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EXCLUSIVE | Don't Try This at Home: True Travel Confessions Revealed

EXCLUSIVE | Don't Try This at Home: True Travel Confessions Revealed

I once ate Thanksgiving dinner at McDonald's. I had a Quarter Pounder with cheese, large fries and a large drink and enjoyed every artery-clogging moment. Not what the pilgrims had in mind, I know, but it didn't matter because I wasn't in America. I was in Argentina, and the rules change when you're not at home.

That's also what I told myself when I took in the live sex show in Bangkok, where a nubile maiden wrote me a personalized note by squatting over a piece of construction paper and wielding a Sharpee that was not in her in hand. You can't get that kind of greeting in North Hollywood, California.

To me, one of the great joys of traveling is doing things you would never do at home. To explore this topic further, I sent an e-mail out asking friends for their true travel confessions. Their responses were surprising and candid, so much so that I've opted to change some names (*) to protect the horny.

Barry* was the first to fire back: "I've masturbated frequently in airplane bathrooms AND wiped my ass with hotel towels." (You gotta love the way he capitalized the "and.") Jason* sang the praises of hotel room alone time: "I like to fantasize that it's a seedy hotel and the owner has installed a two-way mirror and he's watching me." Jeffrey, meanwhile, confesses that during a trip to Sweden, he would exaggerate his Texas accent in order to pick up guys. "It worked like a charm," he admits. "Of course, this was pre-Bush."

Several friends replied that they never go to bathhouses at home, but they have abroad. "When I was in Paris," recalls Donny*, "a visit to Le Pompidou Museum combined with no lunch and ten cosmos led me to me gaining consciousness in the Le Depot sex club several hours later."

I've been to exactly one sex club in my entire life. Of course, I was out of town, in Las Vegas at a place called The Apollo. I lasted about thirty chaste, nervous minutes, fifteen of which were spent trying to stage an intervention on this cute crystal-head by the entrance. When the cashier asked why I was leaving so soon, I lied and said I was having trouble with my contacts. It fills me with shame to this day that I wasn't able to "get with the program," as it were. At least I had used a coupon from the local gay rag so I didn't pay full price.

I'm sure I went right out and ate something decadent afterwards, because when it comes to out-of-town indulgences, food, it seems, trumps even sex. "The last time I was in Paris," reveals Rafael, "I pretended I was on some kind of chocolate mousse tasting committee." My roommate Tony can relate. "I absolutely love Cinnabon," he gushes, "but the only time I can allow myself one is right before I fly. I tell myself that something to do with the altitude causes it not to take. The ideal situation is to have a Cinnabon on the way to a cruise ship because the toilets have that crazy vacuum action. You can go in there after a buffet and it's like a time machine. One flush and it's like it never happened."

Ironically, the travel confessions I'm shyest about aren't the scandalous ones, like the time I stowed away on a cruise ship overnight for some guy. No, what's embarrassing to admit is how much pleasure I get doing things I could do at home. I love to go to the movies when I'm traveling, for example. My boyfriend rolls his eyes and says, "We're in Maui and you want to go see Casino Royale?" Yes, I do. I want to. Deal with it. And what's more, I don't mind that Starbucks is taking over the world. In fact, I kind of like it. I recently found a great deal of comfort in a grande vanilla latte in Lima -- and what's more, they had free wireless, which you don't get at home. So there.

The lesson I took from all these confessions is that traveling is a time when you should do what you want to do, period, no matter how crazy, illegal or mundane it is. When in Rome, do a Roman ? or two. And if you want to wash 'em down with a Big Mac, you'll get no argument from me.

30 Years of Out100Out / Advocate Magazine - Jonathan Groff and Wayne Brady

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