Letters to the Editor	Letters Archive

Bathhouse = Whorehouse?

This past May, I attended [a sauna] in Zurich that has advertised with you. I thought it was a place to go for a sauna and to meet other men.

However, I soon discovered that, despite signs to the contrary, the club was mainly a place for male prostitutes to solicit money for sex. During an hour's time, at least four young men approached me for this purpose. Indeed, there seemed to be few guys there other than prostitutes and their johns. The old queen running the place did not care that this was happening.

I

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have nothing against prostitution, and feel that people should do as they wish, but I do have something against paying a sizable entry fee and entering what I did not know to be a whorehouse and then being told I'd need to pay another fee if I wanted to have sex!

I just wanted to point this out so your readers will know of this problem.

C.O.
Tampa, Florida

Thanks for the feedback. Surely, a world traveller such as yourself recognizes that hustling in bathhouses is commonplace. Establishments may be wary of advertising the fact because of local regulations. Many sauna-goers would be pleased to learn of many sex-for-hire opportunities, but given that you weren't, perhaps you could have interested one of the other presumed johns in some sexual fun for free?

Romanian Lesbian Wants Help

I am looking for a lesbian magazine like The Guide. In Romania there is nothing like this. Please, I beg you! I would be very happy to get a lesbian magazine because I am alone here and very unhappy.

Can you help me find such a magazine exclusively for women?

D.T.
Romania

A lesbian magazine just like The Guide? Alas, there is no such publication that we know of. If you have access to the internet, a search for "lesbian personals" will yield many options; perhaps such an on-line resource would help you in your quest for companionship and happiness.

Scam Widespread

We recently came across the article in your magazine about the scammer calling [businesses advertising in The Guide] from Toronto asking for money ["Scam Alert" June 2006,]. That guy called us, too!

It was a few months ago, and he was impersonating an ad sales person who hadn't worked here for a few years. The same exact story, too: funeral in Toronto, got mugged, waiting at the airport. He had a couple of us totally freaked out because he was so insistent and rude.

I'll be curious to hear what comes of it, if anything. Let me know if we can answer any questions.

Erika O'Connor
Deputy Editor, Damron Company

Indeed, we have heard from several gay businesses that they, too, have heard of this scammer's work: a call purportedly from a salesperson working for a gay publication made to advertisers, an urgent request for money to be wired, then... no more word and the sinking feeling that one has been had.

Thanks, Erika, for letting us print your letter as a warning to others.

Saludos!

My name is Rafael. I am happy in regards of The Guide. Thank you so much. You are embraced of friends!

R.R.P.
Santiago de Cuba, Cuba

Wants Black Pride Info

I have enjoyed The Guide over the years and found it to be a good LGBT travel resource. However, I was disappointed that none of the 30-plus Black Gay Pride events were listed in your June edition. Last year, over 300,000 Black LGBT and friends attended Black Gay Prides all over the US, and in Toronto and Johannesburg. This year the UK will be holding their first Black Gay Pride. The International Federation of Black Prides, Inc. (IFBP) provides a list of all Black Gay Pride events in the world. Check out ifbprides.orgfor the 2006 list.

Earl Fowlkes
IFBP President/CEO

Since we aim to cover every gay pride march we can find out about anywhere in the world (all right, we include the odd "pride picnic" or two if a locale has nothing else), we've, as a rule, drawn the line at "general" gay marches-- not specifically gay male pride marches (there aren't any that we know of), not specifically lesbian pride marches (a few of those), not "youth gay pride" (increasingly more of those), and not black gay pride marches. It's an arbitrary, but under the circumstances, reasonable cut-off.

Space constraint, thus, is a key reason for not separately listing black gay-pride events in our general gay-pride-march round-up. The other reason is partly ideological. Gay spaces in the past tended to be mixing grounds for people of different classes, ages, ethnicities, races, and gradations of butch and drag. The same is widely true of urban pre-Stonewall gay spaces around the world. The impulse to separate out that diversity, each unto its own channel, arguably represents the loss of genuine gay diversity rather than its attainment. There are arguments for more specialized events, of course, but do such events mean that the "general" accompanying parade or march is to be understood as just adult, only male, or all "white"?