Julian LeMont

“Las personas que buscan el placer, nunca lo encontrarán, porque el placer tiende a acumular sus exigencias a cada paso, y los que lo buscan acaban doblemente desdichados”

“Those seeking pleasure will never find it, as pleasure tends to become more demanding with every step, and those who always seek it will wind up twice as unfulfilled”

It was here in Valencia that I first came across catalan author Terenci Moix’s insightful words and learned their true meaning. Because nowhere else in Europe is there such a human propensity towards excess and unbridled pleasure as in the Mediterranean region of Spain, the famous LEVANTE. In many an area of life, the Spanish character tends to seek limitless excess, with the excuberant fire works for Valencia’s famous FALLAS festival starting even weeks before the actual event. In late February already, I could hear fire crackers in the streets and twice weekly “MASCLETAS”, fire cracker extravaganza, were held at the Plaza del Ayuntamiento in downtown Valencia. So while Spain’s third largest city maintained a civilized air of bourgeois affluence, underneath the thin veneer of civilization looms a deep dark abyss for the compulsive and insatiable.

The fire works display is only an innocent illustration, because the same excuberance can be found in all other areas of life, including the region’s rampant drug problems and the sexual excesses of gay locals. On several occasions, I personally witnessed some addicts so affected by drug abuse, they lay extended on the sidewalk in front of Valencia’s train station, where an abundance of Bulgarian street boys gather daily in search for clients. Or on another occasion, I saw a drugged street person pulling his pants down in broad daylight to take a dump in the median of Valencia’s prestigious MARQUES DE TURIA Boulevard during rush hour. Not to mention when a police car escorted me to the notorious BARRIO CHINO behind the Central Market Hall, after my wallet was pick-pocketed from the nearby CARMEN entertainment district. It is here in the “chinese quarter”, where on filthy alleyways the low-lives of society congregated and drugs, disease, crime, death and prostitution converged. It was like among the worst scenes from a bad Almodovar movie.

Turning to matters of gay sex, there were also numerous dark and dirty outlets that loomed for those so inclined, bringing us close again to the very limits of pleasure. At that time, I lived with a girl from Ivory Coast and a handsome guy from Colombia, who had been travelling around the globe with a Latin multimillionaire as his “personal secretary”, whatever role that may imply. Carlos, as was his name, was highly fascinated by the local gay escort and prostitution scene, as he had facilitated his boss many a rent boy in places such as Cuba, with its famous “pingueros” or Brazil during Carnaval with its infamous “garotos de programa”. So Carlos and I frequently hung out together exploring Valencia’s gay sexual limits, which we found out, did not exist. Instead we wound up observing and at times savoring every sexual excess available. So there were occasional visits to Valencia’s infamous “ADÁN” gay escort bathhouse, where I wound up having passionate sex with a gay barbie-doll like Valenciano escort who pretended to be Cuban for the sexual aura it generated, and we both wondered in retrospect who would be paying whom. Then we spent night after night in the city’s TURIA park cruising locals, escorts and shadows, enjoying many an outdoor cumshot with handsome young Spaniards horny and eager to get off. And last but not least, we went on average twice a week, Thursdays and Sundays, to the local club sauna “EL PUERTO” where we found plentiful sexual outlets with handsome young locals and visitors alike.

This routine took on a momentum of its own, whereby we almost had to self-identify as gay in Valencia only IF and WHEN we did our weekly sauna visits, cruising rounds and nights in the escort bars. I never paid for sex, and never sold myself either – but the whole circuit had its own dynamic appeal few could remain impervious to. And although personal encounters shaped many a visit, and I still fondly recall SERGIO I so fell in love with and had many a time sex with at the sauna and at home, the entire routine became increasingly anonymous, unfulfilling and devoid of pleasure.

The worst case scenario took place on a Sunday at our sauna club around the FALLAS festival, when hundreds of thousands of visitors were in town for the festivities and the lines at the club went out the door. Each and every one of the 500+ lockers at the club was occupied, and the place was jampacked with guys, hot and ugly, young and old, locals and visitors alike. There was one “jack-pot”, however, and he as a studly drop-dead gorgeous Brazilian Go-Go Dancer, who had often appeared at our local club VENIAL, and who had the pleasure of meeting and mating with him? none other than JULIAN. He whispered sweet nothings into my ear as we engaged in passionate kisses and he started pounding me with his magnificent huge throbbing Latin uncut cock – and yet, I was numb and felt nothing. I did not even get hard. And it was then that I noticed, the limits of pleasure were reached, surpassed and what looms behind it is burn-out, depression and loneliness.

Yet I was fortunate enough to pull back just in time, before the vicious circle of unbridled sex, burn-out and compulsion could take over and drag me down for good. I made alternative plans to leave Valencia, travel more, get away and date a guy for a while, which helped me restore my integrity and regain joy and pleasure, acutely aware of when and where to stop before matters turn around. And in line with Terenci Moix’s wisdom above, I have truly learned that we cannot regain our innocence, since its combination of ignorance and immaturity is something lost once and for all, but we are always and at any point capable of restoring our own integrity.