A Life of Excess

Do you get those moments when, as you look around you, you suddenly feel like you've landed on another planet where amazingly humanlike creatures populate the scenery, where the colours are far too bright and where, despite being a visitor of this planet, you feel that you can navigate and camouflage yourself in its humanoid population?

It all started, I suppose, when I was checking my FB messages just days before S and I were to hit Barcelona (and hit it hard) with 25 of our 'closest acquaintances'. There it was, in my inbox, a video clip from Madrid gay pride in early July of 2009. I was about 1 second away from closing the window and moving on to more productive things (like dudesnude! after all I had no interest whatsoever in the freak show and the imposed gay culture of 'pride' parades) when something caught my attention. The video was of a crowd, a large one that clogged up a wide avenue of downtown Madrid. A sea of people. In the middle was a large truck. It was covered in feathers and embroidered cloth of white, cream and pink varieties. I remembered my friends had put together their own float with the theme of Marie Antoinette. I looked closer and the camera zoomed in on the humanoids. Everyone on the truck was Arab. Armani was front centre, with his outfit just so. The boys were all beautiful, jumping around, dancing and dominating the crowds all the same. The colours were all too bright. The heavily decorated faces! Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel. It was surreal. People that back home wouldn't so much as hold a guy's hand in public were in silver tights, wigs and Max-Mara (pun intended for those of you who speak Arabic) make-up. The crowd below seemed in awe, and so was I.

In Barcelona, where S established himself as the undisputed Reina Sofia in every party of the 2009 Circuit Festival, the surreal bubble only continued. What I remember most are flashes of the time we spent there. Promenades on the nude beach, the muscle gods of Nova Mar Bella Barceloneta, S skipping through the streets of Eixample hand in hand with Rachel, the endless line of Lebanese and Dubai-based boys outside Casanova at 6.30 AM, Vodka Pink Berrys, sunglasses and the best beach party in the history of Sitges. S dominating the go-go box at The Week International at 8 AM after his first caffeine pill.

At some point in Plata Universitat as we sat around waiting for one thing or another, one of the boys asked why gay men go to such extremes to enjoy themselves. Dark rooms, drugs, 24 hour partying, sex for sex's sake – why are we so weird?

I honestly think it is more rebellion than substance. Gay men aren't weird, they've been told they're weird growing up and now they're kicking it in everyone's face. Drugs? Bring it on. Anonymous sex in dark dungeons? Why the hell not. When you're brought up in the Arab world especially (but by no stretch of the imagination is that only applicable there), you learn from a very early age that your whole existence is...wrong. That's why a lot of us go into gay scenes thinking we have nothing to lose. In a sense it is a lack of maturity, but the blame doesn't lie on us entirely.

Even though we have been marginalised by mainstream society and religion, this doesn't mean we have to live marginal lives of hedonism. We have to be attracted by wholesomeness and stability, and this can only come if we deep down accept who we are. I think the greatest irony is that those of us who swish around in parades celebrating 'pride' are actually usually the ones that have the most to prove to themselves.

Peace all
M