Planet Homo

Pink Choice: Wrong Number One Destination

What a maze of contradictions pinkchoice.com is regarding their current list of top 10 Gay and Lesbian Travel Destinations. Their number one choice is a city where "in 2005, twenty-six young men were arrested at a Abu Dhabi hotel, after police discovered the men engaging in cross-dressing and homosexual practices. In discussing the raid, Mohammed bin Nukhaira Al Dhahiri, Minister of Justice, Islamic Affairs and Auqaf stated, “There will be no room for homosexual and queer acts in the UAE. Our society does not accept queer behaviour, either in word or in action.”  Pink Choice , one of the "largest and most trusted websites for gay and lesbian hotel reviews, today announced results from its first annual Gay and Lesbian Travel Survey. The results shed some light on the health and direction of gay travel in 2009 and going into 2010. Over 500 individuals completed the survey." Their Dubai review states: "Dubai offers a level of accommodation for the gay and lesbian traveler not easily matched in other destinations. Although specific gay hotels or gay guesthouses are no existent, there is amply gay friendly boutique hotels, inns, and guesthouses for the discerning gay and lesbian traveler." There is no mention of the hazards vacationing in a city where: "The C.I.D. (Criminal Investigation Division) are everywhere. There are special units of the C.I.D. that go to pubs frequented often by gays just to entrap us." (from Spartacus Guide). Wikitravel states: Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender travelers should be particularly careful, as homosexuality, along with sexual relations outside of marriage, is a criminal offense with possible deportation. Public displays of affection or cross dressing may lead to jail time and, or deportation, and therefore this should be avoided completely while in public to ensure no legal problems arise.

Sorry, this simply wrong. To be on the list, let alone number one on that list of recommended places is reckless and potentially dangerous. We contacted pinkchoice, but they were apparently away on vacation, hopefully, not in Dubai.

postmortem: From pinkchoice: Thanks for your email. You are absolutely right- having Dubai as our top gay destination is ludicrous, but here is the background. We added Dubai as a destination some time ago because a member had posted a review about a hotel there. The list we show on our home page is dynamic and relates to the number of visits each destination page has received in the past 31 days. It just so happens that searches for gay accommodation in Dubai has outpaced all our other destinations . I guess it shows that despite their laws, there is gay interesting the place.

So what do we do about this? I've decided that, for the moment we will remove Dubai from our listings, and wait until such time that someone complains that it is not on the site!

We are always pleased to receive feedback such as yours. The Dubai issue has been bothering me for a little while so I'm pleased you brought it to a head!

Best Gay Bars 2009: Best of GayCities

Which bar will get the bragging rights this year? From stripper clubs to drag bars, you know the best out there. Give us your take and we'll reward you with a chance to win a trip to the bar that garners the most votes. If you don't see your favorite, write it in and campaign for it. Everyone can vote, but you must be a GayCities member to be eligible for the prize, so sign up now. Voting ends on December 31st at midnight ET.

via www.gaycities.com

Night of the Iguana

If you have never seen this 1964 classic black and white film by legendary director John Houston, rent it. The film is the stuff of legends: The movie featured a defrocked priest (Burton), bawdy widow (Ava Gardner), spinster artist (Deborah Kerr) and nymphet (Sue Lyon, fresh from Lolita). But Liz Taylor upstaged the entire 1964 film with her saucy shenanigans. Her passionate affair with the leading man – both were married to other partners – garnered headlines around the world. After the filming, the couple lingered in the idyllic tropical town. For her 32nd birthday, Burton gave her Casa Kimberly, a $57,000 villa linked to his own by an arched, cotton-candy-pink bridge, one story above the cobbled street. Also present were the peculiar playwright Tennessee Williams and rowdy, pistol-packing Mexican director-actor Emilio Fernandez. Once Huston reminisced: "The press gathered down there expecting something to happen with all these volatile personalities. They felt the lid would blow off and there would be fireworks. When there weren’t any, they were reduced to writing about Puerto Vallarta. And, I’m afraid, that was the beginning of its popularity, which was a mixed blessing." One only wonders if Williams had his way with the two very sexy Mexican servants, Pedro and Pepe, who literally shake their maracas throughout the movie. The film was made in 1963; while filming, President Kennedy was assassinated. Houston, fed up with America, would renounce his US citizenship. He would eventually retire to Puerto Vallarta. The film itself is extraordinary for its performances: Richard Burton casts a sexy, boyish charm to his defrocked priest. Ava Gardner plays Maxine, a kind of retired beat poet hostess who gets to keep the Mexican boys, but yearns for Burton. Deborah Kerr is the unsuspecting key to the movie. Clearly there was something going on (in character) with Burton and Kerr, and she gets to deliver the best Williams lines. Tennessee Williams certainly did have this themes, and one them was poetry. In this film, a 97 year old poet completes his final poem and dies. But there is poetry throughout this film, in that fascinating mood that only Tennessee Williams could create, which is a world where people speak in beautiful metaphors with lush prose that nearly borders the ridiculous, but manages to stay just on the side of reason.

Jet

 

We're taking a little hiatus from all the world as we head to the steamy tropics of Mexico. Tomorrow will be the Summer Solstice, the first day of Summer so it's an appropriate day to travel. We will be sending reports back between margaritas and guest bloggers will take up some of the space while we enjoy this sojourn.

Maybe, they just like Chicago?

Like the Twilight Zone episode, "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet", United Airlines employees at Chicago's O' Hare airport are reporting to witness a UFO, but the government and their bosses are not taking them seriously. On November 7th, at least 12 workers reported the incident to the airline. Said one employee, "I tend to be scientific by nature, and I don't understand why aliens would hover over a busy airport," a United mechanic who said he observed the metallic-looking object above Gate C17 told the Tribune. "But I know that what I saw and what a lot of other people saw stood out very clearly, and it definitely was not an [Earth] aircraft." The object, described as a saucerlike object left a hole in overcast skies after bolting through thick clouds with intense energy. But Union officials such as Craig Burzych have responded "To fly 7 million light years to O'Hare and then have to turn around and go home because your gate was occupied is simply unacceptable."
In a related incident, The French space agency, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales will be begin to place information on some 6,000 reports on UFO activity on line sometime early this year.

Gay Friendly Cities Survey Results

San Francisco is the gay friendliest town for travelers it was reported today in a survey conducted by the Travel Industry Association. Among the top ten are Key West, Fla.; New York City; Fire Island, which is part of Long Island in New York; Provincetown, Mass.; Los Angeles; Miami-South Beach, Fla.; Las Vegas; New Orleans, and Palm Springs-Palm Desert, Calif.

The survey was was national and was conducted online among 2,020 self-identified gay travelers 21 and older who have taken at least one leisure trip within the past 12 months. A place where gay men could hold hands was cited among more than half of the respondents.

Bob Witeck, CEO of Witeck-Combs Communications said the survey showed that gay and lesbian travelers are not looking for special treatment, but are simply "expecting consideration and equal respect given all customers."