Soft Toilet Paper: Gay hotels

In the Comic Strip's brilliant pastiche of spaghetti Westerns, "A Fistful Of Travellers' Cheques", the proprietor of Hotel Bastardos, Keith Allen, informs his gun-toting guests, Rik Mayall and Peter Richardson, that if they "want de soft-a toilet paper" they should "go to Hotel Gay Boy". Back in the eighties when this was made, the likelihood of there being a hotel gay boy in non-urban Spain was probably very low. It isn't much higher nowadays, in Mallorca at any rate. A hotel bastardos on the other hand ... .

Mallorca has never seemed, to me, to rank particularly highly as a sun-holiday destination for gay people. Certainly not by comparison with Ibiza or Gran Canaria. Away from Palma, there are few by way of specifically gay venues. A bar did start up in Can Picafort in the autumn of 2008. It may still be there, but there is no obvious information about it. In Palma there are clubs and saunas, but the image of gay life in the capital took a bit of a knock as a result of the scandal involving a Palma councillor and rent boys. Otherwise you tend to be unaware of there being much of a gay scene.

This though may be changing. A report in yesterday's "Diario" profiles the first hotel in Mallorca which is specifically aimed at a gay and lesbian sun-and-beach market. It is in Playa de Palma and is called Pegasus. Aptly perhaps. The Spanish tourism ministry wants to let fly the winged horse of gay and lesbian tourism. Spain, and presumably therefore Mallorca, should be a leader in this niche, it believes. The fact that the pink pound or euro is worth approximately 50% more than straight wonga might have something to do with this, while the government is keen to cash in - as it were - on the new liberalism of Spain towards homosexuality.

Mallorca is essentially a "family" destination. Its resorts can be described similarly. But the description can appear to exclude other "markets" - single people, couples, senior citizens, gay people. The family is hugely important, but it is not the only market. It is right that provision is shifting in different directions. Nevertheless, some of the information for the gay market is curious. Google "gay Mallorca" and one website lists resorts, such as Alcúdia. Click on this and one is given a profile of a family resort. Hardly talking to the market, you might think.

However, and as the article from the "Diario" makes clear, the gay market is far from being uniform. There may be gay "uniforms", but not all gay people wear them. Far from it. I have gay friends who wouldn't be seen dead in a leather bar or as an extra in Frankie's "Relax". And so it is with the resorts. I would imagine that Puerto Pollensa would be an attractive destination for some gay people. Puerto Alcúdia, I'm not so sure, but Can Picafort possibly. The rustic beach between Playa de Muro and Can Pic has long had a reputation both as a nudist beach and as a gay beach, though whether it still is as it once was might be questionable. The roping-off of the dunes seemed to serve more than just the purpose of preserving the breeding grounds of certain birds and the fragility of the eco-system. But this implication would be to fall into the trap of stereotyping, and the gay market is far too diverse to justify this.

Mallorca has some way to go, but there is no reason why "markets" cannot flourish alongside each other. Years ago, around the time of the Comic Strip's pastiche, I was in Amsterdam, in a café. There were families, couples, children. Just another café. But I became aware of the leather men, the clones. I asked the waiter. Yes, it was, first and foremostly, a gay café. It didn't matter. And it doesn't matter.


"A Fistful of Travellers' Cheques". Watch it, if you haven't ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGuU79DJAtk

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.