I Went to WHOLE Festival to Heal My Marriage (And Found Myself in the Cruising Area)

By Marco Klein

My husband and I booked WHOLE Festival the way some couples book a yoga retreat: desperately, half-ironically, and praying that “three days of techno and queer debauchery in a German forest” could do what therapy couldn’t.

Spoiler: it did. But not in the way I expected.

I Went to WHOLE Festival to Heal My Marriage (And Found Myself in the Cruising Area)

The Set-Up: Marriage in a Rut

We’d been together for eleven years. Comfortable, yes. Loving, yes. But also stale. Our sex life had turned into a sort of half-hearted tradition — like brushing your teeth before bed, but with more sighing. We tried couples therapy. We tried date nights. We even tried “just scheduling sex” (hot tip: nothing kills desire faster than a Google Calendar reminder).

And then, on a night out in NY, a friend told us: “If you want to save your marriage, go to WHOLE.”

WHOLE Festival — for the uninitiated — is Europe’s biggest queer sex-positive festival, a sprawling playground of techno stages, queer art, fetish zones, cuddle puddles, and, yes, the infamous cruising areas. It takes place in a lakeside forest near Berlin, and every summer, thousands of queers, kinksters, and pleasure-seekers descend to dance, connect, and fuck (sometimes all at once).

We figured: why not? If Berlin queers could invent clubbing as therapy, maybe we could hack marriage counseling.

Day One: Resistance Meets Glitter

Walking into WHOLE felt like walking into another dimension. There were drag queens in latex leading yoga by the lake, a group of pups barking joyfully in harnesses, and a DJ playing the filthiest acid set at noon while someone got spanked on a picnic table.

My husband was stiff at first — and not in the good way. He clung to his tote bag like a security blanket. I, on the other hand, was overwhelmed in the best possible way. This was not therapy. This was an awakening.

We went to a workshop on Erotic Bretahwork (the irony wasn’t lost on me). I laughed through half of it, but when I opened my eyes, my husband’s face was glowing in a way I hadn’t seen in years. Maybe it was the glitter. Maybe it was oxygen. Either way, something cracked open.

Day Two: The Cruising Area (Or, How I Found Myself)

By Saturday night, the festival had fully swallowed us. We danced. We laughed. We drank too much mezcal at the Beach stage. And then, somehow, we ended up in the festivals cruising area not far away.

Let me preface this: I’d always imagined darkrooms as terrifying, STD-ridden caves of shame. Instead, it felt… sacred. Warm. Funny, even. People laughed. Moaned. Bumped into each other politely like, “Oops, wrong dick.”

And in the middle of it, my husband and I finally let go. We stopped being “a couple in crisis” and started being two people, bodies pressed against other bodies, learning how to want again.

That night, WHOLE reminded me: jealousy is just love that hasn’t learned how to stretch yet

At one point, I lost him in the crowd and panicked — only to spot him across the room, laughing, radiant, fully alive. I realized in that moment that part of loving someone long-term is letting them be free. Even if that freedom means watching them get railed by a stranger in a sling while you’re holding their shirt.

That night, WHOLE reminded me: jealousy is just love that hasn’t learned how to stretch yet.

Day Three: Aftercare by the Lake

Sunday morning, we collapsed by the lake with new friends — a non-binary raver from Paris, a leather daddy from Mexico City, and a drag witch who claimed to only eat glitter. My husband curled up next to me, eyes closed, smiling.

We hadn’t had “a breakthrough conversation.” We hadn’t solved our problems. But something had shifted. We were lighter. Softer. More willing to touch, to play, to laugh at ourselves again.

My husband and I left with dirty shoes, glitter in our asses, and a sense that maybe the cure for routine isn’t stability — it’s surrender.

What WHOLE Taught Me About Love

WHOLE isn’t just a queer sex festival. It’s a reminder that relationships don’t have to shrink as they age. They can stretch, expand, get weirder, kinkier, funnier.

I went to WHOLE Festival to heal my marriage. Instead, I found myself in an orgy, relearning how to want, how to let go, how to love with less fear.

My husband and I left with dirty shoes, glitter in our asses, and a sense that maybe the cure for routine isn’t stability — it’s surrender.

“WHOLE reminded me: jealousy is just love that hasn’t learned how to stretch yet.”