A word to the wise from Trevor L. of Austin TX on a close call in Central America:

I just recently found your web site and phrasebook series (great stuff, BTW), and found this “Kiss & Tell” column pretty interesting. My own contribution I guess you could say has been my most outstanding in a bad way – but I wanted to send it more than anything to give guys a heads-up. Not long ago I was in Nicaragua, which has some great stuff to offer: volcanoes; beautiful beaches on both Pacific and Caribbean; eco-lodges; and really nice colonial towns like Granada and León (the coffee’s great down here, too!). Plus the locals are generally lovely. It recently legalized homosexuality and the capital has a couple of gay clubs, but has a long way to go in the equal rights area. More to the point, it’s also an extremely poor country, and so you have to be super careful with some of them — gay as well as straight.

So I met this guy on GayRomeo.com, Óscar Mendoza, who said he was studying law and worked at a law firm. Age 24, cute, polite, educated, professional – about as good a package as you can expect in a country like this (someone else who knew him later even confirmed the lawyer part). So he visits me in my hotel room in Managua, and we fuck – he’s a bottom, and I must say he was pretty damn boring at it. Then I went out into the countryside for a couple of days, and when I came back he really wanted to meet again one particular night because he was going out of town the following day. I really didn’t feel moved enough to repeat, but dumb me, I felt sorry for him, so said OK. This time, after screwing (yawn again), we were watching music videos when he said, “oh, we need more ice in our drinks.” OK, whatever. So he went to the ice bucket in the bathroom, and the next thing I knew, it was the next morning, and my Blackberry and $200 were gone, along with Óscar the cute but boring bottom.

It wasn’t so much the money – and not even the Blackberry, though let me tell you I was super pissed about all that lost info – and at least he didn’t take my camera or laptop (I guess they would’ve been tougher to sneak out of the hotel). It was more than anything the fact that I was drugged with an unknown and possibly dangerous substance and unconscious while this little shit was looking around the room for stuff to steal. He could’ve done anything to me or stolen anything. I was freaked out, woozy from whatever it was he slipped me, and just to be on the safe side I started an HIV prophylaxis the moment I got home. I reported it to the cops (I even had the guy’s phone, e-mail, picture, and the name of the neighborhood where he lived), but naturally nothing came of it. On the plus side, I think I definitely got some sense scared into me. So guys, especially when you’re traveling in the Third World, take absolutely nothing for granted.

Editor’s reply: Boy, were you afortunado, dude. I’m going to be totally serious on this one, too: As you learned, when you go fishing in waters like these, you can’t be too careful. And though you thought you were dealing with a “professional,” you can’t take anybody’s word for anything. And if you had to invite him back, you should’ve at least had your stuff locked up in your room safe. Most gays in countries like these meet each other through trusted friends or professional settings, and if that option isn’t open to you, it’s generally not worth the risk. You don’t blithely cruise down to places like this and assume you can carry on just as you would in Austin or Amsterdam. And don’t count on the local cops — I can tell you from personal experience they’re often ineffectual and/or corrupt. So it’s usually best to keep it in your pants in situations like this. How often have we read about some gringo found knifed or strangled in some Third World hotel room? That’s the sad reality, bucko.

In this forum, we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable, funniest, most romantic, or otherwise superlative date, instance of falling in love, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture—either abroad or in your home country.

EcceHomo of Chatham, NJ enjoys some good, clean, dirty, foamy fun:

I’ve got to tell you about when I was in Barcelona for the second time, this time in summer – it was a hot July last year in more ways than one. I’d had a kind of tough and not terribly exciting year back home, and decided to really treat myself on my summer vacation. So for starters this time I splurged on a room at the boutiquey Axel — not cheap but a great place, very stylish, and couldn’t be more central. It was a little hard to adjust to the incredibly late nights, but I managed somehow, LOL, and I must’ve hit every club in town along with several of the saunas. One of the coolest things that happened though, was at the Metro disco, right off Gran Via downtown. It’s in a basement – basically a big room with stone arches and a darkroom alongside – and has has been around for a few years, but it’s still pretty popular and you can find some pretty hot guys there. When I was at this one bar Zeltas, somebody told me about a fiesta de la espuma (foam party) later that week at Metro, and since I’d heard about them but had never been to one, I decided to check it out.

So everybody was checking their clothes at the coat check, and going downstairs in underwear or swimsuits. For the first 45 minutes or so, nothing much happened, just the usual bar scene, with several people dancing. But then the show finally got underway – the “cannon” at the far end started spewing out foam onto the main dance floor, and some people started wading in and dancing right away. Finally, when it got about waist high, I downed my beer and joined them. It was kinda weird feeling – there was a little bit of a soapy smell, and the stuff felt a little warm, too. It’s funny, maybe it was the beers, or maybe just the fact that everybody’s kind of visible but “covered” at the same time, but I could tell people were getting a little frisky under all that foam, so I figured, what the hell. I spotted this tall, kinda thin guy with a goatee that I’d had my eye on, sidled up to him, and kind of brushed his side once or twice. Hmm, I guess not interested, I thought – then he turned around to face me and put my hand in his briefs, right on his hard cock! This was more like it. We made out and felt each other up for a bit, then went into the darkroom for a blowjob (it’s a little uncomfortable to do under that foam). When I came out, I saw the stuff was almost up the ceiling in some corners, and some of the shorter people were walking around like fish breaking the water – trying to keep their heads above it.

As the night went on, things kept up at this same sexy pitch. At one point I found myself in a group of, must’ve been 15 or so guys, most of us totally naked by now and all writhing and slithering and doing pretty much everything except fucking. And even that – at one point I felt somebody’s hard-on poking into my crack and obviously trying to get in, and I was like, whoah, dude… I didn’t notice that it was like 3AM by now, they’d switched off the cannon, and bit by bit the foam was evaporating. Suddenly I realized that there we were, this group of naked guys feeling each other up like mad, totally exposed in the middle of the dance floor. And off to one side I spotted a couple of girls – dykes, I guess – leaning on the railing, chin in hand, taking it all in ever so calmly. Anyway, there was an “after” party at Thermas sauna, but instead I ended up going back to the hotel with with the tall goateed guy – he was Catalan and his name was Josep – and finally got dicked properly. It was an amazing experience, worth even the side effect I found the next day: that stuff can really chafe your balls! LOL.

In this forum, we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable, funniest, most romantic, or otherwise superlative date, instance of falling in love, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture—either abroad or in your home country.

Bucky H. from Sherman Oaks, CA, joins the mile-high club. Jeez, talk about meating cute…

Remember the brouhaha last fall when Singapore Air made a splash by trying to nix nookie in the fancy first-class suites of its new Airbus 380’s? Good luck with that, I thought. It reminded me of the time not long before when I was flying transatlantic and lucked out in nabbing a spot in first-class (no, I’m not rich, it was connections—long story). It wasn’t a private suite at all, but one of those setups with fancy pods and seats that turn into flat beds. Well, here I am enjoying a glass of Rioja and watching I-don’t-remember-what on the vidscreen, and I see this young dude coming back from the head and very definitely giving me the eye; he’s medium height, darkish, nice tight little bod – very much the way I like them, actually. I wasn’t in cruise mode so I just met his eyes as he passed by, and that was it. But then, a little while later, same thing – and this time he nods, and I give a little smile. I tried to see where he was sitting, but I lost track. Oh, well. Then, after lights-out, I’m winding up my movie and suddenly I feel a presence. I look up, and it’s this same kid, sorta stopped next to my seat, standing very close, his hand sort of hanging there invitingly at eye level. It was a little bit of a chance, I guess, but I reached up and gave it a quick stroke – and he ran his hand down my arm. I quickly pulled him down into the seat with me, pulled the privacy curtain around us, and hung out the “do not disturb” sign. It was a little narrow, but let me tell you, we managed to screw ourselves a good part-way over the Atlantic. The toughest part was keeping totally quiet, but that was more than outweighed by the fact that it was incredible hot to be sliding up into this hot boy’s booty with all these posh airline passengers sleeping all around us. Turned out he was an off-duty flight attendant for the same airline, taking advantage of an available seat — his name was Rodrigo, and later he helped spice up my time on the ground over there, too. So that was how I joined the mile-high club — and it just goes to show you, where there’s a woodie, there’s a way.

In this forum, we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable, funniest, most romantic, or otherwise superlative date, instance of falling in love, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture—either abroad or in your home country.

How about a Lebensfick from MikeyLikesIt of Westerly, RI?

On my last trip to Europe I found myself in eastern Germany, the part that was Communist until 1989, and spent a couple of days in Leipzig, staying at the Accento Hotel and seeing the Markt, the Thomaskirche, all the stuff you should see. It was great – really a very interesting, civilized place. So one afternoon I met this guy Dirk – blond, cute, crew cut – at the Stargayte bath house. And after a really hot session I invited him to have dinner with me but he had something to do but said we could meet up later on (I was straining my very rusty high-school German here, but so far so good). So, cool, I went out and had dinner myself, and thought probably I’d never see the dude again, you know how these things go. We were supposed to meet at this club called Garage, and what the heck, I went anyway, cause I was going to go out anyway, after all. Well, I was pleasantly surprised when Dirk actually showed up, and so we hung out, drank some beers, danced a little, then he came back with me to the hotel.

It was pretty hot again, I have to say – here he was looking all butch and Aryan, and wanting me to plug the shit out of him. We fucked a couple of times, and then talked a little, which we didn’t get a chance to do at the sauna. I didn’t remotely understand everything he said, but I got that he was talking about how things weren’t so good in this part of Germany for Leute wie uns (people like us), and I wasn’t sure if he meant gay people, or locals in general, or what. He got pretty intense, too, and it was making me feel kind of uncomfortable, so I started making out with him again, and we got into it one more time. This time I had him on his knees, and as I was going away at it I noticed a little tattoo right above his buttcrack, like two little side-by-side squiggles. I couldn’t make it out that clearly, because the lights were low. But afterward I managed to get a closer look, and it hit me: it was the thunderbolt symbol of the SS [editor’s note: the SS was the most elite military wing of Nazi Germany].

I suddenly felt kind of nervous, because obviously the guy was gay as a goose but he was also some kind of friggin’ neo-Nazi. I wanted to shout at him, are you nuts? You would’ve been near the top of the list to get sent to Auschwitz or wherever! But my German wasn’t up to something that complicated, and anyway I just wanted him out of there, and so I said I didn’t feel well and I’d see him tomorrow. I often think about Dirk, about how screwed up do you have to be to be a fag and believe in that kind of hate – I guess it’s not so different from the Log Cabin Republicans. But though I learned a lot about history on that trip, Dirk was the memory that most stayed with me. What a world, eh?

In this forum, we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable, funniest, most romantic, or otherwise superlative date, instance of falling in love, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture—either abroad or in your home country.

How about a sultry Latin fate-tempter from Xavier B. of Halifax, Nova Scotia?

I love Latin America, and especially Cuba. I first visited in 2000, and have been back many times since — in spite of its awful dictatorship it’s one of the coolest countries I’ve ever visited, and Havana may be falling apart but beauty-wise it’s really up there with Paris, Buenos Aires, Prague, and cities like those. And the people are not only mostly friendly (including to Americans) in spite of their hardships, many of them are absolutely fucking gorgeous. On this first trip, I was on a tour bus heading toward Viñales and Pinar del Río, the tobacco-growing western part of the island, when it made a pit stop at a thatched-roof roadside restaurant, where, naturally, a band was cranking out Buena Vista Social Club-type tunes. As I walked back to the bus from the bar, I passed a tall, well-built guy who reminded me of Antonio Banderas except even more handsome, and we both turned around to eye each other. He went around the side of the restaurant and I followed. I had to get back on my bus, but we said hi — his English was good, turned out he was a Havanatur guide — and he gave me his cell number.

That night, back in the Hotel Nacional, I called Eloy and we made a date to meet in Old Havana for a mojito at La Bodeguita del Medio, the bar where Hemingway used to booze it up (terrible touristy, I know, so shoot me). We hit it off really well, and strolled the cobblestone streets for an hour, then decided to head to El Morro, the big old stone fort at the harbor entrance, since I hadn’t been out there yet. I really wanted to go somewhere and rip his clothes off, he was so hot — but I also wanted to see the sights, and he was really into showing me around. So we took one of those old taxis out — it was a ’56 Packard in pretty damn good condition. It was a warm, sunny day and there were very few other people around. We roamed the ramparts, the courtyards, the barracks, took in some of the exhibits, and then at one point we found ourselves heading deep into the fortress through a chilly passageway that ended in a deserted dead end.

As we turned to head back up, we caught each other’s eye and I don’t know, something clicked, and when we brushed against each other, we just went for it — just started making out, and before you knew it we had our pants down and were jacking and sucking each other passionately. It was incredibly hot, maybe partly because it was incredibly dangerous — I can’t even imagine what the penalty for desecrating a national monument by having sex in it would be in a place like Communist Cuba. But before too long I think we came to our senses and put our pingas away before we got caught. Fortunately, we were able to have a proper follow-up the next night at the apartment of a friend of Eloy’s. And I realize how amazingly stupid taking a chance like that was. But I don’t think I’ll ever forget that historic humjob in one of the Americas’ oldest buildings.

In this forum, we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable, funniest, most romantic, or otherwise superlative date, instance of falling in love, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture—either abroad or in your home country.

L’amore in the afternoon, from Michael L. of New York City

Just a few minutes after seeing the pope, I got lucky in the Sistine Chapel, under the outstretched hands of God and Adam. I was in Rome for World Pride, the first one, in 2000, the year of the Catholic Church’s jubilee. What intrigued me about the man I met at first was his shirt and its stylized American flag. As I stared at it, I realized he was staring back at me. It took a few moments for me to get it: he wasn’t annoyed at me – he was cruising me.

Slowly I moved towards him, eyeing the guards and doing my best to ignore the thousands of camera toting tourists in the room. Turned out his name was Gianluca, he was from Milan and he’d come to visit a friend, one of the hundreds of gay men who help keep theVatican running.

As it also turned out, he was staying at the home of another friend (whose name I won’t divulge), a prince who’d been married to one of the world’s most famous fashion designers of the 1970’s. The apartment, really a sort of palace, was just nearby, and we walked there past the Castel Sant’Angelo and other dramatic ancient monuments.

A servant let us into the dark interior of this opulently baroque home, where mostly I remember lots of red brocade couches and lots of photographs of the famous designer – I was actually staring at one of these as I entered my new friend. We were both careful to make sure not to make a mess on the carpets and furnishings, and wiped off our lube-slicked handprints from the top of a table near her picture when we were done. As we stumbled back out into the bright afternoon, Gianluca commented that in Italy and the rest of Europe, no one really cares who sleeps with whom – men, women, mistresses, misters, whatever. La dolce vita, indeed…

In this forum, we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable, funniest, most romantic, or otherwise superlative date, instance of falling in love, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture—either abroad or in your home country.

A scarring experience from “HoleGrain” of Vancouver, British Columbia:

Nothing like this has happened to me before or since. I was in the goregous Chakran sauna in Bangkok, Thailand about a year ago after touring in places like Chang Mai, Phuket, and Pattaya, and this also gorgeous young guy — pretty tall and built for a Thai, actually, which is good because I’m not into the wispy little girly types — have been doing the usual little hallway mating dance for 15 minutes or so, and finally he follows me into a cubicle, then gets down on his knees and starts sucking me off. He’s very good at it, and his hands are roaming all over me. That went on for a while, and we finally ended up lying down kissing and jacking each other, and before long I was majorly hot to let him have it. So I reach down, pull his towel off — and think, damn, that feels funny. I look down, and from the waist down to his knees his backside’s this hard mass of twisted scar tissue!

Yes, of course I was freaking out, but I’m also kind of a sap and don’t want to hurt the kid’s feelings — I figure his life must be tough enough — so after a little feeling around, I realize I can in fact get in there and go through with it. So I do. It felt a little strange, a little rough around the edges of his hole, but not unpleasant. Peach (that’s what he called himself – short for a name I probably couldn’t pronounce) really seemed to love and appreciate it, though. And after he told me his story — he was scalded by boiling water when he was 4, yet he wasn’t wallowing in self-pity — I was glad I didn’t add to what I’m sure was a lot of rejection throughout his life. We went out a couple of times socially during the rest of my holiday, and to this day we still occasionally exchange e-mails. Kinda takes the whole don’t-judge-a-book-by-its-cover thing to another level, doesn’t it?

In this forum, we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable, funniest, most romantic, or otherwise superlative date, instance of falling in love, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture—either abroad or in your home country.

An early candidate for homo headcase of the year, from Paul V. in Coral Gables, Florida:

Hi, I’m a “gringo” living in Miami, the capital of Latin America, and last summer my Cuban boyfriend and I meet this guy on Manhunt, a doctor from Naples, Italy, early 30’s. I’d been out for most of the day so didn’t get to see the guy’s profile (I generally trust my BF’s judgment). So we get in the car and drive out to this guy Vittorio’s place in South Beach a block below Lincoln Road, and as he opens the door we see he is indeed a hot little fucker, with a tight, defined, lightly furry bod and really piercing blue eyes. Nice — but I think, “hmmm, I’ve seen this dude somewhere before.” Anyway, pretty soon we’re down to business, taking turns screwing the shit out of him to the strains of Carmina Burana on his stereo — I mean, hot-and-heavy sex to the max. Then, as I’m watching my BF give him a good rear-ending, it hits me.

Turns out I’d been chatting with this same guy online a couple of months earlier, and it was going super well until I mentioned that I have a very nice Cuban boyfriend and maybe we could all get together. Whoa — you’d think I’d said I like to deep-throat leprous iguanas. He goes into this rant, and I was so flabbergasted I copied it down. Stuff like: “I don’t do latins and I’m not into guys who likes latins…I thought you were a different and selective white american man but in the end it is always the same story, and I’ll never understand why u americans get so crazy with those people — sorry but I’m not into unselective guys who hang out with latins or cubans, I’m more for quality people…In Italy we definitely do not mix with those people from third world countries like u americans do…I’m sure he is a well-educated cuban but in the end of the day he is still a cuban.” There was lots more, but you get the picture.

So in other words, this Neapolitan terrone (southern Italian, who themselves are looked down on by many northern Italians) who’d been giving me major racist attitude about Latins is at this very moment here getting brutally cornholed by a big Cuban pinga and loving it big-time — not only that, he approached us online knowing my BF was Cuban! Later as we we’re walking to our car, I turn to Rafa and say, “loverboy, have I got a story for you…”

Nothing like a little wacko wop for a bracing change of pace, eh?

In this forum we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable or romantic, funniest, strangest, or otherwise superlative date, love story, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture–either abroad or in your home country. Got a tawdry tale of your own? Do tell!

A tale of foreign-language training from “Traveltwink” in Columbus, Ohio:

I’m a 24-year-old guy and I love to travel and meet guys around the world. I was in France a couple of summers ago taking this overnight TGV train from Paris down to Marseilles on the Riviera. Anyway I was sitting across from this seriously hot looking dude named Frédéric who kept flirting with me the whole way down (just the way I like ‘em — blond with green eyes), and finally we start “talking,” only we can’t really talk ’cause I don’t know enough French to save my life, and his English was right about there too. But the situation was pretty clear anyway — and at one point he gets up with a nod of his head toward the end of the car. I follow, and we duck into the tiny cramped bathroom they got on those trains (it was after midnight and nobody around to see us). Of course we start making out like mad and next thing you know he’s touching me like he wants to…well, you know what he wanted. But then when I started to pull my cock out he started saying this word that sounded like “kaput! kaput!” I was kind of confused, and I’m like, “kaput?” and he said something I had no idea what it was. So I figured he meant like he wasn’t into it anymore, so I zipped up and went back to my seat and shut my eyes and finally fell asleep.

I wake up as we’re pulling into the station, and Fred’s not there anymore. Oh well, right? But then I’m heading from the platform out toward the street and suddenly there he is, coming toward me with a sheepish grin and flashing this little thing in his hand — it’s a condom! And he says something, and I figured out it was a “capote” (not kaput, duh), and that’s when I realized what he really wanted a couple of hours earlier. Well it would of been hot to do it on the train but we made up for lost time in my hotel room. Still if I’d known the French word for condom I would of been rocking that train. So now for sure it’s a word I’m going to learn every time I travel.

In this forum we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable or romantic, funniest, strangest, or otherwise superlative date, love story, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture–either abroad or in your home country. Got a tawdry tale of your own? Do tell!

A tale of exceptional retail service from “BoteBoy” of Provincetown, Massachusetts:

After years of hearing about one of those fabled Euro-gay hotspots, the Greek island of Mykonos, I finally got there about five years ago after a visit to Athens, and it was a pretty fun time — maybe not quite as much as Ibiza — but memorable anyway. I did the beaches, roamed the old town, had some tasty food and crisp retsina white wine, and mingled with all sorts of people from across Europe (almost everywhere but Greece, it seemed). I got especially up close and personal with a fetching lad from Croatia, and that was really great, but it was after he left that I had one of the more “interesting” experiences of my checkered love life.

I was wandering some of the cobblestone back lanes of the old town, and I passed the window of a shop with some really amazing modern artwork — it was like classical Hellenic but with a modern twist. I walked in and saw there was one other person browsing. I immediately started browsing myself — one spectacular piece, a silver winged-Mercury mask, particularly caught my eye, as did an old-looking painting on a narrow piece of wood of a beautiful boy in a toga, from the Pelopennesus. One of the two shopkeepers came over to help, and he was pretty hot himself, with piercing black eyes. I bought both, and as they were being wrapped I chatted with both of the owners, the one who first helped me the other, who was shorter and less classically handsome but still extremely sexy in a hairy, muscular fireplug kind of way. So naturally I found myself flirting a little bit.

I was heading out to the beach afterward, so rather than drag my unexpected booty all the way back up the hill to my hotel, the Elysium, they said I could leave it in the back, and the taller one brought me past the black velvet and pointed at a spot. As I bent down to deposit the bag, I felt his hand on my ass! Turning around, surprised, as I faced him he pressed himself against me a stuck his tongue in my mouth. I was caught off guard but went with it, and in a minute the other guy– who I guess was his lover — joined us, pulled down my pants, and started deepthroating my cock like mad. Then one would be kissing or jacking or blowing me while the other kept an eye out for new customers, then they’d switch. This went on for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, and finally I blew my load, as did the shorter, darker one who was slurping away at my balls at the time while my finger was up his butt. We pulled ourselves together and they told me to come back at closing time to collect my stuff, etc. I did, and we all went out to dinner and then to their place about 15 minutes out of town, where we got properly naked and rolled around on their bed for a couple of hours. I sure never guessed what was really “in store”!

Editor’s Reply:

And I’ll bet you’ve never had such attentive sales help before or since!

In this forum we’d like to hear about your hottest, most memorable or romantic, funniest, strangest, or otherwise superlative date, love story, or just good ol’ sex, with someone(s) from another culture–either abroad or in your home country. Got a tawdry tale of your own? Do tell!