I’ve just added the following update to the Shower Time page…

Here are a couple of things I have recently learned that clear up some questions I’ve had about showering.

Photo Courtesy of Asia Boy

Why the boys want you to shower before sex…

It doesn’t matter if you showered a few hours before going home with a boy for sex. He will still want you to shower again. According to a farang friend of mine, our body odor is distinctly different from Thai. While the boys absolutely love having sex with us, they really don’t care for the way we smell. For many Thai boys it can actually be a turn off.

My farang friend was a bit apprehensive to explain this, because he felt it sounded too racially prejudice, but the fact is there are physiological differences between races, so it is plausible our body odor may be different. Armed with this information, I decided to poke around the Internet and see what I could find on the subject. As it turns out Asians produce little or no body odor, because they do not have as many odor producing glands as we westerners. I was also able to confirm that different races smell different. So what I’ve determined is our body odor is both different and much more intense. Frankly, I can’t recall ever smelling body odor on a Thai, under any circumstance, and now I know why.

My friend also told me he had read some place that Asians have an acute sense of smell, making strong unpleasant odors even more repugnant, but I’ve not been able to find any reference to this on the Internet.

A quote from American Renaissance News: Race And Physical Differences

For whatever reasons, the races do not smell the same. Blacks and whites have strong, but differing smells, and many Asians have scarcely any smell. Koreans often have no odor-producing glands in their arm-pits at all and Japanese have very few. Nineteenth-century Japanese found Europeans so foul-smelling that even today, a common Japanese expression for anything Western means “stinking of butter.”

A quote from Science Digest: Racial Odyssey

As any bloodhound knows, every person has his or her own distinctive scent. People vary in the mixture of odoriferous compounds exuded through the skin - most of it coming from specialized glands called apocrine glands. Among whites, these are concentrated in the armpits and near the genitals and anus. Among blacks, they may also be found on the chest and abdomen. Orientals have hardly any apocrine glands at all. In the words of the Oxford biologist John R. Baker, “The Europids and Negrids are smelly, the Mongoloids scarcely or not at all.” Smelliest of all are northern European, or so-called Nordic, whites. Body odor is rare in Japan. It was once thought to indicate a European in the ancestry and to be a disease requiring hospitalization.

And this quote from a page on Anosmia and Olfactory Facts

How we smell as individuals is determined by the number of sweat glands, the amount of body hair, diet, health, occupation, environment, medication, emotional health, mood, and genes. Also, blacks, whites, and Asians all have different immune-system proteins and this is one theory for why people of different races smell different. East Asians used to say that whites stank of butter (the butter smell arises from diacetyl-a very small molecule with two ketone groups; westerners tend to consume more butter and other dairy products than Asians). Meat-eaters often smell unpleasant to vegetarians. Hairy Westerners often smell unpleasant to Asians, who don’t have as many apocrine glands at the base of hair follicles as Westerners. Children smell different from adults, smokers smell different from nonsmokers.

With this understanding, the obvious question is why do the boys also want to shower. Well, if for no other reason, it’s to wash off all the skin lotions and baby powder they cover themselves with. That, and bottoms like to give themselves an enema before sex.

My conclusion from all of this is your chances for really good sex go way down when you elect to forego the shower.

Photo Courtesy of Asia Boy

Why the boys want you to shower first…

I’ve always wondered why the boys insist I shower first. I wasn’t sure if it was a courteous gesture of respect, or the boy had an ulterior motive to rifle through my things (wallet) while I’m in the bathroom, and he can hear when the water shuts off. I assumed it might be a little of each, depending on the boy. Now I know the real reason why.

According to a farang friend of mine, this is a cultural carryover from the traditional method Thais use to bathe. Traditional Thai bathing, still widely practiced today, involves standing in a large plastic tub to catch the water being scooped from an even larger tub and pored over the body. The tub catching the “dirty” water is not emptied between baths. Instead, everyone in the home takes their turn before the tub is carried out and dumped by two people. Thus, the first person to bathe is the only one that does not have to stand in dirty water produced by the others that have already bathed. To offer someone the first bath is a courteous and/or respectful gesture, even if bathing is to be done in a modern shower with floor drain. Therefore, it should be no surprise when the boy offers you first bath. He’s just being polite. Of course, he might also have plans to go through your wallet, so don’t let your guard down.

Photo Courtesy of Asia Boy

This is a little experiment a friend has been encouraging me to do. I’m going to make a statement below, and let readers comment on it. I realize it’s a very general statement, but it will be fun to see what others have to say.

I’ve recently gotten quite an education about massage places in Thailand, and decided to dedicate a page to that subject. Most notable is the section of dirty massages, something I had no idea existed.

Photo Courtesy of Bonny Massage

Read New Massage Places Page

A friend sent me this link to a post over at Absolutely Bangkok. It lists, and discusses, a series of icons done by an Asian woman that illustrate the differences between Westerners and Asians.

I find the icons surprisingly bang on, despite the fact they were specifically intended to illustrate the differences between German & Chinese. As you will quickly notice, there aren’t many differences between Germans and other Westerners or Chinese and other Asians.

Do you understand all the icons? Perhaps it also serves as a good quiz of one’s awareness of Asian cultural idiosyncrasies.

Queueing

During my stay in Thailand I’ve met a few farang that seem to naturally understand the Thai psyche. They’ve quickly adapted to the Thai way of thinking with seemingly no experience behind them. These guys are very popular, and well respected, by the boys and often do not have to pay for sex.

Some have mastered the Thai language while others have not. Some live here full time and others only visit one or more times a year. Their ages range from mid twenties to mid fifties. But each seems to have this uncanny sixth sense about all things Thai.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

I’ve been fortunate to know three guys like this, and consider all of them good friends. Each, in his own way, has contributed greatly to my understanding of the Thai way of thinking. I’ve always been envious of their ability to adapt so quickly. Each will admit they’ve made their share of mistakes along the way, but it’s not lost on me their’s has been a journey of considerable ease and early rewards.

I’ve questioned why these three individuals, with no apparent common ground, could see things so clearly, while I and so many others flounder. It wasn’t until I met a fourth individual like this that the light bulb finally went off. The answer has been right in front of me the whole time, but I didn’t see the forest through the trees.

Each of these individuals has had one or more long-term relationships with Asian boys, back in their home country – America and England. These were not all Thai boys. Some were Chinese and Vietnamese, but they all shared the same general Asian way of thinking. All of these guys had the luxury of a relationship with one or more Asians that could speak English, were immersed in a western culture, and could effectively communicate the differences between those two cultures. In addition, they could better observe how Asians process information differently, because it stands out more when done within a western cultural environment.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

Thus, each of these guys arrived in Thailand with a general psychological understanding of Asians the rest of us don’t enjoy. They still experienced a learning curve, but with a huge handicap. I’m sure all these guys recognize they are on a fast track, compared to the rest of us, but I’m not convinced most of them know why. I asked the first three, and they had no idea. However, my newest acquaintance did, and that’s when I made the connection.

So, who cares? What difference does it make that I now understand why these guys are different? The answer is credibility and validation. Some things are best dealt with by trusting one’s gut feelings, but that’s difficult to do when you first arrive. Consequently, we all seek advice when our instincts can’t be trusted or seem to be failing us. There are lots of farang here more than willing to offer advice and opinion on things that are often very subjective in nature, yours truly included. I think it’s important to know what the foundation is of an individual’s cultural awareness, before deciding how much weight to give that person’s counsel.

There are people that live here for 20 years and don’t get it, so you can’t judge a person’s understanding solely based on the number of years he’s served. Some would argue only those that live here full time have a chance at understanding, but I’ve seen evidence to the contrary. I’m not saying you should only trust the advice of guys that had an Asian boyfriend back home, but if you are lucky enough to find one that has, he’s probably a keeper. Its just one point of validation that the person you have met is worth listening to. Everyone here is on a journey. Some are further along than others, but no matter how far someone has gone, I’d rather travel with a wise man.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

A lot of guys here are totally jaded, and not your best source for advice. The forums are dominated by them. This cynical viewpoint comes from personal experiences, and is therefore a product of their own making.

Look for the individuals with a positive perspective. Watch how they interact with the boys. Are they liked and respected by the boys? Do they respect the boys, or view them as sexual toys that can not be trusted? No one is infallible, but full time or part time, they are the ones that truly understand…at some level.

Thai English page updates:

Drop – as a result of direct translation, means either drop or fall. If concerned about falling out of bed, a boy will say drop, not fall.

Holiday – means holiday or any scheduled day(s) off from work or school.

Casino – is what boys will say when they really mean to say gamble or gambling.

Air Con - Air Conditioner

Freshy, from the word fresh, typically means young or new. For example, a boy might refer to a younger male farang (late teens – early twenties) as “Freshy Boy”. As apposed to Freshmen, first year university students are called Freshy. I also saw it used as a product name for an item in the grocery, but I’m not sure exactly how that translates. I’m guessing there is more to this I’ve not yet discovered.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

I’ve also added a new page about buying clothes that will no doubt expand as I discover more. Reader contributions are strongly encouraged!

If you are on-line chatting with a boy and suddenly he says something like “I go now bye” it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s snubbing you.

Photo Courtesy of Asia Boy

I watched a boy do this the other night. He was deep into a conversation with a farang about staying with him for 4 weeks when he visits Thailand in a couple of months. A fee had been negotiated and everything was on track. Clearly the farang was not done talking to the boy, when suddenly he got cut off - I go now bye.

The boy had lost track of time and needed to leave immediately. Rather than trying to explain this he simply ended the conversation. I tried to explain to the boy this was not a good idea. All I got was a smile (can be interpreted any number of ways) followed by a hasty departure.

The conversation was taking a different direction just before this happened. The farang was asking the boy to get on his web cam and had hinted he wanted to have cyber sex. I thought the guy might have been leading the boy on about taking him for 4 weeks to get a free sex show. The boy legitimately told the man he didn’t have a cam, but the farang didn’t seem to believe him, as he kept making the request. The boy had said something to the man regarding not being honest about the 4 weeks if he also wanted sex on cam. At this point the farang started to back away from the request, insisting he was not looking for that. It was at this point the boy cut him off.

The boy did, in fact, have to leave, and had lost track of the time, so I don’t know if the cam thing had anything to do with it. I suspect the farang thinks it did.

Photo Courtesy of Asia Boy

I have experienced this many times with boys I’ve been talking to on-line. In most cases the boy was at an Internet Café, lost track of the time, and had run out of purchased minutes. The boys usually explain this before ending the conversation, but not always. Assuming the boy is talking to several farang at the same time, he might not have time to gracefully exit with each.

I should also mention that boys, not using an Internet Café, will take the time to explain they have to leave, and then not log off. The natural first impression is the boy just wants to get rid of you, but that’s not necessarily the case. I’ve watched several boys hookup with a farang, using my computer, and quickly head out the door to see him. In their haste, they forget to log off their Gay Romeo account. I’ve met many boys that have their own computer and Internet connection, so it is reasonable to assume this happens a lot.

The point is don’t be so quick to assume the obvious. The boys tend to get a little flustered when under pressure. That, and their lack of communication skills, can produce results we may not have considered.

In the tourist areas, we all get accosted by vendors while walking or sitting outdoors. Over time I’ve learned the most effective way to say no is to just shake your head no the Thai way. This is a very short and quick jerk of the head while closing your eyes briefly and then looking away. If walking, do not slow down or stop.

The way you are dressed my be a determining factor in how well this works, something I have not been able to test. The clothes I wear are clearly from Thailand, delivering an overall visual cue I’m not a tourist.

A friend, that’s been coming to Thailand for the past 5 years, told me he discovered wearing Thai shoes makes a huge difference. He said the Thais do notice what shoes you are wearing and assume you are not a tourist if wearing something made in the Land Of Smiles. The only downside to this is Thai shoes are notorious for having poor arch support.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

You know, I had enough problems trying to understand the hugely popular fashion trend of wearing orthodontic braces. It’s so trendy, there’s even a market for fake braces.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

Now I hear fake eye glasses are considered stylish, and apparently not just in Thailand. But you can’t be out on the town wearing any old style. From what I’ve gathered, they need to be thick framed and low profile, much like these pictured below.

Once aware of this I started noticing them on a lot of boys, particularly in the Thai 4 Thai discos. They do seem to be an accessory of choice for evening attire. I find it interesting that the two kisses of death for a young virile man, wanting look his best, are now the must have in fashion for the younger set….go figure.

I’ve just added a new page I promised one reader I’d write. It talks about how I accidentally discovered letting the boys use my spare computer has turned into a real Boy Magnet.

Photo Courtesy of Private Boy Movie

READ THE BOY MAGNET