.

[Dodger]

There were others I met who , like us, had been denied, or had denied ourselves, the sexual activities that most take for granted. And for us, Pattaya was an adventure, a voyage of discovery, a new world....and a hundred other clichés I could use.

I'll always be extremely grateful for my path leading me to Thailand as well, but sometimes wonder if the life-changing elements that you and I spoke about are unique to guys who were late in "Coming Out".

I think a visit to the gay scene in Thailand (pre-pandemic) was (and is) a mind-blowing experience for ALL gay visitors. I know several gay men who have been "Out" for most, if not all of their adult lives, who ended up leaving the gay scene (and sometimes their old boyfriends as well) in their home countries, to spend the rest of their lives frolicking with Thai boy(s) who are less than half their age and living the dream.

Amazing Thailand!

Amazing to every gay man who ever stepped foot on its soil. Taught even the oldest dogs new tricks - and altered the lives of even the most seasoned.

[Oliver2]

The issue for me ( and I suspect for Dodger too) is that my years as a straight man were dominated by a sexual interest in younger men. Except of course when I was still young, long, long ago in a distant galaxy. When I finally came out, I sought the company of twenty year-olds but they did not go to the sleazy London saunas very often. Or if they did they didn't want someone of my age.
That was what made Thailand different. And it wasn't just the commercial gay scene; I had what were, to me, genuinely astonishing encounters in the old Babylon and the House of Male . And when it came to the commercial and go go scenes, I felt more comfortable than I did in Amsterdam or London. And in Boyztown I wasn't alone.

[AdamKY]

For me, my first couple of visits to the Kingdom were life changing. Discovering the culture & personality of Asians moved me so much I sought out and partnered with an Asian within a couple of years of those visits. That was three decades ago. We have been married for the last six years - since the court decision allowing same-sex marriages in the U.S.