An indecent Obsession?

[Pattaya One]

I really don’t know why the management of the Kitten Club/Obsessions go-go (Pattayaland Soi 2) continues to employ a few females in what is essentially a quite successful ladyboy boozer, other than pretending they are two separate bars with an imaginary divide.

I wandered in to check the place out recently and was chatting with a service girl, a real one, that is. She told me there were eight females caressing the chrome poles and 35 ladyboys. She said females would start but not last long, obviously going off in search of employment in places specifically designed to attract customers interested only in female company. The real girls usually struggle to compete in the firm body stakes as well, so maybe they go elsewhere to avoid such comparisons.

hotel renovations Sept 2011 Kitten Club sign in background">

The Penthouse hotel undergoing renovations, again, in September. Kitten Club & Obsessions are attached to the hotel.

Now, by any stretch of the imagination, when ladyboys outnumber females by more than four to one it’s pretty obvious which standard the owners have decided to run up the tumescent flagpole. One of the females I chatted with told me the den gets quite busy late at night and a nearby bar owner confirmed this, saying it was quite amazing the number of customers who he observed taking a member of the nuts and butts brigade upstairs for a closer inspection of the his and ‘hers’ family jewels. “And a lot of them take two at a time,” he stated. I imagine the closed-door naked athletics must resemble some kind of ratchet and socket ballet.

The bar itself is nicely appointed and drinks are quite reasonable with draft amber fluid at 79 baht a glass and lady drinks, or ladyboy drinks, just 100 baht. A few years ago Kitten Club garnered a reputation as a rip-off joint in terms of drinks prices, which were not being displayed, and some punters were stung with outrageous bills. That has now changed and things seem to have been well and truly cleaned up.

One of the great attractions of the Pattaya lifestyle is that anything goes and most people who’ve been here for any length of time at least tacitly accept those whose sexual preferences differ from their own. It’s a live and let live lifestyle.

With this in mind, as I said at the outset, I just wonder why the Kitten Club/Obsessions management don’t do away with the façade of pretending to be two dens, one with bargirls and one with ladyboys and metaphorically open their legs and display their tackle. For example, Stringfellows go-go (Soi Yamato) has been an openly and unashamedly ladyboy den for some years now. I have no idea how good business is, but I suspect it can’t be too bad since it continues to survive.

©Duncan Stearn

View the full article