* - College Point, for the uninitiated, is a neighborhood in northern Queens, jutting out to where Flushing Bay meets the East River. Since Flushing Creek effectively serves as its southern boundary, there are relatively few ways in and out of there. Moreover, those water boundaries combined to render a good deal of the area as mucky or a mire. The waterfront area was not developed for many years; much of it is industrial. With Flushing Bay offering a nasty stank in those days, the reputation of the girls there as loose
With an online headline of "NYC's 'sex spa' is grossing people out," even while the web address includes, "...the sleezy spa where everyone has underwater sex," the Post is blatantly pandering to the moral (not so?) majority in the hopes of selling a few more papers or getting a few more clicks. Of course, being a shameless shill for the right wing, the Post dutifully attacks anything that big business can't sell, while furthering the latter's position that people should not be allowed to have fun on their own terms. Bokolis will get back to that- maybe- after trying to shoot some holes in this piece.
First off, the semantics, necessary to establish the general sloppiness of the article- if everyone there is having sex why is it sleazy- nice spelling fuckwads- and who's left to be grossed out. It's not underwater sex, it's in the water sex; Bokolis speaks from experience <snicker, snort, chortle>.
The Post does what almost all media does these days- in imposing its desired value-set, it attempts to steer you towards how it wants you to feel. The writer found a few people who were weirded out by this stuff- three or four out of how many, we'll not know, but they seem to have been momentarily outnumbered on the writer's visits*.
* aside - This broad went there twice and deemed she had enough to go with this as a story. If that were Bokolis, I'd've strung this out for about 16 visits...and, even then, it's 50-50 as to whether I'd've blown it up. I'd've blow it up in a different way. I was tipped off to the article about 10AM on Sunday. My response was, of course, I'm just getting home from there- fuck, now everybody's going to know.
The article references a kiddie pool, luring the reader to draw the inference that all this is going on in full view of boatloads of small children. Before calling bullshit on that, note that, while we're told of all the hijinks, the best the article offers is photos- pixelated and without context- of couples kissing. Bokolis will just bet that there are plenty of pictures of the really racy stuff couldn't make any edition...mmhm.
Now, it does say somewhere that "no establishment shall make facilities available for the purposes of sexual activities..." While it can be argued that the purported sexual activities were incidental to the visit, let's play along and assume for half a second that this place is nothing but a fuck shop. Let's further assume that these laws are in place for virtuous reasons- as when the city closed down the bathhouses and places like Plato's Retreat amid the jumpoff of the HIV/AIDS crisis, Koch wasn't playing off of his presumed, but not acknowledged, homosexuality- and not because the city can't monetize sex.
The reason this place is getting shut down is that it's a fucking pig sty. It's rather apparent that management is cutting every corner it can to turn a profit/minimize losses. The way it sounds, there is about $1k revenue coming through the doors at the open. If management is not going to turn it away, the hanky-panky is merely a symptom of a business going downhill, not the cause. This happens in just about every nightclub in NYC, and the economics extends to this place...it's hot for a while, but eventually goes stale, so you have to cook up theme nights, catering further down the market (that's a nice way of saying two racially-charged epithets that Bokolis will leave to the imagination) until finally breaking down and changing the motif in the hopes of luring back the cool kids.
In this case, the owner, some joker called Steve Chon- Bokolis is picturing Larry Wong from King of New York, but couldn't find the clip of him telling Frank White that he's no greaseball Arty Clay- seems to be no exception. The difference is, he's not in a position to change the motif. Hence, he is not in the economic position to toss people seeking to enhance their spa experience.
It must have been asking too much for the Post to present it like that. It had to go for the salacious.
The problem that Bokolis has with the piece, other than the fact that this broad blew up the spot, is that she's endorsing people's insistence on having things how they want them and only how they want them. If you show up to a place at off hours, expect to see some off-hours shit. Let's face it, nobody needs to be bringing their kid to this place at 6AM on a Sunday. What the fuck is wrong with parents that would drag their kid out of bed early on a Sunday to get to the spa? In fact, I have trouble believing that any children (13 and under) come to this place- remember, it's a spa, not a water park. If I were hitting this place after hours like that and there were the strippers as claimed, I'd be pissed at this bitch to no end. This is as incredulous to me as the teenaged boys (or their moms) selling out the (often hot) female teacher for having sex with them.
The stripper happy-hour aspect of this reminds Bokolis of an after-hours spot I used to regularly hit in the '90s. This place was for grown-ups. The location (Manhattan, durrr), events and details of its demise will remain in our ever-hazier memory. It was protected by the cops, but not from a developer who wanted the land. I really haven't been the same since.
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