Reykjavík Grapevine


Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.06.2017, Blaðsíða 28

Reykjavík Grapevine - 16.06.2017, Blaðsíða 28
The Men What do men think? While Car- rie Bradshaw spent six HBO seasons desperately searching for the answer, The Grapevine went straight to the source, and to explore the masculine side of Iceland’s sex and re- lationship scene, we picked five very different males to anonymously tell us the real- real. Some were romantics, others players. Some Read at your own risk, but know that all names have been changed as have ages and any identifying details have been taken out. Just try and find out who these people are, we dare you. The Panel: Fannar: 19, Icelandic, Straight, Single Gísli: 21, Icelandic, Straight, In a Relationship Jón: 27, Icelandic, Straight, Single Liam: 33, Foreign, Gay, “Dating someone but I don’t want to put labels on it” Sigurður: 36, Icelandic, Straight, Single Jón: The stereotype of Icelandic relationships is that people meet up downtown, get drunk, hook up, then sort of fall into a relationship almost accidentally. Liam: Yeah, but Icelandic people are terrible at confrontation. So let’s say you have two Icelanders who meet at B5. They go home to- gether and they keep doing it for like four months. Do you find that people end up being in a relation- ship without having that conver- sation, because they’re too afraid to? Jón: Definitely. I haven’t, but I know people who have. Like they decide to move in together be- cause it’s easier, but they’ve never said “We’re in a relationship.” Gísli: That is the typical stuck-in- Iceland person. The guy who never leaves the country. Sigurður: It’s never happened to me. I never ease into relation- ships, but I guess I’m a hopeless romantic—or just sick maybe. I fall in love early and get hooked. Gísli: Well, we’re right between European and American culture. So we have people that grow up with American romantic culture and these people that have more European ideas. Icelandic culture is awkwardly in the middle. Sigurður: We don’t learn much about sex here when we are young. At least, I don’t remember any- thing. Nothing in school. Pre-in- ternet, I remember learning about sex mostly from my friend’s Dan- ish porn magazines. Fannar: Actually my Icelandic teacher was in the first Icelandic porn movie made here! Everyone in school watched it, but I didn’t. Anyway, I remember learning, “Porn is not real sex.” My dad told me at 14, “If you’re gonna have sex, have sex, but use a condom.” That’s all. Liam: Well, you’re Icelandic so I am going to guess you didn’t. You people have a weird relationship with protected sex. Fannar: Condoms are expensive! No, I’m joking. I don’t know. My girlfriend got pregnant twice and another time a one night stand called me like, “I’m pregnant.” So I have dodged the bullet three times. To be real, I don’t know why people don’t use condoms here— but they really don’t. Gísli: That’s exactly why we are the chlamydia capital of the world. My friend actually just got it in his eye. He was going down on a girl and, I know, right? But how many of your friends have had it? Jón: I don’t even know man. Fannar: A lot. It’s weirdly not re- ally considered a big deal here. People just take the pills. Liam: “The Reykjavík handshake.” But the condom thing is worse in the gay community. People act like HIV doesn’t exist. They say, “Oh, but we live in Iceland!” On that note, I got crabs last year actually. Fannar: That’s pretty old school. Gísli: The first time I had sex with an Icelandic girl without a condom, I pulled out, and I swear she had never seen that done be- fore. She was really shocked. I was like, “You were just expecting me to impregnate you?” Then I found out she wasn’t on the pill or trying to have a kid, so I just don’t get it. Jón: I’ve never really seen this. All my friends use condoms. But I guess the whole scene here re- volves around drunk hookups, so that means unprotected sex. Liam: Okay, are you taught that incest is bad, or is it ignored? ‘Cause your entire population dwindled down to 6,000 people not that long ago. I have a friend who told me he took MDMA last week and made out with three of his cousins at a party. I mean, I have a hot gay cousin and I would have made out with him, but never before I moved to Iceland. This place has changed me. Gísli: I hate to be the guy to break it to you but I don’t think anyone in this room has made out with their cousins. Fannar: It happens by accident. I’ve heard many stories. Once my homie had sex with a girl and then went to a family party— Everyone: Oh god. Fannar: She was his second cous- in. Sigurður: I knew quite young what was illegal and what was not. You learn really young, I don’t know why. It’s not really some- thing that happens often. Jón: First cousin is incest. Second cousin is incest. Sigurður: Third cousin is legal. Jón: It’s a moral grey area. Sigurður: I really considered do- ing something with this girl re- cently but I was in a relationship with her sister for two years—not biologically related. That’s not incest, but that stuff is bound to happen. You’re dating a girl that your best friend dated a few years ago, or the opposite. Gísli: These are typical Icelandic situations. You gotta learn to be mature about it as fast as possible or else you are going to have a ter- rible fucking life here. Liam: Dating in this country is even smaller if you are gay though. Two percent of every developed country identify as gay men, so that’s 6,000 in Iceland. 6,000! I probably know all of them. You can’t walk down the stairs of Kiki with a guy or everyone thinks you’re fucking him. It’s mouth to dick tabloid news. But I think many in the gay scene are quite miserable. All Icelandic gay men grew up together so they’ve been fucking each other senseless for twenty years. They don’t want to date each other so they move abroad, find a foreigner, and bring them back to the mothership. Fannar: That’s something that is imprinted in Icelandic people: Stay in Iceland. Gísli: Okay, I am going to bring this up. Icelandic women take it very poorly when they are re- jected. They sometimes get vio- lent. Right? This happens. I got punched in the face when I reject- ed my friend. Jón: Yes! It is so true. If you just politely just say no, she will call you names. You are rude for not wanting to go home with me! It’s just assumed you want to. Gísli: I once turned down a girl and she just called me a faggot. A faggot! Jesus. Fannar: Yes, when you want to turn down Icelandic women, you have to turn them down easy so they won’t go spreading shit. They don’t take it well. Sigurður: I haven’t experienced it so aggressively, but they don’t take hints that show I’m not into you. They keep at it, and at it, and at it. It’s hard right now because I’m really just looking for a partner. I don’t want someone too young, foreign and no kids. It’s hard when someone doesn’t tell you they have kids. That’s a rule for me. Fannar: Do they expect to hear, “Wow, I’ve always wanted to be a dad!”? Like let’s say you’re with them for three years and this kid starts to know you, then you break up, then what are you to him? He knows you. Liam: Well, I now live in a coun- try where I could have children. I never imagined in my entire life I would be allowed to, so now I am trying to figure out how I feel. But my summing up of the gay scene in this country, in one word, would be “depressing.” It’s a beautiful country to move to if you want to find yourself, but if you’re a gay person looking for a husband, don’t move here. Sigurður: It’s hard. I mean, I just started on Tinder. I’ve been on two dates and those are the first I‘ve been on in fourteen years. It’s so weird. We don’t really go on dates here, so I am bad at it. I find it so funny and so cute. I become like a teenager. We went for a coffee and a talk, and then the next one we just hooked up downtown and had sex. The Icelandic way. Half a date and half an Icelandic date. Jón: Dates just feel unnatural. Fannar: On the date you don’t usually hook up. The hookup hap- pens the next day when you pick up your phone at 2am and you see a slurred text or seven Facebook calls in a row and that’s the make or break point. That’s Icelandic re- lationships. The Women All names have been changed as have ages and any identify- ing details have been taken out. The Panel: Guðrun: 31, Icelandic, Straight, Single Anna: 29, Icelandic, Straight, “It’s complicated” Kristin: 35, Icelandic, Straight, Married Ásdis: 20, Icelandic, Straight, Single Marissa: 24, Icelandic, Straight, Single Ásdis: I met my last boyfriend at 3am at Paloma. I went up to him and grinded on him from behind. Then we went home and fucked. Marissa: That’s such a typical “Icelandic first date.” Kristín: Yes, but I think it’s im- portant to go to bed with someone as soon as possible because you need to test drive, you know? Are you good in bed together? Then you can decide if you want to do more. Alcohol is always involved, without exception, I think. If it isn’t that’s quite rare. Anna: Even my low-key friends— with perfect childhoods and no daddy issues—go downtown, meet someone for the first time, sleep with them, and then wait for them to call. Guðrun: I was raised Catholic so I lost my virginity very late, and I was with the same man for seven years after that, so I feel young in the dating scene. If I really like them, I don’t fuck them right away, which is not how people work in Reykjavík. But if I toler- ate them and think they are sexy that’s when I do the one night stand thing. Drunk hookups are the worst though. No one is able to fuck properly. Anna: And then drugs and alcohol come in, with the “I can’t cum, I’m too drunk.” And I’m like huh, I’m a girl, I totally can’t relate to sex being unfulfilling. Like I was with Arnar— Marissa: —Wait, him? I’ve slept with him. You slept with him? Guðrun: I didn’t sleep with him. I would like to sleep with him. Marissa: Wait, did you sleep with him? Anna: He’s my cousin so no I did not fuck my cousin. Ásdis: There we go. This is Ice- land. Marissa: It’s just a small town so no matter what happens you will see this person every week for the rest of your life. Guðrun: Yeah I mean, imagine, you're seeing someone, and maybe three years ago he was living with your friend, raising her babies, and now you are sleeping with him. It doesn’t even matter if she’s married now, you still feel kind of evil. Anna: All exes become gay in my eyes after we break up. That’s how I deal with it. Kristín: In my workplace, every- one could name maybe three co- workers they have slept or made out with. It’s like that everywhere you go, though. Guðrun: The other day, my friend asked me if I minded that she start dating this guy that I had been sleeping with and had feelings for. I was like, “SURE. THAT’S COOL. OF COURSE: THAT’S SO COOL.” And then they were making out in front of me and I was like, “Oh shit, this is not cool.” Kristín: Everyone should have two to three vetoes in Iceland. Some guys just mean something to you, so you just don’t want your best friend in the mix. Or your lit- tle sister. Or your mother. Ásdis: I was in a domestic rela- tionship when I was nineteen—it was quite abusive—and I recently found out that my best friend was sleeping with him after we broke up. It’s fucked up and we don’t speak anymore. Marissa: Having that even be a possibility is only in Iceland. I have those guys where it’s like, “I don’t give a shit if you two are in love, you can’t hook up with him.” And friends have respected that, and other friends haven’t, and that’s a make or break thing. Guðrun: And in Iceland, you can’t take that shit back. It’s so small that you probably aren’t going to make completely new friends again. When people get divorced and if there’s a third party in- volved, everyone knows, and no matter what the issue, you will al- ways see them at parties and bars or any other public occasion. Marissa: But you married a for- eigner, Kristín, how different was that? Kristín: Simple. All of you, I could make one phone call, “Who is this “Everyone is looking for a best friend who they like fucking. Someone who will be like, ‘Want to eat this burrito with me?’ Sure. ‘Want to go down on me?’ Sure.” “That’s exactly why we are the chlamydia capital of the world. My friend actually just got it in his eye. He was going down on a girl and, I know, right?” “I could make one phone call, ask ‘Who is this girl?’ and I'd get your whole life story.” “Airbnb is ruining Icelandic relationships.” Hookups, Pickups And Modern Love Our panel of thirsty experts
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Reykjavík Grapevine

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