It was a rainy welcome when I arrived by train from Vaasa, Finland to Helsinki. I grabbed a cab, checked in and went to a nearby café someone recommended on an online blog. (It was okay, but I won’t pass the baton with a further recommendation.) As I left the café, I noticed several tourist pamphlets and took a few. This form of paper advertisement is no better nor worse than random online sources. Still, one brochure stood out.
The main heading on the front of the pamphlet said, “WE SPEAK GAY…FINLAND.” I added it to my little stack.
In truth, six days later and in a different country, Estonia, I am only now glancing through it.[1] I consider the brochure more of a novelty souvenir than something that would have helped navigate my stay in Helsinki.
Helsinki's Oodi Library
Before I travel—often only the night before arriving at a destination—I will Google a few things online. Typically, I look for museums and special exhibits, best coffee spots, bakeries and the central library. Food is not an issue. As a vegetarian with an eating disorder, restaurants are not a highlight, especially as a solo traveler, which is my preference. I simply look up the closest grocery store once I get to the hotel.
I don’t give any thought to looking for gay things—bars, bathhouses, bookstores. Why would I park myself on a stool, drinking a margarita, when I could be out seeing the city (or prepping for the next day’s agenda which usually begins before sunrise? I know many gay seek a sexual encounter as part of the “pleasure” component of the trip. I’m not adverse to it, but I don’t establish eye contact in bars and men use apps just as ineffectively abroad as they do back in Vancouver. Why would I respond to a faceless “Hey”? Why would I be interested in a profile that fills in nothing? I am quick to stop checking my one app. Really, if I have nothing to do, it’s easier and perhaps more pleasurable to read my new book.
A romance, go figure.
My aversion to a gaycation goes back to one of my early boyfriends, Gary, whom I met through a newspaper personal ad in L.A. It was the type where you had to send a note to a related box number in care of the paper. Old days. Similar to online messaging in terms of process, but a written note required words beyond “Hey” or “Wassup.” Can you imagine getting a letter and that’s all it said? Trash can. (This was before recycling.) Standards have changed for many, but a “Hey” still goes immediately to trash for me.
Gary and I didn’t travel much during our year and a half together. San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Francisco. The loveliest trip involved seeing San Simeon and staying in a cabin in Ragged Point as raccoons stared in and we stared back. The city visits were not as fun. Gary’s primary objective was to check out the gay bars, of which there were more back then. I didn’t see the point. He never danced; just sat on a stool, smoking one cigarette after another while keeping a growing bar tab. Part of me was insecure. Why did we have to be immersed in gays when we had each other? I’d hoped being in a relationship meant I could stop going to bars. But then Gary was the alcoholic, not me. He was getting something out of it, not me.
Gay bars on holiday? Not me.
I also have never planned my travels around Pride celebrations. I’m not a parade guy. I love dancing, but I’m not a raver. Pride would, in fact, be a reason for me to reschedule my trip to a different weekend. I know this makes me sound sad or sour. I am neither. I did the Rose Bowl back in 2010 when my school, TCU, won the game. That won’t likely happen again in my lifetime. Mardi Gras, Mexico City’s Day of the Dead and anything to do with Carnival in Rio are the only parades left on my bucket list. Carnival is a distinct event. Pride in Amsterdam or Munich or Taipei? Pass. I don’t need to see how they do queer parades in London or compare the abs of twenty-two-year-olds atop floats in Barcelona versus Sydney. With Pride generating big turnouts more than ever, hotel prices are bound to be higher and the non-Pride events may have larger crowds. These are the same reasons I don’t travel to Europe in summer. I love taking photos and I don’t want every shot of Mona Lisa or the Trevi Fountain photobombed by people’s shoulders.
This has been my fifth trip to Sweden which I broadened to include bits of Finland and Estonia. I know I am safe in Sweden. I know I don’t have to repress mannerisms that might be viewed as stereotypically gay. Swedish society is incredibly progressive. More than that, they give you space and leave you alone unless you approach them. My gayness is not an issue.
Helsinki harbor
I felt Finland would be similar. Nothing about my stay made me worry or think I should tone anything down. If you’ve read this much, you probably think this non-raving, parade hater, hookup app critic has nothing to tone down. You might say, if I toned things down more, I would be flatlining. I do like good conversation, good times and big laughs, all just on a smaller scale.
Perhaps I should have read up on gay rights in Estonia. It is, after all, a former Soviet Socialist Republic. The Soviets weren’t known for individuality or freedom of speech and expression.
Here is my belated research on the status of a couple basic gay rights in each of the countries I visited, with Canada (where I live) and the U.S. (where I’ve lived) thrown in for comparison.
Here are the relevant countries ranked based on when homosexuality was decriminalized at the national level:
Sweden – 1944
Canada – 1969
Finland – 1971
Estonia - 1992
U.S. – 2003
Here they are ranked based on when marriage equality became a national right:
Canada – 4th in world, since 2005
Sweden – 7th, 2009
U.S. – 17th, 2015
Finland – 20th, 2017
Estonia – 35th, Jan. 1, 2024
With a few countries having gay marriage pending, we’re at about forty countries in the world that allow this. It says something that, yes, Estonia is now on the list. It may say even more that homosexuality was decriminalized so soon after the fall of the Soviet Union and more than a decade before the U.S.
Yes, a safe trip. They speak gay in Finland. I’d say they speak it in Sweden, too. Estonia as well. Assumptions, to be sure, Finnish pamphlet notwithstanding. Quite honestly, I spent this trip with my mind on the frequency of Ukrainian flags more than gay men. How does anyone visit Helsinki and use a gay pamphlet as a conduit to all-things-gay without considering how Finland shares a border with Russia. Same for Estonia.
Awakening Faun by Finnish artist
Magnus Enckell
I also went to several art museums, my mind focused on how hard it is for a talented, successful artist in one country to have their work seen and appreciated elsewhere. I saw much that was on a level with Rembrandt, Picasso, O’Keeffe and Warhol. Presumably, the Finns and Estonians know and are proud of their own art wunderkinds. If only the art world were better at broadening the platform and elevating the exposure and status of painters like Finns Sam Vanni, Tyko Sallinen and Magnus Enckell as well as Estonians such as Henn Roode, Olga Terri, Peet Aren and Eduard Ole.
Beyond that, My Big Non-Gay Vacation involved lots of cafés where I wrote and people watched, bike rides to get me beyond city centers and runs through the forest, along the Baltic and in my favorite park spaces in Stockholm.
I didn’t speak gay this trip. I didn’t speak Finnish or Estonian either. I read small amounts of Swedish but didn’t dare speak it despite five years of daily practice. The only different speaking turned out to be French which I slogged through with a lovely straight couple from Normandy while we tried to navigate how to use public transit to reach the Tallinn airport. Bus drivers didn’t speak gay or English or maybe even Estonian. They just stared gruffly, a very clear form of nonverbal communication.
Speaking anything is not always necessary.
[1] The actual pamphlet is a listing of a hundred businesses throughout Finland…a few gay bars but mainly restaurants and hotels. There is reference to a pledge these businesses take to show their commitment to the LGBTQ+ community. The closest I could find to a pledge on their website is the following:
“We stand together against homophobia, transphobia and all kind of discrimination. We are working for a safer and more inclusive society.” All good.
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