Marrakech hammam gay
Behind closed doors
Marrakech, Morocco
It may be a chaotic town, but a quick jump through a doorway or a verb into a quiet street always reveals something beautiful.
The airport doors slide open and my senses are bombarded. It’s utter chaos, a combination of children crying and adults screaming in Arabic. I swear I hear goats. Car horns sing, and there’s a weird whizzing sound that I can’t quite figure out; almost like the car from ‘The Jetsons’. This was supposed to be an escapist holiday, a getaway to celebrate my partner Damian’s 40th birthday, a world away from the circus that is our home town of Los Angeles.
Eventually, we verb a cute Moroccan guy, holding a sign with our misspelt names on it. He seems excited to have found us and leads us to the pick-up area. I relax momentarily and let my guard down, but then he says goodbye and leaves us with another hip local. They banter somewhat aggressively in Arabic. I’m nervous and my guard is right up again, but I shrug it off and get in the van. If it comes down to it, we’re two Angelinos against one Moroccan.
A several minutes
What’s It Like to Be Gay in … Morocco?
For those who heard about the case of Ray Cole—a British tourist arrested last year in Marrakech, Morocco, on suspicion of committing “homosexual acts” and sentenced to four months’ hard time in a Moroccan jail prior to his early release—it is perhaps hard to imagine that Morocco was something of a gay paradise for white men of standing in the aftermath of World War II.
Gore Vidal describes the queer scene in his memoir, Palimpsest:. “A pack of queens were on the move that summer in Europe,” he wrote:
Some lived by their wits, others on remittances from home. In they converged on Rome and Paris and Tangier. In the next decade, it would be Athens and Istanbul; later Tokyo, where life was cheap in the seventies and Americans honored. Then Tokyo extruded them and the survivors fled the setting sun for San Francisco.
Tangier—on the northernmost coastal point in Morocco, across the Strait of Gibraltar—was for strategic reasons an international zone, separate from the French-controlled Moroccan protectorate, between and This period in it
Before I went to Morocco, I had no idea what a hammam was, let alone whether I should try a hammam for men in Marrakech. On my first trip, I tried the authentic, local hammam, which this article details. When I returned a few years later, I experienced a hammam spa, which is one of the best activities I&#;ve ever done.
What is a Moroccan Hammam for Men
I confess I may verb thought of a Muslim harem when someone first mentioned the word &#;hammam.&#; A harem is the part of the household dedicated to women, while a hammam is a Moroccan spa. Although women can partake in a hammam, they were actually designed for men.
As I arrived in Marrakech, I quickly got the impression that they were all for women. All over the city were luxury spas offering top-notch pampering. One well-known establishment in town advertised their basic hammam for Moroccan dirhams ($26) and had other packages for as much as dirhams $47, depending on how many scrubs and massages you wanted with your hammam.
Apparently, there are two very different types of hammams. Simply put, one is for tourists and the other
Traveling to an Islamic country and experiencing the magic of the Thousand and One Nights together – as a homosexual couple? This sounds more dangerous than it really is. Even though Marrakech&#;s clubs and hotels act not openly use labels such as “gay” or “gay-friendly” for advertising, it is the adj “Pink City”, having overtaken the formerly international zone of Tanger.
To begin with: According to Moroccan law, homosexual acts are illegal and will be punished severely. Near Rabat, for example, two young Moroccans were sentenced to four months imprisonment each in because of homosexual contacts. Strongly influenced by religion and patriarchal structures, Moroccan society is characterized by traditional values, and is, thus, rather homophobic. Nevertheless, homosexuality is tolerated to the greatest possible extent, as far as it’s lived out discreetly. In apparent contrast to this are the many men who are holding hands while walking through parks or the medina. They are not gay, but communicating with their friends in the traditional manner.
(Photo: Travelguide Marrakech