Toshio Matsumoto
1969
105 minutes
This is a Japanese film from the 1960s that is basically an adaptation of Oedipus Rex except it's set in a gay brothel with drag queens and trans prostitutes.
Whew.
You've never been to a gay brothel, though you've been to several straight ones. Not to purchase services, of course. You've never used the services of a prostitute, though you're generally for decriminalization of sex work as long as consenting adults are involved.
Most of your visits to brothels have been in a professional capacity. You drove a taxi, and so it was part of the job. The city where you drove had two well-known brothels that were at least officially for "massage services". Patrons and employees of these businesses were frequent cab customers, and occasionally you would have to go inside the businesses to fetch them. Upon entry to these places, a handful of bored women in cheap lingerie would do a little line-up while the madam would explain the rules, generally that the customer was to choose a girl and then take a quick shower and proceed into a room where they would dry you off and give you a massage of some sort, for entertainment purposes only, etc. It looked depressing and sordid and like nothing you wanted any part of, and your subsequent experiences with their customers and employees didn't really make you want to go for a visit anytime soon.
You also made one accidental trip into a brothel on one of your trips to Montreal. You were visiting on an extremely hot day, walking around on foot doing touristy things and getting baked by the sun. You were desperately in need of a beer or some kind of cold beverage and at least a temporary refuge inside in the air conditioning, but most of the regular bars were closed at that hour. However, you knew that the strip clubs would generally be open at that hour and would mostly be cheap and charging no cover during the daytime. You decided to duck into an admittedly disreputable-looking place called Club Octopussy that you seem to recall had some kind of sexy octopus logo.
As soon as you entered, it was immediately obvious that this wasn't a strip club. You were greeted at the door by a fully nude woman, and the house madam came over and immediately started giving a spiel about the services in both English and French. This spiel was a bit more direct and to the point, to say the least. For the front part, you were supposed to choose a girl and then get a semi-private booth and you weren't technically allowed to touch the girls but they could touch you and you were, ahem, allowed to touch yourself. Apparently there were more private areas you could access where different shenanigans were allowed, but this wasn't fully explained at the door.
"Um, I just wanted a beer," you protested, starting to back away.
"Oh, we can do that for you too," the Madam insisted. The girls were certainly prettier than the ones in the bathhouses back home, almost suspiciously so, but you were not particularly tempted by the offer. Also, you certainly didn't want to get on the wrong end of some clip joint scam and have some brothel bouncer thug try to rough you up to collect some outrageous tab for allegedly just having a single beer. You made a hasty exit and opted for finding somewhere to buy a cold bottle of water instead and wait for some more legitimate-seeming place to open up.
Time to choose something different: