Rants and Stupid shit in Orange County

[BSouthgate]

Thank you as well. It's nice to be able to have a civil discussion on here once in a while.

Once again, my last trip to China was in 2016, which was 8 years ago. If you once again follow the "10 year rule," my $18/ day estimate would be approaching $36/ day now. So my numbers are still tracking relatively closely with what you are reporting.

It's good to know the poverty level is down. I still have vivid pictures etched in my mind of being driven to the factory in the Minhang district of Shanghai and seeing all of the people living in houses that had half fallen down. The only other place I've seen something like that was in Haiti, and what I saw in Minhang was every bit as bad and in some cases worse.

I know the famous Shanghai sauna clubs got abruptly taken out shortly after my last visit and haven't made a comeback. I had many fun and memorable visits to those places, so it's sad to see them gone even though I will never be likely to travel to China alone again. So many memories of picking a girl out of the fishbowl and feeling like a kid in a candy shop and having a hard time making a decision. And if I didn't feel like going to a sauna club, rest assured a girl would magically show up in the hotel lobby. I knew if I sat there longer than half an hour or so at least one or two would show up. And once in a while that girl would even be part of the hotel staff..

I also loved these places. Many of those that I frequented catered to families as well as to single guys looking for sex. You registered at a checkin desk like in a hotel. There you had take off your shoes and exchange them for the house flip flops. Men and women went to different shower facilities to shower and bathe in hot tubs. There was a guy in the locker room who gave non sexual massages using a kind of sand paper sponge that rubbed off all of the dead skin on all of your body. For the guys, this was a way of making your skin more sensitive when you got to the top floor (See below). After showering and changing into the house paper pajamas, you went up stairs to a large lounge that had dozens of massage sofas. Next to the lounge, there was a restaurant where you could eat a simple lunch. Young masseurs and masseuses circulated among the sofas offering Chinese foot massage which is very relaxing. For single guys, a floor manager would come by and ask if you wanted to take to the elevator to the top floor for special service massage. There was very little pressure. All very relaxed.

If you wanted to go to the top floor, the floor manager would accompany you to the elevator and send you on your way. When the door opened on the top floor, you would step into heaven. Scantily clad angels were everywhere. One would lead you to a room, exit and return with five or six other women. You had to choose. I usually chose by eye contact. If she was looking directly at me, I pointed at her. Maybe you had a better way of choosing.

After all the girls left the room, it was kind of like in this video:

https://motherless.com/7107D9A

Your masseuse would negotiate a price with you. It was usually $50 to $100 depending on the sauna, masseuse and services. I do not ever remember being rushed and I always was completely satisfied. Rimming and BBBJ were standard. Intercourse always with a condom.

After your blissful session, back downstairs for another foot massage or a plate of fried rice. Then back to the locker room to change clothes. On the way out, you paid a running tab that included everything. Wonderful establishments. Too bad they are gone.

[Grimmy23]

Thanks for these clarifications. You are approaching something like accuracy regarding the PRC and prostitution therein. Still some homework to do.


Thank you for this great exchange.

Thank you as well. It's nice to be able to have a civil discussion on here once in a while.

Once again, my last trip to China was in 2016, which was 8 years ago. If you once again follow the "10 year rule," my $18/ day estimate would be approaching $36/ day now. So my numbers are still tracking relatively closely with what you are reporting.

It's good to know the poverty level is down. I still have vivid pictures etched in my mind of being driven to the factory in the Minhang district of Shanghai and seeing all of the people living in houses that had half fallen down. The only other place I've seen something like that was in Haiti, and what I saw in Minhang was every bit as bad and in some cases worse.

I know the famous Shanghai sauna clubs got abruptly taken out shortly after my last visit and haven't made a comeback. I had many fun and memorable visits to those places, so it's sad to see them gone even though I will never be likely to travel to China alone again. So many memories of picking a girl out of the fishbowl and feeling like a kid in a candy shop and having a hard time making a decision. And if I didn't feel like going to a sauna club, rest assured a girl would magically show up in the hotel lobby. I knew if I sat there longer than half an hour or so at least one or two would show up. And once in a while that girl would even be part of the hotel staff.

Back in the 90's it was very, very difficult to find any action in Hong Kong. What was available in HK was prohibitively expensive for me at the time. I understand that has changed significantly. I used to go to HK and then cross the border into Shenzhen. Sex was very much available in Shenzhen. The street hookers were out in full force. I literally couldn't walk 10 feet down a public street without being propositioned. I even remember checking into hotels in Shenzhen, Guangzhao, Donguan, and a few other cities and the hookers literally started calling me in my room. "Hello. Chinese girl. Massagee? That was pre-cell phone days obviously. I remember I usually had to unplug the phone in my room to get any sleep.

China had the highest Covid survival rate because the government took very draconian measures to lock people down. Was that the right approach? Well you can't argue with how successful it was in limiting the spread, but you also have to realize that those types of measures would never have worked here. People raised holy hell over just being required to wear masks in public places. If we started locking people into their housing units we would have had widespread civil unrest. That's an entirely different discussion that goes well outside the scope of this forum though.

[BSouthgate]

A couple points of clarification.

First of all, what I meant to say was "various other places around the WORLD. " Yes, I spent a crap ton of time in China. I also spent a lot of time in places like the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, and many other Asian countries. I even visited a factory in North Korea and spent a night in the DPRK which was an entirely different experience. Long story, but there was a short window of time when the two Koreas were cooperating, and they had a joint factory in the North so that the North Koreans would have jobs and the South had access to cheap North Korean labor. Up there you're literally locked in your hotel room. You can't leave without your government assigned guide. I was encouraged to get a massage in the hotel "spa" since I couldn't go anywhere. The spa was really a BJ factory staffed by Chinese girls who were there to service the foreigners who weren't allowed to leave the building. Anyway, I digress. I also did many other similar work trips in Europe.

Out of all of the places I've been, which at last count is somewhere between 65 and 70 countries, there are three where I feel like sex literally followed me everywhere: China, the Philippines, and Thailand. There are many other countries where it's readily available, including many in Europe, but in those countries you have to go looking for it. In these three it just shows up at your door whether you're looking for it it not. This isn't to say I have a bad opinion of any of these countries' cultures. I definitely do not. But it is very safe to say that attitudes towards sex and sex workers are very different than the western attitudes towards them.

Yes, the days of the Chinese factory workers making $1 or $2/ day wages was from my first trip to China in 1990. Using the standard rule of thumb of the cost of things doubling every 10 years, that would be closer to $16-$18/ day today. As recently as 2016 I was working for a very large and very deep pocketed multi-national corporation with 250,000 employees. I know for a fact that our factory workers, who were working in a very nice, modern factory just outside of Shanghai, were making about $500/ month, which was above the local average wage. My $18/ day estimate is pretty much right on par with that.

Thanks for these clarifications. You are approaching something like accuracy regarding the PRC and prostitution therein. Still some homework to do.

1. Chinese factory workers made on average more than $40 per day in 2023. So your estimate of $16 to $18 is still way off the mark. See attached graph.

2. If you read my prior post, you will understand that there are Chinese women who enter the hotel business for access to relatively wealthy male customers. Some, like your Shanghai date 8 years ago, want casual compensated dates. Some are looking for marriage partners. Perhaps the waitress in the story in my post below was looking for a husband.

3. Yes, the CCP has cracked down on prostitution. Read my prior post for details. P4 P is still available but harder to find and more expensive.

4. On the positive side, besides the enormous increases in workers wages since 1990, there have been many other positive development within the PRC. Among them,

A. Life expectancy at birth continues to increase. The highest LE is in large cities like Shanghai where it approaches that in large US cities. However, the biggest increases are in the rural hinterlands.

B. China has the highest per capita survival rate from the recent COVID pandemic.

C. Medical insurance coverage has been extended to include 96% of the population from about 50% when I started doing medical work in China in 2003.

D. Poverty as defined by the World Bank has decreased to almost zero in China.

E. China is leading the world in production of clean technology, especially solar panels and EVs.

So, if you want to witness a socio-economic miracle, go to China and stay awhile. If you want to have a sex vacation, Thailand is better. Hong Kong also pretty good.

Thank you for this great exchange.

[Grimmy23]

I know of shops in Westminster where the girls sleep overnight in the shop. I am sure that's not legal. Other local shops have a safe house provided by owner, where they get rent from their employees. In one case, owner has several manufactured homes across the street from the shop. In almost all shops, you can catch a girl catching a catnap during business hours too.

As for whether its imprisonment or not. Just imagine if someone dropped you into the middle of China illegally. How well could you navigate the roads, much less ask anyone for help, or go to the authorities. That's not imprisonment, but its defacto "up a creek". When providers do jump ship, they seem to have access to some networks on WeChat where there is word of mouth announcements of other jobs. In some cases, one girl saves enough money to open her own shop, and then invites some trusted friends to come to her new shop.

Sleeping overnight in the shop is most definitely illegal. I don't know of a single city in California that allows people to sleep in a massage related business. It is specifically spelled out in the terms of your business license. Mine says that we can't be open past 10 PM and all occupants must be out of the building no later than 11. There are also usually zoning regulations in place that specify no sleeping in storefronts.

[Grimmy23]

There is so much to unpack in Grimmy's post. Lets start with the first sentence:

"Back in my previous career before owning my own business, I spent countless hours hanging around various types of factories in Asia and other parts of the country. ".

In which country is Asia located, Grimmy?

I assume you mean the PRC. Is that correct?

It is also not clear which time period Grimmy is talking about. If I assume that his estimate of factory workers' wages is accurate, it was probably the early to mid 1990's. I get that from the attached graph showing the exponential increase in average Chinese manufacturing wage vs year. In the early 1990's, Chinese workers did make very little.

I have a problem with Grimmy's story about the factory boss offering any employee that Grimmy fancies for a night of fun. Even during the extreme corruption of the late Jiang Zemin and early Hu Jintao eras, it is highly unlikely that the boss could just offer any factory worker, like they do from lineups in brothels. Probably a misunderstanding.

A couple points of clarification.

First of all, what I meant to say was "various other places around the WORLD. " Yes, I spent a crap ton of time in China. I also spent a lot of time in places like the Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan, and many other Asian countries. I even visited a factory in North Korea and spent a night in the DPRK which was an entirely different experience. Long story, but there was a short window of time when the two Koreas were cooperating, and they had a joint factory in the North so that the North Koreans would have jobs and the South had access to cheap North Korean labor. Up there you're literally locked in your hotel room. You can't leave without your government assigned guide. I was encouraged to get a massage in the hotel "spa" since I couldn't go anywhere. The spa was really a BJ factory staffed by Chinese girls who were there to service the foreigners who weren't allowed to leave the building. Anyway, I digress. I also did many other similar work trips in Europe.

Out of all of the places I've been, which at last count is somewhere between 65 and 70 countries, there are three where I feel like sex literally followed me everywhere: China, the Philippines, and Thailand. There are many other countries where it's readily available, including many in Europe, but in those countries you have to go looking for it. In these three it just shows up at your door whether you're looking for it it not. This isn't to say I have a bad opinion of any of these countries' cultures. I definitely do not. But it is very safe to say that attitudes towards sex and sex workers are very different than the western attitudes towards them.

Yes, the days of the Chinese factory workers making $1 or $2/ day wages was from my first trip to China in 1990. Using the standard rule of thumb of the cost of things doubling every 10 years, that would be closer to $16-$18/ day today. As recently as 2016 I was working for a very large and very deep pocketed multi-national corporation with 250,000 employees. I know for a fact that our factory workers, who were working in a very nice, modern factory just outside of Shanghai, were making about $500/ month, which was above the local average wage. My $18/ day estimate is pretty much right on par with that.

China is in many ways (ignoring its government and human rights record, of course) a beautiful and amazing country with a very vibrant culture. In other ways, there are things that are incredibly disturbing. For example, the last factory I mentioned was about 15-20 minutes outside of central Shanghai. It was a really nice, modern building with all of the modern amenities and better working conditions than many US factories I've been in. However, it was in the middle of a neighborhood full of houses that were literally falling down, with families still living in them. Literally, one or two of the walls would be piles of brick rubble, and were replaced by blue tarps. The car ride into the factory was always pretty depressing as I saw more poverty than I've seen almost anywhere else on Earth (with one exception being in Cap Haitian, Haiti). I spent a good deal of my time in China off the beaten path in areas like this.

As for the factory story and girls being offered to me, that may have been partially a misunderstanding. Again, it was back in the early 90's. I was in my early 20's and obviously not as seasoned and well traveled as I am now. There was a definite language barrier in play. I spoke no Mandarin (and still don't) and my hosts spoke only basic English. I can say with 100% certainty that I was offered girls from the factory to be delivered to my hotel room. Maybe I misunderstood it to mean "any girl I wanted. " Maybe they just had a select few who were willing to have fun outside of work. I don't know and I wasn't really interested in finding out back then. It was a new thing to me that I wasn't expecting, and I was just getting my career started and wasn't willing to take any risks without knowing the landscape.

Regarding the hotel workers, I can also say with 100% confidence that I was propositioned by them as recently as 2016. This was in a nice business class hotel in central Shanghai, and it happened more than once. I didn't partake on that trip, but on one occasion on an earlier trip I did take the opportunity to "have a drink" with one of the front desk girls after she got off work and it resulted in her ending up my room for about $100. So it still happens there, or at least did still happen there as recently as 8 years ago. Perhaps an American there by himself on a business trip gets treated a little differently, and perhaps things have changed since then.

Please note that none of this is me knocking Chinese society or culture at all. I had some of my best mongering times ever in China. The sauna clubs in Shanghai were amazing. Better than anything I ever had in Thailand for less money, and usually with younger, prettier girls. No need to get deep into details here, but I had things done to me there that I still haven't experienced anywhere else. I have heard that the CCP cracked down on most of that shortly after my last visit. All of the sauna clubs got raided and shut down, and the scene has been a lot tighter ever since. I abruptly left the Corporate world in the middle of 2016 and from what I've heard it wasn't a moment too soon. I'm sure the sex industry is still thriving there. You don't just pull the plug on something like that and expect it to go away. But it seems like it is much more underground now than it once was.

[BSouthgate]

I know of shops in Westminster where the girls sleep overnight in the shop. I am sure that's not legal. Other local shops have a safe house provided by owner, where they get rent from their employees. In one case, owner has several manufactured homes across the street from the shop. In almost all shops, you can catch a girl catching a catnap during business hours too.

As for whether its imprisonment or not. Just imagine if someone dropped you into the middle of China illegally. How well could you navigate the roads, much less ask anyone for help, or go to the authorities. That's not imprisonment, but its defacto "up a creek". When providers do jump ship, they seem to have access to some networks on WeChat where there is word of mouth announcements of other jobs. In some cases, one girl saves enough money to open her own shop, and then invites some trusted friends to come to her new shop.

I know a guy who goes to massage parlors to find angels to have fun with. I am sure that is not legal. Other guys take hotel rooms across the street and invite the massage women to join them for a night.

Dark Room. It may not be legal in the US but neither are our escapades at the OC MPs.

"Just imagine if someone dropped you into the middle of China illegally."

I am imagining. I would head for the nearest sauna or massage parlor. I would be greeted by loads of curious and kind people who would direct me to where I can get help from the local police or social services or maybe I would watch Karaoke in the park like this lady. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rteCO3uPAMk

Don't make so many assumptions about a country you know almost nothing about. Go there and see for yourself.

[BSouthgate]

There is so much to unpack in Grimmy's post. Lets start with the first sentence:

"Back in my previous career before owning my own business, I spent countless hours hanging around various types of factories in Asia and other parts of the country. ".

In which country is Asia located, Grimmy?

I assume you mean the PRC. Is that correct?

It is also not clear which time period Grimmy is talking about. If I assume that his estimate of factory workers' wages is accurate, it was probably the early to mid 1990's. I get that from the attached graph showing the exponential increase in average Chinese manufacturing wage vs year. In the early 1990's, Chinese workers did make very little.

I have a problem with Grimmy's story about the factory boss offering any employee that Grimmy fancies for a night of fun. Even during the extreme corruption of the late Jiang Zemin and early Hu Jintao eras, it is highly unlikely that the boss could just offer any factory worker, like they do from lineups in brothels. Probably a misunderstanding.

You see Grimmy, I did not like you spend "countless hours" in Asia, I spent 18 years there, almost 12 months each year. I have a Chinese wife and I am fluent in Mandarin. I have studied Chinese culture especially related to health care. So lets go on.

The boss could have no doubt found a girl willing to share a good time with Grimmy but not just any girl. To understand this, some historical context is helpful.

It is so helpful to understand historical context of a cultural phenomenon.

Prostitution was a state supported profession during most of the Chinese dynasties. There was no shame in visiting a brothel in Tang (618-906 AD), Song (960-1279 AD), Ming (1368-1640 AD) or Qing (1644-1912 AD) China. During the Song and Ming Dynasties (960-1640 AD, about 700 years), brothels were openly frequented by poets, artists, scholars and nobility. These customers had to provide monetary gifts and court the prostitutes to win their favor. If a prostitute did not want to make love with a customer, even after he had paid her, that was her right. In the preceding Tang Dynasty (300 years), prostitutes were greatly respected as women who had broken free from rural poverty to achieve economic success and sexual freedom. During the reign of the Tang empress Wu, prostitutes achieved their highest status in Chinese society. To sum it up, there were never any sanctions on prostitutes, male or female in Ancient China until the CCP took over in 1949. The CCP banned and successfully suppressed prostitution.

Since imperial China's sex workers had served the wealthy classes and since the CCP's goal was to create a classless society, between 1950 and 1978, prostitution was crushed with police raids and confinement of sex workers in re-education centers.

In parallel with the Chinese commercial sex industry, there was a larger society of millions of Chinese families who believed that, though sex was fun, its main purpose was procreation. In these situations, first marriages for boys were arranged by the families and were a kind of business deal to mutually benefit the two families. There was a silver lining for the groom. If his family farm was economically successful, he could, after his first wife had a few children, take and keep more wives for more fun and more children. Read for example "The Good Earth" by Pearl Buck.

This did not work out so well for rural women who had little or no choice regarding marriage partners, who were forbidden to have extra-marital relationships and who could not divorce their husbands. During the CCP period (1950 1978), a more gender equal society was created by allowing only one wife per husband and allowing fairly easy divorce for either party. However, premarital and extramarital sex was forbidden for everyone.

In 1978, Deng Xiao Ping, the new leader of the PRC instituted widespread economic and political reforms. Private businesses spread across China, especially in designated areas along the southeast coast. The hukou laws that restricted the internal travel of rural people were loosened and prostitution bans were lifted or not enforced. This resulted in massive relocations of people from rural to urban regions and the growth of a wealthy class of business elites who had money to burn on recreational fun. Young rural women and girls, some single, some married moved from the poor rural areas to the growing prosperity of the cities to work in factories and shops so they could better support themselves and their families.

These new female arrivals also found employment in brothels, saunas, massage parlors.

https://pornzog.com/video/11127138/a...y-party-manny/

As hotel ding-dong xiaojies shown here.

https://pornzog.com/video/12354886/a...y-party-manny/

And in the alley cathouses like the one shown below.

https://motherless.com/AB6FB8D

Some of these young women sought out jobs in the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industries. They had hopes to meet wealthy travelling Chinese and foreign executives and professionals. Their visions included both compensated dates and long term lucrative relationships with male visitors from other Chinese cities, from Hong Kong, Taiwan and from foreign countries. Enter our hero, Grimmy. It would have been so interesting if Grimmy had accepted the date with the front desk hotel employee and lived to tell us about it. On one occasion, a waitress approached me with a similar proposition. After she ended her shift, I walked her home quite platonically. I took her number but never saw her again.

This was part of the Chinese sexual revolution. One study of Chinese women's sexual practices found that as many as 29% of older men who had undergone graduate education had, at some time in their lives, paid money or other material compensation directly for sexual services. This is higher than in the US or most European countries. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...7150X221114599.

Seen in the context of the prior imperial history of social acceptance of prostitution, this sexual revolution was like a re-awakening of an ancient cultural norm. Like their predecessors in the dynastic era, young women who, in childhood, had experienced destitution and the humiliation of arranged marriages on the farms were elevated to the status of modern day concubines and courtesans. They did not have to marry a grubby farmer in their home town. Instead, they could have countless husbands, each for a few hours and each providing financial support that was unheard of back home.

A part of this revolution was the liberation of both men and women to receive material benefits in exchange for sex. Yes, this applied to young men sought out by wealthy Chinese women as well as to female pros. One study showed that 2 to 5 % of Chinese women had purchased sex from a man during their lifetimes.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...7150X221114599

Note that this is much higher than similar percentages of western women who pay for sex with men. I experienced two such "dates" where Chinese business women paid for my air transport and hotels to their home cities and gave me an allowance if I would sexually entertain them in hotel rooms. These two women were far from attractive but were ardent lovers who especially enjoyed cunnilingus, a treat that they had a hard time finding among local men. Attached is a photo of one of my two "clients" enjoying my company.

Unfortunately, Chairman Xi stifled this sexual revolution starting in about 2012 until the present. It is still fairly easy to find pros in the big cities but the rates have gone up, the quality of service has dropped and it is difficult to impossible to take the girl to your hotel room.

I am a cautious fan of Chairman Xi because he has done much to alleviate the poverty that in rural areas and he has supported health care and education in China. However, I do wish he would allow the return of ding-dong xiaojies and massage saunas.

I hope you guys will all visit China some day. But please make an effort to understand this wonderful country. Read a good history like that by Spencer or Wasserstrom. Read something about Confucianism and go with an open mind.

There is so much to unpack in Grimmy's post. Lets start with the first sentence:

"Back in my previous career before owning my own business, I spent countless hours hanging around various types of factories in Asia and other parts of the country."

In which country is Asia located, Grimmy?

I assume you mean the PRC. Is that correct?

It is also not clear which time period Grimmy is talking about. If I assume that his estimate of factory workers' wages is accurate, it was probably the early to mid 1990's. I get that from the attached graph showing the exponential increase in average Chinese manufacturing wage vs year. In the early 1990's, Chinese workers did make very little.

I have a problem with Grimmy's story about the factory boss offering any employee that Grimmy fancies for a night of fun. Even during the extreme corruption of the late Jiang Zemin and early Hu Jintao eras, it is highly unlikely that the boss could just offer any factory worker, like they do from lineups in brothels. Probably a misunderstanding.

You see Grimmy, I did not like you spend "countless hours" in Asia, I spent 18 years there, almost 12 months each year. I have a Chinese wife and I am fluent in Mandarin. I have studied Chinese culture especially related to health care. So lets go on.

The boss could have no doubt found a girl willing to share a good time with Grimmy but not just any girl. To understand this, some historical context is helpful.

It is so helpful to understand historical context of a cultural phenomenon.

Prostitution was a state supported profession during most of the Chinese dynasties. There was no shame in visiting a brothel in Tang (618-906 AD), Song (960-1279 AD), Ming (1368-1640 AD) or Qing (1644-1912 AD) China. During the Song and Ming Dynasties (960-1640 AD, about 700 years), brothels were openly frequented by poets, artists, scholars and nobility. These customers had to provide monetary gifts and court the prostitutes to win their favor. If a prostitute did not want to make love with a customer, even after he had paid her, that was her right. In the preceding Tang Dynasty (300 years), prostitutes were greatly respected as women who had broken free from rural poverty to achieve economic success and sexual freedom. During the reign of the Tang empress Wu, prostitutes achieved their highest status in Chinese society. To sum it up, there were never any sanctions on prostitutes, male or female in Ancient China until the CCP took over in 1949. The CCP banned and successfully suppressed prostitution.

Since imperial China's sex workers had served the wealthy classes and since the CCP's goal was to create a classless society, between 1950 and 1978, prostitution was crushed with police raids and confinement of sex workers in re-education centers.

In parallel with the Chinese commercial sex industry, there was a larger society of millions of Chinese families who believed that, though sex was fun, its main purpose was procreation. In these situations, first marriages for boys were arranged by the families and were a kind of business deal to mutually benefit the two families. There was a silver lining for the groom. If his family farm was economically successful, he could, after his first wife had a few children, take and keep more wives for more fun and more children. Read for example "The Good Earth" by Pearl Buck.

This did not work out so well for rural women who had little or no choice regarding marriage partners, who were forbidden to have extra-marital relationships and who could not divorce their husbands. During the CCP period (1950 1978), a more gender equal society was created by allowing only one wife per husband and allowing fairly easy divorce for either party. However, premarital and extramarital sex was forbidden for everyone.

In 1978, Deng Xiao Ping, the new leader of the PRC instituted widespread economic and political reforms. Private businesses spread across China, especially in designated areas along the southeast coast. The hukou laws that restricted the internal travel of rural people were loosened and prostitution bans were lifted or not enforced. This resulted in massive relocations of people from rural to urban regions and the growth of a wealthy class of business elites who had money to burn on recreational fun. Young rural women and girls, some single, some married moved from the poor rural areas to the growing prosperity of the cities to work in factories and shops so they could better support themselves and their families.

These new female arrivals also found employment in brothels, saunas, massage parlors.

https://pornzog.com/video/11127138/a...y-party-manny/

As hotel ding-dong xiaojies shown here.

https://pornzog.com/video/12354886/a...y-party-manny/

And in the alley cathouses like the one shown below.

https://motherless.com/AB6FB8D

Some of these young women sought out jobs in the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industries. They had hopes to meet wealthy travelling Chinese and foreign executives and professionals. Their visions included both compensated dates and long term lucrative relationships with male visitors from other Chinese cities, from Hong Kong, Taiwan and from foreign countries. Enter our hero, Grimmy. It would have been so interesting if Grimmy had accepted the date with the front desk hotel employee and lived to tell us about it. On one occasion, a waitress approached me with a similar proposition. After she ended her shift, I walked her home quite platonically. I took her number but never saw her again.

This was part of the Chinese sexual revolution. One study of Chinese women's sexual practices found that as many as 29% of older men who had undergone graduate education had, at some time in their lives, paid money or other material compensation directly for sexual services. This is higher than in the US or most European countries. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...7150X221114599.

Seen in the context of the prior imperial history of social acceptance of prostitution, this sexual revolution was like a re-awakening of an ancient cultural norm. Like their predecessors in the dynastic era, young women who, in childhood, had experienced destitution and the humiliation of arranged marriages on the farms were elevated to the status of modern day concubines and courtesans. They did not have to marry a grubby farmer in their home town. Instead, they could have countless husbands, each for a few hours and each providing financial support that was unheard of back home.

A part of this revolution was the liberation of both men and women to receive material benefits in exchange for sex. Yes, this applied to young men sought out by wealthy Chinese women as well as to female pros. One study showed that 2 to 5 % of Chinese women had purchased sex from a man during their lifetimes.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...7150X221114599

Note that this is much higher than similar percentages of western women who pay for sex with men. I experienced two such "dates" where Chinese business women paid for my air transport and hotels to their home cities and gave me an allowance if I would sexually entertain them in hotel rooms. These two women were far from attractive but were ardent lovers who especially enjoyed cunnilingus, a treat that they had a hard time finding among local men. Attached is a photo of one of my two "clients" enjoying my company.

Unfortunately, Chairman Xi stifled this sexual revolution starting in about 2012 until the present. It is still fairly easy to find pros in the big cities but the rates have gone up, the quality of service has dropped and it is difficult to impossible to take the girl to your hotel room.

I am a cautious fan of Chairman Xi because he has done much to alleviate the poverty that in rural areas and he has supported health care and education in China. However, I do wish he would allow the return of ding-dong xiaojies and massage saunas.

I hope you guys will all visit China some day. But please make an effort to understand this wonderful country. Read a good history like that by Spencer or Wasserstrom. Read something about Confucianism and go with an open mind.

[DarkRoomDaddy]

Thank you as well! This is a great discussion and I appreciate keeping everything civil, even though we may not agree on all points.

About the free or low cost room and board and being exploitative, it's about the girls being "stuck. " Again, it isn't jail. They can leave if they wish. There's no walls around them. But if they leave they aren't likely to have anywhere to go. They may not even be documented as you pointed out. There are AMP owners who exploit that. I won't mention which spas they are because I'm not here to call anybody out. There are even some spas where the girls are expected to have sex with the owner at his whim. I know a couple girls who have "escaped" that setting, only to go back later because once they escaped they found they had no other options to keep a roof over their heads. Some of them ultimately got their own places. Good for them. They're much more free than they were before, but still stuck giving HJs and BJs for a living because they have no other skills that pay enough to meet their living expenses.

Offering affordable houses to employees is one thing. Offering affordable housing to employees under condition of them continuing to work in your illegal shop, while said employees are undocumented and clearly have no other options, and subjecting them to deplorable working conditions is another thing entirely. Many of these girls are literally stuck.

I know of shops in Westminster where the girls sleep overnight in the shop. I am sure that's not legal. Other local shops have a safe house provided by owner, where they get rent from their employees. In one case, owner has several manufactured homes across the street from the shop. In almost all shops, you can catch a girl catching a catnap during business hours too.

As for whether its imprisonment or not. Just imagine if someone dropped you into the middle of China illegally. How well could you navigate the roads, much less ask anyone for help, or go to the authorities. That's not imprisonment, but its defacto "up a creek". When providers do jump ship, they seem to have access to some networks on WeChat where there is word of mouth announcements of other jobs. In some cases, one girl saves enough money to open her own shop, and then invites some trusted friends to come to her new shop.

[BSouthgate]

Back in my previous career before owning my own business, I spent countless hours hanging around various types of factories in Asia and other parts of the country. Some of those were stereotypical Chinese sweatshops with absolutely deplorable working and living conditions.

There is so much to unpack in Grimmy's post. Lets start with the first sentence:

"Back in my previous career before owning my own business, I spent countless hours hanging around various types of factories in Asia and other parts of the country. ".

In which country is Asia located, Grimmy?

I assume you mean the PRC. Is that correct?

It is also not clear which time period Grimmy is talking about. If I assume that his estimate of factory workers' wages is accurate, it was probably the early to mid 1990's. I get that from the attached graph showing the exponential increase in average Chinese manufacturing wage vs year. In the early 1990's, Chinese workers did make very little.

I have a problem with Grimmy's story about the factory boss offering any employee that Grimmy fancies for a night of fun. Even during the extreme corruption of the late Jiang Zemin and early Hu Jintao eras, it is highly unlikely that the boss could just offer any factory worker, like they do from lineups in brothels. Probably a misunderstanding.

You see Grimmy, I did not like you spend "countless hours" in Asia, I spent 18 years there, almost 12 months each year. I have a Chinese wife and I am fluent in Mandarin. I have studied Chinese culture especially related to health care. So lets go on.

The boss could have no doubt found a girl willing to share a good time with Grimmy but not just any girl. To understand this, some historical context is helpful.

It is so helpful to understand historical context of a cultural phenomenon.

Prostitution was a state supported profession during most of the Chinese dynasties. There was no shame in visiting a brothel in Tang (618-906 AD), Song (960-1279 AD), Ming (1368-1640 AD) or Qing (1644-1912 AD) China. During the Song and Ming Dynasties (960-1640 AD, about 700 years), brothels were openly frequented by poets, artists, scholars and nobility. These customers had to provide monetary gifts and court the prostitutes to win their favor. If a prostitute did not want to make love with a customer, even after he had paid her, that was her right. In the preceding Tang Dynasty (300 years), prostitutes were greatly respected as women who had broken free from rural poverty to achieve economic success and sexual freedom. During the reign of the Tang empress Wu, prostitutes achieved their highest status in Chinese society. To sum it up, there were never any sanctions on prostitutes, male or female in Ancient China until the CCP took over in 1949. The CCP banned and successfully suppressed prostitution.

Since imperial China's sex workers had served the wealthy classes and since the CCP's goal was to create a classless society, between 1950 and 1978, prostitution was crushed with police raids and confinement of sex workers in re-education centers.

In parallel with the Chinese commercial sex industry, there was a larger society of millions of Chinese families who believed that, though sex was fun, its main purpose was procreation. In these situations, first marriages for boys were arranged by the families and were a kind of business deal to mutually benefit the two families. There was a silver lining for the groom. If his family farm was economically successful, he could, after his first wife had a few children, take and keep more wives for more fun and more children. Read for example "The Good Earth" by Pearl Buck.

This did not work out so well for rural women who had little or no choice regarding marriage partners, who were forbidden to have extra-marital relationships and who could not divorce their husbands. During the CCP period (1950 1978), a more gender equal society was created by allowing only one wife per husband and allowing fairly easy divorce for either party. However, premarital and extramarital sex was forbidden for everyone.

In 1978, Deng Xiao Ping, the new leader of the PRC instituted widespread economic and political reforms. Private businesses spread across China, especially in designated areas along the southeast coast. The hukou laws that restricted the internal travel of rural people were loosened and prostitution bans were lifted or not enforced. This resulted in massive relocations of people from rural to urban regions and the growth of a wealthy class of business elites who had money to burn on recreational fun. Young rural women and girls, some single, some married moved from the poor rural areas to the growing prosperity of the cities to work in factories and shops so they could better support themselves and their families.

These new female arrivals also found employment in brothels, saunas, massage parlors.

https://pornzog.com/video/11127138/a...y-party-manny/

As hotel ding-dong xiaojies shown here.

https://pornzog.com/video/12354886/a...y-party-manny/

And in the alley cathouses like the one shown below.

https://motherless.com/AB6FB8D

Some of these young women sought out jobs in the hotel, restaurant and entertainment industries. They had hopes to meet wealthy travelling Chinese and foreign executives and professionals. Their visions included both compensated dates and long term lucrative relationships with male visitors from other Chinese cities, from Hong Kong, Taiwan and from foreign countries. Enter our hero, Grimmy. It would have been so interesting if Grimmy had accepted the date with the front desk hotel employee and lived to tell us about it. On one occasion, a waitress approached me with a similar proposition. After she ended her shift, I walked her home quite platonically. I took her number but never saw her again.

This was part of the Chinese sexual revolution. One study of Chinese women's sexual practices found that as many as 29% of older men who had undergone graduate education had, at some time in their lives, paid money or other material compensation directly for sexual services. This is higher than in the US or most European countries. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...7150X221114599.

Seen in the context of the prior imperial history of social acceptance of prostitution, this sexual revolution was like a re-awakening of an ancient cultural norm. Like their predecessors in the dynastic era, young women who, in childhood, had experienced destitution and the humiliation of arranged marriages on the farms were elevated to the status of modern day concubines and courtesans. They did not have to marry a grubby farmer in their home town. Instead, they could have countless husbands, each for a few hours and each providing financial support that was unheard of back home.

A part of this revolution was the liberation of both men and women to receive material benefits in exchange for sex. Yes, this applied to young men sought out by wealthy Chinese women as well as to female pros. One study showed that 2 to 5 % of Chinese women had purchased sex from a man during their lifetimes.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/ful...7150X221114599

Note that this is much higher than similar percentages of western women who pay for sex with men. I experienced two such "dates" where Chinese business women paid for my air transport and hotels to their home cities and gave me an allowance if I would sexually entertain them in hotel rooms. These two women were far from attractive but were ardent lovers who especially enjoyed cunnilingus, a treat that they had a hard time finding among local men. Attached is a photo of one of my two "clients" enjoying my company.

Unfortunately, Chairman Xi stifled this sexual revolution starting in about 2012 until the present. It is still fairly easy to find pros in the big cities but the rates have gone up, the quality of service has dropped and it is difficult to impossible to take the girl to your hotel room.

I am a cautious fan of Chairman Xi because he has done much to alleviate the poverty that in rural areas and he has supported health care and education in China. However, I do wish he would allow the return of ding-dong xiaojies and massage saunas.

I hope you guys will all visit China some day. But please make an effort to understand this wonderful country. Read a good history like that by Spencer or Wasserstrom. Read something about Confucianism and go with an open mind.

[Grimmy23]

Yeah, known in Russia, they call that a honey trap, allegedly what caught DJT; of course there are surveillance cameras in the rooms, so they can file that footage away to use as they wish. Called 'compromat'.

If you're a public figure, especially a high profile politician, and you fall into one of those Russian honey traps, you're a dumbshit. At very least, have your security detail comb the room for hidden cameras. It isn't that hard. As an ordinary citizen I don't think they'd find hidden cam footage of me nailing a working girl that interesting or useful for much of anything.

[FarFarAway]

I was reminded of a story that a colleague told me about his first visit to Moscow. Stayed in a five-star international hotel (Marriott or Hyatt). There were girls in the lobby and every elevator lobby of every floor. The first night, he was tired from the flight and didn't think anything of it, and nobody approached him. The next day, he was propositioned in the lobby and as he got off the elevator. Said no, and went to his room. The front desk rang him and asked if everything was alright, and if he didn't like the girls, should the hotel send up a boy? NO!

Next evening, he picked a girl at random, went to his room. Told her to sit, he locked himself in the bathroom, came out 20 minutes later, gave her some money and sent her on her way. It was a win-win in his mind. He was a newly married man, and he wasn't into the hobby. But in these countries, it isn't a hobby, it is a living to these girls.

Yeah, known in Russia, they call that a honey trap, allegedly what caught DJT; of course there are surveillance cameras in the rooms, so they can file that footage away to use as they wish. Called 'compromat'.

[Diver6390]

By the same token, I was surprisingly often approached by hotel workers in China. Say a cute young girl working the front desk would strike up conversation with me, and it would turn to "I get off work in an hour. Would you like to have a drink together?" Of course that's leading up to her ending up in my room. A hotel front desk job in a big city like Shanghai would earn them something like $500/ month. If they got some American businessman to give them 100 for a couple hours of sex, it was a win / win.

I was reminded of a story that a colleague told me about his first visit to Moscow. Stayed in a five-star international hotel (Marriott or Hyatt). There were girls in the lobby and every elevator lobby of every floor. The first night, he was tired from the flight and didn't think anything of it, and nobody approached him. The next day, he was propositioned in the lobby and as he got off the elevator. Said no, and went to his room. The front desk rang him and asked if everything was alright, and if he didn't like the girls, should the hotel send up a boy? NO!

Next evening, he picked a girl at random, went to his room. Told her to sit, he locked himself in the bathroom, came out 20 minutes later, gave her some money and sent her on her way. It was a win-win in his mind. He was a newly married man, and he wasn't into the hobby. But in these countries, it isn't a hobby, it is a living to these girls.

[Grimmy23]

I know nothing about renting commercial space. Grimmy's excellent description can serve as a guide for anyone who wants to open their own AMP.

Many of the masseuses we see are undocumented. That does NOT mean that they are trafficked. Most Mexican gardeners are in the same boat. Also, they are not trafficked.

You will note that most Chinese masseuses have 626 area code phones. They live in subletted rooms and apartments in the SG Valley. These subletted rooms and apartments are advertised in the local Chinese newspapers and online. They may be illegalI do not knowbut they are widespread. I even knew of a Chinese colleague, now a scientist working at the World Bank in Beijing, who rented one of these rooms when he was studying for his PhD at USC. My friend was not trafficked. Neither are the masseuses who stay in these modest and very economical accommodations.

The women are used to this kind of arrangement. In China, millions of migrant workers who move from the country to the big cities have similar arrangements or even live in dormitory-style houses with four to six people in a room. Yes, in China, some of these migrants are also sex workers, on call in brothels, saunas, and massage parlors. In other cases, the businesses provide rooms for these sex workers.

A portion of these Chinese big-city sex workers migrate legally or illegally to the US or other countries. They learn about AMPs from friends and relatives and earn five times what they earn in China, but they usually save a lot, send a lot home to family, and continue a meager existence.

I am still looking for a young intellectually inclined monger to start a survey of AMP women. Knowledge of Mandarin preferable. Pay is zero. Any takers?

Back in my previous career before owning my own business, I spent countless hours hanging around various types of factories in Asia and other parts of the country. Some of those were stereotypical Chinese sweatshops with absolutely deplorable working and living conditions. Some of them were nicer factories, but they had a couple things in common with the sweatshops. They were staffed predominantly by young Chinese girls (16 to early 20's). The girls often came off of family farms and were working for the equivalent of $1 or $2 per day. They lived in dormitories next to the factory and they had their meals provided. The quality of the food varied from factory to factory, ranging from almost inedible prison type food to "pretty decent. ".

I remember walking into one of these places. I'm a fairly tall white guy, and at the time I was in my late 20's or early 30's. I walk in and instantly every girl in the place stopped working and looked at me for a moment. It was very awkward, but my colleague said something like don't worry, you're probably the first white guy they've ever seen.

Some of those young girls working in the factory were very cute. I have vivid memories of one of the bosses there asking if I liked any of them. If so, he could arrange for one or two of them to be delivered to my hotel room tonight. I never did and never would have considered it. They all worked hard, and all long days for very little pay, and I wasn't about to exploit them like that. Stuff like that is more normal over there. I suppose I could have paid one of those girls something like $20 for a night in my hotel room. That would have been 10 days worth of wages and a lot of those girls would have eagerly accepted it. But it's not normal here and would of course be considered extremely exploitative. But the fact that it's normal there, and conditions are "better" here, doesn't make it acceptable in my book.

By the same token, I was surprisingly often approached by hotel workers in China. Say a cute young girl working the front desk would strike up conversation with me, and it would turn to "I get off work in an hour. Would you like to have a drink together?" Of course that's leading up to her ending up in my room. A hotel front desk job in a big city like Shanghai would earn them something like $500/ month. If they got some American businessman to give them 100 for a couple hours of sex, it was a win / win.

[Taws6]

Now back to you pr question. How do the AMPs do it? I can only speculate, but one thing is very clear. Just look at the shopping centers that most of these places are in. Quite often they're old, run down centers where filling empty space isn't that easy. Quite often they're Asian owned. I suspect there's a lot of looking the other way going on. I wouldn't even be surprised to hear that the center owners are complicit in the AMP business and even helping to launder some of their money. I can't think of too many AMPs that are in nice modern centers, comfortably nestled between a Starbucks and a Crumble Cookies.

Thanks for your EXCELLENT response, I appreciate that. I am vaguely familiar with some of what you referenced, but no direct first hand knowledge (our office having moved several times in the last 20 years (our lease process takes about 9 months and has to go through a myriad of administrative hoops and bureaucracy) Mostly Class A, sometimes Class B.

Your speculation on a potential conniving between AMP & building (at least to some degree) is I would think (not knowing better) the most likely.

[BSouthgate]

I'm going to have to speculate a bit, and before I do that I'll have to give some background because it's pretty complicated. Commercial real estate is much more complicated than residential real estate with a lot more moving parts, so forgive me if I get long winded here because I probably will.

With residential rentals, the only thing really on the table is how much the rent is. With commercial storefront rentals the rent is just one of many pieces. There's CAM fees, clauses about who pays dfor what if something breaks. There's signage rights. Do you get to be on the strip malls landmark sign, and if yea, what position on the sign do you get? There's the issue of what sign you put over your door. A business can't just put up whatever sign it wants. There's local ordinances and everything has to be approved by the landlord. Who pays for the electricity for your sign? Businesses all have two names. A legal entity name and the name that the public knows you by. The public needs to be able to figure out who to sue if they need to, so the DBA name (which is the name you hang over your door) has to be traceable to a legal entity that can be served process.

There's something called Tenant Improvement (TI) allowance which is customary. That means when you finish your construction and open your business, the landlord often cuts you a check to cover some or all of your construction costs. For the business I opened, TImeas typically in the $50 k range. I didn't get TI. In my case I got free rent while construction was being done and for the first 4 months of being open. After that I had half price rent which gradually ramped up to full rent to give my business time to ramp up.

Them there's things like exclusivity clauses. No other massage business can come into my shopping center because I got exclusivity. There's clauses on who can move in next door. When you're running a massage shop you don't want a kickboxing or karate studio moving in next door, or a Korean kimchi restaurant where that emits foul odors..

I know nothing about renting commercial space. Grimmy's excellent description can serve as a guide for anyone who wants to open their own AMP.

Many of the masseuses we see are undocumented. That does NOT mean that they are trafficked. Most Mexican gardeners are in the same boat. Also, they are not trafficked.

You will note that most Chinese masseuses have 626 area code phones. They live in subletted rooms and apartments in the SG Valley. These subletted rooms and apartments are advertised in the local Chinese newspapers and online. They may be illegal—I do not know—but they are widespread. I even knew of a Chinese colleague, now a scientist working at the World Bank in Beijing, who rented one of these rooms when he was studying for his PhD at USC. My friend was not trafficked. Neither are the masseuses who stay in these modest and very economical accommodations.

The women are used to this kind of arrangement. In China, millions of migrant workers who move from the country to the big cities have similar arrangements or even live in dormitory-style houses with four to six people in a room. Yes, in China, some of these migrants are also sex workers, on call in brothels, saunas, and massage parlors. In other cases, the businesses provide rooms for these sex workers.

A portion of these Chinese big-city sex workers migrate legally or illegally to the US or other countries. They learn about AMPs from friends and relatives and earn five times what they earn in China, but they usually save a lot, send a lot home to family, and continue a meager existence.

I am still looking for a young intellectually inclined monger to start a survey of AMP women. Knowledge of Mandarin preferable. Pay is zero. Any takers?