BY MICHAEL SOZE
Comic author Ralf König has summed up the days in an interview with Boner Magazine: It would be nice if the hue and cry within the LGBTQ community would calm down and you could get back to the basics.
A wonderful thought, but it turns out that even now, within the Covid-19 crisis and the associated effects of new twist and mutual hostilities are emerging. Until the end of August and in Berlin most probably even until the end of October, all major events are banned throughout Germany. This includes hundreds of events, especially in the gay and lesbian area: CSDs, street festivals, club festivals, parties, cultural events, concerts and much more.
One would think that such a process, which is unique to this day, would at least meet with a minimum of solidary thinking within the community. But not at all or only partially. All the prophets of doom are now inundated with high water and are drooling joyfully into every conversation, both online and offline:
Who needs the community? All just commerce and sex parties. Well, when all this bullshit finally blows over. And anyway, the scene, the community, what is it? And what does it all have to do with a few cancelled CSDs or club festivals?
Anyone who speaks like this as a gay man or in general as part of a non-heterosexual community not only fails to recognize the importance of the diversity of our community, he simply has no idea what the scene is like in reality – and what enormous importance it still has today.
Let us take a closer look at the accusations: Let’s come to the gladly accepted point of commerce: The big club owners rummage in mountains of gold and coins night after night, just as Scrooge McDuck likes to do in his money bin. Anyone who thinks that, should urgently take the time to talk to the operators of such events personally – their world view has nothing to do with reality.
Many clubs, trendy shops and localities have been operating on the verge of insolvency for years, and in lean months often only carry on from month to month with private money. The situation is similar, for example, with bookstores in the LGBTQ community, exactly three of which have fortunately survived to this day in Berlin, Vienna and Stuttgart.
And even if you look at the big parties that attract several hundred men, the situation is not much better. In most cases such events are plus-minus-zero deals. If things go really well, there is a small profit at the end.
But then everything must have worked – the house must have been full, the weather suitable and the music must have flashed correctly. Nevertheless, immense costs are incurred: Rent, staff, print runs of the respective cities and locations, advertising, ads, fees for possible rights and so on – no club owner will get rich from this anymore.
It doesn’t matter if you run a club, a shop, a cáfe or a publishing house for magazines, books or movies for the LGBTQ community – it almost always happens, romantic as it may sound, out of personal motivation.
Behind this is usually also the desire to give something back to one’s own community, to strengthen it and enrich the diversity of one’s own subculture. Those who want to become financially rich do not get involved in the gay and lesbian community.
And the bad sex parties? The image killers for all those who see in them only a loss of face for the community? Living out one’s own sexuality, the freedom of this decision, is one of the cornerstones of any movement within the community towards equal rights and genuine acceptance in a society. Sexuality has nothing reprehensible, nothing negative about it.
And even if many gay men may not know what to do with sex parties, we should not deny other men the opportunity to enjoy themselves in this way. It is up to each individual to decide how to live his or her life – and especially within the community we should treat each other with much more respect, even and especially if the other person’s way of life does not match our own.
This applies to sex-loving men as well as to all those groups who like to be excluded – from the „fat“ to the „faggots“ to the „trannies“. I cannot demand equality and acceptance for my life if I disparage other people with different life models.
And once again, for clarification: In very many cases it was exactly those sexually active men and women who rebelled and stood up for more equality in the community. The well-behaved, conformist homosexual was rarely on the streets at first and demanded real acceptance. He had too much to lose in terms of reputation.
Let’s keep the scene itself: Those who have always stayed away from the scene see no loss in the fact that events are now cancelled, clubs and bars are permanently closed. They fail to recognize that the scene was there for them even if they did not use it personally.
As already mentioned, the motivation of the vast majority of operators is highly political and personal. In addition, all these meeting places also show the flag for the community. They present the image of an LGBTQ community that has been under massive pressure again, especially in the last few years.
We know about the rollback of rights for homosexuals. In more and more parts of Europe (and the rest of the world like America or Brazil in some places as well) massive attempts are being made again to curtail or even abolish hard-won rights. In addition, right-wing, homophobic ideas are becoming more and more en vogue.
We must not be naive enough to believe that everything we have achieved per se will simply last forever. We need steadfastness, critical attention and visibility in the everyday life of all people, so that life models from the LGBTQ area are understood as equally important and continue to belong to it.
Here, all the remaining bars, clubs, cultural events and community events are doing a tremendous service – for all of us! Whoever these days once again frivolously comments with a shrug of the shoulders on the disappearance of many meeting places for gay men, because it apparently had nothing to do with him personally, can hardly be outdone in simplicity.
The drama that is currently unfolding is an extremely painful one, because many thousands of people are facing a catastrophe, especially in the cultural sector. The LGBTQ culture has suffered massive damage – many clubs, bars and meeting places are unlikely to survive the Corona crisis. In addition, the entire cultural and club scene has to deal with the fact that it is classified as „not system relevant“. It would be best to do without it.
Can we really?
Aren’t all these events an indispensable social glue? And within the community a massive strengthening, a rock in the surf? Some people from the community are deeply lacking respect, for the culture as well as for their own LGBTQ community.
We can only see it by how carelessly it is accepted that the scene is extremely shaken. And we recognize it by how seemingly naturally we let our artists run into existential distress. Politics and many of us should finally stop abandoning culture and the people who work for and in it so naturally and lightly.
Maybe a few facts to put it in perspective:
The average annual income of freelance musicians last year was only around 14,600 euros according to the artists‘ social security fund, for women the average is even over 2,000 euros lower.
Around 50,000 musicians plus a six-figure number of freelancers in the cultural and scene sector were robbed of all their sources of income from one day to the next. There are individual federal states such as Berlin, which quickly put together the first aid packages, but nationwide, far too little has happened, and in some cases still nothing at all.
But who cares, right?
The big events and concerts will survive, right? Of course it may be true that large, Europe-wide event organizers have sufficient financial reserves, but our culture and scene does not live from the few gigantic events, but from the thousands of small offers that present the diversity of a society and enrich it vitally.
This is especially true for the gay and lesbian community and its services. Those who now dismiss the cancellation of many LGBTQ events as unimportant not only verbally brutally slap all the highly motivated, often volunteer queer people from their own community in the face, they also fail to recognize the great danger that the rights of all of us and our hard-won position within society will suffer massively.
Our gay and lesbian culture in all its diversity is not only relevant to the system, it is vital for the survival of us all!
