Was in Bangkok sometime back for a Bachelor's trip. [coverline]After the usual tom yam & green curry meals and temple visits and boat rides and elephant rides, we decided to go to a club. 'Lo & Behold, we were tricked into entering a titty-bar! [/coverline]
So ahem, back to the point at hand; the economics of a titty-bar. The first time I was dragged to one was when I was in Madrid. There, the drinks were not so cheap and the women even less so. Same deal for the one in Bangkok. It was a weird feeling going in, like visiting a home you had vacated years ago, and finding it now alive, in Bangkok somehow and with strangely-lit furniture. All these bars are essentially the same though, be it in Europe or Asia - The elevated stage, the poles, the shaped lighting, the faux leather upholstery, the smell of airconditioned perspiration and cheap cologne.
To pass the time, I found myself thinking about the economics of the place, and wondering how things had changed since I had last bothered to look. For the uninitiated: your average night club's profits revolve around ladies' drinks, which male guests buy for them in exchange for a chunk of their time, usually an hour's worth. This 60-minute window will usually include just enough fondling and titillating conversation to guarantee another drink, and a third after that. The girls are paid by the number of drinks their guests buy for them, you see. Their cut is usually around 25% of gross, which in real terms means they make about 100baht per hour in a mid-range club like the one we were in. On a really good night (i.e., if they work a full 8 or 9 hours), they make a little under a grand for their trouble, excluding tips. On average though, it's more like 400-500bahts.
What complicates things is that the girls need to convince their guest to buy them a drink first. The sales pitch itself takes time, and usually includes some pre-payment groping to expedite matters. I was pleasantly surprised last night to find that the standard spiel was still there, even after all this time.
It goes thusly (and I swear to god this is probably in some training manual somewhere):
- Shake hand of guest, or kiss guest on cheek (which rationally, you need to avoid like the plague).
- Ask guest's name, then introduce yourself. (Khap pun kha...whats your name sir)
- If it looks like it's the guest's first time, confirm it.(First time sir?)
- The guest will answer in the affirmative, usually followed by some explanation. The most common is: (We just wanted to try it.)
My answer was "I didn't even know we were going here! Honest!" - The next two questions are interchangeable. Either they ask your age, or where you work. (" You work in Bangkok Sir?" or "How old are you Sir?")
I've seen a few guys use the age question as an opportunity to pull off a quasi-icebreaker, and answer ("Guess.") The girls have probably heard this trick so many times that they've got canned responses ready for this as well. Usually they'll make a playful game out of alternately guessing, or teasing the answer out of you. I got the work question instead, to which I replied, "No, no just a holiday")
The initial script usually ends there. If the guest isn't into her, the girl needs to either get creative, or move on. These exchanges require some measure of mutual interest, after all. That said, there are also a handful of straplines that they throw around in the middle of the conversation, exempli gratia:
"I've been working here less than a day/week/month"
I've heard this one so many times that I wonder if there are any veterans in this industry at all. (There are, but they usually turn into floor managers or mama sans.) I imagine they use this line to make it appear as if they are new and therefore, innocent, and therefore, gullible, and therefore, worth exploring further.
"I'm just putting myself through college"
I love this one, because it pulls on your heartstrings and it's inspiring. Who wouldn't want to buy a girl a drink, after all, if she was channeling that money into her education?
I got an earful of these and other standard lines of dialogue from the first girl who sat beside me. After about 15 minutes of fairly neutral responses from her audience, she gave up and walked off, leaving me to my drink and my drunken friend who was using me to prop himself up.
What I like about this particular club (at least, if I were in that kind of mood) is how the floor managers were orchestrating things behind the scenes. It's the FM's job to move the inventory in the most efficient manner possible, so they'll generally throw the unpopular girls at you first. Kinda like old fish at the wet market.
Girl #2 appeared next to me within a minute of Girl #1 leaving. This one was only mildly more interesting than the first, and since I honestly hope we had no intention of having more than a few drinks at this place, she didn't make much headway either. After No. 2 gave up, a top-tier girl took her place. This one apparently decided I was a lost cause and worked on my buddy. Also apparently, the couch wasn't comfortable enough for her and decided to sit on his lap instead. No more boring dialogue, just lots of vigorous gyration and heavy breathing. Like an erotic elevator pitch, this girl had distilled her craft down to its most pure form, and from a technical perspective, I don't think a more compelling way exists to sell a guy on something.
I suppose we should've bought her a drink on pure principle: I don't believe honest effort should go unrewarded, after all. But we were leaving and thankfully I never had to cross that particular line.
Another thing I like about this place: all of the girls say goodbye to you as you leave. I mean, I knew they were all cursing under the breath for having wasted their time with me, but hell, you can't win every pitch.
*It was called Super-Titty if anyone's interested
