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Guadalajara: Mayate Sunset
In gay Guadalajara, a “mayate” is slang for a masculine man passing for straight who has sex with men in exchange for money or favors. His sexual orientation is exaggerated because his allure is his “straight” mystique. He is a “top,” who penetrates, but is not penetrated. For the right price he will make exceptions.
Homosexuals hang out in the gay section of the plaza behind the landmark Juarez Theatre at the heart of the city. I met Jose here on a bench. He was more interested in talking than listening. What he had to say was fascinating and I asked questions.
Illegal Immigrant
Over 22 years he commuted back and forth between his home in Guadalajara and Tennessee four times. His last stay in the USA lasted 8 years. He always worked in Mexican restaurants, for the same chain in different outlets. His employers contracted and paid for him to be smuggled across the border and delivered safely to Tennessee each time. The last time he passed the border at Agua Prieta across from Douglas, Arizona. Other times he crossed from Nogales, Sonora to Nogales, Arizona. He was in a group of 40 under the care of “coyotes.” Coyotes have the job of smuggling undocumented persons from Mexico to USA. Jose said the cost for his employer was $3,500 dollars.
Before setting off for US Customs, everyone in the group cleaned up and was provided with a forged document. Each member would pass customs with a specific bribed official who was part of the “team”. The applicant provides a verbal code to the agent to cue him. The bribed agent receives 100 dollars per person, $4000 total in this case. If the official is discovered, prosecuted, and sent to prison, there is another willing to cooperate.
Once across the border the group is taken to Phoenix which includes passing through another immigration checkpoint along the highway. There too, an official is working as a “double agent”, for US Immigration and for the smugglers. Vans of undocumented persons arrive at “safe houses” in Phoenix where they are kept indoors with closed curtains while awaiting the next, safer leg of the journey, to Tennessee.
In Tennessee Jose will need a car to get to work. Since he has no legal documents to present at the DMV to register his vehicle and buy license plates, he is guided to an agent his employer bribes directly or through a middleman who issues them.
He works 11-hour shifts, 6 days a week as a cook for 700 dollars. He earns a little better than 10 dollars an hour which is comparable to minimum wage in Tennessee. He is issued a fake Social Security number which he uses throughout 22 years. Obviously his employer saves enough money hiring undocumented workers and paying their smuggling costs, to make it financially worthwhile.
He lives with other illegal immigrants in apartments he hooks up through work. In those 22 years he never received a driving violation that would have exposed his illegal status. Yet, he claims the local courts go soft on illegals who do because the value of illegal labor to the economy makes it worthwhile to overlook a worker’s status. The local police have an accommodating attitude that comes from above.
He appears to be in his early 50’s. Back this time in Guadalajara, he has decided to remain home for good. His 5 children are adults and he has accumulated two houses during the years working in Tennessee. His wife runs a business out of the house they share. One of his adult children lives in and care-takes the other. He is a grandfather.
He claims he’s waiting for an injury in his leg to heal before he seeks lower paid restaurant work locally. Meanwhile he says he is hard up financially and asks me for 20 pesos. I gave him the money and he left to catch his bus. You could say he charged me for the interview, and I got my money’s worth.
Ageing Mayate
The following night we meet by chance at the same bench. I realize he must be hanging out here a lot instead of spending time with his wife at home. Tonight, the conversation turns to sex. He tells me he does not have sex with his wife. He asks me if I am gay and I say yes. He thought so, he responds and says he is open minded, implying he is not gay. I suspect he is. He spends a lot of time cruising in the plaza.
He begins to advertise his body by bragging. His claims sound as possible as improbable at his age. He looks mostly European and part Amerindian, mestizo 70/30. He has a strong, masculine shape. Our shared European ethnicity makes me more critical. It is not possible to judge whether his muscles are firm and stomach flat while dressed.
He proudly says he got paid 500 pesos (25 dollars) a couple times. That would make him feel handsome and virile, and successful enough to keep at it. 500 pesos is 2 times the going rate for a much younger man hustling a low-end location like the plaza according to a source who has cruised here for decades. As opposed to cruising for sex and companionship over the internet with more assurance you will not be robbed by a stranger.
I’d say this man is a latent homosexual, availing himself of the Mayate closet which moralizes, makes right, the act of homosexuality by the fact of getting paid for it. It is a job with the moral imperative to make your client satisfied so you can buy food for children or high blood pressure pills for mother. Collecting payment blurs the shame of doing it because you like to.
Supposing he is gay, he may be suited to years away from family in Tennessee. He sent money back for 22 years and must feel he satisfied society’s expectations. He enjoys those social benefits while at the same time has nostalgia he wasted the chance to fully be who he is. Not just with his dick, but with his intelligence. He calculated there was too much to lose when he started out. He says he is an experienced Mayate which means he participates in gay life in a hedged way. He pulls in and out of it when he needs to without self-labeling as gay. Now is the sunset of his desirability to other men. Some like me, although further out of the closet, tolerate his role as a Mayate.
He’s got his family, his biggest investment in life, using a false identity. Hiding from them who he really is complicates being close. Which is why he stayed away in Tennessee and now spends his days at the Plaza.
There are no Social Security payments in Mexico for someone with his work history. If he becomes financially dependent on his wife or children as he ages the pressure increases to be in the closet. He paid into a false Social Security Retirement account in the USA if at all.
I have limited zeal for the Mayate character, so woven into Guadalajara culture. It’s born and sustained by homosexual persecution. Gay liberation is straining to push beyond resistance rooted in Christian opposition. Playing the role of Mayate is still profitable. Let men drop their masks and do their sexual business honestly. Whether or not money is involved it will benefit all.
Homosexual prejudice, in all its manifestations, bids up the value of being straight or the next best thing, passing for straight. Like racism creates a market for skin whitening creams for those who want to be lighter, homophobia creates a market among gay men to appear straighter.
Cal Avocado
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