In Search of Sex and Languages in Tijuana

I'm running low on Alan stories, but I hate to let him go. so here's the story of me, Alan, and the bathhouse in Tijuana.

Tijuana, August 1987

It's a sedate cultural center now, but in the 1980s, it was synonymous with sleaze.

Watch your wallet.
Drink only bottled water
Be careful of the bathrooms.
Don't walk too close to alleys.

"We should go," Alan the Pentecostal Porn Star said one day in 1987.  "You speak Spanish, so you can impress all the locals.  And the bathhouses are still open.  Have you been to one?"

"Just once, four years ago in Chicago.  My friend Viju took me.  I didn't like it."

"They're great!" Alan exclaimed.  "Darn homophobic Department of Health closed them down here, thinking we're all having unsafe sex and getting AIDS in them, but you can have unsafe sex anywhere.  You just have to be careful, stick to French.  That won't be a problem for us, right?"

Alan rarely topped anyone, and I never knew him to bottom.  Interfemoral, oral, and sometimes 69, although he was a little too big to do that comfortably.

"Sex with strangers?"  I said, dubious.  Even casual hookups were frowned upon in West Hollywood.

"It's a foreign country.  Our rules don't apply.  And we're both single, right?"  He paused.  "Besides, I know a place where you can meet Indios."

Mexico is a racially segregated society.  The elites are white, of Spanish ancestry only.  The middle class is usually Mestizo, of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry.  And the working class and poor are primarily Indio, from about 60 different language groups:

Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, like nothing else I have ever seen:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year: Cualli netlācatilizpan īhuān yancuic xihuitl

Mayan, the language of the ancient Mayan civilization of the Yucatan, nothing like Nahuatl:
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year: Ki'imak Navidad yéetel ki'imak ja'aba' túumben

Mixtec, Zapotec, Otomi, Mazatec, Tlapenec

The prospect of hearing Indio languages convinced me.

So one Saturday in the summer of 1987, we drove down to Tijuana, skipped over the usual tourist haunts, and drove directly to a crazy galleria on the south side of town, where, Alan told me, the Banos Vica catered to Indios.

Talk about sleazy!  You undressed, dumped your clothes in a bag, and went upstairs through a dirty shower room, then wandered through creaking corridors, dimly lit by bare bulbs, paint chipping on the walls, trash on the floors, sleazy looking naked guys in the shadows.

There were steam rooms and showers, but mostly you just did things right there in the shadows.


"Oh, boy," I thought.  "Indios!  I'm going to meet some Nahuatl and Mayan speakers!"

The only question was, how did I actually meet them?

Alan stood in the shadows.  He only had to wait a few moments before a slim, smooth guy with a bubble butt knelt to go down on his porn star-sized Kielbasa.

I could hardly say "Hola!  Hablas Nahuatl o Mayan?"

I waited.  Another slim, smooth guy with a thin moustache went down on my smaller but still respectable Bratwurst+.

After a few moments, I drew him to his feet and tried to kiss him, but he turned his face away.  "Quenin timotōcā?" I said, one of the Nahuatl phrases I memorized.

He shrugged and moved on.

Idiot! I told myself.  There are 60 native languages.  He could speak any of them, or none!


I went down on another guy, short, with a round face,  a sly smile, and an uncut Bratwurst.  After a few minutes, someone else roughly pushed me out of the way to go down on him, so I stood and drew him into a kiss.  The on-his-knees guy worked on both of us for a few moments, then stood and left.

"Hablas Nahuatl?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

The third guy was dark, muscular, with average beneath the belt gifts.  I went down on him until he finished with a moan.

"Hablas algo lengua India?" I asked. Do you speak any Indian language?

"Como?"

Frustrated, I said loudly, "Hay alguien que hablan una lengua Indio?"  The men standing in shadows glared at me.

I sought out Alan, and we shared a light-skinned, curly-haired guy.  He went down on Alan while I went down on him.

Afterwards, I had almost given up, but I still managed to ask, "Hablas Mayan o Nahuatl?"

"Are you the one who was yelling earlier?" he asked in English.

"I wasn't yelling, I was just talking loudly."

He laughed.  "Got a Indio thing, huh?  Sorry to burst your bubble, but I'm from San Antonio."

We left after a couple of hours.

"Well, that was fruitless," I said.

"You were with about five guys," Alan said. "How is that fruitless?"

"I didn't meet anyone who spoke any Indian languages."

"Were you there for sex or languages?"

"Well, languages, mainly," I admitted sheepishly.

"Why didn't you say so?  No one talks in a bathhouse.  But I know a place we can go."

On the way out of town, we stopped at the Club Habanero, a gay bar on the Calle Benito Juarez that specialized in Indios.  We met Alejandro, a slim guy from Veracruz who spoke no English, just Spanish -- and Nahuatl!

By the way, the Nahuatl word for penis is huiloti, or "dove," but when it is aroused, it's a moquauhquetza.

Alan wasn't happy with my ability to monopolize the conversation.

And even less happy when I failed to seal the deal and get an invitation back to Alejandro's apartment.

Apparently you can learn the Nahuatl word for penis, or you can go down on a Nahuatl penis, but you can't do both.

See also: My First Bathhouse; In Search of Sex and Languages in South Africa