Paradise Lost

Up until not too long ago, the beach in Jbeil now exploited by Eddé Sands was called Tam Tam Beach. It stretched south to a smaller beach that was still public, called Paradise Beach. 

some things are better kept hush hush... says this building in Paris

A narrow stretch of white sand trapped between the cliffs and the sea, Paradise was just as nice as any other private beach, with the only difference that it was free and unattended.

After reading online about rumors of GiBbyish activity going on in Paradise Beach, one hot summer day I felt like trying it out to check for myself.

So I went off with a friend, settled on the sand, had a little swim then started to explore the beach. Pretty typical beach except for one natural characteristic: The rock formations at the tip of the beach shaped something of a grotto, like a little maze that still got some sunlight inside but that was completely isolated from sight. The water was about knee level throughout the grotto.

When I entered the grotto and observed the people from inside, the cruising scheme became quite obvious. It would start as eye contact on the beach, then the guys would swim around each other, perhaps get a little touchy in between a wave and the next. Then, they would start to drift slowly toward the cavern, and finally they would get to serious business once inside...

Soon enough, there I was fooling around with an anonymous hunk I had noticed on the beach... in a sea cavern… some crazy shit!

It’s only later that I realized that Paradise Beach was long known as “the gay beach” in the GiB community, but it was so hush-hush that no one had ever mentioned it to me. Like a dirty little secret.

The thing is it had a pretty bad reputation outside as well as within the community – The kind of places people would describe with something like “if you go there you’re likely to step on a needle left there at night by a junkie and you’ll be sure to catch AIDS”.

But whatever Paradise Beach was – a nice public beach or a decadent Gomorrah – it can only be better than what it has become today: yet another reserved-access beach for the lucky property owners of the new Byblos Sud complex.

Watch out new owners, for the gay spirits still haunt that grotto!

Post title is a tribute to Robert Fisk’s superb article where he dubs 2006 Beirut a Paradise Lost.

Roy’s Got Toys for Boys

When I wrote Eurotrip Goodie Bag about a year ago and raised the question “Will they ever open a real sex shop in Lebanon?”, I didn’t see it that one coming so soon.



If you ever need of a “G-spot massage wand for men”,

an “Electric Little Ass” or a why not a “Handsome

up penis pump” – you now know where to go!

Enter Roy’s Toys, a new online sex shop serving (discretely) the Lebanese marketplace. With a bunch of dildos and fleshjacks, the product portfolio is still a bit limited for gay guys (where’s the cock rings, the poppers, the porn, the underwear?), but the staff tells me that it’s continually expanding and will soon include BDSM and roleplaying costumes.

Personally I probably won't be a top customer but I consider that this shop is filling an underserved niche that has the right to exist and certainly a lot of opportunity, so I was really glad to find out about it!

Roy’s Toys staff tells me the market is already picking up for them, although they can’t advetize aggressively given the nature of the business...

Oh and another piece of insider info: currently the best-selling product for gay guys is the “G-Spot Stimulator for Men” which “Stimulates the male G-Spot to give you an explosive orgasm”! Sounds exciting (litterally) doesn’t it?

GiB#2 | W.C.ruised

I was hanging out at the Beirut Souks a couple weeks ago, keeping an eye out for a cool swimsuit – the one thing I still need to get for the summer. I find one but it’s for $200 at Aizone, and the 30$ one at H&M is just not it. Boring. I need to pee.

After looking for the restrooms for about 10 minutes, I finally figure out that the access is through the stairs from inside the restaurant. It’s quiet and secluded up there, and sounds empty except for one guy washing his hands. I walk in towards the urinals, all three of which are empty. They have no partition between each other, an unusual thing in prude Lebanon.

I admit to choosing the middle one – perhaps randomly, perhaps because I’m a man of the middle, indecisive as a Libra; perhaps it’s the adventurous GiB lost in lust who picked it, the anywhere-anytime type of guy. The fact of the matter is, I chose the middle one.

A few seconds later, I hear the guy’s now using the hand dryer. But instead of leaving then, he walks back to the urinal next to me and unzips as if to pee. I’m thinking, who the hell does the hand-washing before the peeing? Ten seconds later he’s still standing there, but there’s no sound of any fluids. I feel he’s peeking at me. When I turn to look at him, he’s indeed staring, and oh, he’s also jerking off.

This is gross and embarrassing, and the guy’s not my type. And even if he was, I’m not up for it today: my date of the moment is meeting me at the Souks in about an hour, and I already have enough weight on my conscience for dating this guy, a friend of my ex. So please spare me also having to cope with the idea that I had a quickie in the restroom while waiting for him.

Sorry dude, no-go it is. So much for ever doing it in a public restroom, maybe some other time – I’m out of here!

Although not-so-hot, this furtive GiB episode kept me wondering. I can’t imagine how a straight guy would have reacted in my place, getting cruised by a random guy at the urinal – I mean this is Lebanon, and this thing could easily turn into a gay bashing scene. I’m not straight, so it was not a big deal.

For having lived abroad, I know that public restrooms often serve as gay cruising spots in other countries. I also know that GiBs are getting way out of control these days... But GiBs cruising in public restrooms of Beirut's malls?! That sure is news to me…

GiB#2 | Up for a Scrub?

Gay bathhouses (or ‘saunas’) are well rooted in Western gay culture and in many large cities of the world. Beirut doesn’t have any gay saunas worthy of the name, however history left us GiBs with a somewhat similar thing: the Hammam’s (aka Turkish baths). It used to be that the public baths played a social role during the Ottoman influence on the region (lasting until the 1900’s), a place where men – and women on specific days – would go to unwind, purify their body and socialize. I don’t know exactly who used to go there back then, if it really included intellectuals and politicians as they say, and whether the Hammam used to have a gay or libertarian connotation at all. It might be that the lines were more blurry back then anyway... But since then these Ottoman relics have clearly taken a sharp GiB turn!

After many of them closed down through the years, two authentic hammams are still standing today: hammam el Nuzha (1920’s) off the Ring in Beirut (the pics are from its entrance and lobby area), and hammam el Abed (1800’s) in the old souks of Tripoli. These two look so kitsch that going there is like taking a trip back in time. There’s also a third bathhouse, this one more modern, called Shehrazade near the stadium in Bourj Hammoud. To the curious and the horny, these can be interesting and fun places to visit.

But unlike the openly gay bathhouses abroad, Lebanon’s bathhouses have nothing nearly as explicit as the closed cubicles, the dark rooms, the sling rooms and the gloryholes that are commonplace elsewhere. The amenities here are usually limited to a steam room, a dry sauna, showers, and massage rooms, although Shehrazade also has a pretty big Jacuzzi. On the downside, the amenities are not very well maintained, making the hygiene of these worlds of water highly questionable: you can’t help but think twice before putting on the flip-flops and towels they give you as you come in, and wonder whether you’re not actually stepping into a world of fungus instead.

 Until it closed down a couple years ago, Hammam el-Sheikh near the Cola roundabout was the closest thing Lebanon ever had to a real gay bathhouse. It seemed to be a quite successful business in the beginning, which was astonishing given its location in this populous and mostly Muslim part of the city. At some point, el-Sheikh looked like it was becoming the official pre-party for Acid on weekends. Picture GiB queens in une-pièce swim suits gathered in an old-style picturesque architecture, dancing to Arabic music around a large indoor pool with bar area, tiptoeing along the watercourse connecting the pool to the Jacuzzi, then sneaking in to the shady waterfall tunnel leading up to a not-so-secret 5mx5m dimly-lit vault, the 'darkroom'. Isolated by water from outside sight, light, and sound, GiB-in, GiB-out, this one room was probably the most private and safe kinky public GiB spot (ever) in Lebanon!

If you’re going to visit (what remains of) the bathhouses for action, things won’t be as straightforward as you would hope. Action between customers is quick and furtive, and it feels like the staff are constantly playing police with the men getting touchy. As for the local staff – mostly Syrians and Egyptians of all ages – they have access to the private rooms where they provide optional services such as massage, soaping and body scrubs. 

It’s your choice whether to go for the experienced 60-year old scrubber and get a quality treat, or choose the 20 year-old hunk pretending to know massage, who’ll try to include a 5-minute rental of his body into the deal, only to then remind you incessantly not to forget to tip him through the cashier on  the way out since you’re not carrying any money on you. Now how’s this for embarrassment, as you’re paying for your services on the way out, when the cashier shouts out loud for the whole place to hear: “w 3achra la 7assan! w 3achra la shebeb!” (“+ 10 for Hassan, and 10 for the boys!”).

 

GiB#2 | It's Official: We Have Big Ones!

The results are in, kudos to all you guys for making this real!


Lebanon’s men are high up there, among the best endowed in the world. We score an average penis size, in erection, of 16.82 cm, higher than France, Italy, Brazil and Mexico (15 - 16 cm), Germany, Spain England and Israel (13-14 cm), not to mention Korea, India and China (9 - 10 cm). And guess what, among the surveyed countries, we’re only third to Ghana and Congo (17 cm)! But we already knew that…

So clearly immigration countries like the U.S., Canada and Australia (12 – 13 cm) should have brought in less Indians and Chinese, and more people from Africa – although I’m not too sure if this measure of manhood is a part at all of their immigration policy. Considering the high standard deviation of average penis size in these countries, it is obvious that these countries would fare much better without the recent waves of immigrants from Asia weighing in. For if you ever get to experience the WASPs in the U.S. (White Anglo-Saxon Protestants, who descend from the British and Irish) and the Québecois in Canada (who descend from the French), I assure you that you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

I haven’t looked at the details of the study, but I believe it is based on data collected during patient visits to their urologist. But why would I want to check anyway, since we’re winners? In the case of Lebanon, the data is based on research conducted at the Rafik Hariri University Hospital. Now, if I ever learn that their sample data was from their own patients, and not representative of the total population, then I’m moving out to Bir Hasan. Anyhow, I hope these results won’t embarass any of our fellow GiB readers. And if this can be of any relief to you (or maybe even soothe you curiosity), last time I checked I made it just a tick above GiB average ;)