Mexico City's Neighborhoods - La Tabacalera

Sex Work, Mexican Institutions of Art, Revolution, and Religion

Last Saturday night I attended the one year anniversary of Club Poseidon, a gay sex club in Mexico City’s Tabacalera neighborhood. It was my second time there this year (2023). My first time, I showed up after giving up on Sexto Piso, where I attended Tuesday Bear Night. Surprisingly I found Sexto Piso boring and with few people in attendance.

I was really surprised because Sexto Piso opened with such a bang. I still think it’s a safe bet for a good time, but this was an off night. I did a couple of laps around the place, ordered a beer or two, enjoyed it out on their 6th floor patio, took in the amazing view of Mexico City’s Historic Downtown, and dipped.

To get to Poisiden, I could have taken Metro Salto Del Agua, changed from the green to blue line at Bellas Artes, gotten out at Metro Revolution and been right there. But it was early in the evening and I thought I’d enjoy it more if I took an eco bici and explored the city on the way there.

Night time at Mexico City’s Alameda Central

I rode through Alameda Central, which is a fascination that I’ll never get over. Whenever I’m nearby I always make a point to ride by Avenida Humboldt, on the east side of the park, where there are always male hustlers standing discretely and not so discretely along the edge of the park. In the Middle of it all is a statue of a young Alexander Humboldt, a fascinating character in the history of Latin America who I had never heard of until I moved here.

Next I passed by Metro Hidalgo. But I wasn’t going to the metro. I was going to the legal weed smoking zone that was coloquilially called Metro Hidalgo.

In the early evening it is packed with young kids dressed in creative vintage fashions, older people in hotel uniforms smoking on their break, lots of bicycle riders getting high while sitting down on the sidewalk, their bikes lying down in front of them and their Uber Eats backpacks beside them.

Here everybody seems to have a little bit of their story on display and it’s always fascinating to see the slices of life that this recent experiment of legalized marijuana brings together.

Both the hustlers on The Alameda and the legal weed smoking spot were in the shadow of the church of Saint Jude. In the United States, Saint Jude seems to be associated with many recovery programs. Here in Mexico, St. Jude is the saint who looks after the thieves, prostitutes, drug dealers and drug users.

This spiritual path to salvation also falls under the Umbrella of la Santa Muerte. St Jude is their official connection to the Catholic Church, but La Santa Muerte is more pagan and more Mexican.

Most taxi drivers (taxi, not uber), who are known for being untrustworthy, are devout followers of La Santa Muerte. The majority of shrines of La Santa Muerte exist on top of the dashboards of Mexico City Taxi Cabs.

Combis, old green buses that fearlessly traverse the most dangerous bus routes through the worst neighborhoods in Mexico City, also have a statue of La Santa Muerte in their windshields.

Most barrios have shrines on the corners that honor La Santa Muerte, but their grand shrine is the church of St. Jude, Right in downtown Mexico City. Every year on the day of the dead, thousands make a procession from all of the barrios around Mexico City to this site, to honor the darker impulses of life. They drive their taxis and buses and honk their horns the entire way there, where they shoot off fireworks all night.

Whenever I hear about this famous pagan ritual in Mexico City it makes me want to take part in it. Each year I head over on my bike, ignoring the warnings of most of my local friends. According to them, it is never a good idea to attend a gathering of all the thieves and malcontents of any city, no matter what the religious pretext is.

The last day of the dead I rode by and saw David, my favorite hustler from La Alameda. It was kind of late to see him there. Usually he would spend a few hours there after his college classes ended and before he took the train back to Nezahualcoyotl where he lived with his family.

Whenever I pass by this smorgasbord of the underworld I hope to see David and I believe he also hoped to see me. We had proven trustworthy in this insecure world that we couldn’t seem to live without.

We said hi and immediately began walking to the hotel we always go to, right behind of the temple of Saint Jude. We smoked, chatted a bit about both of our lives, and then began to enjoy each others bodies.

We always liked to use Hotel San Fernando. They charge $200MX for ‘uno para salir.’ Which translates to 1 hotel room for a few hours. I was always clean and some of their rooms have mood lighting.

I liked it because some of their rooms had windows that looked out onto the Parroquia de San Fernando, The Church of San Fernando, Another church just a few blocks from St. Judas, and its corresponding cemetery.

I always think of how cool it would be to be buried there right in the middle of this underworld that very few people know about.

David and I left the window of the hotel room open so we could hear the fireworks and the screaming voices outside celebrating the ‘morbo’ that we found ourselves in the middle of.

There was always chaos happening outside of the hotel when we turned our tricks together. But this night was a special type of chaos for both of us. We had both made an effort to be there at that time, becasue we were both followers of la Santa Muerte. We didn’t have statues in our cars, but we lived the life in our own way.

While the world we lived in told us both that we should avoid this neighborhood and eschew the activities that take place here, this night allowed us to celebrate it, and all that comes along with it.

But today he wasn’t there so I made my way toward Poisiden. I passed Jardin Tablacera, a garden in the entrance to the magnificent Museo San Carlos.

In this neighborhood the hustlers change from male to female. The females are much more obvious and plentiful. There are dozens of hotels all over La Tabacalera to accommodate the sex trade that this neighborhood is famous for. The only thing more famous is the magnificent Monument of the revolution that stands in the middle.

Mixed in between of all of this are town houses after town houses. Some of them business, some of them are houses of locals who have lived there forever, and most are people living their lives. This neighborhood is a popular choice for gay professionals who want to live in the center of town for a good price. It’s not cheap, by Mexico City standards, but it is centrally located and outside of the internationally gentrified zones like Roma and la Condesa.

Rents here, like in my neighborhood, are the same as they were when I moved here 5 years ago.

Inside of one of the houses is Club Poisiden.

Unmarked, no name in sight, only the #40 on top of the black door. I rang the doorbell and the door promptly unlocked itself. I heard a buzzer sound, the sound of a lock unlatching, and I watched a space of light open up between the door and its frame. I pushed the door open and walked in. I walked up the stairs.

There was a black Curtain hanging at the top of the stairs. I pushed it over and found myself in a square foyer area. The area was light up in dim neon lighting.

One of the doors opened to a reception area. I was warmly greeted in the normal manner of places like this. I was given a bag to place my clothes inside of. I stripped down to my underwear and then placed my shoes back on.

I noticed a tray of simple body items. Axe body spray, cheap perfumes, lotions. It was a nice touch. Clubs like these can get kind of dirty and unkempt if not properly looked after, and a cute tray of products like these showed that Poseidon was making the necessary effort to stay classy.

The guy at the door was very handsome and he treated me like I was his friend coming over to his house. He was friends with all the guys who were there.

Poseidon, during the week, is not crowded, but it has a friendly vibe that I really enjoyed.

I returned to the foyer from the reception area and walked through the other side, the largest of the doors, was actually an arched entryway into a Sala, or living room area. There were sofas on either side, a bar on the back wall, and a lot of space to walk around in the middle.

This middle area is packed with guys on the weekends, but tonight, there were only three guys standing in the middle, each in their underwear, talking to each other and sipping from their drink cups.

Poisiden is open bar.

The guys who come here tend to like to drink. I’m used to the pot head crowd from the legal zones of marijuana. These guys were a different group.

Two of the three guys were wearing ‘orgy underswear.’ I’d never bought a pair of these. They’re usually all black, with neon elastic, the back is usually open, and there is a large bulge in front to accommodate the largest of ‘paquetes,’ and make the smallest look big.

They had dark skin and dark features and with their orgy underwear, they looked like they were made for events like these. Both of them had skinny, but very muscular builds. To me they blended in with the furniture.

It was the third who stuck out to me.

His name was Benjamin. He was the lightest skinned of all of them. His skin was a mixture of brown latin and pasty white. He had a very chubby face but a skinny body, of a twink. He didn’t go to the gym, like the others. His body was both toned and not toned at the same time. It was like it was perfect without any effort.

Like me, he just had a pair of boxer briefs and a cup in his hand that was rapidly getting emptier and emptier.

He looked like one of the guys from the hundreds of locker rooms I had been in over the course of my life, who I would have loved to have transplanted into a place like this, a place which at the time, I had no ability to even imagine.

But here we were.

The three of them actually stopped their conversation to greet me. This is very unusual in Mexico, where the norm is to appear to be busier and more important than you actually are.

I was thrilled. One of the three was very familiar with US culture and I think he had even lived there for awhile. Nonetheless, we spoke Spanish. Even though I had told him I had lived in Mexico for 5 years, he insisted on giving me his list of recommendations to tourists. I was fine with that and grateful to have found a group of friends for the moment.

I spoke to him and responded to each of his questions, and then pivoted to Benjamin after each answer, and what about you?

As we were talking each of them began touching one another. They were tickling one another’s others large penises as they began to poke through their orgy underwear.

Eventually the penises were pulled over the top of the underwear so that all three of them hung out into the middle of the circle. We continued with our conversations.

While they were each very polite and engaged, asking polite questions about my experience in Mexico and listening attentively to my answers all while tickling each others penises below, there seemed to be another topic, in the background that was more important.

While I was talking to one, the other two would talk about another person who was not here, and making plans to meet him after, and sometimes the person I was talking to would excuse himself from the circle, leaving me with the others.

This went on until I was the only one left in the sala by myself.

I decided to “dar la vuelta” - take a walk around the club looking to fuck something.

I went into the first room to find, Benjamin, standing jerking himself off and watching two strangers fuck slowly on a double bed that was located in a corner of a dark square room. I took a seat on the bed far enough away from the couple to be polite but not too far to be rude.

Benjamin came up to me and placed the top of his cock into my mouth. While most cocks I have seen either curve up or stick out straight, his curved down. It stuck up from his abdomen and then in the middle made an ever so slight turn down. This change of direction was only possible with large penises.

His was big but not enormous. It was an impressive size. It didn’t fit into my mouth all at once. So I just sucked on the top and played with his balls with my hands.

With some guys, things like this are just a formality and before you know it they are inside of you or I’m inside them. But I could tell that this was as far as I would go with Benjamin. I decided to follow his lead, which lead nowhere, we just continued for a little bit and then continued “dando la vuelta.”

I entered the next room and saw that the other two guys were already fucking with others around them. This second room also had a cama matrimonial against the wall. Benjamin came in and put his cock into the mouth of another guy and did the exact same thing he had just done together in the other room.

Individually we were all like bees in a flower bed, jumping from one flower to another, but collectively we were partying together. I’d refill my drink and chat with whoever was at the bar and then walk around to the rooms where everybody was touching and fucking without much commitment.

Sin comprimiso, they say in Spanish. In English we would say no strings attached.

The dynamic was intoxicating. Everybody was included and nobody was left out.

It was the opposite of the dynamic that I found in most places in the US, where everybody walks around lonely and bored, all following the one young guy in the club. Suddenly, another young guy enters, finds the other one, and they retreat to a private room together to fuck for hours.

They would come out of their room to find the same sad scene they had left one hour ago.

Here it was all young guys, I got the feeling they all knew each other, and they were happy to have me there for a little bit.

After about an hour my weed was giving me the muncies, I was dreaming of where I would go to eat after, I was also conscious that I was drinking at the same rate as these experienced drinkers and if I were to continue, I’d have a deadly hangover the next day.

I got bengamins number before I left and he told me that he’d love to go out for drinks sometime.

I didn’t take him seriously and I was more sure that I just didn’t have time to be chasing guys like him outside of places like this. But I longed for a time when I used to do that almost exclusively.

While I had arrived in shorts, and short sleeves, I had also brought a pair of jeans, and a sweater in my backpack for the walk home. It was chilly and there was a misty rain falling. I walked out and had instantly wished I had looked out of the window to check to see if it was raining.

I wished I could go back in. This happens sometimes when you’re leaving but you see a group of hot men come in and you wish you could go back, change back out of your clothes, and kiss and fuck them all for another hour.

I have no idea what the guy at the door would do if I tried this. He’d probably have no problem with that. You don’t get this job by being judgmental. But I was still too embarrassed to do it, even to avoid the rain.

But as almost always happens in Mexico City, the rain doesn’t stop anything. Nor does it even make you very wet. I’m used to running and hiding from the rain back in the US, and for good reason. The rain up there seems heavier.

Here in Mexico it’s often nothing more than a heavy mist that creates a surreal ambiance, especially for walking around La Tabacalera, freshly fucked, on your way to echar unos tacos.

Echar is a word I’ve recently mastered in Spanish. It’s an advanced word. What I mean by that is that is doesn’t have an English counterpart that sounds and works the same way.

One great thing about English and Spanish is that there are so many words that are almost identical and so much of the grammar works in the exact same way.

So much of being fluent is a cleaver use of the parts of the language that are identical and an equally clever avoidance of the parts that aren’t. It’s very useful but it often feels like cheating.

Only recently, after 5 years, have I begun to be able to master words like Echar.

Echar, like other advanced words, means to throw in.

You literally echar ingredientes of a recipe into something you are cooking.

We had just echado unas chelas - thrown back a couple of beers

I had just echado unos chavos. - fucked a few guys.

I walked passed El Monumento de La Revolutión. One of the best monuments in town in my opinion. It has the grander of an Italian monument with unmistakably Mexican materials and details, all topped off by a copper roof from my favorite Mexican state, Michoacán.

Next I passed El Caballito, a local favorite by Mexican Sculptor, Sebastián.

I was making my way to one of my favorite all night taco places on Avenida Bucarelli. Here they sell Tacos de Guisado.

These tacos will be nothing like what you think of when you think of tacos. In Mexico a guisado is simply an entre that people make for dinner. Usually a one pot wonder, but not always. It is common for workers to come to work with the leftover guisado from last night’s dinner. Someone goes out and gets tortillas, and they all sit down and make tacos from the leftovers that everybody brings from their homes.

Lots of taquerias specialize in tacos de guisado. Most of them all sell the same types of things as the others. There is a great Netflix episode all about tacos del guisado. Part of an essential series called ‘The Taco Chronicles.’

This place takes it to a next level. The quality of their guisados is way higher than the rest. Here you can get beef stew on a taco, and top it off with a variety of salsas.

Cream of chicken with poblano peppers is also a favorite of mine.

Speaking of Netflix and Mexico. There is an essential gay movie called ‘El Baile de los 41.’ ‘The dance of the 41,’ in English. it is about a clandestine sex club back in the times of the Mexican Revolution and the rich and powerful men who attended.

The movie is based 100% on true events and the club was located in La Tabacalera.

I stood on the street eating my delicious taco after an evening of drugs and fucking that made my appetite for the taco so big and made the taco taste much better.

Mexico is a place to live in the moment, but you are really missing out if you don’t know the story behind it.

To me, this is culture, this is gay travel. Thanks so much for traveling with me.

Love,

Tracey