Last week, I got a phone call from my friend’s boss, who is a freelance journalist. She was producing a radio show about privacy, and wanted to interview me, as someone who lives a reasonably public, out life.

She asked me whether I kept anything deliberately private, if there was anything I avoided writing about in my column. I racked my brain, thinking for a moment. The first thing that came to my mind was, of course, the things you typically keep private. Sex? Nope, I’ve definitely written about that. Sexuality? Duh. Awkward encounters? Embarrassing moments? Upbringing, regrets, illness? I feel like I’ve written about all of that.

Sure, there are things I keep private. You may not know where I live (though based on my columns and listings it’s probably easy to guess); you might not even know what I do in my day-to-day life (have I ever written about that? I don’t think so). But in considering this question, I had to think about where I’d draw the line, or why I don’t.

Often, it’s about the story. If it’s a good story, I’ll tell it. Maybe I’ll change people’s names to protect them, but if it’s a good story – no matter how embarrassing or awkward for me – I’ll generally tell it.

I think this willingness to share comes from living a life that was never known to me. As I’ve written before, queerness was so alien to me when I was growing up. I didn’t know what it looked like, and so – as with most things you are ignorant of – it was something I didn’t like, something I was suspicious of. Call it a weird saviour complex, but now when I share my mundane, everyday, awkward, funny or embarrassing stories, I feel like I’m contributing to a culture that makes queerness visible. Less alien. Less suspicious. Real.

Visibility is the first step to survival and justice. Queers enjoy relative visibility these days, but I think still in a stereotypical sense. Until we start realising there are a million ways to be queer, just as there are a million ways to be straight, or just be, we won’t have a true understanding of what it means to be queer, or different in any way, and how to cater for that.

I also think that as a queer woman, I have a different sense of what should be private. I want to talk about sex, so I can smash stigma around the way I do it. I want to talk about my sexuality, so that it isn’t silenced. I want to talk about drugs, alcohol, sex toys, kink, sex work, beats, one night stands, bad sex, bad dates – because ultimately, these are things that are part of our lives, and shouldn’t be hidden. When we hide things, we’re taught to be ashamed of them. Or that they’re bad.

This can have dangerous consequences. Our nation’s current drug policies, for example, are essentially a head-in-the-sand approach from our lawmakers. If we acknowledge that drugs are something people do, and then talk about it, we’ll minimise harm. Criminalising sex work just means people will pay for sex in underhanded and dangerous ways. Or it means sex workers will never be able to access workers’ rights, workers’ safety, healthcare or welfare, because, according to the state, they don’t exist.

Privacy is a privilege of the powerful. For if the oppressed are private, they are hidden, controlled, condemned. If I were to keep my ‘private’ life private, I’d be hiding who I am.

And I wouldn’t have a job.

This Week:

Yellow Wednesdays is back at Secret Garden Bar this Wednesday April 13,featuring Akul, Iron Gate Sound and Lewbar.

Then on Thursday April 14, Manning Bar is hosting a pride week celebration with Paul Mac, L’Oasis and Matty Bixx. This is an early (civilised!) party, so start early and get to bed on time.

Heaps Gay is back again this Saturday April 16 at the Oxford Hotel. It will feature Simo Soo, Bad Deep DJs, Mason Mulholland, Voin, Brooklyn Queenz and FlexMami.

Then on Sunday April 17, House Of Mince is bringing back the PavlovaBar to celebrate 30 years of Ben Drayton’s illustrious DJ career. He’ll be playing a massive seven-hour set at Club 77, 8pm-3am.

[Sydney Mardi Gras photo Katrina Clarke]

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