Hosto Files: Part 3

(Continued from Part 2)

Ang mga hosutos ng Japan

All-hosto bar. Macho dancing bar. Despite these bars employing similar kinds of guys offering paid personal entertainment, my experience inside the hosto bar is different from the macho dancing bar.

For one thing, the bar's stage is without any stripping man. There is nothing to look at, except for the stage lights, the clean walls, the occasional shows on the bar's TV set, and the waiters walking about. There are bars which have some singing on-stage, some comedic performances, and some dance routines, performed all throughout the night. But depending on the bar's entertainment lineup (if they do have performances scheduled that night), these usually happen at a much later time in the night. 

Yes, at a later time. While the bar usually opens around 10 or 11PM, the party only peaks at 3AM. I remember my friends and I being the only customers in the all-hosto bar around 12 midnight. We were not bored as we had some hostos in our company. But we were wondering why, time and again, the bar gets filled only after 3AM. What's so special about the time?

Oh yes, the bar girls. This is the time they arrive.

When it comes to hosto bars, I notice that most of their customer base come from the girlie bars. I am not talking about Manila's dirty old men or the Japanese businessmen, but those working in these bars (ie. the girl G.R.Os or hostesses or lady strippers). Unlike the macho dancing bar, which is supposedly the realm of gay men -- the reason why it's called a gay bar in the first place -- these hosto bars are frequented by ladies, really young "well-dressed" ladies. 

I observe how groups of women enter the bar, one after another. At first, I thought of these customers as working girls, the types working in Makati, with regular 8-to-5 desk jobs. But something about them proved otherwise. Perhaps their attire reveals too much about them -- the short skirts, tight tops, large accessories, small shoulder bags, and very high heels. Or maybe it was how they spoke or carried themselves. Masyadong malakas ang arrive. 

Of course I had to ask the hostos who these ladies in skimpy attire were.

"Mga nagtatrabaho sa bar." Confirmed.

What they do there is typical. Drink. Chat. Landian. Spend time with a guy of their choice, instead of spending time with a guy who chose them. Spend money on a young guy of their choice, after being spent for by some old customer whom they may or may not like. Offer the hosto some "fun" outside the bar, around 6-7 AM when the bar closes. What happens after, and if hostos always oblige, we don't know. 

Because of this clientele, the bar's MD drink prices are kept low. Unlike in the macho dancing bars where drinks can get as high as P450 per order, hosto bars allow low income earners to still spend some quality time with a boy, including some possible romance, and offer out-of-the-bar "fun" in replacement of their tip. (Seriously, I keep hearing from various hostos and macho dancers that they don't like to be tabled often by bar girls, because these men can't earn from these ladies who'd order them 1 or 2 drinks and then often don't give tips). 

Aside from the cheap drinks, what makes these hosto bar customers return again and again would perhaps be the boisterous conversations and unbridled fun in these bars. Because these hostos can't offer some bare muscular body as entertainment, they rely on their wit, charm and conversation skills to earn. Plus, their looks, of course. The bar, then allows these traits to be highlighted -- couches that form an L to allow chatting over drinks, a stage exclusively for an all-cast modeling, KTV area for singing and more intimate chats, and a dance floor not for the macho dancers, but for that "clubbing" atmosphere. I still remember our group spending six hours drinking and being "free", from hogging all the songs in the KTV room to dancing with all our hearts on the dance floor, as we were the only customers there. 

Perhaps that is also what the lady G.R.O.s and hostesses feel inside the hosto bar. It's their turn to do the choosing. It's their turn to have fun and be wild. It's their turn to be entertained (and made landi) by the boy of their choice. 

And I just succumbed to the fact that hosto bars may just be for these girls. At first I didn't mind being the only gay customer in the all-hosto bar. But more and more I felt uncomfortable, as the hostos were lining up for women, their stories revolved around the drinking spree they had with their bar girl customers, and heck, even their girl friends are from that same customer base as well.   

For me, as a gay guy going to gay bars, nothing about hostos really excites me anymore. I still look for the visual stimulation offered by the macho dancing gay bar -- topless guys, men in briefs, boys in bikinis, the occasional cock. Saan ka mapunta, pare-pareho lang naman ang landian. The flirtatious conversations would essentially be the same among hostos or male models or macho dancers -- there will be those of genuine intentions and those na peperahan ka lang. At least in the macho dancing bar, there's that so-called "libog" factor as well -- kahit katabi mong nakaupo, at least mas kaunti lang ang saplot.

And inside the macho dancing gay bar, with the high priced MD drinks that keeps the bar girls away, I like that notion of exclusivity. These gay bars to begin with are really intended for gays, despite being infiltrated by the matronas and some bar girls, who can offer these guys some keps. Something we gays don't have and are powerless against. The gays can offer money, but keps pa rin habol ng malanding lalaki lalo na if surrounded by hoards of them inside the hosto bar. 

That was a lesson learned inside the hosto bar. Ayoko ng may kalabang taga girlie bar.

And despite the wild fun, interesting conversations, and memorable out-of-the-bar misadventures I've had with my hosto friends in their bars, that one single line above may be the sole reason why I don't go to hosto bars anymore.

Now Defunct Hosto Bar.

GB Goer
Learn more: Lessons from Gay Bars in Manila
http://machosandhostos.blogspot.com/
email: char.affairs@gmail.com
twitter: @gbgoer

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Photo credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/78556782@N00/1347571015, http://www.p-burgos.com/quezon.php