TRAY BUTLER

PHOTOGRAPHY: Aydin Matlabi © Divers/Cité

Fourre moi,” the sexy Québecois gentleman purred at me from across the table. “Suce moi. Embrasse moi.”
I turned to my tour guide, Alex, for translation.
“He said, ‘Fuck me. Suck me. Kiss me,’” Alex explained, laughing. François, the gleeful provocateur, giggled as well, while I turned red—with intrigue.

Luckily for me, not much else was lost in translation (or left to the imagination) during my mid-summer visit to Montreal, on hand to celebrate Divers/Cité with a surprisingly welcoming crew of locals eager to show this tongue-tied Yank a good time. Divers/Cité, for the uninitiated, might be called Montreal’s answer to gay Pride. (“Darling,” one local later told me, “write whatever you want about Divers/Cité — but do not under any circumstances call it ‘Pride!’”)

The week-long carnival that is Divers/Cité is a wildly mixed celebration of the city’s culture—as filtered through an edgy queer sensibility. Attractions range from an outdoor jazz cabaret to a snarling genderfuck of a rock show. Shirtless muscle gods and drag queens still figure prominently (Montreal’s own drag superstar Mado remains the belle of the ball). But this is not your wilted gay uncle’s Pride...I mean celebration. I’d call it a far more mixed affair, definitely concerned with actual talent (as opposed to just another disco diva warbling out her greatest hit) and decidedly more relaxed—yet, oddly, also hyper-sexed.

The aforementioned and fantastically randy François spent the afternoon giving me French lessons, never mind that his husband—same-sex marriage being legal in Quebec and all—was sitting just a few feet away. Quel nerve!
My own husband, er, boyfriend, arrived later that night. I met him at our hotel, the grand Gouverneur, which overlooks the festival’s main stomping ground at Émilie-Gamelin Park. We quickly rejoined the party outside, which was a celebration of world music preceding an expansive dance party. We drifted through the park briefly before hitting the clubs in the trés gay Village, too fab to ever be called a ghetto.

Rue Berri and a corner of Catherine were shut down on Saturday and home to a Pride market of sorts, though thankfully devoid of rainbow bumper stickers. On Sunday, the street and the park had melted together to become one enormous outdoor dance space. At the far end, Le Grand Danse lured in the bouncing pecs of the circuit elite, while the park’s Disco Ball saw a more diverse crowd—and fewer shaved nipples.

In between the two parties sat the Sex Garage stage, a rowdy punk- and glam-rock extravaganza, whose crowd ranged from neck-tied Emo kids to the pouty black T-shirt set. Lots of straights and heteroflexibles gathered at the sidelines, giving this a real sense of a community event and not a queers-only thing.

My boyfriend and I found ourselves at Maissonneuve and worked our way into the sweaty crowd of Le Grand Danse. I was shocked by the overall mixture of partiers: Baby strollers alongside baby dykes, wide-eyed Black & Blue regulars making nice with bi-curious college guys, sleepy-eyed grandmères sitting on the sidelines. It was surreal. And yet, as I danced there in the fading evening light, a sort of fulfillment of what Pride is supposed to be. Diversity, indeed. The Canadians, again, had got it right.

As the sun finally vanished, I found my boyfriend on the dance floor and pulled him close: the gay approximation of a “slow dance,” if you will.
“Suce moi. Embrasse moi,” I whispered in his ear. “Fourre moi.”
“What does that mean?” he said.
“I’ll show you later.” And I did.
Thanks, François! You can be sure we’ll be back for Divers/Cité this summer.

Divers/Cité takes place July 30–Aug. 6 in Montréal. (514-285-4011, diverscite.org.)

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