Just Another Gay Night in Havana...

I asked my friend Damian, a 23-year-old filmmaker here in Havana, to take me to a gay party. I'm starting research for a longer article about young gay culture in Havana, and the secret parties are the best place to start.

Last visit, I'd tried going to one of the parties with another American, but we deemed the unlit location in a bad part of town too risky and turned around.

But this time, I had Damian--an experienced party-goer--as my guide into the world of young gay culture in Havana.

Here in Cuba, being gay is complicated to say the least. In the 70's, gay men were sent to re-education camps, because being gay was deemed counter-revolutionary. During the 80's, the AIDS epidemic in the States created further bigotry against gay people and culture in Cuba.

Today, while it's not illegal to be gay, what are illegal are gay parties.

Now try to stick with me for the logic here: The government won't sanction official gay clubs, so the gay community has been forced to create their own. What's technically illegal then is the organization of the parties themselves. Since the party planers charge an entrance fee to cover drinks/DJ/set up costs, they are earning money outside the system, even if they aren't making a profit. Since they're not an official business owned or taxed by the government, these parties are illegal.

Every week on Friday and Saturday, there are two different numbers you can call. And every week you ask one question: Where's the party? You get an address. Sometimes the address is familiar, a repeat location, and sometimes, it's new.

Usually the parties are on people's rooftops or in backyards, but last Friday the party was inside someone's home. They cleared out all the furniture from three rooms, put up a black light and started pumping some techno. And just like that, you have a gay party in Havana.

When we arrived, Damian was surprised that most of the people didn't look familiar to him.

"I've been away from the parties for 3 months, and it's already a different group. Plus it seems like there's a lot of straight people here. Usually young straight people come because they have gay friends, or they don't care. Sometimes it's straight couples looking for someone to experiment with."

About two thirds of the people at the party are men. A few dance, most hang out in groups, and some lean against the walls, checking other men out, or waiting to be checked out. The few lesbians I see seem to be in couples, or at least are more likely to be kissing or dancing with each other. The most common dance combination are gay men dancing with women (straight or gay I'm not sure). It seems to me the gays and lesbians don't interact at the club too much. Damian says that's because they don't like each other.

"We don't have different clubs, so the gays and dykes have to tolerate each other. We have to be in the same space. Is that a bad word in English to use, dyke?"

Damian points to one couple dancing. The girl has long hair and a little black dress on, which Damian deems as a sign that she's straight and dancing with her boyfriend. He guesses they are looking for someone to experiment with. 5 minutes later he corrects himself that the man she was dancing with is not her boyfriend.

"Oh he's gay. He just checked me out."

Damian also points out the two 'modern' guys in the corner, of which he says there are always a few. The 'modern' guys are cute and dressed with an unusually fashionable sensibility. Prostitutes, Damian says. Not looking for clients here of course--no rich foreign men are at this party. They just came to have fun.

I ask Damian if he ever meets anyone worth dating at these parties.

"Oh yes, I have, sometimes great people. I never go up to them, I'm too shy. Usually how it works is if you like someone, you send your friend. He says 'My friend thinks you're cute', or they send a friend over to you to do the same. Sometimes if you make enough eye contact with the other person and one of you is less shy, they might come over directly and ask your name. But I never could do that."

The innocence of sending a friend over to a guy with a message reminds me of how things used to work in middle school. The idea of it is charming, especially compared to the straight club culture here, which tends to consist of men aggressively pursuing women. I ask Damian why he thinks it might be different at the gay parties.

"I think a lot of it has to do with our own shyness, our own shame. People are more afraid of being rejected."

Damian is interrupted by the first friend he recognizes, who introduces Damian to his boyfriend. After he goes back to dancing, Damian looks at me slyly.

"We used to have a thing. Well, not really, I liked him and he liked me, but he told me he couldn't get involved with me because he works with my mom. My mom is sort of conservative, and for him he couldn't date me if he worked with her."

I ask Damian how his mom reacted when he told her he was gay at 18.

"She wasn't angry, but she didn't really want to talk about it either. She doesn't really ask me about boyfriends. The exception was the love of my life, who lives in Germany. She met him when he visited and she loved him. He even stayed in my room with me in the house. But that's the only boyfriend she's ever met".

We go and dance for awhile to the techno beats, which always feel spastic to me in a country where the national rhythm is so much smoother. The room where people dance is hot, crowded and hardly ventilated. I ask Damian if I can go get some air outside and come back in.

"No they don't like people waiting outside on the corner, it could tip off the party. I always ask them to explain to me, why can't I be on the corner a minute? They say 'You know why'. I say 'No I don't know why, explain it to me'. They say ' You know why, you're gay'. I want them to explain their fear. Because that is the real power the government has. They have people believing what they're doing is wrong. That it's something to be ashamed of. That's the real power."

Less than an hour later, we call it a night and head home.