“obedézcase, pero no se cumpla.”/obeyed, but not fulfilled

December 10, 2024 10:39 PM

[Mexico] city’s metro hosts—and authorities unofficially sanction—a queer institution unlike any other.

“There are more intensities on the margins than in the center, where everyone is homogenized.” And the train connects these marginal intensities.

[Introduction probably NSFW]

Stopping and starting in this way, secret and furtive, the last car—a paradox of freedom and repression—testifies to how queer people have an enduring ability to create spaces for themselves, even within trying circumstances. And, for now at least, the ride continues.

posted by rubatan (11 comments total)

The website blocks my browser.
posted by neonamber at 12:08 AM on December 11, 2024

Wouldn’t be gated, but [Archive link] if blocked.
posted by rubatan at 12:16 AM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

Ah we run into the contranym "sanction"
posted by chavenet at 1:05 AM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]

The author claims that "Most cities do not recognize public sex as a human right; Amsterdam and Copenhagen are notable exceptions".

But there is no recognition of public sex as a human right in Amsterdam. Rather there is a "tolerance policy" ("gedoogbeleid") by the city council that they won't fine or harass people who have sex near a popular cruising spot in one particular park, as long as it happens at nighttime and doesn't offend anyone. That's a far cry from what the author claims, and it makes me wary about the rest of the piece.
posted by dmh at 1:39 AM on December 11, 2024 [2 favorites]

—he told me to read the Nobel laureate Octavio Paz. “The last car,” Elias said, “is like what Paz called the Mexican ‘labyrinth of solitude.’”

[archive.org:]

“It is always difficult to give oneself up; few persons anywhere ever succeed in doing so, and even fewer transcend the possessive stage to know love for what it actually is: a perpetual discovery, an immersion in the waters of reality, & an unending re-creation.”
posted by HearHere at 2:24 AM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]

Thanks Rubatan.

The sexual dissidents marketplace at Insurgentes sounded cool af. Pity it was shut down.
posted by neonamber at 4:33 AM on December 11, 2024

I could never participate in something like this, I just don't live in the moment enough and I'd be way too up in my own head to even get an erection in this situation.

Kudos to those who can pull it off, or is it more like necessity is the mother of invention?
posted by keep_evolving at 6:50 AM on December 11, 2024

This article is hot! God bless the queers of CDMX getting freaky on the last car. It seems to be a well developed culture, see also here and here.

There's been a low-key effort in the San Francisco Bay Area to designate the last car in BART for cruising but it's never amounted to much that I've seen.
posted by Nelson at 7:32 AM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]

There's been a low-key effort in the San Francisco Bay Area to designate the last car in BART for cruising

I don't know enough about Mexican culture to have an opinion about the topic in a Mexico City context.

In the context of the USA, as someone who wants to see more and better public transit, this seems like a potentially terrible idea. "Certain parks at night" seems like a far better outlet, no?
posted by daveliepmann at 9:05 AM on December 11, 2024 [1 favorite]

This is going into my High-Speed Rail proposal to Pete Buttigieg.
posted by mittens at 9:21 AM on December 11, 2024 [3 favorites]

using that as my next example of everything-bagel liberalism, thanks
posted by daveliepmann at 2:43 AM on December 12, 2024