[LarryL]

I'm french, and live in France, near Paris.

In France, there is only (AFAIK) _one_ love hotel (inspired by the japanese ones).

It's pretty small and the rooms are not big at all, but okayish (I only visited once).

What's interesting is the history of its creation: from what I've read, it was pretty hard to get the authorizations (which explains why there are not any others). Basically, this is the old B.S. about prostitution. Which is total hogwash because they check your ID when you go in, so it would be impossible for an escort to use it with more than a couple customers (and regular hotels are frequently used for escorting anyway so what's the difference?).

Personally, I think that love hotels are a great thing, much better than a regular hotel, and MANY people would benefit from those. Especially people in alternative sexualities (like myself) for whom finding a place to have sex is often a serious problem: going to one partner's home is often seen as a risk for security & anonymity.

BTW, there has also been recently (one year ago), the opening of a "sex doll brothel" in Paris, and they were also checked by the police... Seriously, a freaking SEX DOLL hotel! It's crazy how anything related to sex in any way creates so much problems.

[dayvid]

Sadly, I don't think love hotels would work in America. Too many people disrespect and trash public spaces. It's the same reason they don't have net cafes like they do in Japan (where you can informally crash and use the internet).

[elsonrodriguez]

I don't know how prevalent they are nation-wide, but Miami had quite a few hotels that billed by the hour. Some even had private attached garages so nobody would see you and your date enter the room. The room quality varied depending on the hotel, along with the price, but even the cheaper rooms were passable.

[andrewflnr]

I don't know exactly how common they were, but I've definitely been to an internet café in the US (in a very small town FWIW). AFAICT they're gone because they just don't make economic sense anymore with everyone having a WiFi device already.

[joezydeco]

They wouldn't work in the anonymous sense of automated check-in and etc. But they do exist.

In the Chicago area there are two: Aura and Sybaris. It's by the evening and not the hour, but Sybaris has been operating here since the 1970s:

https://www.sybaris.com/suites/paradise-swimming-pool-suite/

You also have the honeymoon-based hotels in the Poconos as another example.

https://www.racked.com/2015/6/5/8734965/my-girlfriend-and-i-...

[mturmon]

There are by-the-hour day spas in LA that often serve this purpose. They seem to be used as meet spots for paid hookups, although they serve other uses as well.

[roguecoder]

Bath houses for gay men worked similarly for years in the US.

[Iv]

If a stay in a love hotel is $75, isn't that around the price of a cheap hotel room anyway for a night? Pay "a night", have a fuck, check out. I am sure most hotels in France would not bat an eye, would they?

French living in Japan here btw. One of my friends who "goes out" far more than I do did not recommend love hotels, he would just go to regular ones. What you need is a bed and a bathroom. If you want toys, lubricants, condoms, bring your own, really, what more services does a love hotel really offer?

Unless you are into heavy bdsm a regular hotel has all you need.

[ryanlol]

Love hotels I’ve seen generally provide rooms by the hour, $75 could be pretty pricey.

The rooms will also often come with conviniently shaped furniture which you just won’t find at the Ritz.

[yannovitch]

Faux, I am pretty sure I remember seeing a "love hotel" in Strasbourg too, which billed by the hour (not a big fan of hotel in general, so don't know more about that)