Elenamary

This week’s (May 21st-27th) The Economist Has an article titled: Gays in Mexico: Out and Proud.
It has the following image with the text “The closet is for clothes”. The article discusses how Gays are compartively a lot more out in Mexico City then they were before. Their descrptions of the gay scene in Mexico City is one of out and mostly accepted. They describe a section of Mexico City, La Zona Rosa, as “The area is also home to an impresive range of gay clubs, bars and restuarants, from the sex-driven to the status-conscious, as well as an array of travela gents, bookshops and even a lawyer’s office, all specialising in service for gay people.”

The thing that most stood out for me from the article was one sentence in describing gay shopping tendincies to those of heterosexuals. “Mexican lesbians, for example, spend 60% more on beauty products than the average adult female, and are six times more likely to have access to the internet.”

I am not surprised by the internet statistic. I think one of the great things about the internet is that it allowed gays to communicate and create support groups anonymously before coming out. With the internet you can also discuss sexuality and desires without the fear that this person somewhere else will physically harm you.

What I am suprised about is that cosmetic spending by lesbians. I guess I am just being sterotypical but I don’t usually think of lesbians as big cosmetic shoppers.

If you would like to read the whole article you can check it out here. Or you can read it all below because I know some of you won’t bother to sit through the ad to read the article.

Gays in Mexico

Out and proud
May 19th 2005 | MEXICO CITY
From The Economist print edition

Vanquishing homophobia

FROM trendy minimalist cafés catering to a new generation of the out and the proud, to porn movies with actors dressed as traditional masked wrestlers, small businesses aimed at Mexico’s gays are suddenly popping up everywhere.
This is most noticeable in the capital’s Zona Rosa, or Pink Zone, an accidentally appropriate name for an area that has become a magnet for young gays, who wander around hand in hand without an apparent thought for Mexico’s legendary homophobia. Once home to a bohemian artistic vanguard, the area had fallen on seedier times, becoming awash with table-dance clubs and furtive gay prostitution. Then came the pink revolution.
A year ago, Mexico’s first unashamedly gay café opened in the Zona Rosa. Bgay Bproud’s large windows look out boldly onto the street, offering both a real and a symbolic invitation to passers-by to look in on a newly confident community. Now there are three other openly gay coffee-shops in the same street. The area is also home to an impressive range of gay clubs, bars and restaurants, from the sex-driven to the status-conscious, as well as an array of travel agents, bookshops and even a lawyer’s office, all specialising in services for gay people.
In all, Mexico City’s metropolitan area is reckoned to have more than 100 gay businesses. Although there is no obvious single trigger for the boom, it is clearly linked to the rise of a new cable-TV generation that has grown up on programmes such as “Will & Grace” and “Queer as Folk”, unwilling to skulk in the shadows or behind blacked-out windows.
Bigger firms are now beginning to weigh the potential of Mexico’s unexploited pink peso. A market-research study last year found that gays in Mexico have a lot more ready cash than their child-burdened heterosexual peers. Mexican lesbians, for example, spend 60% more on beauty products than the average adult female, and are six times more likely to have access to the internet.
Four years ago, a national survey showed that two out of three Mexicans opposed living under the same roof as a homosexual. But acceptance is growing. Last month, the nominally right-wing federal government released two radio spots directly challenging homophobic attitudes. They provoked predictable protests by pro-life groups, but were generally well-received by the man in the street.