Letters to the Editor	Letters Archive

Travel Info Update Needed?

I love your mag, and always start with your listings and advertisers when planning a trip. But your info on San Juan, Puerto Rico, needs some serious updating. The scene has changed tremendously in the past year. Hopefully you have contacts there who can get you the latest info.

David Weiser
Boston, Massachusetts

Thanks for the feedback. Travel articles appear in print within days or weeks of our travel reps' visits, so current magazine info is always up-to-date; of course, articles archived at our web site and listings taken for the year grow older, and potentially less accurate, until updated the following year.

View our poll archive

Appreciates Accuracy

Yours is a great magazine for gay guys like me. The only suggestions I make is I hope that its updated every month, and I wish that you provided a page where people can send an event/update to each city, so gay travelers will have access to the most updated information.

A lot of gay guys now use The Guide magazine rather than Spartacus because your magazine concentrates on major gay cities in the world; thus, the listings are more accurate. I used Spartacus before, and almost half of the items are obsolete or the businesses were closed.

The key to your magazine success is the information that you provide: the more accurate it is, the more people will use it. It would be good if you list a helpful URL or other links to each city, in this way, people can update the information that they get.

sent anonymously
via the Internet

Thanks; our improved web site will indeed have features for listing more current happenings and taking user input for updating information.

Why Allow Prisoner Ads?

Why do you allow all these people in prison to put personal ads in your magazine? Do you really think that these individuals who are in correctional facilities are looking for the man of their dreams? I believe that you are putting your readers in jeopardy when an overwhelming percentage of your ads are from convicted felons. When was the last time you went on a date with a felon? I envision some lonely and vulnerable guy getting on to your web site and getting involved with one of these guys festering in jail waiting for the next sucker to fall victim to them.

I am not telling you how to run your publication, but I am concerned. I am sensitive to violence, especially in the gay community.

Christopher Zaccour
cbzaccour@webtv.net

Many, many, many readers seem to enjoy corresponding with prisoners. Why? Who knows. Probably some like the idea of helping those whom others despise. Some like the fantasy aspect of a long-distance, never-to-be requited love affair. Some are sexually attracted to bad boys. Others might appreciate the loyal correspondence some lonely prisoners are capable of. Please remember that in the US's record-setting drive to incarcerate evermore citizens, most prisoners are not charged with crimes involving violence, and many haven't done anything that a rational society would call a crime. Still, it is prudent to exercise caution when corresponding with anyone, prisoner or not.

PS- In many states, when a guy dates (i.e., fucks) another guy, they are both most likely de facto felons....

Left Out?

You have left out a city "strung across the middle of the Empire State, amid green rolling hills" ["Upstate and Western New York," July 1998].

Syracuse, 90 minutes east of Rochester, is the other urban center of New York beyond the Big Apple. I urge you to come check us out. Home to Syracuse University we offer a range of entertainment and recreational spots. I invite you to enjoy dinner at TuTu Venue, followed by the warm hospitality of Charades, and if you are ready to dance the night away Trexx is waiting for you, open till 4 am on Fridays and Saturdays.

Jeff
jwright8@ix.netcom.com

Thanks for the invites; hope you'll invite Syracuse's gay businesses to consider "visiting" our pages with their ads, as well.