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By Rick Martínez
There needs to a headcount of how many gay people live in Puerto Vallarta.
I’m gay and I live here, so there’s one. Those two guys walking on the beach holding hands don’t look Mediterranean so I’m guessing that makes at least three of us. Oh, and that cute Mexican guy working at the jewelry store on the Malecon has just got to be gay so the census is now at four.
The reason I’m curious is that after more than three years of living in this Mexican paradise I’m still not sure how numerous my extended family is. And now that I’m writing this column on gay Vallarta – this is the first! – I want to know how many friends of Dorothy I’m writing for and what they’re like.
Undoubtedly gay men outnumber lesbians. Why that is will surely be grist for a future column. As for who makes up the gay majority, foreigners or Mexicans, depends on which bar you go to and on which night of the week. It’s all so unscientific.
By some accounts Puerto Vallarta is the No. 1 gay destination in all of Latin America. That means the boys from Buenos Aires, the girls from Guatemala and, yes, the drag queens from Denver are all making this resort town ground zero when they want a little fun in the tropical sun.
Evidence of this pilgrimage will be abundant this week when the men arrive for Latin Fever (Nov 27 to Dec 1) and Vallarta Fever (Nov 27 to 30) and the parties those events spawn. (A quick confession: I promised myself last year that I would skip this year’s Latin Fever. All those beauties with six-pack abdomens and buns of steel packaged in thongs were just too intimidating. And this coming weekend when I’m speed-drinking margaritas at Green Chairs I will again make the same promise.)
The size of the gay community in Puerto Vallarta this week will be artificially inflated so we’re going to have to delay the census I so badly want. Instead, I’ll be working on a list of stories that need to be written about being gay in Vallarta. Please help. Hard news, soft news, ridiculous news, its all fair game. Drop me a line at Holachi@hotmail.com and let me know what’s on your mind.
Emails with photos of author with six-pack abdomen and wearing a thong get special attention.
Rick Martinez was a journalist in the United States for 15 years before moving to Mexico in 2005. His Spanish embarrasses him.
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