I thought I would share with the readers of this space the first TGBSW article I wrote. It appeared originally online on The Traveler’s Pen website in April 2007. I am reproducing the article below. Enjoy!
On a recent trip to Puerto Vallarta, I encountered a copy of a magazine called “Destinations” emblazoned with the headline, “20 Cities Gay Men Must Visit.” All the usual suspects crowded inside the glossy pages: San Francisco, New York, Amsterdam, Sydney, and, of course, Puerto Vallarta. I held in my hands the official map of the global gay ghetto.
Granted, it is a big, straight world and always will be. And while countries and regions hostile to gay and lesbian travelers exist, we should not allow ourselves to become restricted to gay destinations or events when traveling. Traveling gay – as opposed to gay travel – means acknowledging that your identity affects your perspective without limiting what you perceive.
In 1997, I took a “bar trip,” a wonderful contrivance where simply taking the state bar to qualify to practice law (without yet knowing if you passed) entitles you to an extravagant trip for the effort. I traveled to Turkey with three friends from law school – a straight female friend and two gay male friends. In addition to being a challenging place for gay men, female travelers must be careful in Turkey as well. Some Turkish men can be quite aggressive and consider women who dress in more revealing styles of the West whores at worst and shameful at best.
My friends and I appeared an intriguing quartet. Our female friend, Kristen, locally dubbed Madame Chocolat (pronounced in the French as sho-ko-lah) due to her darker complexion, seemed the embodiment of the decadent, wealthy, Western female with her harem of three white lovers. For most, the truth would have been beyond comprehension with our gumbo-like melange of races, ethnicities, and sexual orientations.
I remember my first fajr (Islam’s pre-dawn call to prayer) as a personal epiphany that I existed somewhere unlike anywhere else I had ever been. Istanbul – and the rest of Turkey – possesses cultural and historical treasures mind boggling to Americans. The Haghia Sophia dates from the 6th Century CE. Simply being in the presence of such a vast remnant of history that survived our pugilistic and destructive humankind is humbling. Turkey practices a secularized version of Islam as its official religion with Sunni Muslims in the majority. Turkish, of course, is spoken as is French and “trader English,” meaning most people speak enough English to perform a transaction.
One of the highlights of our trip was our visit to Büyük Ada, an island in the Bosporous famous for its 18th and 19th century wooden mansions built as relaxing escapes for the wealthy denizens of Istanbul. We traveled to the island by mid-day ferry, and I remember through my Dramamine haze wanting to take a black-and-white photograph of two uniform-clad schoolboys – who were maybe 10 years old – but feared how other passengers might interpret the act.
The crisp white of their shirts contrasting hazelnut skin, the two boys sat side-by-side with one leaning gently on the other. The arm of the one leaning entwined the handle on a burlap sac of groceries, a long, tan baguette protruding and resting against the back of their wooden bench. Cradling my camera, my American cultural baggage weighed on me as I knew that I would never consider such an act in the U.S. for fear of being marked with the new scarlet letter: P for pedophile. Did I appear “gay” to the Turkish people? Were most even aware of such things? Turkey is not a country where you want to flaunt being gay, and I did not want my interest in the boys to be misidentified as prurient. Ironically, because of the strictures of Islam, Turkey is a place where you see much same-sex affection in public and almost none between men and women. Not willing to risk offense, I kept my camera shuttered and napped instead.
After arriving on Büyük Ada, we searched for a room for the night. One of us, probably Brad who had been to Turkey before, had a listing for a boarding house, which at first glance should have been on the verge of condemnation if Turkish officials had been so inclined. An older woman who spoke no English greeted us and motioned for us to follow her up an ancient, worn staircase and led us through several large barracks-like rooms with minimal furnishings and thread-bare linens. Once we men found an adequate option, the woman directed Kristen to a different room one floor beneath us.
Although we felt we had negotiated a room for the night, I was not quite certain. I would not have been surprised if we had been asked to leave at 2 a.m. having misunderstood and strained the hospitality – as humble as it was – of our hosts. Actually, being asked to leave may have been preferable to the night we experienced: a night filled with distant moans interrupted by shouting matches, various flying insects, and unexpected sneezing fits from my friend, Tom. It may not have involved a sinking ship, but it was a night to remember. At least I had company, unlike poor Kristen in a room alone. I did not recognize her voice as one of the many populating the night air, so I tried not to worry.
Welcoming daylight, we set out to enjoy the charms of the island, one of which was the lack of automobiles as none is allowed on Büyük Ada. We took a horse-drawn carriage ride to get our bearings, stopping along the way to observe the natural beauty of the island and enjoy our time away from the pollution of the city. At one such stop, we watched a woman in a black burka holding a camcorder up to her narrow eye slit capturing the smiles of her husband and children in the little black box, technology granting a perspective previously disallowe. Before heading back to Istanbul, we spent a few hours perusing the island shops and eating wonderful Turkish food full of complex flavors.
Our last night in Istanbul arrived suddenly with much wine and sadness. I was returning to Atlanta while my friends were heading back to San Francisco, and I did not know when I would see them again. Travel, it seems, may be as much about what we leave behind as where we are going.