Is Medellin Colombia a safe destination for gay queer tourists?
There is a lot of buzz going around the internet over the past year about Heterosexual Digital Nomads being drugged and robbed by tinder dates in Medellin Colombia. Terrifying right? I googled some youtube videos on the topic and saw a lot of really interesting videos about some topics that I’d heard mentioned, wondered about, but never really had the opportunity to discuss. Among them were sexpat, passport bro, sexual tourist, creep, and others.
The consensus was pretty much that if you avoid dating the locals, and sleeping with prostitutes, and focus on more respectable tourism, then you’ll be fine and you’ll love Medellin.
There is not much of a gay or LGBT voice in these videos. Most of them focus on heterosexuality. As a gay man I must say that I cringe when I hear advice like this.
I mean, read between the lines.
It sounds like what my catholic priest told me in confession when I told him I liked boys.
It was fine to be sexually attracted to boys, he told me, just don’t act on it or look at pornography.
Look, but don’t touch.
So what do they suggest you do in Medellin? Nature is the overwhelming response.
I’ll admit, Medellin has a lot of fascinating natural beauty. Rivers run through the city underneath Tolkienesque trees creating a fascinating tropical urban vibe. But that’s not the entire story. Most of those rivers are dirty and let off a faint smell that you just have to ignore. Trash is piled up on the sides of the rivers along with homeless encampments.
You can’t deny though that the homeless seem quite happy, and nobody seems to be bothered much by them. Most of them are smoking marijuana openly, drinking, playing sports, and some snort cocaine out of baggies with small spoons. A lot of them are really sexy.
Downtown Medellin has a network of Plazas where an intriguing mix of characters hang out. Homeless hang out with seniors, and cool kids, and prostitutes, creating a diverse patchwork that I’ve never seen anywhere else. The first time I came across Parque Bolivar, I was scared. I walked through the entire park, under the canopy of the giant tropical trees with vines and smaller trees growing out of the enormous trunk, past the statue of Simon Bolivar on a horse, to the red brick cathedral, whose doors were open and choir music echoed out into the plaza.
I’d get looks from all different sorts of people. Flirty glances by masculine gay for pay hustlers, curious stares from old men, but most just left me alone.
I won’t lie, I feared for my safety and got out of there quickly, but I came back the next day.
As a middle aged gay visitor to Medellin, who largely believes I’ve seen it all, there was so much happening between males in Medellin that made me ask, what was that? And that question has been my motivation for returning to this fascinating sexy and naturally beautiful destination over and over. I’ve been to Medellin three times, each time I stayed around a month. I’ve been writing about what I’ve done and who I’ve done it with.
I share my own experiences because they are usually at odds to the warnings about the locals of Medellin that I hear online and from non gay benevolent locals who present themselves as being concerned about my wellbeing but upon closer look appear to have their own agenda.
So is Medellin a safe destination for gay tourists? It’s not really a yes or not question but my experience has given me a lot of insight and my repeated trips back would imply that my working conclusion is yes. But there are risks.
My experience dating in Latin America is that there is more activity. More dates, more sexual encounters, and a larger diversity of places where flirting takes place. This fact alone makes it an ideal destination for gay travel. In Medellin I can always count on meeting men and having experiences with them both sexual, and platonic. As in any place, inside of all of this dynamic there are bad players who are out for themselves. It is helpful to know this. But this reality is not a reason to avoid going as many of the benevolent warnings imply.
I’ve written a lot about the unique experiences I’ve had with the gay men of Medellin and the risks associated with those experiences.
When I returned to Parque Bolivar I sat around and those who talked to me told me about other plazas like Parque Boston, Parque Milenio, Parque de los Periodistas, Parque Botero, Parque Berrio, and Parque San Antonio. I walked to each of them and while none of them compared to Parque Bolivar, each had their own charm and their own terrifying seediness.
I’m surprised that none of the youtube videos I saw mentioned any of these downtown plazas. I guess it’s possible that they’ve never been down here. I wonder what they love so much about Medellin. After seeing their videos about how to avoid getting robbed, or drugged, it makes me wonder more.
While I’m new to Medellin, I’m not new to Latin America. I am new to digital nomadism. I lived in Mexico City for 6 years. Over that time I grew in many ways as a gay man and I developed my sexuality in ways that I never could have in My own country.
What I noticed is that while the taboos are somewhat similar, Latin Americans are more likely to just go ahead and do it than people from the United States. Gay male spaces, where gay male sex takes place, such as bathhouses, sex clubs, porno viewing booths, dirty movie theaters, cruising in parks and public spaces, while once common in the USA, barely happens at all anymore. In Latin America this isn’t the case. It happens a lot actually. People of all ages and from all points on the gay spectrum participate and if that’s what you’re looking for, it is really easy to find.
I discovered all of this in Mexico, mostly before 2020, when so much seemed to change on the internet and in the real world alike.
While I love Medellin, Mexico City has more culture, more people, more nature, better preserved colonial architecture, better arts programming, and . . . more nature.
But I never would have discovered any of this on my own. I discovered all of this by dating the locals. Does this make me a sexpat? Passport bro? A creep? I’ll let the judgemental Medellin YouTubers make that determination. I write about my experiences in Mexico City because I think that one day gays in my country may be able to be inspired by it. Perhaps to plan a trip to Mexico City, or move there or just to know that there is a different expression of homosexuality happening in another country outside the United States.
I hope my writing can broaden your idea of what different expressions of gay male desire exist in the world.
