#The italian singer is obviously gay i deduced it

[consult-sherlockholmes]

how about the italian one? what do you think of that one?

That song was also one of the better ones.

[janiedean]

Janie, what is it like to be queer in Rome/Italy? Can you write about that please? Is it like an okay/safe thing to be out and open about it? Does it make a difference if you are pe a woman or a man? Are there out people like 'idols' in the italian media? Thank you!

uhm man count that I can’t answer a lot of that because I’m not queer so I like, don’t personally know how it’s like on a personal level but what I can say objectively is:

it tends to be better in large cities than small towns but anything tends to

it’s not unsafe to be queer in the sense that you don’t risk going to jail or getting fired (unless you’re in the private sector and your employer is an asshole) and the likes. whether it’s safe to be **out** is an entire other question because I mean there’s areas where it’s not a problem, there’s places where being gay if you’re a man is seen as weakness still (I mean find openly gay people in the places in the south where the economy is all mafia, then we can discuss it) and then... I mean if you live in a large city it’s a lot less of a problem to be out. also you could be out with your friends but not your parents or all your relatives, depends on the place/area/situation. like for example my parents give zero shits about it so if I wasn’t straight I could tell them and they’d go like yeah okay fine whatever, a... uhhh.... former friend’s parents sent him to have an exorcism when they found out he didn’t like women and I’m 99% sure that it’s the reason why since then he’s been completely impossible to deal with (I mean he’s turned into a radical catholic rightwinger who likes lepen and I haven’t talked to him in years) and we live in the same city/went to the same school sooo....

regarding how people take it... eh, depends more on background rather than age. like at the place where I teach at most of the volunteers are people older than fifty who do it as post-pension work and none of them has a problem with that but it’s all leftist people who use their spare time working with migrants, my grandmother is ninety and uber catholic but she’s always been a pretty open person and a while ago she was talking about... like, this famous singer who was gay but not out died at like fifty-something and left all to his *manager* who was most probably the boyfriend, and his family wanted to contest it and she was like ‘but if he was with the other guy why should they have it’, then she has some retrograde ideas about it also such as people should worry about POVERTY rather than gay marriage but it could be worse, and then I met people my age who were raging homophobes and like my grandmother’s sister is... not really tolerant in that sense. depends.

it’s... sort of more obvious with men because like let’s just say that if you’re two women there’s a lot of stuff that other places might be seen as pda which here is just *friendly*, but like see the thing is that before fascism we never had laws against sodomy and the likes bc there was more urgent stuff to discuss and during fascism obviously being gay was a huge no and you’d get sent to confinement if it was found out but since making a law against sodomy implied that handsome MASCULINE italian ***men*** could actually be gay and that just wasn’t a thing they would openly admit they never made one, so like... people just pretend to not see it now as they did back in the day and with women it’s easier to disguise it. with men there’s the... thing where you’re supposed to be a REAL MAN TM WHO WOULD NEVER LIKE OTHER MEN still in a lot of places so it’s a lot more scandalous if it makes sense?

I mean, I never heard of lesbian kisses being cut from prime time movies but they aired brokeback mountain without the m/m scenes and a kiss from how to get away with murder not even last year because OMG MEN KISSING IN PRIME TIME HOW HORRIBLE (even if then in prime time you see naked women all the time) so... there’s that too

and since the church is what it is and has influence still same sex unions have just been approved and in a completely ridiculous way so... I mean last I know if you do polls around, more than half of the population would be okay with gay marriage but not with adoption SOOOOOO just deduce what you’d like

also there’s a national attitude to scream a lot when something related to that happens and then it dies down. like the first gay pride in rome brought a month of polemical stuff with the church bc OMG HOW DARE YOU, for the second they protested one week and then... it’s happened for years and no one really cares least of all the church. once in a while a famous singer or actor comes out and there’s OMG WAS HE REALLy in tabloids and the week later everything is forgotten. like the singer I mentioned above in relation to my grandmother, it was obvious he was gay irl and he still sold records, and we have some out lesbian singers who haven’t had a problem with their career for that. and some of our most artsy/quoted film directors are gay/were gay and had no problems finding work (I mean ferzan ozpetek has gay/bi/queer people in every movie of his around and he still gets a lot of audience sooo, and sure as hell visconti made movies all his life xD). admittedly I think that in the arts camp is more accepted/no one cares, but that’s another problem in itself

so tldr it’s a complicated question so now I’ll just reply again directly to the questions very quick

Is it like an okay/safe thing to be out and open about it? - depends on where you live, your family’s background and what are you queer for - some people could be fine with having gay kids but not trans kids WHO KNOWS. larger towns are a safer bet. anyway you don’t risk jail or violence (USUALLY) or losing your job or the kind if you’re queer IN GENERAL

Does it make a difference if you are pe a woman or a man? - yes and women tend to have it easier when it comes to Expectations TM and men have the issues mentioned above because people feel it as more ‘in your face’, if you look at anti-gay propaganda it’s all men in the pictures or at most trans women (bc it’s seen as unnatural that someone who was born a man would actually be a woman in a... more violent way I suppose, idk if I’m explaining myself sorry), not lesbians or trans men

Are there out people like 'idols' in the italian media? yeah actually there’s plenty - like I mentioned before ferzan ozpetek (the director) and tiziano ferro (the singer - who has been out for years but everyone suspected it before),  gianna nannini is a singer who’s... I think she’s either lesbian or bi but anyway she’s definitely into women, carmen consoli is another singer who I think is lesbian, franco zeffirelli is gay, valentino and dolce & gabbana also are gay and out, there’s a few out politicians (nichi vendola, anna concia and alfonso pecoraro scanio plus vladimir luxuria who’s actually a trans woman) and a few tv presenters that I can think of. let’s just say all these people (except the directors probably) came out after becoming famous bc it’s generally not a good idea for your career unless you market yourself that way. and then there’s renato zero who says he’s heterosexual but he’s an lgbt sex symbol and his most famous song is about three people going at it and it was out in... I think the LATE SEVENTIES so *shrug*

about how it feels sorry I can’t reply to that directly because I’m not queer so :/ if anyone wants to reblog or weigh in pls go ahead because I exhausted everything I can reasonably say on the subject xD