Bathhouses, Saunas and Cruising Bars in Covid19 Times

As of today, July 1, 2021, another Covid19 restriction has been lifted in France, that being where gathering spaces such as bathhouses (otherwise also known as gay saunas) and cruising bars which were closed for well over a year, are now open.

Hooray!

There were a couple of bathhouses in the country testing the waters and opening once or twice a week before the restriction was technically lifted but now it’s game on again.

Rules for who can come inside during these unusual times will be guided by what the government still currently dictates but also with what an owner of these establishments wants to include for their own precautionary measures for the safety of everyone at the moment.

For those that live in France and those lucky tourists visiting, it is suggested you arrive at these venues prepared so that you don’t get turned away.

France loves paperwork, so bring along your passport or other nationality identification and anything related to confirming that you are double vaxxed, that being any documents preferably with a QR Code or have the QR Code of your vaccination through the Tous AntiCovid App available

Apparently, as of today, there will be a European Health Pass app available for those traveling that might help with proving you have had your vaccination shots.

Upon entering one of these premises expect to have a fever monitor device set on your forehead to check your temperature as an added precaution and you may be asked to use some of their hand sanitizer gel also before venturing around inside.

What each owner decides to do is totally up to them, the ones I know of though here in the French Riviera will be very on top of things with added precautions in place as they will not want to risk having to close again.

Word is that on July 9th, the nightclubs will reopen, I’ll post an update as more news and information comes in.

Enjoy yourself and stay safe

Cannes Film Festival Selection 2021

 

The Cannes Film Festival makes its return this year for its 74th edition, from July 6th to 17th after the Covid-19 pandemic put a pause on the world's leading film festival for its 2020 edition.

An extensive list of past Palme d'Or winners and art house favorites are set to return to the seaside city of Cannes as organizers announced the official selections for the competition on Thursday.

Among the 24 directors whose films are heading to the Cote d'Azur is Sean Penn for his new film "Flag Day", Italy's Nanni Moretti with "Tri Piani" and France's Jacques Audiard with "Les Oympiades".

They will be joined by three big influential directors that had already been announced: Wes Anderson for "The French Dispatch", Paul Verhoeven for "Benedetta" and Leos Carax for "Annette".

"Annette" is the first film in a decade from French arthouse darling Carax and his first in English. It stars Adam Driver and Marion Cotillard as a celebrity couple awaiting a mysterious child.

Dutch filmmaker Verhoeven – who has often married art and salaciousness with movies like "Basic Instinct", "Showgirls" and "Elle" – is being recognized for his latest offering "Benedetta", about a lesbian nun in a 17th-century Italian convent.

Normally the Cannes Film Festival takes place in the month of May but this year the festival was postponed until early July. France will have lifted the evening Covid-19 curfew by then, although travelers from specific locations may still face quarantine measures, including those from Britain although things appear to be on the positive side.

Festival director Thierry Frémaux stated there will be the usual parties and dinners as well as events to give holidaymakers on the Cote d’Azur a chance to enjoy the event, such as screenings on the beach.

Covid-19 precautions will still be in force, however. “We won’t be kissing at the top of the [red carpet] steps,” Frémaux said.

Oscar-winner Jodie Foster, who first walked the red carpet at Cannes as a 13-year-old when she starred in “Taxi Driver”, will be presented with an honorary Palme d’Or.

One silver lining from the disruption of the past year has been a backlog of cinematic gold that gave organizers some 2,000 films to wade through as they made their selection for the 74th edition.

Another past Palme d'Or winner returning to the Croisette is Thailand's Apichatpong Weerasethakul with his first English-language film "Memoria", starring Tilda Swinton.

Iran's two-time Oscar-winner Asghar Farhadi will also return with "A Hero" while Russia's renowned director Kirill Serebrennikov – who has lately faced significant pressure from authorities – will be in competition with "Petrov's Flu". 

Here are the 24 films competing for the prestigious Palme d'Or prize, to be awarded by a jury headed by US director Spike Lee.

- "Annette" by Leos Carax, France

- "The French Dispatch" by Wes Anderson, US

- "Benedetta" by Paul Verhoeven, Netherlands

- "A Hero" by Asghar Farhadi, Iran

- "Tout s'est Bien Passé" (Everything Went Well) by Francois Ozon, France

- "Tre Piani" (Three Floors) by Nanni Moretti, Italy

- "Titane" (Titan) by Julia Ducournau, France

- "Red Rocket" by Sean Baker, US

- "Petrov's Flu" by Kirill Serebrennikov, Russia

- "Par un Demi-Clair Matin" (now known by the title "France") by Bruno Dumont, France

- "Nitram" by Justin Kurzel, Australia

- "Memoria" by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand

- "Lingui" by Mahamat-Saleh Haroun, Chad

- "Les Olympiades" (Paris' 13th District) by Jacques Audiard, France

- "Les Intranquilles" (The Restless Ones) by Joachim Lafosse, Belgium

- "La Fracture" by Catherine Corsini, France

- "The Worst Person in the World" by Joachim Trier, Norway

- "Compartment No 6" by Juho Kuosmanen, Finland

- "Casablanca Beats" by Nabil Ayouch, France-Morocco

- "Ahed's Knee" by Nadav Lapid, Israel

- "Drive My Car" by Ryusuke Hamaguchi, Japan

- "Bergman Island" by Mia Hansen-Love, France

- "The Story of My Wife" by Ildiko Enyedi, Hungary

- "Flag Day" by Sean Penn, US

June 2021 Coronavirus Update

 

Well, it’s looking like things are finally getting back to some sense of normalcy, almost.

As of May 19, 2021, the curfew in France was moved from 6 pm to 9 pm with restaurants and cafes being allowed to open their terraces at 50% capacity.

As of this evening, June 8, 2021, the curfew gets moved from 9 pm to 11 pm, although those out between 11 pm and 6 am will still need an attestation filled out citing an essential reason for being outside.

More welcoming changes include the reopening of indoor seating in restaurants and cafés. Customers will now be welcomed back inside, albeit with a 50% percent limit on capacity and a six-person maximum per table. Customers must, however, provide contact details in order to take advantage of indoor seating, with many cafés offering a scannable QR option to make the process simple.

Rules on terraces will also change, allowing establishments with outdoor space to operate at full capacity, though the six-person per table restriction will still be in effect.

There will also be the introduction of the travel ‘traffic light’ system that also goes into effect on June 9th. This program entails a green, orange and red list of countries who are allowed into France under differing criteria based on the current health situations in their nations.

Also, to begin with, are the health passports. Already operational via the TousAntiCovid app, users can scan vaccination certificates or recent negative Covid tests from the My Wallet section. From June 9th, this will be an entry requirement for certain large events, such as concerts and sports matches.

With the advent of the health passport, events of up to 5,000 will also be allowed once more, subject to rules regarding social distancing and the usual protections.

Tourist sites, cinemas, shops, and museums will also be able to welcome the public back with an increased capacity. Theatres and cinemas can have up to 65% normal capacity, with a maximum of 1,000 patrons, or 5,000 with a health passport.

Guests at weddings and civil ceremonies are limited to 50% venue capacity and funerals can have up to 75 attendees. Currently, nightclubs will remain closed but there is talk of them opening possibly around July 1st, so fingers crossed there.

Also, some gay saunas are slowly up again in places like Marseille but I'll keep you updated on other locations as time moves on.

Gatherings of more than 10 people in public spaces are still discouraged, and masks are still mandatory in public indoor spaces, with a risk of a €135 fine for non-compliance. Check your local listings on rules as most cities are also still requiring masks in outdoor public spaces as well.

Summer Reading

In the middle of March 2021, announcements continued to be made practically every week in regards to what restrictions were about to be added or staying the same for us in France due to the Coronavirus situation.

This meant, our curfews were still going to stay in place and most of the shops were going to be closed again for an extended time period along with the radius of which we were allowed to travel being that of 10km. Basically, the government wanted everyone to stop movement as much as possible to protect against the spread of the virus while vaccinations have increased.

Fortunately, my work has kept me busy taking care of clients’ requests from around the world, if not for now, then in the near future once borders start opening up again.

Although I work a minimum of 12 hours a day, pretty much every day of the year, I still felt like I had some time to take on another project, and what better time than during a pandemic? This project has been in the back of my mind though for years and encouraged by others to pursue it, so that is what I have done.

I’ve written a book.

Bathhouse Babylon has been released this weekend as an e-book and paperback and tells a true, in-depth account of part of my former work and life in North America.

At that time, I managed three gay bathhouses, or gay saunas, as they are called here in Europe, over an extensive number of years. I wanted to tell a story that is more of an insider’s scoop on the inner workings of the bathhouse industry, kind of like a behind-the-scenes adventure.

During various times in that field of work, I kept diaries as a way to navigate what might have been taking place, no matter the emotion (and there were plenty), and as it was happening. I had a gut feeling it would at some point be useful for myself in the future, most of all to see how I have grown as an individual.

When you work in bathhouses, the bullshit is stripped away, quite literally at times. There is a whole social dynamic about it all that much of the outside world might not have privy to and is absolutely fascinating to observe and be surrounded by at all times.

You see how men manoeuver in that environment on a daily basis, for the most part simply because of their unending sexual desires which in turn both motivates or can dictate how men think on occasion, whether it is to their benefit or not.

You can’t have a bathhouse without sex so of course, there are extraordinary sex stories in the book but there is far more to what encompasses bathhouses than all of that and this is what I also wanted to write about, to give people background information based on my experiences.

I wasn’t sure how I would feel working on my first book, but it’s been one of the most enjoyable projects in my life and seemed to flow naturally, which is easy to do when you’re telling the truth.

It’s brought back every emotion of that time, both good and bad and it’s felt extremely cathartic in many ways. It’s given me the gift of being able to see how I was then, to how I have grown now, and to be able to realize how much of it has actually helped prepare me for my life in France and my work in the luxury real estate world.

It’s given me the education on how to observe everything at all times, negotiate better, navigate scenarios through strategic thinking, know when to speak up, know when to have decorum, and best of all, how to deal with bullshitters.

Overall, I feel that the more those of us in the LGBTQ community can contribute to our history, no matter our experiences have been, it is all a part of our story and I believe it will be beneficial for those who will come after us to learn from it all to know how to best move forward in life.

Unintentionally, as life does come at you full force, there will be things in this book that will shock people but also make them laugh, sad, infuriated, happy, and hopefully learn from to see other aspects of the world.

Please find Bathhouse Babylon on Amazon and several other online retailers to come.

Enjoy!