Queer Zagreb: Animosity Towards Gay Tourists on the Island of Hvar
|
Homosexuals are nice, decent, educated, well off and good tourists. At the same time, they are immoral exhibitionists that think only of sex and nothing else. These would be the two stereotypes used all summer as landmarks for the coverage of the demonized homosexual tourists that come to visit the “untouched” and “innocent” Adriatic. The inciting atmosphere resulting from the efforts to create a scandal from the fact that about 50 French guests that naively decided to spend their summer vacations in Croatia is, to say the least, irresponsible towards domestic tourism industry, Croatian homosexual population that is already exposed to violence due to the widespread stereotypes, and the French tourists themselves, whose vacation is rapidly turning into a witch hunt.
The further lowering of the traditionally low levels of tolerance for all things non-heterosexual leads to the situation in which even hugging and holding hands is immediately declared “unacceptable gay behaviour”, together with whispering in a café and rubbing sun tan oil on the beach. Similar activities in which male-female pair engage regularly would hardly be a motive to invent “news” declaring that “heterosexuals invade the Adriatic”. To support the story, it is advisable to photograph any scantily clad man (homosexual or not, regardless) at the wee bit hours of the night, in front of a church and exclaim “Voila!”. Let’s think for the moment that the Croatian “Mediterranean as it Once Was” (and it was always partly homosexual!) receives thousands of organized tourist groups from all sides of the world. Strangely enough, previously, no Croatian media chose to select one such group, discuss its arrival with the locals, announce the list of beaches the group intends to frequent, where they will stay, intensively photograph its night life activities, faces, sun bathing and drinking sprees. We never had a chance to read about the countless drunken parties, public exposures, kissing and hugging of heterosexual persons that flood the Adriatic coast and practice such behaviour daily, in all tourist destinations. Why? Because the only motive to create news about homosexuals on the Adriatic is the fact that they are homosexuals! Everything else is irrelevant. The very idea that it would suffice to be homosexual to be dragged around in the media is homophobic, anti-Constitutional and illegal. Queer Zagreb concludes that the only way to overcome these obstacles to good customs of hospitality towards human beings regardless of their sexual preferences is to intensify gay tourism. Until then, as the saying goes - ... even the homophobes are human”. |
Printable version
Back to top
