When I was about to move to Berlin, I heard from my aunt an anecdote, a story told by a friend of a friend about clubbing in the German capital in the early 2010s. He was invited to a party at an acquaintance’s apartment. At one point, he needed to pee, and someone indicated the bathroom to him. As he burst through the unlocked door with a certain urgency, he found it to be occupied by about 7 people, one of them inside a large bathtub while being urinated on by two others. The rest watched entranced. He used the toilet and left without fuss, gallantly accepting the local customs.
A few days later, he went to a club, the name of which was fully lost in translation. An older gentleman wearing colorful clothes circulated among the crowds offering a small gift in a package. He approached my aunt’s friend’s friend, offering him the little box. Curiosity overtook him and he accepted it, to find out that inside was a tiny little dry poo. He politely returned the gift, to mild outrage of the man dressed in velvet jewel tones, assimilating this additional behavior as another important data point in his knowledge about German customs.
In 2021, when the measures protecting against COVID infections were still in place, but lighter, clubs in Berlin were allowed to receive maskless guests, as long as they had been tested. Two days after a night of partying at Berghain, one of the most famous techno joints in the world, a person found out that they tested positive. Being a good citizen, they informed the club, which went on to share with the around one hundred people that had been in an orgy with this one individual that they were at risk of infection.
The message did not protect, by mistake, the email addresses of the orgy participants. The scandal that made the news the following day was that Berghain was not compliant with European rules of data protection. Not a single sex-shaming sentence was to be found.
When I left Rio, a few of my former work colleagues confided in me that they had invented heterosexual partners in order to not raise suspicions on their own sexuality. At one point, I discovered I was working in a team where half, a good dozen, were either gay or bisexual, all hiding their true selves to survive the homophobic Brazilian corporate environment.
Meanwhile in Berlin, companies jump at slots to join the Pride Parade. This may seem like a capitalist takeover of queerness, and it is, to an extent. But still, male colleagues I am meeting for the first time speak with ease of their husbands. Women feel safe to talk about their wives. There is an extent to which homophobia is unacceptable in my new German surroundings that is simply not there among my Brazilian acquaintances.
I do not mean to corner this city into the stereotype of sexual extravaganza with which it became synonimous over the years. I instead marvel at the extent to which it is a place of tolerance. I am not interested in the gift of tiny, dry poo, but I am happy that there is a place here for those who are.
© giuliakollmann 2023-01-19