The very first time I went into a go-go bar, I was less than enthused. I never understood the point of strip clubs; they always seemed like a waste of money. It’s a cliche, but it is just getting worked up with foreplay with no sign of release. Obviously, I didn’t know how similar establishments operated or that there was light at the end of the tunnel; you could bang these broads.

For me, Thai girls were ever so skinny, and I never found the vision of countless naked ones very arousing. 99% of the body types were small-boy, and that has never been something I’m into. I spent most of my first time observing all the patrons luring at these small, practically naked girls with bodies like Little Lord Fauntleroy and judging them severely. Were they just all paedophiles without the balls to commit? Were they secretly into little boys but found this experience more palatable?

I recall seeing a guy call one of the shortest and petit creatures I’d ever seen for some version of a lap dance; actually, it wasn’t a lap dance; she just straddled him and bounced up and down. It made me feel sick. In my mind, she was 12, and the ridiculous smile on his sweaty face told me I should wrap a bottle round his head. At that time, I was new and fresh, and I was one of those people who’d heard about paedophile sex tourism in Southeast Asia. Upon reflection, the stories I’d heard happened in Vietnam and Cambodia, but at this point in my life, they all seemed like the same place: Gary Glitter Land. That first night, I was convinced every girl dancing was under the age of 18, and I was going to get arrested and banged up for 35 years in a steaming, hot, dirt prison and spend decades being an 8-foot-tall lady boy's wank sock. The only reason I stayed was because the people I was with took me there and kept insisting they weren’t children. But what the fuck did that matter? If the girl is terribly small with a little boy body, but she’s 33 years old, does that mean I’m suddenly going to be turned on by the experience? I worked with a girl who looked 12 but was about 20. She had the smallest frame I’d ever seen on a grown woman, with forearms the width of bamboo canes. She was a lovely girl and had a sweet face, and I would go so far as to say she would have made a very good girlfriend. But there’s no way I could have had sex with her, and that wouldn’t have made for a healthy relationship. When you stop having sex with your girlfriend, it’s nothing but grief. Why don’t you want to fuck me anymore? Are you fucking someone else? What’s wrong with me? How on earth do you get into a relationship and never have sex with them?

How do you drop the truth bomb that they resemble a malnourished Boy Scout and it disgusts you? Life is fucking tricky.

Fortunately, Thai girls who come to work in Go-Go bars and such establishments have seen the light, much like western white girls have. Their diets have gone downhill, and thus their bodies have improved. There is an abundance of girls with meat on them now and less and less little boy strippers around, which for me was good news and also bad—there was more trouble to get into.

I got used to the idea of Go Go Bars and other such establishments and started to enjoy them, not just because the girls were becoming more womanly in appearance but because I discovered what made them so great. They were a gift of spectacle that kept on giving.

Observing the men and occasional women who frequented these places could be an interesting pastime, but it often left me feeling either sad for humanity or hating it more than ever. The true spectacle was on stage, but this isn't as obvious as it first seems. You’d think seeing naked or semi-naked flesh would be the very thing this type of experience was all about—that and the fact you could take a girl home after getting all worked up—but it wasn’t. In countries like mine and America, there is this mythology around stripping and similar art forms that’s been growing for a few decades. I have never been to Atlanta, but I have seen enough videos online about its strip clubs. These girls make thousands a night and pride themselves on their outfits, performances, and customer satisfaction. I’ve heard countless American rappers drone on about great strip clubs and amazing strippers, "Oh Shanaynay, she da bomb, she work that pole better than any hoochie I e’er seen, on god!” Strippers are like superstars. But not in Thailand.

In Thailand, there is no facade of superstardom. The outfits are cheap, the performance is most often nonexistent, and the customer service is totally subjective, and this is what makes the experience fascinating.

I love to observe each girl on stage and take in their true lack of enthusiasm and effort, observing dead eyes and faces of pure disdain. Some girls will literally just lightly step side to side with their arms crossed, staring into the eyes of their own reflection in the mirrors behind the drooling old men jacked up on blue pills and bizarre self-delusion. One time, I’m pretty sure I saw a girl crying.

I once went into a place in Patpong, Bangkok, with a guy from some dirt hostel for a cheeky afternoon drink. Inside, there were barely any girls, and the one dancing closest to us pulled off a move that still cracks my ribs to this day. She looked at my friend and I, failed at giving a fake smile, then turned slightly and spanked her own behind with the least amount of enthusiasm you could possibly imagine. The hand barely rose two inches from her cheek, and the spank had the velocity of a three-toed sloth dying from fentanyl. It was both unimpressive and entertaining. This girl truly didn’t give a fuck.

These girls were told this is how you make money, but unfortunately, the work ethic missing inside of them that stops them from doing an honest day's graft is actually needed in this profession. You can be as hot as twenty full-grown suns, but if you just stand there looking like you’ve been told you can’t have a new handbag, you’re not going to bring in the bacon needed to feed the village. I know I wouldn’t want to do what they do, but it beats the piss out of working in a dirty factory for 12 hours a day in the oppressive tropical heat of southeast Asia.

But the spectacle of Go Go Bars isn’t just about observing the moodiness and misery of Isaan girls; they have plenty more to give. I can sit in a club for an hour or so, observing ladies observing themselves in the mirrors that usually surround the stage. During this exercise, I like to work out whether they are narcissists or if staring at themselves for hours on end is a coping mechanism. The world has gradually become way more self-involved and narcissistic, so it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that they are obsessed with looking at themselves, but I also believe it’s easier to get through a monotonous night of attempting to dance to the same tired songs they had to endure every night that preceded by having a point of focus. It’s like that tip about speaking to a crowd where you pick out one or two people and just deliver your speech directly to them. In the Go Go girls case, they have the luxury of not having to pick one man out as a point of focus, as most of them are filth pigs, and just look at yourself. That’s the theory, anyway. I certainly never believed that they were always looking at themselves to make sure their dancing was on point, unless they really, really don’t have a clue about the art of dance-based adult entertainment.

By far the best thing about Go Go Bars is the unexpected wackiness that can happen without warning. I have witnessed things that have blown my reasonably-sized mind to pieces. I have seen a girl stark naked singing a Taylor Swift cover like she was doing an X-Factor audition, all emotional and big-lunged. She didn’t quite have the singing chops required, but she definitely performed as if she had. I have seen a whole club take a break to pray to Buddha while a girl in just a g-string walked around the perimeter of the central stage waving incense while all the dancers took some time out to bow. The dedication to their religion was admirable, but it also seemed out of place in such an establishment. It would have been far more wacky if they were Muslims and took time out on stage to pray towards Mecca.

But it’s the strange little half-time shows they put on that really do it for me. I don’t have a clue who comes up with the ideas or choreographs them, but whoever does needs to be working in Vegas. I'm talking mega-spectacles, but on a low budget with a heavy dusting of goofiness. Girls dressed as space lizards bouncing beach balls off of punters heads while 80s hits bang out. Girls miming to Cameo's greatest hits wearing a feathered strap on. Stark naked ladies singing empowering women's anthems while covered in baby oil and glitter. Badly choreographed dances along to rhythms that might as well come from Mars while dressed as sexualized chickens. Really weird shit. Really fun shit.

I don’t quite remember what brought me to this particular Go Go Bar; I certainly hadn’t done any research, but alas, there I was anyway. The lighting was fairly bright, meaning there was a lack of privacy from the darkness—not that that would stop most filth-hogs from getting their members out. The walls were white and had just as many mirrors as expected. The lighting was the usual neon pinks, violets, and blues, much like a wondrous sunset palette. There was a low, raised central stage with a couple of poles and seating surrounding it. On the perimeter of that stage were comfortable seating booths with a little podium in the middle for those who liked to be more intimate with their awkward dancer. We chose to sit at the main stage, soon to witness someone’s bright interpretation of the greatest show on earth.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

I don’t recall what the girls were like or whether they were quality, except for one lady, who certainly was not, but she was a showman.

I was with a group of local expats I knew. We had all consumed enough Valium and Tramadol to be declared dead by suicide, and I was feeling just dandy, but most of the others were on their way out. One of them had already blacked out with his head on the stage, which none of the staff seemed to care about—most likely because the staff were about as attentive as a mole with ADD—and left him to it, while another one was painfully trying to light a cigarette in ultra-slow motion.

It must have been ten minutes or so before I noticed the lady on stage performing what I can only imagine was what she considered to be the greatest show on earth. Thailand does have a strange reputation when it comes to what a lady can do with her vagina. I have been harassed in many walking streets by men with wilted advertising boards in hand to come and look at a ping pong show. The very idea of a ping pong show is just, well, no thanks, bro. What I had never heard of or been harassed to come and see was the Coy Carp show.

It took me a few moments to process what was going on in front of me, and those brief ignorant moments were bliss. The lady must have been well into her fifties—which in Thailand makes her a definite grandma—and had that kind of make-up application that frightening old women had in David Lynch movies.

Accompanying the surrealist horror make-up was a not-so-well thought out get-up. She wore a white, ill-fitting bra top that allowed her drooping breasts to swing in consonance with the air conditioning gusts while perched on very tall white stilettos. She wore nothing on the bottom, which was necessary because fish gotta fly.

I’m not sure if I saw the bowl first or where the fish sprung from, but it all came together so fast that it almost detoxified the 6 valium and 4 tramadol out of my system. The fish were small enough to fit but big enough to astound, with golden scales like a sumptuous Asian sun at dawn. This was the coy carp show—the twisted hybrid of the ping ping show.

She didn’t really fire them out of her pussy like the mind first envisions; they were just dropping out into the fish bowl she held between her bushy legs. Was this supposed to be sexy? The world of internet pornography is notorious for being able to provide even the most niche and twisted of kinks with at least 400 videos to choose from, but this? I just didn’t buy it. Maybe it was designed for the Japanese, as they do love sea food and are quite fond of tentacle hentai porn. I don’t fucking know, but I do know that this was not and is still not for me or anyone I’ve ever met, I hope.

The person who seemed to enjoy this show the most was the lady performing it. The boys I was with didn’t even appear to notice or have any comments to utter. It was like I was alone in this world as the only man who understood that it was absolutely fucked. I’m quite sure that PETA had a long list of atrocities committed against animals in Thailand, but this one must have snuck under their tearful radar.

While the lady, the greatest showman in the kingdom of Siam, tortured wee fishies with her lady pouch, I felt a rumble and an ache. Whatever I had eaten earlier, aside from the pharmaceuticals, was about to explode out of me. This was turning into quite the gross night.

I took a sip of my bottle of Heineken and laid it on the little area in front of the stage and made a dash for the gents, which turned out to be up-fucking-stairs!

Once inside the cubicle, the job was over in a flash. I looked down to where the bum gun ought to be and found nothing there. Bollocks. I then turned to grab some toilet paper from the dispenser. As I reached up inside it, I could only grab onto the plastic column that should have been holding the toilet roll. Bastards. Now I was in a pickle.

I managed to pull up my shorts and underwear carefully enough not to get any smearage on them and hunt for relief in the other cubicles. I managed to locate the smallest amount of toilet roll, which I then used to try and clean off as much residue as possible, with way too much ending up on my finger tips. Gross.

After a cleaning-up period that lasted way longer than it ever needed to, I went to wash my hands. No soap. Fuck this place. I managed to wash off most of the brown from my fingers, but I’m an incredibly hygiene-conscious person, and the fact I had no hand sanitizer on me that day could only be attributed to the valium and tramadol. I was fuming.

I bounded down the stairs and approached the bar. My objective was to give them a good talking too and give me soap. This proved to be unsuccessful. In broken English, I tried to explain that there was no soap in the toilets, to which I just got confusion-face and shoulder shrug. I tried to use more sign-language-based communication but ended up getting given the cocktail menu. Not so good. Eventually my eye was drawn to a bowl of limes, and a bright spark crackled inside my blue pill marinated grey matter—citrus kills everything. I didn’t even ask for the limes; I just grabbed a handful, smashed them between my hands, and lavered them up with juice. That’ll do it. The staff seemed quite amused and not angry in the slightest. They were just bemused by why I was so angry. Dirty fuckers.

In hindsight, a club that has a terror granny on stage firing small fish out of her coochie isn’t the type of venue to take hygiene too seriously.

I returned to my seat and observed that the others were all almost comatosed. If there had been more folks in there and it was high season, perhaps they would have been asked to leave. Or maybe no one gave a shit anymore, not even the fish.

When I went to sip my beer, I noticed it was no longer there. I turned to my colleagues and examined what was in front of them, and nothing of mine was to be seen. I scanned around the club for a member of staff, which was pointless because no one was paying any attention before, and found my answer in the corner of my line of sight. The greatest show granny on earth was giving her fish a drink—with my bottle of Heineken.

I tried to make sure my jaw didn’t actually hit the floor, as it was most likely sticky from fish and pussy juice. The whole thing had almost gone up there, and she was looking at me with a demented smile that said, "Good, yeah!” No. Not cool.

Now I was severely pissed. I gestured to her using my arms as words of disapproval, but she didn’t get it. She eventually clocked that it was my beer, put it back down in front of me, and gave me a bow. I tried to shout at her that she needed to get me a new one, but she just walked away with her fish towards the stairs, probably to release them back into the wild via the porcelain throne. What a cunt!

At this point, I was seething; I wanted satisfaction and customer care. I didn’t bother waiting for six dog years to get the attention of the staff; I bolted straight to the bar again. The barman looked at the limes and shook his head, like I was going to use more limes, bro? I proceeded to explain what had happened to my beloved Heineken and that I should be compensated with a new one. This didn’t just go over the bar man’s head; it shot over at high velocity. He called over a waitress, if that’s what you call them, who came rushing over, which never happened when I raised my hand, to see what the fuss was. Once again, I had to explain what had occurred with my overpriced beer and the greatest showgirl on earth’s lady prison. The girl nodded in agreement—well, that’s what I thought at first anyway—and said I should sit down and she would sort me out. Result.

I never got sorted out; I sat there and waited and waited and waited. Nothing. I had no choice. I had to voice my displeasure! I walked back to the bar, confronted the waitress and barman, and proceeded to convey my grievances in broken English. Since then, I have perfected my broken English and can communicate effectively with most basic-English speakers, but at that point in time, my words came out at a pace that was far too rapid.

In the middle of my simplified phrases were various fucks, shits, and the occasional bollocks. After twice reacting to nothing but blank stares, I tried a new method of communication: the ancient, sacred art of mime. It wasn’t all mime; I had an empty bottle to hand to demonstrate the abuse of my overpriced drink. At first the barman thought I was threatening to stick the bottle up his batty hole, but luckily I quickly diffused this by pointing over to the vagina-fish-firing old broad, who, in turn, gave me the middle finger—which I am certain stank—and I returned the classic double middle fingers. I win!

Eventually, it appeared that the waitress agreed to compensate me with a new bottle. Fantastic. I sat back down with my new beer. One of the expat groups, whom I’ll now refer to as Weasel-Face, shook his head at me.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“I ain’t having that! Sticking my bottle up her cunt like it’s a cool thing to do!” I yelled.

“You need to chill, man; just accept it.”

Accept it? Like how old Nana Goldstein accepted a weird shower at the Dachau camp! If we don’t take a stand now, what’s next? Forced face sittings with a goldfish fired at our larynx? Stupid Weasel-Face.

By the time we were done and paid the bill, I noticed I was charged for the beer I thought I had been given as a replacement. I tried to row with the waitress, but it went so far over her head that it ricocheted off of a Chinese spy satellite. All I got was a blank stare and meaningless occasional nods, plus the shaking heads of the group I was with.

I learned a valuable lesson that night—though a lesson I forgot quite often as time went by: you can’t win in Thailand if you’re a foreigner.