‘Non-stop gay sex parties’ taking place on Mexico City trains, report claims

A magazine investigation has shed light on underground gay sex parties in Mexico.

But “underground” in this context doesn’t mean hidden. It’s more literal than that: the sex is taking place on Mexico City’s subway system. 

In a report published in The Nation, A W Strouse recalled seeing an older man “masturbating [a] young man anally” while he stared at his phone, “giggling occasionally”. 

Strouse observed that, like him, his fellow passengers “could not possibly have failed to notice what the two men had been doing,” but they “ignored the episode entirely”.

Subway gay sex has taken place ‘almost constantly’ since 2000

“The historian Alonso Hernández Victoria notes that gay men have used Mexico City’s subway for sex, romance and other encounters since it opened in 1969,” Strouse pointed out, adding that “since 2000, public male-male sex has taken place in the último vagón (Spanish for last car) almost constantly during its operating hours”. 

The sexual practices take place within a legal grey area because the city neither protects nor prohibits such activities.

Strouse met Elias, a gay man in his mid-twenties, who described himself as an último vagón “expert”.

Elias identified almost all 12 lines of the subway system as hotspots for cruising in the last carriage, with the low cost of riding the metro (around five pesos, approximately 25 US cents or 20p) serving as an attractive option for those who could not afford clubs and bars.

‘Double standards’

Sociologist Andrés Alvarez Elizalde found that sexual activity in the last car tended to occur most often during peak hours. The trend emerged out of “double standards” of Mexican culture, with men, like himself, using it as a refuge from the reality. 

Another gay man in his late twenties, Miguelito, told Strouse that the last car helped him come out as gay, “not just sexually but by seeing gay people talking, flirting, laughing”.

Each line on the subway appeals to a different taste, with some suiting those wanting jocks and others who want “rough trade”. In this sense, the metro is able to connect all classes of the LGBTQ+ community. 

The last car, which has been found to mostly host masturbation or oral sex, can also be used as a meeting ground. 

A labourer in his thirties told Strouse: “Wednesday is my day off, so every Wednesday afternoon I ride around until I meet someone, then go to a hotel with him.”

Not all the LGBTQ+ community favours the last car

Others, however, ride the last carriage in search of dates and romance, seeking a sense of safety, or simply to make friends. Some told Strouse they felt it was safer having sex there than in other gay spaces. 

However, not all members of LGBTQ+ community are happy. Saúl, a middle-aged mariachi singer, described sex in the último vagón as “shameful” and “without dignity.”

The city’s Human Rights Commission have granted gay people the ability to have sex in public, and one man told Strouse that while police tend not to arrest people for engaging in sexual activity on subway trains, some are suspected of demanding bribes.

It now appears that the liberal tolerance is coming to an end, with makeshift signs warning passengers not to engage in sexual activity on the trains. But for now, the party continues.

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