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[Sex special 2023] With its nudist beach and its tradition of cruising under the stars, the small Mexican village has become a fashionable place. But after several unpunished homophobic attacks and the passing of a local law banning sex on the beach, is this tourism still welcome? Reporting.
“Playa del Amor? Oh, naughty scenes happened there, with people from all over the world!” Relian Voazel's androgynous face lights up at the mention of this small beach, discreetly nestled between the cliffs of Zipolite, a nudist village of 1,863 inhabitants located on the Pacific coast of the state of Oaxaca, Mexico. “For my birthday, I was treated to a bukkake, launches Relian, amused. It was with a gorgeous blonde with blue eyes from Sydney and a black dude from New York. But I only saw their navels!”
Originally from Mexico City, Relian spends the winter season in Zipolite, where he performs as a drag queen. A genderfluid look with prosthetic breasts and piercings, he identifies as a queer man and appreciates being able to walk naked on the beach. “Here, I'm just another original! People don't even turn around… For me, Zipolite is freedom!”
tropical paradise
Renowned in Mexico for its open and unprejudiced beach, Zipolite has recently become the new trendy tropical paradise among LGBTQI+. A sort of Latin Fire Island (high place of this community in the 1950s, in New York State) where LGBTQI+ people from all over the American continent and Europe meet. It's also one of the few places in the world where you can see naked queer or transgender bodies on the beach, without it bothering anyone.
But Zipolite's most emblematic place for LGBTQI+ people is Playa del Amor, a small cove surrounded by rocks suitable for cruising. Relian frequents her especially at the end of the afternoon. It's become something of a ritual within the community: people meet there to watch the sublime sunsets, sip margaritas and swim naked in the sparkling waves. And when night falls, the festivities begin… “Once, I had one behind me, clinging to my buttocks, another on the side giving me oral sex, a third between my legs licking my testicles , and two more, clinging to my nipples… These are moments you never forget in a lifetime: being the center of attention at Playa del Amor!”,says Relian .
Eros and thanatos
Meaning “the beach of the dead” in Zapotec, Zipolite was probably a beach where, in pre-Columbian times, the natives went to immerse the remains of their deceased. Dangerous, with strong currents, 1.7 kilometers long, the beach remained completely virgin until 1970. That year, a group of foreign hippies arrived by road to observe a total eclipse of the sun, perfectly visible from the coast of Oaxaca.
At the time, only two families lived in the area. Legend has it that hippies spot locals bathing naked in the sea and decide to do the same. Some fall in love with the place and choose to settle there, thus contributing to the foundation of today's Zipolite. This is where the nudist tradition and the openness of the village would come from.
“Zipolite is a place of discovery” Heber, 27-year-old Afro-Mexican
The first gay people to frequent Zipolite were the locals of this coastal region of Oaxaca. With its ideal topography for cruising , Playa del Amor attracts the curious locals who come to experiment in the rocks. “Zipolite is a place of discovery,” says Heber, a 27-year-old Afro-Mexican who lives a little further up the coast, in Puerto Escondido, a former fishing village that has become an international surfing spot, but who has been coming here for a long time. his teenage years. “Before you come out of the closet, you come to Zipolite because it's a nudist beach, free. And you go to Playa del Amor to experiment, to understand what attracts you…”
Heber has tried to venture into sunset orgies at Playa del Amor, but that's not really his thing: "I'm too visual, I need to see who I'm fucking with, otherwise it does not work. I like to get closer to listen, it excites me. But I am not participating.”
A rallying point for the LGBTQI+ community
Zipolite's gay-friendly reputation is said to be relatively recent, the result of a campaign by village businesses to attract LGBTQI+ customers. Oz, painter and masseur, has lived here for eleven years: “In 2017, there was a Gay Pride in Mexico where there was a Zipolite float. It was after that that the gay community really started coming and the orgies in Playa del Amor happened more frequently.”
Accustomed to Playa del Amor where he sometimes performs massages, Oz is not very fond of group sex. But he still participates in his own way: “I prefer more intimate situations. But during the high season, I happen to come with my notebook and paint the orgies. Participants are happy to let themselves be immortalized!”
"Here, you can be whoever you want, dress as you want, or not dress at all!" Paulina, Mexican creator of a place of life and creation
Zipolite has also evolved in recent years as something of a sanctuary for LGBTQI+ people in search of meaning, especially since the pandemic. The queer-friendly atmosphere of the village, the proximity to nature and the very affordable cost of living for foreigners have made it an ideal destination for those who need to take a break, take the time to find a new balance.
Mexican and Chilean respectively, Paulina and Ignacia fell in love in Zipolite four years ago. On the heights of the village, they are developing a place dedicated to women, offering both accommodation, a space for artistic creation and well-being. “The women who come to stay with us often have in common to go through a difficult period, linked to the death of a loved one, to a breakup, or because they want to get away from their family”, says Ignacia . Paulina continues: “Zipolite is like a big family of black sheep where we take care of each other. The diversity of the village makes you feel like you belong. Here, you can be whoever you want, dress as you want, or not dress at all!”
reveal oneself
There are also those who find in Zipolite the ideal environment to flourish. A 31-year-old Argentinian, Marco arrived just before the pandemic and at the time answered to the first name of Marjo. DJ, promoter, founder of the traveling queer village party Domingo Disco, Marco had not planned his transition. It was by using Marco's first name as DJ's name that he began to seriously ask himself the question.
Accompanied remotely by his Argentinian therapist, he decides to transition in 2021. “In my village in Argentina, it would have been real torture. People would have said, 'What else is wrong with that crazy girl!' Here, people showed a lot of respect, I felt comfortable during the whole process.” And to continue: “Living in a village with an LGBTQI+ majority is unique. It gives you that space to play, to experiment.” Marco's experience was an inspiration to those around him, as two friends from his village joined him at Zipolite and also started their transition.
Victim of his own success ?
But the balance of the village is precarious and the pandemic will put it to the test. In June 2020, after three months of closure, Zipolite becomes the first beach in Mexico to reopen to tourism to support the local economy which is 100% dependent on the sector. From then on, a wave of American and European tourists, fleeing repeated confinements, swept over the village. From New Year 2021, Zipolite becomes the new trendy LGBTQI+ destination. The international queer creative people arrive.
On the beach, we meet the plastic artist Théo Mercier, the DA of Courrèges Nicolas Di Felice, the English DJs of Horse Meat Disco, the singer of Fischerspooner Casey Spooner or the American designer Telfar Clemens. Images of this new queer Eden, outdoor living, beach parties are swirling on social media, even as the world's population remains largely confined. During the following season, in 2021-2022, Zipolite broke all attendance records. The village is overflowing with foreign LGBTQI+ tourists who want to taste the sexual freedom of the place.
On Playa del Amor, sexual activity is sustained, even during the day, and less and less hidden between the rocks. Thomas Flechel, a Frenchman who has been living in Zipolite since 2019 and who chairs Zipolite Diverso, the village's LGBTQI + association, says: “We arrived in the evening at orgies of 300 to 400 people. It was completely mind-blowing and I kept telling myself that it was probably the only place in the world with such a massive phenomenon.” Change of atmosphere. A situation that is beginning to no longer pass at all with certain local families. Especially since sex acts in public are illegal in Mexico.
A curfew and fines
In the spring of 2022, a new municipal representative is elected by the village: Zipolite's first openly gay municipal officer. Its first measure, voted during a municipal council, provides for a new regulation for the Playa del Amor. From now on, a curfew will be imposed from 9 p.m. and a fine of 5,000 pesos (250 euros - the equivalent of one month's minimum wage in Mexico) for anyone caught having sex on the beach. Advertised on the municipality's Facebook, the bulletin points to “those who engage in homosexual relations or orgies on the public beach and give Zipolite a bad image” .
Known by everyone in Zipolite as Keko, elected official and policeman David Rodríguez Acosta is a child of the village. Thirty, surfer look, he receives at the municipal police agency, located on a hill overlooking the beach. “I am the first openly gay municipal officer, how can you believe that Zipolite is a homophobic village? he says defensively. I grew up here in a macho atmosphere and I was one of those who helped open the spirit of the village.”
Ease tensions and create a bond
Since his election in 2022, accusations of homophobia against the City have multiplied. In question, several bans on LGBTQI+ parties and the application of the Playa del Amor regulations, especially at the beginning, when the first tourists arrested for sex on the beach saw their photo posted on the Facebook of the mugshot- style municipal police agency . “Some people confuse freedom and licentiousness, we had to put a stop to what was happening, defends David Rodríguez Acosta. With the new rules, now you think twice about having sex in public, right?
More disturbingly, after the announcement of the new regulations, at least three homophobic attacks, including a serious one, took place in the village without anyone being worried. Asked about this, David Rodríguez Acosta, who is also Zipolite's police auxiliary, puts it down to fate: “In the village, there are people who unfortunately did not go to school for long. , it is difficult to make them change.”
Faced with all this, Thomas Flechel, president of Zipolite Diverso, prefers to play the appeasement card. The problematic Facebook posts of the municipal police agency? He obtained their withdrawal during the day. “We will say that there was a corrected homophobia…” Homophobic attacks? “They have always existed at Zipolite, but they are now accounted for by the association, so they are more visible . ” As for the local population, they would not be so opposed to sex at Playa del Amor: “It's just a very small conservative group that managed to convince the city council with videos, explains Thomas. But cruisingon the beach, it has existed for more than thirty years in Zipolite.”
In schools, the Zipolite Diverso association organizes sex education workshops to change mentalities
The new regulations have obviously not really changed what happens at Playa del Amor either: “Very quickly, a whistle signal was put in place when the police arrive. And when she's not there, it's like every day."explains Thomas. Zipolite Diverso has multiplied initiatives since last year to ease tensions and create links within the village. Made up of tourism professionals and LGBTQI+ shopkeepers, the association helped rebuild the village after Hurricane Agatha, which wreaked havoc in June 2022. Raising more than €38,000 from donors, it financed the construction of 70 houses for the poorest families. In schools, Zipolite Diverso organizes sex education workshops to change mentalities.
This year was also marked by a major first: the organization of a pride march on May 20, as part of Diversity Week. To gain buy-in from local residents, the association merged this event with a calenda, a traditional Oaxacan parade reserved for special occasions. On the beach, local families and members of the LGBTQI+ community paraded together to the sound of a brass band wearing the colors of the rainbow. Slight downside: David Rodríguez Acosta was mysteriously absent…
