WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CUM AND VIRTUE? ONE WASHES OFF.
Berlin Pride, a.k.a. Christopher Street Day, a.k.a. CSD, is not for the weak of heart—or liver.
It smells of noise. It starts early. Too early. The kind of early that feels vindictive. (Especially if you end up in the champagne room of Schönhauser Allee’s Angels with a bunch of straight people the night before and miss the mandatory brunch. Oops.)
Maybe it starts early to compensate for how late everything else arrived? Gay sex, a.k.a. “unnatural indecency,” for one, was somewhat of a criminal offense in Germany up until 1994. The year Ace of Base topped the charts. The year Love Parade hit six digits. Thousands of men—because Paragraph 175 only policed men—carried that stain of sin into Merkel’s final term.
Blood donation? If you were gay or bi, the answer was no, flat out, until 2017. Based purely on the lingering belief that your blood was contaminated by desire, a.k.a. AIDS. You could’ve been in a decade-long relationship with lab results in hand—and still get turned away. Meanwhile, your ex’s straight roommate could roll out of Tresor and donate before sundown.
Conversion therapy for minors? Legal until 2020. Before that, any pastor, psychiatrist, or recovered-homo-type coach could charge parents to forcibly rebrand their teenager’s personality. A loose wrist, a bad posture, too many musical opinions—suddenly a pathology.
All of these things didn’t end because they were unjust. They ended because they became embarrassing. Too awkward for the brochure.
There is barely a moral arc here. Just optics, paperwork, and timing.
Overheard on Leipziger Straße:
“He’s not bi. He’s just tired.”
In 19th-century Prussia, suicide in the face of disgrace (think financial ruin, or sexual scandal) was seen as honorable. A clean exit. A final act of dignity. Morally preferable to living in shame. Now suicide is mourned and wrapped in prevention rhetoric. Same act, opposite consensus.
Take more recent, quotidian history: in the West Berlin of the 70s, some public schools had designated Raucherecke, or smokers’ corners, where students could light up between classes. Not deviant—institutionalized. Not rebellious—routine.
Meanwhile, in the East, informing on your neighbors used to be seen as a civic duty. A form of patriotism. Proof of loyalty. Now the same tiled hallways that once incubated Stasi files hoard passed-down DHL slips.
“Common sense” didn’t exactly evolve. It pivoted. Dropped like a remix, one summer too late.
Overheard at the Soho House Pride party:
“I don’t need coke, babe, I’m just naturally narcissistic.”
Pride used to be an uprising. Now it’s dueling playlists. One parade with brand sponsorships and glitter that claims to dissolve. Another with more up-to-date politics and a Polizei van circling the block. Everyone convinced theirs is the real one.
Streets closed. Shirts off. Phones dead. Muscle gays in matching Oakley sunglasses danced next to a Deutsche Bahn float. A girl with septum piercing held a sign that read NO PRIDE IN GENOCIDE. A boy in an I <3 HOT DADS tank hung from a traffic light with a bottle of Absolut.
Nobody seemed sure of who was performing and who was watching. Slogans blurred into Spotify queues. A hyperpop rendition of Dancing on My Own dissolved into a chant for Palestinian liberation. The city clapped on one and three.
Overheard on Torstraße:
“Not gonna lie, I’m glad I waited out the line. At least it proved me right. Anyway, I got my dance at Renate. And a cigarette burn.”
That night I almost got into the Ket Gala. I’d kissed someone who said he’d be there. I stood in the “Friends & Family” line at 4 a.m.—without guest list, without pre-sale. The door girl wore white faux fur and the expression of a border official. She looked me up and down and said, “It’s a no tonight.” Soft. Almost sweet. Undeniable.
So I went somewhere else. A place with no slogans, and no door girls. Just wet tile, and a man who said I had a good jawline. I believed him for twenty minutes.
Overheard at Betty F…:
“Big dicks are way too obnoxious. Honestly? Barbaric.”
Berlin doesn’t do moral clarity. It does atmospheric collision.
Things shift. Pressure builds. The air changes. You can speak too soon and be dismissed as insane. You can get everything right and still hear: not tonight, thanks.
Wendy asks her mother in Peter Pan, “Why do they forget the way?”
“Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless,” the mother replies. “It is only the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.”
When I first read that, I thought “heartless” was a threat. Now I think it’s the exit sign. Heartless doesn’t mean cruel. It means untethered. The opposite of sanctimony. The opposite of branded virtue.
A kiss can outlive a rulebook. A look can carry more moral conviction than a manifesto. A single gesture—heartless, beautiful, poorly timed—can eclipse a year’s worth of aligned hashtags.
Because the starry sky doesn’t argue.
★ RSVP
Mitte Daily’s Pétanque Picnic
Saturday, August 30, from 4 p.m.
One last evening to toss some balls before summer ends and morality kicks back in. You know the drill.
Bring fruit. Bring gossip. Bring a friend you’re not sure how to define. We’ll bring the music and whatever’s left in the fridge. Come. Lose. Win. Dissociate under a tree. RSVP now!
★ TBD Excitement
The final Pétanque Picnic of the season. The release of Mitte Daily’s Unofficial Berlin Dating Report (you’ve been warned). Long Night of Museums, inexplicably themed “Love.” Zug der Liebe? Crying on Karl-Marx-Allee at dusk.
★ IRL of the Month
The final boss of Torstraße regrets, Bollywood Spätkauf
Torstraße 225, 10115 Berlin
Bollywood ballads leak onto Torstraße like something’s about to happen. The light is way too bright. The snacks are limp. But the timing is usually perfect. There might be cute boys and girls outside. There might be no one. The fridge would still hum like it knows what you’ve done. If you’ve ever had a moral crisis over Mezzo Mix, chances are it happened here—and it wasn’t your first.
Can you still fly? That’s not a metaphor. Send your answer. And if you liked this: subscribe, share, scream, or say something beautiful at 3 a.m.
I can't wait until 3 am. You always paint the most vivid pictures.