Juicy bars lure gay and straight ‘Guccis’

When you think about Itaewon, you think about juicy bars. Or maybe not. Depends on how lax or uptight your morals are.
And when you think about Itaewon’s juicy bars, you think about dark dens on Hooker Hill. And tricksy women fleecing unprincipled men.
Or maybe not. Because that’s not all there is to it.
Few people know this, but the bars on Gay Hill ― the gay bars, staffed by gay men ― also provide juicy services.
Mind you, they don’t do this all the time ― only when they get the right kind of customers, which they refer to as “Guccis.”
As you can guess, Guccis are customers who have money to burn. Shawn and Moon-gang, two bartenders at the Gay Hill bar Always Homme, can smell a Gucci as soon as one walks in the door.
Guccis are usually gay men, and professionals, like doctors, bankers, brokers or real-estate agents, Shawn explained.
The process is the same as at regular juicy bars: a bartender or host, in this case Shawn or Moon-gang, will sidle up to the customer, asking if he wants special attention, which means oodles of flirting and flattery. If the answer’s yes, the customer starts buying drinks for the host at 20,000 won ($20) a pop. The bill usually winds up at around 150,000 won.
But again, Guccis aren’t always gay men. About half are straight couples, looking for a diversion, Shawn said. And a few are juicy girls from neighboring hostess bars, who come out of curiosity.
At regular juicy bars the customers, after getting good and loaded, will often try ― in vain ― to get their hostesses to leave with them.
The same thing happens with the gay Guccis, Shawn said. They ask for sex and get turned down.
The straight couples, by contrast, are usually more pure-intentioned, and come only for the experience of hanging out with gays, Shawn said.
But occasionally they will ask for a little more.
Moon-gang said he’s been propositioned and offered money more than a few times by kinky-minded couples looking for a third. But he always respectfully declines, he insists.
As for the juicy girls, they tend to come in and ask about the revenue-divvying system, i.e. what percentage of the take the host gets and what percentage the bar gets.
So which Guccis are the best Guccis? For profit’s sake, it’s the couples, as they’re more generous. “Straight people spend money, gay people don’t spend,” said the owner, Paul, as Shawn and Moon-gang nodded.
The straights spend more because they’re drunker, most likely. It’s not unusual to walk into Always Homme and see some guy’s girlfriend sprawled out half conscious and fully sick across a couple of seats, while the guy sits there oblivious, as Shawn or Moon-gang supervises the accident scene and continues to ply drinks.
The gay Guccis keep it together better. Or maybe not.

by Mike Ferrin