Following our sojourn to Sodom, curvaceous Charlotte and dapper Alan invited us to their gaff for a late light bite. They have a luxuriant but unpretentious home overlooking Yalıkavak. Domestic goddess Charlotte served up a splendid spread of full fat tastiness. My arteries hardened with every morsel. There we met the congenial Greg and Sam, a couple of muscle marys from Turgutreis who retreated from east London three years ago, forsaking unfulfilling careers and studded thongs for peace and tranquillity. Impressively, they have been together for over twenty years contradicting the widely held belief that gay men are genetically incapable of sustaining a relationship beyond the first date. They used to be anatomically huge but have since somewhat deflated by exchanging pumping iron for jam making. However, they still have the biggest pecs on the peninsula. We share the same vocabulary of Delia, daisies and dick. They are to be our new best gay friends.
Category: LGBT
Lock Up Yer Sons
We picked up an old copy of Bodrum Voices at the kiosk next to the main cami (mosque) in old Bodrum Town. I nearly choked on my crappafrappachino when I spotted the headline – Bodrum Becomes Gay Hotspot. According to the Independent on Sunday (my preferred Sunday rag) over 4,000 gay tourists have visited Bodrum in the past five years. How do they know? Have our passports been chipped by the secret police and we’re now tracked by satellite? I knew it was a stupid mistake to declare my sexual orientation on the census return. I’m a marked man.
The article went on to suggest that the numbers may rise to over 30,000 in the coming years. It’s amusing to think that Yalıkavak could become the new Mykonos. Alas, I really don’t think Turkey is quite ready for that yet and the emigrey ignorati might well have a collective seizure at the thought of it. Well, on the other hand…
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The Emigreys
The ex-pats we’ve met are a select collection of friendlies and freaks. I have christened them the emigreys, retirees serving out their twilight years in the sun, most of whom seem to be just a little to the right of Genghis Khan and who bought a jerry built white box in Turkey because it was cheaper than Spain (well, it was at the time). Everyday emigrey life operates within a parallel universe of neo colonial separateness preoccupied with visa hops to Kos, pork sausages, property prices and Blighty bashing.
Cream of the emigrey crop are the vetpats, veterans who have been living in Turkey for many years. Usually better informed than their peers with a less asinine view of the world, vetpats have taken the trouble to learn Turkish and are better integrated into the wider community.
A little noticed and discrete group of emigreys is the sexpats, grey men of means who are serviced by young Turkish men in return for a stipend. The contract suits both parties well and the trade is conducted in secrecy far removed from prying eyes and tittle-tattlers.
We are trying hard not to get too involved and cultivate a mysterious aloofness – courteous but distant – spectators rather than participants. We prefer to amuse ourselves with the obsequious wintering waiters, most of whom seem both repelled and fascinated by our obvious union.
Blissful Bodrum
It was a magnificent day, so we ventured out to Bodrum for a light lunch and a beer on the beach. The town was in jolly mood and filled with laid back holidaying Turks strolling along the promenade. The sweaty bother of the summer months has been displaced by a more agreeable autumnal tone. We settled at a modest watering hole opposite the town beach which proudly displays a rainbow flag alongside the usual pennants. The bar has been a constant during our many holidays to Bodrum as the prices are reasonable and the easy on the eye staff are attentive without being fawning. The clientele has completely changed from tattooed tourist to Turk and is much the better for it. We watched the sun set over the castle and were reminded, as if a reminder was needed, why we are here.
Cleanse, Tone and Clench
London life friend Ian emailed me to remind me of the good old days when we were both free and easy. Well, I was free he was very easy. In days long past Ian was my regular dance partner as we filled our boots across half of Europe, and the main butt of my low wit. Socially polished, popular, sharp and loyal, his is the rare gift of insight into the human condition and I wonder what he would make of the overwintering exiles. In his email he recalled his envy at my popularity with the punters. My memories of our many trips around the dance floor are entirely different. His card was always fuller than mine as he had perfected his cleanse, tone and clench routine for the boys. Sadly, he mostly attracted those with less than a rudimentary command of English; the Third World was Ian’s specialist subject. Still, come the last waltz, I usually managed to secure a booking with some desperado who attracted me with the familiar you’ll do look in his eyes.Bulging Biceps
As the cooler nights approach, Clement drove Liam to a local timber merchant to buy the winter logs for our open fire. It wasn’t entirely an act of neighbourly altruism since Clement lusts after the log man, a ruddy rugged chap with bulging biceps and a chest like a Turkish wrestler. The log man delivered and neatly stacked the consignment. Clement flirtatiously supervised lingering a little too close to imbibe the intoxicating blend of testosterone and sweat. I kept the smelling salts handy. Afterwards Clement convalesced in a darkened room for an hour or two. I can’t imagine what he was doing.
One Step Forward, Two Steps Back
I hear the Turkish authorities have finally lifted the bar on You Tube now that the offending article about Atatürk has been removed. Good. I’m not generally in favour of banning things as it tends to drive activities underground. In any case, website bans are a blunt tool and easy to circumvent. At the same time, I hear that Gaydar, the social networking and contact site for gay people, has been added to the list of prohibited sites, presumably on spurious moral grounds. Gaydar is one of those rare British success stories, a social networking site with a global reach. The ban doesn’t affect us personally, but I am saddened by it. It will only add to the sense of loneliness, isolation and alienation that young gay people here must feel.
Mounted by the Valet
Clement invited us in for afternoon tea to provide some respite from our labours, all china cups and silver spoons. He appears to be a peculiarly old fashioned English gentleman with impeccable manners – gracious but fastidious and slightly pompous. I think of him as a queen of the old school displaying an air of conservative respectability by day but mounted by the valet after dark. Clement mentioned that he was having people over for supper in a few days, including Chrissy and Bernard, and wondered if we’d like to join them. It is to be a casual, low key affair and a chance to meet his ‘chums’. We accepted.
In the Beginning
In the beginning there was work and work was God. After 35 years in the business, the endless predictability made me question the Faith. Liam, on the other hand, was neither bored nor unchallenged but was routinely subjected to the ephemeral demands of a capricious boss, a soft and warm Christmas tree fairy with a soul of granite – Lucifer in lace. He feared for his tenure. I feared for his mental health. It was the 30th May 2009, Liam’s 48th birthday, and we were enjoying a romantic meal in Soho. As the booze flowed the conversation turned to ‘What if?’ Thus began our Great Adventure.
We began to hatch our audacious plot to step off the treadmill and migrate to the sun. Turkey sprang instantly to mind since we had just returned from Bodrum – a chic and cosmopolitan kind of place attracting serious Turkish cash, social nonconformists and relatively few discount tourists. Liam loved it and, after many years visiting the western shores of Anatolia, I needed no convincing. All I had to do was sell my house just as property prices were in free fall. All Liam had to do was agree a financial settlement with his ex on their jointly-owned property, something that hitherto had proven more difficult to resolve than the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Against all odds, I sold my house and its contents to a God-send of a neighbour and, after some emotional horse-trading, Liam finally achieved a reasonable settlement on his own property. Implausibly, we both secured voluntary redundancy from work. In my case, it happened with such an indecent haste that I sensed they were glad to be rid of me. Well, the axeman was stalking the Town Hall corridors looking for prey. It mattered little since it all added to the purse. Our remarkable run of luck convinced us that someone was looking down kindly upon us. Liam attributed it to the Virgin Mary.
We turned our attention to where in Turkey we might settle. The obvious choice was the narrow western coastal strip tucked beneath the vast Anatolian Plateau as it is the most attuned to European sensibilities. Turkey beyond this is the genuine article, a magical land of sweeping landscapes, drenched in drama and culture but far too foreign and exotic for a couple of mature, bourgeois, gay boys from the Smoke.
Bodrum was the bookie’s favourite, an urbane, liberal oasis where we could live safely and unmolested. We briefly entertained the notion of living in Kaş on the Turkuaz Coast where we had honeymooned. Kaş is a sparkling Bohemian jewel, surrounded by a pristine hinterland that has been mercifully spared the worst excesses of mass tourism. But, its glorious isolation, protected by a wilting two hour drive from the nearest international airport, means that the town is effectively closed out of season and lacks those dull but essential full time services we all need to live in the material world: banks, supermarkets, hospitals and the like. We cast our eyes along the map. The coast running south-east of Kaş towards Alanya has been colonised by the Germans and Russians and the string of major resorts running north – Fethiye, Marmaris, Altinkum and Kuşadası – attracts legions of bargain basement Brits. It was no surprise that the odds on favourite won by a mile.
Perking the Pansies 