Is this a red flag?

[+ tassojunior]

Aaah, hustler bars. I don't know if we have those in Belgium. Then again, I didn't know Brussels has one of the most well reputed sauna's in Europe until a few months ago. (It's Sauna Macho)

 

Yeah, I'm heading to Barcelona next weekend and have read about the Romanian escorts. Part of me wants to go to Thermas, just to have the experience, but then you read those stories.

Thermas is wonderful. There are guys from many places there. Romanians are a minority. Many Brazilians, Argentines, Poles, Moldavians, etc. Occasionally a Spaniard. But the Romanians there are "different". I've been around dozens and dozens of Romanian hustlers/escorts and not a one would ever consider doing oral or bottoming. It's fun to walk down the hall at Thermas sometimes when a line of Romanian muscle guys have their hard dicks blocking the way. But, as a top, I've never met one who would actually have "sex". Other than at Thermas they're seldom amusing.

[+ tassojunior]

I sometimes think that "Romanian" has become shorthand in some European countries for "foreign" white folks that people wish would go home. I am frequently in Norway, Sweden and Denmark----where "Romanians" (not Roma) are claimed to be the the worst pickpockets, the beggars on the street, drug dealers etc. And my guess is that most of these alleged undesirables may come from countries other than Romania.

 

Nope. They'll virtually 100% (maybe 99%?) Romanian. The gangs of thugs don't have anything to do with non-Romanians.

[+ harey]

In the past ten years everytime I've been to Berlin and Hamburg every single German I run into is totally bi-lingual. They can easily shift from one to the other and many, if not most, signs are in English not German. Now, 20 or 30 years ago I did run into a lot of Germans who did not speak much English, especially in the east. The generational change to me is shocking.

 

When I was young I remember being surprised that my Dutch friends could converse (arkwardly) with visitors from Denmark. They explained that all the Germanic languages have a lot, especially grammar, in common and Nederlandse to Danish wasn't a huge leap even though it was more different than German. That they can pick up the other language pretty easily when they visit or move. As a Germanic language I guess English has gotten into that family now.

 

Now Romance and Slavic languages are a different matter. But I know French, Spanish and Italians can roughly converse and Russians/Poles/Czechs can easily converse. I see that a lot.

English study is required in German schools from a young age, so that might explain it. And they listen to American pop music. I've noticed some problems with German business people during meetings in the U.S., though, because they sometimes overestimate their English proficiency and miss nuances in a conversation or misunderstand colloquialisms.

[Golem]

Nope. They'll virtually 100% (maybe 99%?) Romanian. The gangs of thugs don't have anything to do with non-Romanians.

How do you know this with such certainty? Not saying you're wrong it just seems like a pretty absolute statement...

[+ goosh69]

Also nationality and ethnicity can be and are distinct. The history of Europe for the last two hundred years was all about irredentism! Like ALL the European wars since Napoleon!

 

There are lot of ethnic Hungarians in Romania and visa versa. Ethnic Poles in Lithuania, Russians in Latvia, Swedes in Finland, etc. All dating back to long before the EU. The Balkan wars have all been about this - as were (in part) both World Wars. Outside of Europe it’s been the cause of all kinds of wars in our lifetime. Nationality is not the same as ethnicity. Period.

 

But back to the topic at hand - unless you speak Romanian you can’t be sure. And even then it’s pretty racist to say that all these “thugs” are of any ethnicity. Or nationality.

[+ tassojunior]

How do you know this with such certainty? Not saying you're wrong it just seems like a pretty absolute statement...

 

When you're in a hustler bar you speak to a couple guys maybe, both of whom tell you they're Romanian, and they speak to all the others in Romanian. If there is someone not Romanian they or someone will make a point of telling you they're Bulgarian or they're Moldovian to let you know they're not Romanian.

 

Almost all Romanians speak Romanian. Only about 1% are Roma and speak a Romani language of their own. I doubt I've ever seen one in a hustler bar. In Thermas sauna in BCN there's a range of nationalities and so everyone tells you they're Ukrainian, or they're Polish or whatever so usually by the first visit you know the nationally of everyone and people talk about "the tall Brazilian" or the "blond Pole" or the "short Romanian". Thermas is like Baskin-Robbins. And delightful.

Edited August 4, 2018 by tassojunior

[+ goosh69]

Our friend Wikipedia tells us 20% of Nationality-Romanians speak another language - Hungarian, various Southern Slav language Turkic, etc. Moldavians ARE Romanian linguistically and culturally. The Soviets drew an arbitrary border. Etc.

 

But anyway your anecdotes don’t prove that all or most or even a plurality of “thugs” are Romanian or anything else. Just weird racist vitriol.

[+ Tarte Gogo]

Our friend Wikipedia tells us 20% of Nationality-Romanians speak another language - Hungarian, various Southern Slav language Turkic, etc. Moldavians ARE Romanian linguistically and culturally. The Soviets drew an arbitrary border. Etc.

 

But anyway your anecdotes don’t prove that all or most or even a plurality of “thugs” are Romanian or anything else. Just weird racist vitriol.

Can we please stop calling everything we don't like "racist"? Romanians are just as white as French people or Spanish people. They are all the same race.

To claim that Romanians are a different race is just fucked up. If Tasso was racist he would hate Spaniards just as much.

If you meant to say he has a bias against the Romanian culture, then just learn to use that word: "biased". It isn't very hard.

[Wolfer]

Well! I'm on the bus back from Paris. It was an absolute delight! What a BEAUTIFUL city, simply breathtaking. And there were actual accordeon players on the bridge across the Seine.

I absolutely loved wondering around aimlessly.

 

Everyone was really nice and friendly. Only one lady smirked at my basic French (I asked in French how the subway transfers worked. She smirked and responded to me in very good English).

 

I'm for sure going back!

[Golem]

Can we please stop calling everything we don't like "racist"? Romanians are just as white as French people or Spanish people. They are all the same race.

Err, no, that's not always what "race" means. Sometimes, especially among white people in the US, it's used primarily about skin color. But it can encompass ethnic background just as easily as skin color.

 

Making overgeneralized comments about Romanians definitely qualifies as racist. (NB Whether or not the comments about Romanians in this thread were overgeneralized is a different question, one that I have no desire to touch.)

[+ Tarte Gogo]

Err, no, that's not always what "race" means. Sometimes, especially among white people in the US, it's used primarily about skin color. But it can encompass ethnic background just as easily as skin color.

 

Making overgeneralized comments about Romanians definitely qualifies as racist. (NB Whether or not the comments about Romanians in this thread were overgeneralized is a different question, one that I have no desire to touch.)

I think that’s mis-using the word, and abusing the language, and I won’t use it in that way.

The problem with calling all bigots “racist” is that it dilutes the meaning and when you have to actually warn against a real racist, people will think “well, just another bigot” and not get the warning seriously.

(Just like you, not saying anything about comments in this thread, making a general point).

Edited August 6, 2018 by Tarte Gogo

[Golem]

Why do you think it's misusing the word, though? Using "race" and "racism" to include ethnicity actually came before they were ever used in a skin-color-only sense; they are still widely used that way in the real world today; and Wikipedia, as well as pretty much any other online reference you can point to, acknowledge all of this.

 

I understand the desire to be specific. I don't understand how you think that prejudice based on skin color is "serious" while prejudice based on ethnicity is "just bigotry."

Edited August 6, 2018 by Golem

[+ Tarte Gogo]

Why do you think it's misusing the word, though? Using "race" and "racism" to include ethnicity actually came before they were ever used in a skin-color-only sense; they are still widely used that way in the real world today; and Wikipedia, as well as pretty much any other online reference you can point to, acknowledge all of this.

 

I understand the desire to be specific. I don't understand how you think that prejudice based on skin color is "serious" while prejudice based on ethnicity is "just bigotry."

Well because of the historical death toll.

 

When people believe they are a separate race, a superior one to another, things ended up real bad, like enslavement or extermination.

But when they think it is based on a difference in culture, at least they understand that changing the culture which they dislike would solve the problem that they imagine exists, which means extermination isn’t “the only way”, unlike in the other case.

 

Culture can significantly change, given a couple of generations. Even bigots know that (well, if they have done history at school).

 

However if they think the culture is in the blood and cannot change, then they think wrongly that culture is the same as race and then that makes them racists of course.

[+ Tarte Gogo]

Just to be clear I don’t think there is a problem with the Romanian culture, I think the behaviour of certain individuals as observed are a result of being uprooted + poverty + lack of opportunity and lack of hope to ever be able to build a proper future for oneself.

[+ tassojunior]

Why do you think it's misusing the word, though? Using "race" and "racism" to include ethnicity actually came before they were ever used in a skin-color-only sense; they are still widely used that way in the real world today; and Wikipedia, as well as pretty much any other online reference you can point to, acknowledge all of this.

 

I understand the desire to be specific. I don't understand how you think that prejudice based on skin color is "serious" while prejudice based on ethnicity is "just bigotry."

 

Do you even frequent the gay hustler bars in Berlin, Hamburg or any other European city to even know what we're talking of? If the hustler bars in Berlin are all of as sudden virtually 100% Romanians and if there is a danger to gay men that we warn each other about it is no more "racist" than if Sweden had a disaster and all of a sudden 100% of the guys were Swedish and had turned to violence against gays. To notice the nationality and the danger is an observation, not a prejudice. If you have had a different experience there then by all means let us know. Otherwise you're talking jibberish you know nothing about just for the sake of criticizing.

 

People really need to stick to stuff they know something about and not try and project American experiences to condemn gay men in other cultures who feel danger.

[Golem]

Can we please stop calling everything we don't like "racist"? Romanians are just as white as French people or Spanish people. They are all the same race.

To claim that Romanians are a different race is just fucked up.

Going back to this: how do you define "race"? How many races do you think there are and where do you draw the line between them? You seem to think this is quite obvious, so I hope you won't mind sharing it.

 

Well because of the historical death toll.

 

When people believe they are a separate race, a superior one to another, things ended up real bad, like enslavement or extermination.

You're wrong. Full stop. This isn't just about using a word one way or another -- your facts are wrong.

 

Let's look at history. For most of human history, geographic limits meant that contact between people of significantly different skin colors -- or for that matter, dramatically different cultural backgrounds -- was quite rare. Did enslavement and genocide still happen? Yup!

 

Now, turning to the modern era, it's pretty hard to ignore the Holocaust. Racially motivated extermination? Yes, definitely. Was it based on skin color? Nope. Were parts also based purely on culture rather than ethnicity? Yes -- as I imagine everyone on this forum is painfully aware of.

[Golem]

Do you even frequent the gay hustler bars in Berlin, Hamburg or any other European city to even know what we're talking of? If the hustler bars in Berlin are all of as sudden virtually 100% Romanians and if there is a danger to gay men that we warn each other about it is no more "racist" than if Sweden had a disaster and all of a sudden 100% of the guys were Swedish and had turned to violence against gays. To notice the nationality and the danger is an observation, not a prejudice. If you have had a different experience there then by all means let us know. Otherwise you're talking jibberish you know nothing about just for the sake of criticizing.

 

People really need to stick to stuff they know something about and not try and project American experiences to condemn gay men in other cultures who feel danger.

 

(NB Whether or not the comments about Romanians in this thread were overgeneralized is a different question, one that I have no desire to touch.)

 

Tasso, what the heck man? I don't understand how you got from the one statement I actually made about the Romanian bar issue (above) to "projecting American experiences to condemn gay men in other cultures"...

[+ tassojunior]

Our friend Wikipedia tells us 20% of Nationality-Romanians speak another language - Hungarian, various Southern Slav language Turkic, etc. Moldavians ARE Romanian linguistically and culturally. The Soviets drew an arbitrary border. Etc.

 

But anyway your anecdotes don’t prove that all or most or even a plurality of “thugs” are Romanian or anything else. Just weird racist vitriol.

 

Are you ever right about anything? Your Wikipedia says "Romanian is spoken by 91% of the population as a primary language"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Romania

 

We gay men who frequent these hustler bars and massage saunas have every right to talk about the "Polish" guy or the "Brazilians" or the Czechs" or the "Romanians" without some prick somewhere else who knows nothing about what we're discussing calling us "racists". It has absolutely zero to do with race or ethnic group. If you have other experiences in these places we frequent then by all means put in your two cents. Otherwise have the good sense and decency not to.

[Golem]

What gives anybody the right to say something, and expect that people who disagree with them will not criticize it?

 

I'd tell you what flavor of government does things like that, but I'm pretty sure you'd get mad at me just for saying so

[+ tassojunior]

What gives anybody the right to say something, and expect that people who disagree with them will not criticize it?

 

I'd tell you what flavor of government does things like that, but I'm pretty sure you'd get mad at me just for saying so

 

No. You're the one trying to censor. You and Goosh69 both called me a racist twice for talking about Romanians in hustler bars. Romanians are not a race and they are not an ethnic group. Roma are an ethnic group but I made clear I was not talking about Roma and doubt I ever met one. In European hustler bars and massuer saunas it is common to talk about the "Czechs" and the Brazilians" and the "Romanians" the same way New Yorkers talk about Texans or Californians or Canadians. Even in a disparaging way it is not ethnic and it certainly is not racism. You're trying to equate it with white hatred of blacks, or European hatred of Jews, or Jew hatred of Palestinians. It is not the same in any way. It is comparable to New Yorkers disparaging Texans or Canadians.

 

To twice throw a racist label at someone talking about something you neither evidently have a clue about is awful and ridiculous

[+ Tarte Gogo]

Going back to this: how do you define "race"? How many races do you think there are and where do you draw the line between them? You seem to think this is quite obvious, so I hope you won't mind sharing it.

 

 

You're wrong. Full stop. This isn't just about using a word one way or another -- your facts are wrong.

 

Let's look at history. For most of human history, geographic limits meant that contact between people of significantly different skin colors -- or for that matter, dramatically different cultural backgrounds -- was quite rare. Did enslavement and genocide still happen? Yup!

 

Now, turning to the modern era, it's pretty hard to ignore the Holocaust. Racially motivated extermination? Yes, definitely. Was it based on skin color? Nope. Were parts also based purely on culture rather than ethnicity? Yes -- as I imagine everyone on this forum is painfully aware of.

You don’t understand me.

I don’t define race. Racist people do that. And that is why they are wrong.

 

I am talking about the racists’ perception or definitions of the world, not mine or yours. I am aware that Skin color is only sometimes part of the racist’s problem.

 

When bigots think of some group as a “different culture” and hate that culture, you have a problem, but often a solvable one (usually through integration). It doesn’t always work, but at least there is some way out, in their mind.

 

But when they think of the group as a different and inferior race (like the German did with the Jews, yes they definitely thought themselves as the superior race https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_race) you have a much bigger problem because they start with something like apartheid, and they can go all the way to the worst of what mankind produces.

That is when you have actual racism.

 

Bigots can easily become racists, don’t get me wrong. They are much more common though, and i am open to see stats that contradicts me, but recently the most active and dangerous groups are the racists.

 

The others cause harm, discrimination, which leads to poverty and a lot of other problems, but usually don’t lynch or build extermination camps.

 

It might not be very different to you, and for sure they are both wrong, evil and dangerous but I know which I’d rather face.

[Golem]

Tasso, I didn't call you anything, not at any point in this thread. We appear to have a different idea of what the word "race" can refer to (and, by extension, what the word "racism" might refer to). That's it.

 

Nor did I attempt to "censor." I entered this part of the conversation in response to Tarte saying that people should only the word "racist" in the situations he finds appropriate for it.

 

I am really lost as to where your accusations are coming from, but I don't appreciate them.

Edited August 6, 2018 by Golem

[Golem]

@Tarte Gogo I appreciate the explanation. I think you're right that if you get past the words, we are not looking at things very differently.

 

I still maintain that your restricted use of the words is nuts -- simply because they have always been used to encompass a much broader scope of things, and that is how the world at large still uses them. It seems that we have had different experiences of the way people use them. Not sure what else there is to say here; I guess I'll have to be content with having Wikipedia agree with me

[Rudynate]

In the past ten years everytime I've been to Berlin and Hamburg every single German I run into is totally bi-lingual. They can easily shift from one to the other and many, if not most, signs are in English not German. Now, 20 or 30 years ago I did run into a lot of Germans who did not speak much English, especially in the east. The generational change to me is shocking.

 

When I was young I remember being surprised that my Dutch friends could converse (arkwardly) with visitors from Denmark. They explained that all the Germanic languages have a lot, especially grammar, in common and Nederlandse to Danish wasn't a huge leap even though it was more different than German. That they can pick up the other language pretty easily when they visit or move. As a Germanic language I guess English has gotten into that family now.

 

Now Romance and Slavic languages are a different matter. But I know French, Spanish and Italians can roughly converse and Russians/Poles/Czechs can easily converse. I see that a lot.

 

 

I read not long ago that Dutch is one of the easiest languages for a native speaker of English to learn. The only easier one is Frisian, and how much good would that do you?

[+ tassojunior]

Tasso, I didn't call you anything, not at any point in this thread. We appear to have a different idea of what the word "race" can refer to (and, by extension, what the word "racism" might refer to). That's it.

 

Nor did I attempt to "censor." I entered this part of the conversation in response to Tarte saying that people should only the word "racist" in the situations he finds appropriate for it.

 

I am really lost as to where your accusations are coming from, but I don't appreciate them.

 

One of you quotes agreeing with the other fool that I was a racist:

Making overgeneralized comments about Romanians definitely qualifies as racist.

If you have anecdotes of your own experiences in gay European hustler bars and saunas by all means detail how they disprove the generalization. If you don't please have the good sense to butt out. But it is beyond belief that someone who has no experience to contribute falsely accuses someone who does of racism when they're all the same race and ethnicity.

Jesus FC