Though it was closed there was a small sign with the spa’s name and an instruction to press the bell. Sense’s front door is a gigantic metal sliding panel that wouldn’t look amiss on a police dog van. So much so that it took 20 minutes of mooching around the building to work out how to get in. The entrance – unlike those of the city’s regular massage parlors – was extremely discreet. One evening, using rough directions provided by a colleague, I made my way to Sense after work. I consider myself heterosexual but on the odd occasion swing into shades of bi-curious. Only in 1997 was homosexuality made legal in China, it was still officially regarded as a mental illness up to 2001. I’d heard of the city’s gay clubs but an establishment offering solely ‘m for m treatment’ was a must visit. The idea of what was essentially a gay massage parlor operating in a city of over 8million greatly intrigued me. In the back alleys of Guangzhou, China lies Sense spa – the only gay massage parlor south of Shanghai.Īt the time I visited, I was living and working in Guangzhou for an expat magazine.
