Hooking Up In Chile

As with most South American countries, the vast majority of people in Chile are Catholic.  Also similar to other countries here, people tend to live with their parents/family until they get married so you often have 25 and 30 year old men still living at home.  This obviously makes hooking up a bit difficult since, even if they are out of the closet, there's no way they can have guys over to have sex.  Considering this, most people might wonder what the guys here (and girls too for that matter) do when they want to have sex.  Well, enter the ubiquitous "hotel".  Located on every other block and everywhere you turn in Santiago, there are small hotels where you can rent a room in small blocks of time, usually in three hour increments.  Most of them have their prices listed at the entrance for both hourly rates and overnight rates.  The average rate for three hours seems to be about 9,000 pesos, which is the equivalent of about $14.  Note, this is about the same as the average price for a private room in a hostel. 

 

Now, I can't say I've never been to such a place, but the last time I had to go to an hourly-rate hotel/motel was when I was a teenager still living at home in Detroit and the guy I was hooking up with was married.  So it's not that such places are unheard of back home in the States, but the sheer number of places here just shows how an entire (obviously, quite profitable) industry exists just to provide a comfortable, discreet place for people to have sex.  The prices are reasonable if you only utilize such a place every now and then, but if I had to go to a hotel every time I wanted to have sex, I would be broke, especially considering how often I have sex.  From what I've seen and heard, the quality of the hotels can also vary quite greatly.  Some are quite nice, just like any other small hotel; others are quite seedy and dirty.  They also have hotels that cater to, or are at least very popular with gay men. 

 

I had my own experience with these hotels during our second weekend in Santiago.  I met a guy online a few days previously and we made plans to meet the following Saturday night.  It never occurred to me to ask him if he lived alone.  I assumed the plan was to go back to his place until Sean told me about his experience meeting a guy whose plan was to go to one of these hotels after they met up.  Upon hearing of Sean's experience, I sent my guy a message to find out the deal because, after thinking about the fact that he wanted to meet at the subway station, it seemed clear that this was also his plan.  Unfortunately, I couldn't send the message until the afternoon of the day we were supposed to meet, so he didn't get it in time.  So I go to meet him at 9:00 pm and sure enough, his plan was to go to one of these hotels.  I explained that I didn't even have much money on me because I wasn't expecting to need any and after being robbed in Valpo, I learned my lesson about carrying money or valuables when going to meet someone for sex.  He said that was fine and agreed to pay so we proceeded to go to the hotel he had in mind.  Unfortunately, the lady at the desk would not let us rent a room because I didn't have any ID and they require an ID from both people.  Normally, I would at least have my CA drivers license, but again, since I was robbed in Valpo, I no longer had a drivers license and my only other ID is my passport, which I'm sure as hell not carrying with me to go hook up with someone. 

 

So we left and decided to go find another hotel.  As I said, these hotels are everywhere, but you never quite know what you're getting so it's hit or miss with each one and best to go to one you're familiar with.  We walked around for a bit and eventually stopped at an internet cafe where his friend works.  He asked his friend, who is also gay, if there was another good place nearby and got a couple of suggestions.  After walking around in circles for a while, we found the first place his friend mentioned.  Unfortunately, this place turned out not to be gay-friendly.  The woman at the door, who would only speak to us through the intercom on the other side of the glass door, informed us that she could not rent a room to two guys and that we would have to rent separate rooms... gotta love conservative, homophobic, Catholic country.  My date promptly cussed her out, in English, calling her a mutha fuckin bitch, etc., and then we went out in search of another place.  I do have to say, he didn't speak or understand English all that well, but he sure knew how to swear in English.  I was thoroughly impressed!!  The next place we went to was decent enough, but it was much more expensive, didn't have private bathrooms and my date didn't like it because they didn't have porn.  Yes, these hotels usually have porn channels on the TV's.  So after more walking around, we finally decided to go to the other place his friend mentioned, which we didn't go to initially because it required taking the subway.

 

An hour and a half after first meeting, we arrive at our final destination, which appears to be a total sex emporium.  The building had a sex shop, a bar and some other venues on the ground floor while the hotel was on the second floor.  On the way up, I saw one gay couple, an older guy in a suit and a young guy who was clearly a rent boy, so this place was obviously more gay-friendly.  I saw another gay couple in the lobby which made me feel a little more comfortable this place wouldn't give us any problems.  The young (straight?) guy at the desk was much more pleasant and only required ID from one of us.  The building itself was quite nice and very clean with marble floors and paintings on the walls.  The room was bigger than the hostel rooms we've been staying in and had a private bathroom; they even gave us soap and towels!!   All for 9,000 pesos for three hours.  Oh, they also had peliculas gay (gay porn), although he had to call reception a few times to get them to put it on. 

 

I won't go into too much detail, but let's just say the sex was good and worth the hassle and effort.  This guy, at only 26  years old, was definitely adept in all things sexual and was all about having fun in bed.  I can't even remember how many different positions we tried; he was full of energy and seemed to really like switching things up a bit and trying new things.  The fact that he was versatile made everything all the more enjoyable.  We even taught each other some dirty sex words in our respective languages, although I already knew more Spanish sex words than he did in English.  Anyway, after having fun for about an hour, we cuddled and talked for about an hour.  He seemed to want to get his three hours worth and since he paid, I wasn't going to complain.  The interesting thing about our conversation, which I hadn't experienced too often on this trip, is that he spoke in English while I spoke in Spanish.  His English was decent for someone who only studied it in High School ten years ago, but he spoke it much better than he understood it so it was easier to communicate, and good practice for both of us, for him to speak English and for me to respond in Spanish and vice versa.  After talking for an hour, we finished up our last hour having more sex and finally took a shower together and checked out.  Then he walked me home and we said our respective good-byes.... almost five hours after first meeting. 

 

Overall, it was definitely an enjoyable experience, and I'm glad I can write about the sex hotels in Chile, but from now on, I think I will stick to hooking up with guys who live alone.  It's just much easier and cheaper that way and having sex, no matter how good it is, should not be so damn complicated!!