Queer Santiago

24 April, 2023 | Santiago Chile

When traveling I keep to some basic rules, among them:

1. Rick Steves style slow travel: assume you will miss something, which gives you reason to come back
2. Find something the locals refer to as “American” for a funhouse-mirror treat
3. Find a local group doing a local thing

For the last bit I have employed three apps, each with their own dubious qualities:

TripAdvisor

This is the go-to for most people making use of some web service for finding events and it is pretty good at it. There is not much to say other than it is (1) still fairly comprehensive - a number of places work through it even if they have their own website - and (2) its site is chocked full of garbage dark patterns to get you to sign up, receive notifications, promise major internal organs to their investors upon your death for a discount etc.

Meetup

Hit-or-miss, but the best place to find what the locals are up to (if anything). Mostly absent are the creepy attempts at “extreme engagement” from TripAdvisor. And of particular note: in years past I have had good luck with English language meetup groups. You can make yourself useful, meet locals seeking to improve their English, as well as usually visit some expats (also of dubious quality).

Scruff (no, really)

Okay cards on the table, Scruff is primarily a dating app for gay or queer men. I’m not really interested in it for that reason or a “hookup” - I’m fairly good on the former, and I just get anxious with people I don’t know well on the latter - but rather as a mechanism of finding friends while traveling. Scruff devotes quite a few features to this - including a listing of local queer events, places to declare that you are or will be on a trip, and other such things.

Honestly, it would be nice if there was a social network for travelers/locals without the baggage of the dating/hookup bits. I would happily meet a rando traveler in Seattle for a coffee or beer and talk about the town.

AirBnB Experiences

AirBnB has a whole chunk of their app now dedicated to competing with TripAdvisor, rather than just allowing you to book illegal hotels. The quality on these events so far has been high, the experience of booking and paying for them has been quite good, and I don’t need to close five windows asking me for my personal data, permission to use cookies, or extract my blood to maintain Peter Thiel’s youthful appearance.

It is via this means that I found my evening activity:

Sure, sold. Going to clubs like these alone are less than ideal and there were a good number of high ratings.

Living an LGBTI Night in Santiago

Our meeting place was basically the same square where the protests kicked off in 2019. Four years later, the police presence is prominent on a Friday night.

I kept my distance. A good default to be in is that the police are basically the same everywhere. How much trouble might they get into if they beat the everloving shit out of a random tourist? In the United States, their job wouldn’t even be at risk.

I messaged my hosts, just in case my assumption was incorrect:

I met up with Chris and Francisco, a delightful couple that had been together nine years and married for one, and we set off for a drag show at La Kasa de las Flores. I’ll note some excellent street art on the way there:

The show at La Kasa de las Flores involved no fewer than six drag queens taking turns on stage, with a set involving one lip synced song followed by standup comedy that was heavy on audience participation.

Poor Fransisco attempted to translate the latter but it can be difficult to keep up with the catty back-and-forth of such a show even if you are a native speaker, and he eventually gave up.

Which was fine, because often you can get a lot from the context anyway. I’ll say that there appeared to be an inverse relationship to the talent of the lip sync to the comedy sections. I’ll admit a favorite was a performer that was the worst I have ever seen at the former, but was absolutely killing on the latter.

Further, as I included in my glowing review:

Finally, we visited a bar that is more focused exclusively on gay men. The drag show included all kinds of people - families, a few straight folks that were the subject of amused tongue-in-cheek torment by some of the performers, etc. This was more fetish and explicit; pornography playing on televisions, a Stretch Armstrong in bondage gear (honestly shocked I hadn’t seen that before, it really does fit like a puzzle piece)

I had trouble remembering the name of this bar, but helpfully a Google Maps search the morning after included at least one image that jogged my memory:

This kind of bar isn’t exactly my common scene - the friends of my host couldn’t quite make it to the sex club upstairs and needed to be admonished by the staff for performing oral sex one table over - but I can’t say it wasn’t what I signed up for and I had a marvelous time.