"Unspeakable Sins": Mexican sleaze telenovela with a lot of hunks, some gay (but on the downlow), some tied up.

 

Netflix knows my algorithm, and used this icon of a tied-up muscleman to draw my attention to the Mexican tv series Unspeakable Sins (Pecados Inconfesables). Being gay is usually at the top of the list of "unspeakable sins," so there are bound to be some gay characters.

The viewer reviews on IMDB are awful, but maybe that's due to homophobia.  One guy complained: "only male nudity shown...which is very disappointing for male viewers."

Apparently he is unaware that gay men exist.  So let's get to some of that male nudity.

Episode 1.1: "The Trap."

Scene 1: Helena and her young adult son try to escape from her abusive Billionaire Husband,  but he comes home unexpectedly.  He announce that she must continue to play the role of Perfect Wife, or he'll kill her.

Scenes 2-8: Cut to Helena sitting by the pool, gawking as the hustler Ivan (Andres Baida, left) slowly raises himself out of the water.  What follows is a lengthy sex scene with those esophagus-licking spectacles that pass for kissing in telenovelas.  And more and more.  And more and more.  Eventually the Hustler stops charging her; they're dating.

Scene 9: This doesn't sit well with his pimp, who complains that it's against the rules to get involved with your clients. Plus she's married to the Billionaire, who is absurdly powerful: if he finds out about the affair, he'll kill them and all of their friends and relatives.

Of course, he continues the affair.

There's so much sleazy heterosexual graping and fondling going on that I have to keep fast-forwarding.  I'll just give plot summaries while I am looking for the tied-up dude.

Episode 1.2: "The Reunion"

Helena has an idea that will get her freedom and allow her and the Hustler to date openly (or so she says).  The Billionaire often engages in "unspeakable sins" with young men on the downlow.  Maybe the Hustler could seduce him, and record their activity?   Then she could use the tape to blackmail him into letting her and her son go.

The plan works until, in the midst of their unspeakable sins, the Billionaire notices the cameras, catches on to the blackmail scheme, and beats the Hustler up.  Then he disappears.  Did the Hustler murder him?

The plot thickens as Octavio, the Billionaire's son from his first marriage,  tries to prevent the police investigation of the disappearance. Maybe Octavio murdered him?

Episode 1.3: "Desperation"

Octavio is kidnapped by the Billionaire's business partner, El Magic.  But it's not the tied-up hunk scene: Octave is fully clothed, and getting beat up, not hanging around.

Plot dump: El Magic lent a lot of money to the Billionaire.  He wants Octavio to have his father declared dead so he can take over the bank accounts and get El Magic his money.  

Episode 1.4: "Under Suspicion"

Helena's son Fer tells Octavio that he accidentally killed his mother, the Billionaire's first wife.  The plot gets more convoluted.  No one is innocent; everyone has a sleazy secret.

The Billionaire happened to record the incident, and used it to blackmail Helena into marrying him.  

Plus the Billionaire abused Fer, calling him a pansy and kicking him in the testicles.  Did Fer murder the Billionaire to get revenge for suggesting that he was gay?  Oh, and for that blackmail thing.

More after the break

Black Monday Episode 2.4: Downlow financier, closeted Congressman, and a photocopied dick in the homophobic 1980s.

 

Black Monday, October 17, 1987, is named after a stock market crash that resulted in a drop of 22.6% in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and $500 billion in losses in the U.S., 1.7 trillion dollars worldwide.  I didn't hear anything about it at the time: in West Hollywood we didn't concern ourselves with such trivial matters as finances.  But apparently in the straight world, it was a big deal.  

I still find the world of finance immensely boring, but I happened to notice that an episode of the 2019-22 Black Monday tv series showed Andrew Rannells having sex with a guy -- the scene I used as an illustration for my Gideon-Keefe fan fiction -- so I checked out Episode 2.4, "Fore."

Scene 1: Bosses Dawn, a middle aged black woman, and Blair (Andrew Rannells) , a swishy white man, show horndogs Wayne and Yassir(Horatio Sanz, Yassir X) a photocopy of an enormous penis. They've received an anonymous sexual harassment complaint.  Blair yells at them: "The women in the office don't want to look at that, and neither do I."  

And this is a bad time: Congress is about to pass deregulation, so we'll be getting generational wealth. You'll be able to set up your kids' kids' kids If Amerasavings gets wwind of this,.... Ugh, economics and politics.  Let's get some zombies up in here.

The guys protest that it wasn't them, but they are punished by being placed in the "Rubber Room" for a month, and they have to apologize to every woman in the office.  Then Blair leaves --- he has to go play golf with Congressman Roger  (Tuc Watkins, Andrew's real-life boyfriend) to ensure that he will vote for deregulation.  Dawn can't come, because she's not a white man. Wait -- he calls her "babe."  Are they romantic partners, too?

Scene 2:  The horndogs figure that they've been framed, targeted by "some lying bitch" for being the last old-school "women should enjoy getting their butts grabbed" horndogs in the office. Their plan: find out who issued the bogus complaint, apologize, and then "get revenge." 

Scene 3: Blair goes back to his apartment -- still under construction -- and starts making out with his boyfriend -- Congressman Roger!  

Meanwhile, a lady bursts into the office to yell at the "home-wrecking harlot" who's destroying their marriage.  She wasn't expecting a middle aged black lady: "Blair" sounds more like a young, giggly blond, like the girl from Facts of Life.   

"This is a mixup from the tits up," Dawn assures her.  Blair is a man.  He goes golfing with Congressman Roger to push for his deregulation vote.  A downlow romance!  Neither of the wives know!

"But they golf all the time, in Palm Springs, San Francisco, Fire Island,,," Gay meccas, har-har.

"Standard business trips." A perfect example of heteronormativity: gay men cannot exist, so everything must have a heterosexual explanation.

The Wife, Corky, insists: "Blair and my husband are having sex...with other women, and using each other as alibis."  Come on, no one is that stupid!

Dawn calls Blair to prove that he is playing golf -- just as he is about to.... The wives will be driving out to the country club to meet them on the golf course.  "um...what hole are you in?"  Har-har.

Uh-oh, Blair knows nothing about golf, and it's too late to learn!

Scene 4: The horndogs try to play "good cop/bad cop" while interrogating the women. Except Yassir thinks they're supposed to both be bad cops, because "all cops are bad."

Scene 5: On the way to the country club, Wife Corky complains that Congressman Roger has betrayed her with a "nancy."  Dawn insists that Blair isn't gay, but Wife  Corky meant "a Nancy Reagan," who stole future President Reagan away from his first wife, Jane Wyman. Har-har.

She does happen to be the daughter of a Jerry Falwell-like homophobic televangelist.  He sells a special cologne that can "spray the gay away."

More after the break