A still Melancholia by Lars Von Trier ‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair” – I caught my boyfriend clued to the screen watching one his favourite fairy tales when I came home. How common it is for a beautiful princess to get rescued from her solitary containment by some Prince Charming, I thought. But why does it resonate with gay people? Why do we often feel trapped, confined, waiting for some magical rescue? The society naturally marginalizes unorthodox individuals, labelling them as a certain category, putting them in a certain box. Growing gay adolescents have to realize and accept they are different from others, effectively lock themselves away from their peer group in at least some ways, even if just mentally. And so we may found ourselves safe and secure inside our imaginary closet, finding escape in a parallel universe. Fairy tales may provide welcoming relief and comfort to misfits letting them escape into a different world with its magic transformations, helpful fairy grandmothers and happy endings, where bullies are punished, and love, fame and money all come at once in a neat package. Just lie down and wait as your Prince Charming is galloping your way on a white unicorn to French kiss you and finally make it all right. I think this is a natural process in the development of gay personality, similar to a pupal stage in the development of a butterfly, when a larva hides inside a cocoon to go through metamorphosis before transforming itself into its adult stage. But for a gay person coming out of the imaginary closet and fully integrating into the outside world could turn into a painful lifelong process. And prolonged isolation of one’s mind from the real world leads to different psychological complications and various ways of coping with sometimes harsh reality. This lethargic dreamlike state may be efficient to heal early traumas, suppress emotions and even keep younger appearances. But what if Prince Charming never comes, what are the downsides of the prolonged ‘sleeping beauty syndrome’? Delusion and apathy. Disempowering ourselves we are missing out on opportunities and not letting ourselves fully develop and flourish. We are objectifying ourselves by reducing ourselves to our looks and sexual roles, becoming objects to be used rather than subjects in control. We learn early on that for a Cinderella the only ticket to happiness is being rescued by a man, not self-realization through work and education. We make believe that the power, love and care we lack of could come from the outside, making all things right, breaking the spell of our stigma and loneliness. That we should patiently wait for the miracle rather than work on making it happen. When I look around the LGBT community, I see a lot of ‘sleeping beauties’, waiting for the best times to come, daydreaming and sleepwalking through their lives. Some narcissistic, other bipolar, often anorexic, anxious and commonly insecure, these sometimes middle age dreamers are still waiting for their childish fantasies to come true. Like under an evil spell, they are endlessly browsing dating websites and cruising the gay spots, trapped in their imaginary world of false hopes and unrealistic expectations. Historically, fairy-tales were written to prepare children for the adult life, to reinforce values and set up gender and behavioural stereotypes. Traditional fairy-tales routinely feature torture, murder, cannibalism and necrophilia and teach children traditional family values and gender roles, leaving out equality and gender fluidity. In the absence of gay characters, gay boys with unconventional ratio of masculine to feminine could easily identify with a central female character, a passive receptor of injustice, often isolated, depressed and at times suicidal. The character is often delusional and lonely amidst typical family detachment with the father figure either missing or suppressed by the evil stepmother. There is also a good deal of jealousy and unfair competition. And does not this all fit neatly into a stereotypical gay man’s world? Loneliness, distant father and dominant mother, importance of good looks, jealousy and bitchiness in a hunt for the Prince Charming… It is now speculated how princess tales have been affecting psychology and behaviour of millions of girls over hundreds of years. I guess gay boys might have been similarly tricked into the subconscious belief that they are somehow inherently disadvantaged and should just passively wait for a magical fix or ‘rescue’ numbing their sensations and disabling self-fulfilment. So what happens when we weave our childhood fantasies into the reality of adult life, sometimes denying reason just to stay true to our fairy tale dreams? When real life digresses further from our dream, it gets seductive to get sedated. We self-medicate and induce mind coma through consumption of alcohol and drugs, emerging ourselves in gaming, gambling, anonymous sex, by one way or another trying to ease the pain and run away from the harsh reality back into our dreamlike fantasies. How many gay guys you know are screwing their lives around secretly longing for some fairy-tale relationships? But is self-destruction and self- sabotage the true magical pill that can cure us? Or are we capable of facing the reality and taking control of our destiny? I would like to make a wakeup call to all those ‘Sleeping Beauties’ out there: emerge from your cocoons as whole new personalities, let yourselves fully flourish and develop your talents, become your own royal rescuers and fairy godmothers. Become your own best friend and boyfriend – encourage yourself to grow and prosper. After all, Prince charming you are looking for is likely to be ‘Sleeping Beauty’ waiting to be rescued as well. By running away from reality we end up sabotaging ourselves and sleeping with our enemy, hunted down again and again in our own endless ‘nightmare on Elm Street’ drama. So wake up and snap out your friends from dreaming a wicked dream, it is time to start living the life. Alexander Lowë - 16th July 2014