life that I could locate. Amongst the small contingent of the British Army stationed in broken-down Belize a few hundred bored, lonely, uncertain teen-men-homosexual practices are very common.
In San Salvador, El Salvador, and Tegucigalpa, Honduras . . . nothing.
Managua, Nicaragua, is not a wonderful town, as the song once told us. It is small, hot, dirty, and replete with prostitutes. The open-air Cafe Madrid is the nearest thing to a gay bar; and here I met a gay official of the U. S. diplomatic corps, who told me that things were very dull indeed.
San Jose, Costa Rica is a pleasant. pretty little place, slowly being choked to death by the clouds of ash from nearby, angry Irazu. But in a week spent there, I located no gay life at all.
Panama City has some glittering brothels; but despite the U. S. influence, no apparent gay life. Illustrated wash-room verse, as in the other Latin lands, differs little from that anywhere else in the world. A toilet wall disclosed that "maricon," whose dictionary meaning is simply "effeminate," here means the same as in Cuba "queer," used contemptuously. (I believe that things have changed in Havana since 1956-the time for my Cuban visit. Under Batista, brothels, street-walkers and open vice were the order of the day.)
In Caracas, I made my first genuine, local, valuable, gay contact-a Venezuelan who had spent most of his life in the U. S.-so that the following notes are a mixture of my observation and his information. It was here that I came across the one and only local gay couple I ever saw in Latin America-on the street, that is. I followed them to a small area on the smart Avenida Lincoln-the "Broadway" of Caracas where there
are several sidewalk cafes. One is
called the Mariposa, and this is a gathering place for many attractive, smartly-dressed young men. They are far from obvious, but this is the nearest to a gay bar there is. I returned a couple of times, dressed in my best new clothes, and nellied around for a while. . . but with no result.
On one warm evening, I took an experimental cruise in my tight white levis, but drew no results. Yet on another occasion, when I happened to be walking quietly along the street wearing the same pants, I drew several wolf-whistles!
In the days of PJ (as Perez Jimenez is "affectionately" known) things were much freer. Now under Romulo Betancourt (and presumably under
his successor and protege, Raul Leoni) gay life is very difficult, and things are very quiet. The once quitenotorious gay bar, but the only one, is now closed. Apparently there are no laws about homosexuality, and there are no arrests. Everything, it seems, is very underground.
Out of sheer boredom, I took to movie-going on a grand scale. They are shown in English with Spanish sub-titles (and reading these can be quite an hilarious pastime in itself!) Audiences are inclined to be vociferous at things they apparently don't like, and I was often startled by shouts, yells and derisive remarks about nothing at all-or so it appeared to me.
In "Convicts Four," a prison movie, after a mild gay mention. when the word "Paraiso" appeared on the screen, all hell let loose. It must have some special local meaning, but I couldn't find out what. The local prison is notorious for homosexual practices, but this is not its name "El Paraiso" is an ordinary residential suburb.
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On the other hand, in "Sodom and Gomorrah" the slight lesbian touches
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