Gay living neighbourhoods in London

Last Friday, I received the following e-mail from a gay guy who's going to be moving to London:

Dear GB,

I have been following your blog for quite a while and I have to say that I am most impressed by your writing. To put it shortly: you write well.

But I am not writing just to praise your writing. I am going to move to London in September to study Law and am wondering if you could recommend a gay neighbourhood in which to live, sort of like the Village and Chelsea were in New York (and where Hell's Kitchen is becoming). Not just a neighbourhood to go to for fun, but to live in. I have lived in a gay neighbourhood in Chicago before ('Boystown') and I had a really good time. It's just that I feel more at ease, and enjoy the almost palpable sexual energy in the air, in a gay ghetto than in a conventional neighbourhood. I know segregation is not good, and that integration is important, but I suppose for myself, I just want to live somewhere I can be absolutely comfortable in, where cruising boys is not only safe but also acceptable.

So: not sure if you could help with this?

Many thanks in advance!

It's a good question. But in fact, I don't think we really have a neighbourhood like New York's Village or San Francisco's Castro here in London.

The gay centre of London is in Soho, but it's not really an area where many people live. It is possible to live there of course, but being right in the very centre of London it's quite expensive. For example, looking on Foxton's web site this morning, the cheapest place to rent was £265 a week, but with only 195 square feet it's very small!

Historically, the residential areas with a higher proportion of gay people have been the areas where people mainly voted for the Labour party. So places like Camden and Islington. Back in 1997 when Tony Blair was elected Prime Minister for the first time, he was living in Islington. But again, because Camden and Islington are both quite central, they too can be quite expensive.

Like many old European cities, the cheaper places to live tend to be in the East, and the more expensive ones in the West. Apparently, the reason that this pattern is repeated across lots of cities relates to the fact that the wind tends to blow from West to East. So when everyone had coal fires, the west side of a city was more desirable because the air blowing in was fresh, whereas the people living in the east of the city had to suffer the smoke from the people in the west! Hence Bow and Whitechapel in the East are cheaper places than Kensington and Notting Hill in the West.

All the places that I've mentioned above are in North London of course. South London is another possibility. But apart from Soho, none of the places that I've mentioned are particularly gay. Perhaps that's a good thing though, because as the reader suggests, in principle integration is preferable to segregation.

Do any other readers have any thoughts on this subject?

What a view!

Contest time!

I've decided to hold a "show us your underwear" contest! All you need to do is submit by e-mail (my address is on the right) a photo of yourself in your underwear. I'll post the photos on here and the best one will win a piece of my underwear. So get posting!

Street fuck

The quality of this video is not great but I found it pretty horny.

A massage

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Very nice jack off

An update on all my boyfriends

Although I've been a bit quiet on the subject recently, I'm still seeing various guys for fun :-). Back in February, including boyfriend number 1 there were six guys that got some kind of Valentine's day wish from me. Since then I've met all of them at least once, except boyfriend number 2 because he lives in a different country. But if all goes well I hope to visit him soon.

Boyfriend number 3 has been getting on well with the guy that he's been seeing on and off for ages now, so unfortunately he's had less time for me. But I did see him last Wednesday :-). He was in quite a horny mood because almost as soon as I got through the door he had me strip off, so we had a fun time together as usual. He's always really anxious in case his main man finds out that he plays around, even though it quite a casual arrangement, and even though they've never agreed monogamy. I told him that he should just tell this guy that he's committed to him, but on a 'non-exclusive basis'!

I still see my gorgeous Japanese masseur too. Sometimes we go running together along the river, but I'm never quite sure what the situation is with his business partner who's also gay. I'm sure they've been boyfriends in the past, and somehow the business partner makes me feel that I'm intruding on his patch. But the last two times I saw my gorgeous Japanese masseur we had very enjoyable sessions, although I won't see him for a couple of weeks now because his family will soon be visiting him from rural Japan.

Unfortunately I've only seen the cute Chinese guy once since last November. We hooked up a few weeks ago after work. On that occasion, he told me that he's working very late most weekdays, and also going abroad on business a lot too. I can imagine that I'll carry on seeing him occasionally, on a very irregular basis.

The last guy that I sent a Valentine's day wish to was the wonderful guy that I first met in mid-January. In total now, I've only seen him three times. I think he's more interested in finding a full time boyfriend, rather than hooking up with guys like me. I last saw him in mid March, and since then he hasn't responded to my occasional txt msgs. Perhaps I'll send him one more txt msg, and if he doesn't reply to that one either then I'll have to assume that he's not interested any more :-(.

Apart from that, I've also met a few new guys of course :-). After all, variety is the spice of life!