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Vice Blog

NEW YORK - CALLING ALL GAYS: COME TO COPENHAGEN

We saw this photo of our intern Siggy and told him if he didn't explain right now why he was dressed like a feckless homosexual Peruvian carpet bag we were going to make up a bunch of shit and blackmail him with it…

A friend of mine works for a Danish tourist organization in New York. A while back she asked me if I would help out by modeling at a Scandinavian "lifestyle event." I didn't think much about it and said yes—$200 dollars seemed like a good rate for a couple hours' work and an open bar. A day or two before the event I got an email outlining the actual purpose of the happening: branding Copenhagen/Øresund as the new big gay destination. (Øresund is the strait between Zealand and Scania.) Attracting the gay travelers and the DINKs (double income no kids) demographics is apparently a big deal since those people party, eat, and shop more than everybody else.

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It all went down at the Thompson Hotel, where a good bunch of gay publications, gay lifestyle ambassadors, and gay travel agents (not sure they were gay, actually) started showing up while the models (me and five others) got made up in a room upstairs and stuffed into Henrik Vibskov circus outfits. The director of the event immediately asked me if I was gay, which is always nice, but I had to disappoint her. "It's just because they might grab you if they get really excited," she told me. I said I didn't mind and that they probably wouldn't.

Then I got my diaper tights on--on me, the diaper look is not as obvious as intended; either they were too small or my ass is too big--and hit that bar floor with the best "Copenhagen/Øresund is a gay-friendly destination" walk and smile I could possibly manage.

We boys received a better round of applause from the crowd than the girls did, which gave me confidence for the second run, where the presenter stopped me and asked me what I like to do on a sunny day in Copenhagen. I said something about biking to the beach and drinking beers and then biking to a park and drinking more beers and then going to a club and…

Then he asked me if it was easy to hook up. I told him that everybody there is extremely slutty. That instantly made the crowd clap and cheer and I felt that I had just done a beautiful thing for my country. I really hope a lot of gays and DINKs are going to follow that slutty carrot all the way to Copenhagen just to find out that I was exaggerating quite a bit. I must have been thinking of Miami.

SIGURD KONGSHØJ LARSEN