Since the COVID-19 Pandemic began there have been several major changes in the commercial sex industry around the world. From a near total shutdown some places have begun an attempt to rebuild while a select few never even closed at all. Still there have been some very real transformations.
First there has been an obvious movement of sex workers towards online adult entertainment. There have also been others driven by desperation into all manner of situations and behaviors. More recently there have been some changes on the ground that seem aimed to deal with what has become a “new reality” now that we are over six months into the pandemic without respite. Here is just some of what has been happening since I first reported on the impact of the coronavirus on the global sex industry in early 2020.
All around the world the same song
Adult entertainment has been severely curtailed in almost all of the world. Sex shops have either been shuttered or seriously restricted for a period that is now approaching half a year. People are of course still exchanging sex services for money. But it in many cases it looks different than it did in the past.
Even in countries where the sex industry remains mostly open there seem to be less customers and money moving around. In countries like Cambodia the massage parlors, hostess bars and even karaoke clubs remain open as a whole. Yet several individual places have shut down for lack of customers. Other have cut staff or hours.
In Japan guys can still hire sex services though their options may be slightly more limited. For foreigners that is undoubtedly the case especially since the only two foreign oriented soaplands in the country shut their doors a while back.
The commercial sex industry in South Korea has always had a well deserved reputation for xenophobia. Non-Korean customers have long been banned from most sex shops and refused service at red light districts. Nowadays things are even more difficult for foreign guys looking to pay for play. Even some places that once welcomed foreigners have turned their backs on guys who are not Korean.
Over in Thailand
In Thailand things have followed a somewhat similar course. But rather than local shops closing access to foreigners we see shops usually meant for foreigners opening up to local men. It is a sort of reverse or crossing over from one world to the other. There have long been some shops for foreign customers and some that were mostly meant for Thais. Some Thai oriented shops refuse farang. Many or possibly even most foreign oriented shops refused Thai guys.
A combination of xenophobia and a fear of misunderstanding seems to drive the refusal of service to foreigners at Japanese and Korean sex shops. In the farang oriented shops in Thailand it was often the women themselves who wanted a “foreigners only” policy. Whether or not they wanted to avoid judgement or simply running into someone they might know a lot of the sex workers along roads like Sukhumvit in Bangkok have for many years refused to service Thai customers. Things are slowly changing now.
Adult shops that were once solely oriented to foreigners are now openly beckoning Thai customers inside. Thai blowjob bars in particular have long been off limits to Thai guys. Now I have word that the high end 7 Heaven on Sukhumvit Soi 33 in Bangkok is welcoming in Thai customers. Perhaps they made the decision after the nearby Tokyo Jogakuen suck shop shut its doors.
Big changes in Bangkok sex shops
Several erotic massage parlors in Bangkok that have always been meant for foreign customers now accept Thai customers. Many are running advertisements in the Thai language to solicit new visitors. Thai guys with money to spend must be delighted to know they now have full access to the professional nuru massages offered at Doki Doki. That’s on top of the higher end SNCTM nuru massage shop that employs some Doki Doki standouts like the famous Pam.
Other Bangkok establishments that are welcoming in Thai customers these days include Kokoro Massage and the well appointed Daisy Dream massage shop on Soi 33. As far as I know however most if not all foreign oriented go go bars would still restrict entry to foreigners from certain countries with the old “member’s only” policy.
Rather than attempt to adjust to the new reality some other sex shops have simply shutdown. That even includes some very well known places that have been around for decades like the Devil’s Den on LK Metro in Pattaya. I’ve also been told that the famous Eden Club in Bangkok has shut its doors though similar news has spread in the past only to be later revised. Serenity A Go-Go on Soi Buakhao in Pattaya isn’t nearly as historic but it too went out of business suddenly in mid-September 2020.
Despite the hopes of many, there doesn’t appear to be any major opening of international travel in the works. So it seems very likely that more and more places in Thailand and other parts of the world will either have to make adjustments or simply shut down shop and move on. Of course millions of sex workers will continue to ply their trade in order to earn money. And millions of punters will continue to pay them. But when the smoke clears things will very likely look a lot different than they did prior to the year 2020.
They just use this for whatever they want. Some countries you can’t buy a HJ. Other countries streets are openly full of street walkers. Some of the freer countries have less illness than the repressive ones. Something is a foot. Things are changing. The days of free men and women are on the wane. Countries get the politicians they deserve. We were doomed from the start.
Thanks for the comment. Cheers.
I was in Phuket recently and can report that Patong Beach looked like a ghost town. Bangla Road, while not completely deserted, is a sad shell of its former self. The big open air beer bar complexes each only have 1 or 2 bars open (out of the 30 or so they normally have), and they seemed to only be half staffed at best. I’d guess there were probably around 50 girls in total on all of Bangla Road, and that was a Saturday night.
My guess is that the farang-oriented sex industries in Bangkok and Pattaya are doing a bit better due to the higher number of expats in the Bangkok area that can still provide a small, but steady trickle of income to these places. Phuket, I would guess, is even more reliant on tourist spending than Bangkok and Pattaya.
Thanks for the real time report Bruno. It is appreciated! Your guess seems accurate to me. It seems that Bangkok venues are doing better than Pattaya shops. Still they are not doing great. Phuket shops seem to be doing worst of all. The exception would be the venues oriented to Thai guys. I have a review of a shop in Chiang Mai coming soon. That place seems to be doing fairly well even now. Cheers.
It’s interesting to hear how the shops in Thailand are evolving. I had no idea Thai men were actively denied service. I figured they were going elsewhere; as locals, they knew of cheaper alternatives. It’s not uncommon for Thai businesses to have a Thai price and Farang price. Could this be happening?
Thanks for the comment. There are at least as many Thai oriented venues as farang oriented shops in Thailand. Many Thai places charge as much or more as shops for foreigners. Most of the Thai places will accept foreigners though sometimes they tack on a “farang tax”. When they reject guys from other countries outright it’s usually because the women inside don’t want to serve foreigners. Interestingly the same typically applies to farang oriented shops along Sukhumvit such as the BJ bars and massage parlors. They reject Thai customers because the women inside don’t want to serve Thai guys. Now things are changing at least at some places. Cheers.
This comment won’t get approved but at least the censor-in-charge will read it.
I told him months ago in an email (March? April? around that time) that sex shops in SEA would have to start targeting locals along with tourists. I also predicted hostess/beer bars would fare better than the rest, as shown by their resilience in Cambodia, Soi 6 and elsewhere.
What else did I predict correctly? Oh yes, OnlyFans booming. A gig in which I’m actively involved now and which has already made me some money.
The only thing I got wrong was Thailand/Bali reopening. I had faith in those idiots getting their act together eventually, but it turns out they are absolutely paranoid about this little flu virus (which I caught eventually, and cleared in 10 days at home: my only symptoms were a mild sore throat and fatigue — not even a fever, no cough, nothing). Even that fat-ass Trump survived it in his 70s, so I’m not sure what the fuck people are still worrying about. The survival rate is a resounding 99.9% for people under 60, and as high as 95% even for septuagenarians, as per the latest CDC stats.
I have now abandoned all hope in SEA reopening, I can’t even be bothered to check the news. But guess what, the world is bigger than SEA. Much of Latin America, parts of Africa and the Balkans are open to tourists, with minimal entry requirements, so it’s not that my optimism was misplaced — I was simply looking at the wrong region of the world.
Oh, and let’s not forget that the WHO said yesterday they don’t recommend lockdowns anymore! Meanwhile Harvard and Oxford scientists signed the Great Barrington Declaration saying the same thing. I was screaming that from the rooftops back in April, while that little pussy Jack was pissing his pants along with millions of other sissies. Do all of you guys go to Thailand to get fucked in the arse by Thai girls with strap-ons? It surely looks that way.
All things considered, I don’t know why I keep reading this site when I clearly know and understand things better than anyone else here. I said years ago I should start my own website and I was right about that too.
Oh, and someone please tell that nutcase Corey I’m not in Georgia anymore. I left without issues, at the exact time when I wanted to leave. I’m now in Turkey where everything is open — restaurants, bars, you name it — and the wearing of masks is not being enforced. It is technically mandatory at all times with a substantial fine as penalty, but the police can’t be hassled to enforce the rule, so a good 30-40% of the population simply don’t wear them, myself included. I walk past the police with no mask on and they hardly take notice of it (often they have no mask themselves!).
Best part was landing in the country. Zero screening whatsoever, they didn’t even check my temperatures. They simply stamped my passport and waved me in, like in the good ol’ days. The Turks just don’t give a fuck, therefore they have earned my respect and I couldn’t care less that they are stealing Greece’s oil or sending arms to Azerbaijan (thank God I didn’t go to Armenia, I dodged a bullet there). The Turks got balls, which is refreshing for a change.
Lukashenko said it best: Covid is nothing more than Western hysteria.
Somehow I’m still able to fly during the pandemic, still able to eat out every day, and to do pretty much whatever the fuck I want. They even sell Kamagra Oral Jelly off the counter in Turkey. I got the moronavirus and I easily shrugged it off, as I knew I would. Now I’m not even bothering with masks anymore since I’ve got immunity.
I did my part in increasing global herd immunity while the rest of you were hiding under your bed. I also kept 99% of my freedoms — I can’t exactly travel to every country I want to, but at least one third of the world is open to me, and aside from that my life is still normal (the old normal, not the ugly new one that they are selling to Anglos). I go out, I fuck, I eat nice food, I travel, I make money and new friends. I’m doing just fine.
tl;dr
I got the last laugh. So long, cretins.
P.S.
And yes, it’s all a conspiracy. If that isn’t clear by now, I don’t know what else to tell you!
Thanks for the comment. Cheers.
Bj bars traditionally don’t allow Thai guys also partly because they don’t want the girls’ boyfriends showing up and causing trouble. Usually either the guys don’t know or they tell them it’s a normal bar where there’s just chat and pool. And they’re just the cashier. If Thai guys can come in, or there are ads in Thai, the cat’s out of the bag!
7 Heaven recently started to pixellate the faces of girls in their gallery because they were being “misused”. I can’t help but think this isn’t coincidental to their opening up to Thai guys. It’s probably a bad thing.
I read that Thailand is considering travel corridors to other Asian countries like Singapore, South Korea, Japan and China. That last one is a real kick in the teeth after the Chinese government’s part in the pandemic spreading…
Thanks for the comment. Some of that might be right. Especially about the pictures. On the other hand at least some BJ bar ladies have boyfriends (or girlfriends) who know about their work. At least one legendary suck shop standout had a moto-taxi boyfriend who was stationed just outside of the bar she worked for many years. He even drove some of her customers around, though the customers probably weren’t aware of his relation to the lady. The special visas have been talked about a lot but it doesn’t seem much has happened. Supposedly a flight from China was going to come into Thailand. It was abruptly “rescheduled”. Then Thai media outlet Siamrath reported that “not a single person from China actually applied for the new Special Tourist Video.” Cheers.
@EuroTrash “ The Turks got balls, which is refreshing for a change.”
Glad the virus helped introduce you to sucking balls. You were gobbling too much Georgian cock, it’s always good to switch up the action and give your jaw a rest.
Your herd immunity will be complete when you’ve learned to eat Turkish ass. Tastes like chicken!
“Tastes like chicken!”
I’m not going to ask how you know that.
Touché :)
I think the Suhumvit girls ban Thai guys just because they don’t want to run into people they know. That’s why they work incall too. Maybe now they need the money and have no choice.
Thanks for the comment. There is certainly something to that. Though we might wonder where Thai guys would get money if Thai women couldn’t. Cheers.