This article is part of a series originally published in French during and just after Whole 2025. Since they're so good, we decided the world should enjoy them too, so we translated them.
Last summer, Leslie discovered the Whole Festival and gave you an account of her three days at the world’s biggest queer festival. This year, she has again decided to share her impressions and all the details of her endless nights with you. This second day is an opportunity to revisit the festival’s cruising areas and the significance of the FLINTA acronym.
I’m a literature teacher, and I don’t know if I picked it up from one of my teachers, but I tend to repeat the cliché that the history of Western literature can be summed up as two major themes: God and sex. Talking about sex, at least in theory, especially if it’s in alexandrines, is something I know all about. But it takes on a totally new dimension when it comes to Whole.
And it’s perhaps on this subject that I had a particularly liberating experience last year. To sum up, in the previous season,the non-gay-cisgender protagonists, grouped under the shaky label FLINTA in a forum section and a Telegram group, organised a takeover of one of the cruising spaces. And while the episode recaps don’t allow us to go into detail about what that experience was like, suffice it to say that it caused quite a stir. To cut a long story short, the FLINTA collective criticised the festival organisers for not planning and setting up cruising spaces that were not primarily dedicated to cis-gay people, sometimes going so far as to criticise gay sex outside the dedicated spaces and engaging in flawed arguments that we won’t bother to repeat here. However, the ideas gained traction, and this year dedicated spaces were created, including a DTF tent for dykes, trannies and faggots and, more prosaically, for down to fuck, part of which was FLINTA FOCUSED. The positive aspect, despite all the caveats about the FLINTA banner which we have already discussed at Friction, is that we witnessed a form of self-organisation but also developments based on feedback: basically, everyone likes to fuck.
But – and you were waiting for the but – the road ahead still seems very long. For example, although workshops on queer sex are being organised, I don’t think any other fuck space apart from FLINTA has a specific schedule.
I myself received a relatively progressive but definitely gendered education, and I learned that sex was dangerous, potentially degrading and dirty. That at best you could catch STIs, at worst you could get pregnant, and that it would be the means of the greatest violence I would experience in my life as a woman. I learned a whole bunch of stupid things about sex. And I am far from having deconstructed them all. But I am more or less comfortable with the contradictions that are expressed here as elsewhere, where we navigate between instilled norms and desires that are more or less satisfied. In fact, having had partners of different genders and even different sexual orientations, I have experienced how these constructs are reflected – here as elsewhere – in interpersonal relationships. So it’s quite logical that there are conflicts, tensions and hesitations. But frankly, when I entered the DTF tent, for purely journalistic purposes of course, I was quite surprised to see, first of all, that people were welcoming individuals one by one as they crossed the threshold, then that there were posters explaining the history of the famous takeover, which will undoubtedly remain in the annals of the festival, and finally a pot containing bracelets to indicate whether one was bi, pan, or other labels that I didn’t catch. We wanted to report on the events as accurately as possible, so we gave our all throughout the second day. Fags, lesbians and everyone in between or beyond, we roamed the aisles and carefully studied the relationships, the screams, the moans, we stopped at nothing to provide an accurate and faithful report of reality. One thing clearly emerged from our studies: we are bored AF at FLINTAs’. We look each other in the eye and stroked each other’s knees when what we really wanted to do was get fucked and have our hair pulled. You want to have sex, not have someone read you The Decameron.
So wanting to fuck seems pretty natural. Taking inspiration from communities that are ahead of the curve in terms of sexual liberation also seems like an excellent idea. There’s a lot to say about fucking but the DTF tent isn’t the place or the time, slay yas queen. On the other hand, if after I enter Down to fuck, I come out depressed as fuck, there’s a problem. Sex at a festival, in the cruising village in the middle of the woods and by a lake should first and foremost be as fun as that hit of ketamine that prevented me from reaching the bar at the beginning of the evening. We, who are not cisgender fags, have every reason to leave serious and laborious sex to heterosexuals. Especially since gender norms and primary socialisation ruined our first few shags, we should honour our taste for subversion and go beyond gender antagonism to the very end. Far from subverting anything, we risk perpetuating codes that many of us would undoubtedly like to get rid of. I’m sure I know some fags who would love eight-hour fuck sessions where every move is discussed to ensure clear and explicit consent at all times. And I have a very good female friend who would love to get quickly fucked on the arena bleachers while listening to a loud, booming techno set. And the best part is that everyone can change their mind, their role, and their opinion. So let’s talk about sex, but let’s not forget that our big mouths in these areas sometimes have better things to do than quibble. And let’s try, once and for all, to leave boring sex to straight people. They deserve it.
[ADDENDUM]
As Friction Magazine is the leading queer news outlet, we have learned from well-informed sources that a second takeover is being organised in secret on the secret Telegram group of influential people (FLINTA, that is). We dispatched a special correspondent to the meeting place. According to the organisers, there were ten participants. According to the harm reduction organisations called in urgently to equip them with gloves and lubricant, there were three. We don’t have the necessary perspective to analyse the extent of this failure in a meaningful way. However, we would like to see fags continue to mate in their natural habitats, just like the ducks on the lake.
WHOLE 2025 DAY 1 Like A Disco Ball DAY 2 Let's Talk About Sex, Baby DAY 3 Sex, Drugs & A Whole New World BONUS Shit And Giggles
