Oh, there’s no question. It’s *completely * illegal. But the police get a lot of money to look the other way. Just one of many reasons why police tend to be very wealthy here. I mean, as I’ve posted elsewhere, we even have a nationwide chain of blowjob bars with its own website! (Website here ; NOT safe for work.)
Yes, no system is perfect. There are breakages. Some girls get pregnant by guys other than their customers; many have boyfriends and husbands, or even sponsors. For instance, I knew one girl who was the mistress of a local doctor but hooked on the side out of boredom when he wasn’t around; I doubt she used condoms with him, and as far as I know he was unaware of her activities. And there is the occasional story of the girl who will go bareback for a higher fee, which is all the more reason for you to wear a condom. But I think for the most part, the girls really are insistent on them here. The Public Health Ministry condom campaigns have been very successful and even lauded by the UN and other international agencies.
Pardon the triple post – unless there’s been another post inserted by someone else while I’ve been writing this, in which case this is not a triple post. But I have been here so long and know so many in the bar industry that I’ve acquired a rather encyclopedic knowledge of this subject as it relates to Thailand.
Menus: Bangkok’s well-known Eden Club, owned by a Frenchman of my acquaintance named Marc and which is a flatout brothel, not a bar, and on top of that a brothel in which all of the ladies are guaranted bisexual, and there is a two-girl minimum with no maximum, has this menu :D. and yes, they take credit cards, as do many places. The name on the charge is always some sort of innocuous-sounding company.
And, too, yes, lots of gay brothels in Bangkok.
And as for what the girl gets, in the bars she keeps the entire fee; the customer pays the bar a “barfine”, about $10 or $15, to take the girl away. This supposedly compensates the bar for lost business from her being gone; fewer girls in a bar = fewer drinkers goes the logic. In massage parlors and brothels, it’s around a 50/50 split, but it varies.
Surely the most frequent line in this case is, “How much is that in American money ?”
(sigh. so mundane on my part.)
And I probably shouldn’t even waste your time on this, but the thread title did say “…been to a prostitute.”
So, yes. I have.
Back in 1992 or 1993, I was driving some myself and some computer gear up from Nellis AFB to Tonopah for some war game fun. "bout dark-thirty I went by this “ranch” and thought, why the hell not?
So I U-turned and pulled in to the compound. Went up to the door, which had (really!) a peep-slot and a bell and I pushed the bell. Slot goes back and a nice feminine voice says, “Can I help you?”
I said, “Do you sell souvenir T-Shirts?”
She said yes, they did, the slot closed, and the door-lock buzzed open.
I went in, to a living-room-sized area, and followed the lady to a counter behind which had to be a 20-foot long wall with sliding closet-style doors. She said I was what, a size large, and I said yes. She slid open one of the 3-foot wide doors and said, “Pick your color.” I got a white one and purchased it.
And, YES, I TOLD the wife where it came from! Little surprised she did not like the T-shirt, and it seemed to disappear a few months later…guess the washer ate it or something.
So, that was my experience. I suppose she may not have been a prostitute, but a couple of girls did come from another area, passing through to I don’t know what, the kitchen or something and I’m sure they were.
And NO, I was not solicited, was not asked if there was anything else the establishment could do for me or anything. It was really mundane, except to me. (Hey, I’m in a real, live, legal, Nevada BROTHEL!!! Hot Damn!)
(sure wish that T-shirt hadn’t of got lost, it was nice)
At the moment, it’s about 31 1/2 baht to the US dollar, so 1000 baht is about US$32. Just a year or two ago it was still about 40 to the $, so it’s not as good a deal as it used to be.
While I’m at it, the aforementioned Marc, owner of Eden Club, had an interview that I’ve linked to before on the Board. You can read it again here.
That interview was a couple of years ago. Marc is getting on in years and has had a little heart trouble. He’s since become semi-retired and hired a manager to look after Eden Club for him.
The aforementioned Lolita’s chain of blowjob bars sells T-shirts that say: “I was blown away at Lolita’s.” I accompanied a visitor to the Bangkok branch one time. He wanted to try it. I drank downstairs at the bar while he was upstairs with the girl. He bought a shirt on his way out. But back home in San Francisco, he said he was wearing it one time – nowhere on the shirt does it say what type of bar it is, so it’s sort of an in-joke – when some guy comes up to him in public and says loudly: “HEY! I KNOW THAT PLACE! ISN’T THAT THAT BLOWJOB BAR IN BANGKOK?” He now only wears it around the house. 
Sorry I haven’t had a chance to check in for about 24 hours, but I’d like to thank the tiny minority of posters who have actually answered my questions, and say to the rest of you that while the effect of prostitution on women and society is undoubtedly interesting, this is not the place for it. Please feel free to start a thread in GD.
Likewise, if you haven’t actually used the services of a prostitute, I don’t think you’ll be able to answer the questions I’m asking, and saying “I haven’t” doesn’t add much to the conversation.
That said, I’m still interested in hearing from people who have actually been there. Thanks.
BTW, I’ve heard privately from someone who points out that the Web has been a boon to the business. While I do not intend to violate the SDMB’s rules, anyone interested in learning more about how prostitution is conducted these days need only look for “the erotic review.” Amusingly, participants refer to it as “the hobby,” the men are “hobbyists,” and the women are known as “providers.”
Is that a fancy word for “teeth”?
ISTR reading somewhere that child prostitution in Thailand. though it has always been technically illegal, was at one time looked the other way at by the Thai police, but that the government has cracked down on at least the child prostitution aspect. Can you speak to this point?
*NOTE: I most certainly DO NOT have a vested interest in this. Just curious.
When I quit playing baseball at 22, my teammates threw me ‘retirement’ party. We were in a nice sports bar, I wasn’t dating anyone at the time, but there was one girl there that was a complete stunner. Long, silky black hair, perfect body and a little pair of daisy dukes with the knotted shirt thing going in front.
She walks up to me, introduces herself and says Oh, you must be the guest of honor. I asked who she knew here (it was a fairly large gathering maybe 60-70 people), and she kind of mumbled about being a friend of a guy’s girlfriend.
Not ten minutes later we we were in a room at the Super 8 across the parking lot. We stayed there an hour or so, went back to the bar a while- completely inseparable at this point, then went back to the room for a few more hours. I asked her out, and she kind of smiled and explained that while I really am a cute guy (hey, I was 22, it coulda happened!), and she really likes me, and the sex was fabulous, that well…I probably didn’t really want to date her. She said in her line of work, boyfriends are hard to keep around.
Silence.
Oh, so…
Yeah baby, your friends thought you deserved a nice send off.
So, now my negotiating went from the ‘wanna see a movie?’ stage, to the ‘what’s it going to take to spend more time with you?’ stage. It was an hourly rate (I forget exactly), and she had this dinner/date thing she’d do with suits in town on business that was a lot more money because it usually involved overnights. She must have really like me, because I always got that, for the one-hour rate.
I have to say, she was a really classy lady - always perfectly dressed, smelled nice and educated. Always a condom, except for the oral sex. And she never ever saw more than one person in a day, in fact seldom more than 1-2 in a week. It was tuition money for her, and she worked through an agency that screened people for her. Our side dates later were outside of the agency - we traded phone numbers.
We saw each other 4-5 times after the first time, then just drifted. But if I saw her today, I bet I’d still know her.
There was a story in IIRC Newsweek a couple of Decembers ago in which Heidi Fleiss announced plans to open the state’s first brothel with male prostitutes. There were some hitches with her plan, specifically that she’s a convicted felon and that the laws as written assume that prostitution is only legal when the prostitute is female. The article quoted an openly gay state legislator as saying that he would work to make sure that the proposed brothel complied with all state laws regarding public accomodation, including sex- and sexual orientation-based anti-discrimination laws. The article noted that she had hired her first man-whore, some guy whose name escapes me but was known for having played some minor role on a soap and putting out an erotic tape.
There were reports that Fleiss had hired Mike Tyson to work in her establishment but those turned out to be false.
Haven’t heard anything recently about this venture.
BINGO! It sure as hell ain’t the life of wealth and glamor that attracts 'em!
If you wish to respond to this Sam, or if you want to learn more about prostitution in Thailand, Homie, please do it in another thread. It’s OT here.
That goes for Sunrazor and Otto, too. (Unless Otto wants to say more about his own experiences.)
Thanks.
Mr Bus Guy: Interesting. So how did you feel when you realized the truth? Not too bummed out, I guess, since you saw her again. How was the sex? Worth the money (when you started paying, obviously)? Is she the only prostitute you’ve been with? If you saw her again, would you be interested in seeing her, either professionally or socially?
And how old are you now?
I remember thinking at the time that this was exceptionally easy. We literally went from hello to lets grab a drink to what’s your name? to hey, let’s sneak across the lot and get away from here for a little while…
When she told me, I wasn’t completely shocked, and like I said, she was an absolute beauty - my age, and the sex was really great.
Yeah, she was worth the money, and even would have been if all I got was what everyone else got for that money. I do know she liked me, not just as a customer. Later that afternoon she re-introduced herself with her REAL name, and during the times we spent together, we talked a lot about personal things. If she got what she wanted in life, right now she’s working in furniture design and decorating.
Yeah, she’s the only one. I’m 48 now. If I saw her, I think I’d say hi, talk a bit and move along. I’m a happily married guy, and not nearly as good as I should be with temptation.
Who knows, maybe she’s a Doper? The girl I remember would certainly fit in here.
Hi Molly!!! (just in case)
Just a note to say yes indeed, it has seriously been cracked down on, as I’ve detailed in other threads. The pedos generally all head for Cambodia now.
If I were gay, and I walked into a gay brothel hoping to have a good time, and I saw someone who looked like Mike Tyson winking at me, that might be enough to turn me straight.
commasense:
i have.
here in the u.s., several times in the last few years for those times I was between girlfriends, and found it an enjoyable experience. i liked that I was able to find a ‘dreamgirl’ that i would never have a shot with in real life. one of them was even a (very) artificially enhanced porn star. if i were to find myself single again, i would consider doing it again, but not on a regular basis.
unprotected sex is unheard of with the exception of oral (sometimes).
i was surprised to discover how nice and ‘everyday normal’ everyone was. i guess i was thinking that they would all be hard-edged and world-weary to some degree. but that was not my experience at all. i tend to like to chat with them a little ‘after’ and nobody seemed ‘broken’ by virtue of being in this field. not to say that they’re not out there, but unless they put on a great act, i didn’t encounter them. though i enjoyed it almost every time i’ve hooked up with a provider, i never mistook it for anything other than an expensive way to get my rocks off.
i’ve paid between $300-$500 per hour. the money exchange has always been pretty subtle, and done before anything happens. i would just leave an unsealed envelope where they can see it and not say anything at all. anything alluding to “this money is for sex” will put the kibosh on everything. the workaround the sex providers use is that people “reserve their time” and anything that happens between adults is consensual. and apparently, this seems to be working pretty well to date.
i wouldn’t have done it if it weren’t for a site like the erotic review. i only consider providers who are well-reviewed to avoid scam artists and law enforcement. for my first time, my provider asked for my work information(!) but this was for her protection so she could verify i was who i said i was. and since then, for later screenings, i would just offer a referral.
in the end, i think it’s wrong that prostitution is illegal because it puts the providers at unnecessary risk. i agree that such a field can be debasing or exploitative, but i would argue that going on “american idol” can worse, and that’s downright celebrated in our culture. and i don’t know about you, but i think there are lots of jobs out there that treat people like cattle, subject them to emotional abuse, and leave them feeling used. but since they don’t involve ‘naughty naughty sex’, they’re not subject to undue scrutiny.
A lot of people on the Board and elsewhere share that sentiment. One thing I’ve found over the years is that many people want prostitution to be a tragedy and are morally offended if it turns out otherwise. Sure, there are some tragic cases, but in many places the tragic cases may not be the norm. There have actually been a handful of cases over the years in Thailand of Westerners trying to “act in solidarity with their oppressed sisters” in the red-light districts over the years, and the girls are like, “Geez, get out of here, you scuzzes.”
It’s a different scene in every venue. Prostitution in Bangkok is not the same as in Amsterdam, which is not the same as in Topeka, which is not the same as in Orlando, etc.