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By: Filip Sandström Beijer Photos: Dark Devil Disco Dark Devil Disco are hosting artists from Berlin, London, Warsaw in an underground warehouse rave in an old military building. By channeling sensuality, self-expression and freedom in the depths of Warsaw, Dark Devil Disco allows the ravers to immerse themselves in ruthless, emotional sounds with bass that cuts right down to the bones to feel their inner disco devil just waiting to break free. The invited artists drive the unique and uncompromising sound of the hard techno world. The vision of the party is to platform the finest underground artists from around the globe while nurturing the local techno scene in Warsaw. Playful had a chat with the organiser prior the event on November 26. What can be expected? As we fuel the hedonistic ritual of freedom by championing sounds from the tougher side of techno, our artists aligned with the industrial aesthetic of Dark Devil Disco create an outstanding atmosphere with space for punters to feel free, safe and united as a community. Be ready for a long night of high-tempo, hard-hitting kicks and relentless waves that trigger collective euphoria. The one hundred years old military building with a raw and steel construction only turns the feelings. What is your inspiration when creating a club atmosphere? Our biggest inspirations are the artists themselves with their sound and character. They create an anticipation of what is coming. That expectation attracts people who know exactly what they want and what they come for - for the strong musical and emotional experience which allows them to be in the state of rave. And therefore the people inside the venue create the atmosphere like nothing else. In some way, we are inspired by every place we go, but the places with raw architecture and the history behind it make the biggest impression. We love big spaces where sound can travel and well as the people in their minds. At the end there are lights that extend the experience to another dimension and marge it together. We like a more minimalistic but outstanding approach that stands as an addition to the music, not the main thing. The lineup Soundwise, the vibe of Dark Devil Disco isn't for the faint-hearted. A wild experience across all fronts, the party celebrates names shaping today's contemporary techno scene. Artists including Gegen resident L Ʌ V Σ N, Brvtalist Sound Recordings artist MOIA, Sacred Court signee HATELOVE, Jaded London resident Lorenzo Papini, and MASS label co-founder Ømen feature on the lineup. Sinther completes the bill. Gdynia-bord artist L Ʌ V Σ N is killing it at the moment, playing across London and Berlin and sharing mixes for Ismus and ORAMICS and many more besides. As a producer, her sound spans trance, techno and acid, evoking visceral soundscapes that haunt the dancefloor. She's also released stomping tracks on French label Carcères Records, receiving plays from Tommy Four Seven and Paula Temple. As a resident DJ of GEGEN and WIR, L Ʌ V Σ N has honed her skills on the headiest of dancefloors in Berlin, establishing herself as a multi-disciplined artist. MOIA is a Polish producer and DJ based in Berlin. Her sound is fast, fierce and relentless, touching on emotional and high-energy techno that packs a punch. After landing a residency with Berlin-based collective SYNOID earlier this year, MOIA has DJ'd in several sweatboxes in Berlin and toured Colombia and Asia, including a pit stop at the legendary club FAUST, Seoul. Fresh off the back of her debut EP 'The Spirit' on Brvtalist Sound Recordings, MOIA is flexing her aesthetic of propulsive techno to the masses. She's also contributed to Various Artist compilations on labels DuskRecords and KREATU. Having recently released on SNTS' label Sacred Court, HATELOVE is coming into his own as an outstanding producer. With support coming in thick and fast from Paula Temple, Klangkuenstler and Dax J, the Warsaw-based talent is one to watch. Weaving techno with flavours of post-metal, HATELOVE's signature sound is truly unrivaled, earning him a legion of fans worldwide. Italian-born, London-based artist Lorenzo Papini is well-known on the UK scene, but he has yet to play in Warsaw — until now. As a resident DJ of Sunday morning parties Jaded and Stoberload in London releases his tracks in Rave Alert or Scuderia, Lorenzo's sound is a potent blend of acid, acidcore, gabber and hardcore. Lorenzo also produces blistering techno that holds no prisoners; check out his track 'Driving Fast On LSD' for insight into his world. London-based, French-Italian artist and promoter Ømen joins the lineup. As co-founder and resident DJ of the London-based party and record label MASS, Ømen is a bonafide tastemaker. He delves into the darker tones of techno, combining aggressive moods with emotive melodies, releasing on labels like COUP, Expel Your Demons, Pure Hate 000 and many more. SINTHER completes the bill. A producer, DJ and promoter in his own right, the Warsaw-born artist dips into hard-punching and crunchy techno, pulling his dancefloor down a rabbit hole of tripped-out riffs and speaker-busting rhythms. Much like the artist himself, Sinther’s sound is uncompromising and reflects the vision of Dark Devil Disco to a tee. The Warsaw techno scene The local scene is constantly progressing over the years. With three major clubs, some great festivals like Undercity or Instytut Festival and more and more underground parties local fans and visitors have plenty of options every week. There are also many collectives that are coming to Warsaw to play here for the fans. We see a trend that some people start to look for a more unique experience than a normal club as it becomes too mainstream in their eyes. However when the stars are coming, every true raver is ready for the show.

By: Amanda Sandström Beijer Photos: Daniel Iglesias This Australian woman started out from the idea of potentially being asexual and eventually found her pleasures as a submissive. Today Selena is a consent coach and part of the underground kink scene in Berlin, where she discovers new pleasures every weekend. From the outside it looked like Selena was living in a heteronormative relationship as a man with his wife and two children in Australia, working in science. Since then, a lot has happened and today Selena is discovering the sex club’s various colors, each weekend fulfilling new dreams and desires. With Playful she opens up about her life and why ’Christian Bale’ wouldn’t last a hot minute in a BDSM basement in Berlin. – I am trans female and have known it since I was four years old, when I joyously gave myself the girl-name Moon. There was no room in the world whatsoever for a trans child in ’70s Australia. It was a brutal culture, especially when it came to people of difference. However, it was freeing to hold the conviction that somehow, I would one day wake up a girl, or that science would make me fully female. Selena continues; – That was just before puberty reality hit home and I had to hide myself. One mixed blessing for me is that I am genetically intersex, so my body never masculinized, and I grew feminine breasts at 14. On one level this was a dream come true, on another, it led to constant harassment, groping and assault at the ’all boys school’ I was sent to. Somehow Selena managed to get through her youth and became a scientist, got married, had children, and lived a life in Australia that on the outside may have looked pretty heteronormative. – As a scientist, and being in a male dominated profession, I hid under my business suit which I wore even in academia to hide my chest for fear of unwanted attention, I knew that I was intersex, and I tried to comfort myself with a non-binary identification. Slowly I began to prepare for transition, something that always seemed so forbidden, until one day when it became compulsory. Without it I knew that I was not going to live to see my children reach adulthood. Selena is today in an open relationship where her partner is still living back in Australia. "She knew about my gender dysphoria at the beginning of our relationship, and, in talking about it with her, she thought that her acceptance of me, as male, would soothe my need for transition and I thought that her love could make me whole. It sounds really naïve now, but we were both so inexperienced because we were both demisexuals, and virgins when we met" Selena says and continues; "My partner was the only reason that I didn’t transition till so late. She is very straight, so she is no longer drawn to me sexually, therefor we have agreed to open up our relationship. Ultimately, I believe polyamory is a much healthier model. No one person can ever be someone’s rock or one-and-only. My partner was not into kink, for instance, although she was fully aware that I was and knew about my kink activities." The discovery of being submissive, as well as into kink has been present for Selena a long time, although something she didn’t want to acknowledge. " I always had submissive phantasies, although for long I tried to push them away as perverted. My ultra conservative upbringing made me think that they were utterly evil. I was, aside from my BDSM phantasies, almost asexual. I think this has to do with my genetic state and the fact that my body before artificial oestrogen therapy made almost no ’sex hormones’, meaning the hormones that create arousal. There were no words for the asexual spectrum when I was young, I related to none of my friends of any gender when they described sexual experiences and the concept of libido. Of course, I understood it abstractly, but it didn’t resonate with how I felt. And that made me feel triply broken: trans female, submissive with ’warped’ thoughts, and, aside from that, asexual" she says and continues; "But I have always been very tender, and I feel romantic and platonic love powerfully. I have always adored touch, especially as an expression of tenderness. I can see the first important aspect of my submission. I am nurtured by and emotionally filled up by acknowledgment through a partner’s genuine pleasure. The fact that my own genitals have never been erogenous probably heightens this need. I truly get off on a partner’s joy. I am a deeply tender person, I pour my body, heart, and soul into my expression of sexuality and tenderness. Actually, I have heard several Dom’s say that their partner’s reaction is everything for them. So, I think this is simply the submissive manifestation of the universal human need to be acknowledged and to be seen. In my before-transition life I was not seen for who I was, so now there is a lifetime of this yearning bursting forth from me." "Another phase of my sub side was when a friend suggested that she would tie me breathtakingly tightly. She was very intuitive and gentle. Although I have come across riggers who have not been as gentle and who were much less intuitive. Heavy bondage and pain have ended in outpourings of emotion for me; this catharsis was the only way I could reach the frozen grief inside me. Sub space and the intense sensuality of scenes brought me fully into myself." Selena has tried to control and wrap herself around her thoughts and mind through meditation, although it’s been years of failure. But when trying BDSM it worked instantly. "I have since met several subs who find submission with intense sensuality to be the one way that they can truly come into themselves and achieve what meditation aims for but fails to do for them. In deep sub space, I began slowly to see myself truly, and slowly building self-awareness. The deep trust I built with my Dom made me feel worthwhile, seen and truly loved for the first time in my life, and these wonderful feelings of nurture swelled and grew more and more the deeper and more vicious we went." "I also felt powerful, because some of my scenes re-enacted sexual abuse and assault that I had suffered in the past. My totally consensual submission to a woman was a powerful act as i tore the choice back from the toxic masculinity that had violated and crushed me and offered it as my gift to my Dom who reflected it back upon me in an act of profound love. Deep submission in BDSM allowed me at last to feel that I was truly me, and my body was my own." Besides facing trauma, feeling belonging and building self-awareness, it also made Selena discover her true sexuality, accepting it herself and experiencing it being accepted by others - something that built confidence. Together with estrogen therapy, Selena started to feel arousal for the first time. "I loved to bring sexual pleasure to someone else, but somehow it could never go the other way. And now at last that I can look upon my body with affection, something quite wonderful but scary has happened. I am experiencing ardent sexual feelings for the first time in my 58-year-old life. My body naturally made almost no sex hormones at all, so I think something began simmering for the first time three years ago when I first began estrogen therapy." "But the huge surprise has been my GaOp. This was a step that I always wanted to take, but I had modest expectations for its emotional effect. Before I underwent the operation, I imagined it might feel like a step in the right direction. A little bit of a comfort. But suddenly I found I could look upon my whole body with affection, and it felt as though I was putting down a gigantic burden. I never knew I had been carrying, a mountain of frozen grief. And almost instantly I found my mind full of wonderful sexual thoughts, I could bring myself into a deep state of sexual arousal through thoughts alone, and I never knew the feeling could be so ardent, so fiery, so delicious. So now I am suddenly sexually as a teenager in a 58-year-old body. I am experiencing a true, solid sex drive for the first time - I really love being Selena." Selena believes she learns a lot from being surrounded with people from the Berlin kink scene. "I feel it’s been a privilege to learn just how diverse and beautiful human sexuality is, and I learnt a lot about it in the kink scene. Our mainstream culture focusses on the tiniest, heteronormative sliver in the centre of this spectrum, and that through the lens of unrealistic beauty ideals, so the world outside kink can leave many of us feeling broken, just for being who we are. Just like I think that Berlin has a kindness underlying its culture that comes from the need to stick together during the last century – I tell my friends that Berlin does Chaos really well, for its inhabitants have had to survive a great deal of it." In many ways it’s as if Selena had been reborn, something that makes her experience life in a very different way than others in her age do. "I have never really put myself out there as a sexual being, whereas most people my age have been at it for four decades and have experienced so much. It’s really hard when I have just a little idea of how to put myself out there, how to flirt, although I am a bubbly person in conversation and enjoy stoking the energy of others. I go totally ditsy, weak at the knees now in the presence of those I crush on, stammer and falter. I’m sure I appear like a 15-year-old in my behaviour and that must seem weird if not sometimes creepy. So, I’m somehow going to have to learn fast." Soon after coming out, Selena was moving between Melbourne and Berlin and experienced play in public in both cities. She came across an organization named ’Curious Creatures’ who taught consent for the people that were joining their kink and sex parties and felt she wanted to know more. "I found the idea that seeking consent as a joyous part of lovemaking and play, resonated with me, rather than simply checking off the boxes to cover one’s butt legally." "The thing that I most enjoy sharing in our community is kindness, it is another way of saying, ’If you feel I do not see you fully, I will own that, and use that knowledge to become closer to you.’ Consent is a determination to always be aware that two people cannot share exactly the same mind and the same emotional landscape, and to react to keep one's partner safe if they feel one's intent differently from one's own feeling of intent. So, I began hosting informal workshops on these topics amongst friends, using ideas from the Melbourne workshop and adding a few I have picked up along the way." Selena is aware that the words ’Sex positivity’ can be used without informing about consent, something that makes her fuming. "Sex Positive should first and foremost mean the top prioritizing of consent before all else. So, anything that does not conform with this principle doesn’t deserve the term ’Sex Positive’. I say this quite passionately and with trepidation. I fear that ’Sex Positive’ is becoming a word that is being paid lip service to and risks going the way of the ’Sexual Revolution’, where it became all about making women and other non cis male people available for sexual service for the most powerful in society. " "’Sex Positive’ does not mean you’re up for it all the time; when a truly sex positive space deals with an asexual person, something that’s quite prominent in the kink scene, it means the exact opposite. It respects the needs of everyone to be safe. My blood ran cold at an article I read in The Guardian, where a sex educator named Lala said that ’A lot of young men have co-opted BDSM [bondage, discipline or domination, sadism, and masochism]. They’re not into power plays and consent. They just like hurting women’. It represents valid concern of some people’s use of kink as a smokescreen and also the damage that mainstream porn has on the kink scene. BDSM can only take place safely in a totally consensual and truly Sex Positive environment, and it is for this reason that I find kink standards of consent are by far the strictest one encounters" Selena says and continues; "The mainstream public fail to realize, for example, that someone like Christian Grey from 50 shades, would not last a quarter of an evening in the kink community I love."

A guide to Berlin's best summer hotspots. Felyx is pretty new to Berlin but is already taking care of us in various ways. When you’re late to meet up with friends, have overslept for work, or just need to go to a lake outside of Berlin and don’t have the energy to bike – felyx will help you out. But not only will felyx save your skin in stressful situations, felyx will also awaken the nostalgic moments of traveling by e-moped around Berlin, feeling the sun on bare shoulders. Felyx is an adventure seeker who’s making life easier. Rides with felyx are priced similarly to public transport and are almost always cheaper than driving a car or taking a taxi, on top of that you can move faster in the city, and you have no fuel or parking costs. Pay per minute or get a Day Pass where you pay 14:99€ and get to keep your e-moped for 500 minutes. Meaning you can bring it to the lake, save it for your ride back home and use it again later on. BERLIN SUMMER HOT SPOTS Berlin in the Summer is nothing like the winter months, and for newcomers to the city, first-timers or long-time returners, we would like to introduce, or remind you of some of the city’s greatest spots. Flohmarkt - Rathaus Schöneberg Berlin has several Flohmarkts, and many of them are good. Although this one may be the most underrated. Go there, buy a take-away coffee, and start digging - you’re on a treasure hunt! Fetich and rave clothes for the weekend There are a few stores that have niched down on fetish and rave clothes, and one of them is The Code who works with small independent and local designers. Are you preparing for a night out in Berlin? Get your club outfit at The Code and dive into the night. Maybe to Kitkat, that is just around the corner. FKK lakes - Teufelssee When in Germany one must enjoy the freedom of FKK. Families, friends, and lovers hang out by the lakes together. Listen to music, swim, play games and eat. The only problem is that they tend to be located a bit outside the city, until felyx introduced their ’Day Pass’*. We recommend Teufelssee, but watch out for the pigs! Entertainment, burlesque, and performance Berlin is known as the city of Burlesque and if you haven’t yet experienced Zum Starken August and Tipsy Bear, you should. Take the e-moped to Prenzlauer Berg, park it, and you find these two top locations basically facing each other on the same street. Sunset watching at Tempelhofer Feldt Do we need to say more? Karaoke in Mauerpark on Sundays Karaoke at the Amphitheater in Mauerpark is a very folksy, warm, and polar activity that brings young and old together for a sing along. It’s a very supporting crowd, so if you’ve got it in you, jump up the stage! Record shopping – Hardwax Techno music at its finest is to be found in the legendary record shop Hardwax, that’s been around since 1989. Local and world-famous DJs like Marcel Dettmann and Hector Oaks have both been working here before they pursued their careers. Bar and House Club – Sameheads This lovely bar and club combined, is something special and shines bright on many levels. Owner Nathan is passionate about house music and art which you can see and feel as soon as you enter. The dance floor, located in the basement, is one of the most intimate ones in Berlin. Turkish Market If you’re in Berlin, you can’t miss out on the Turkish food. Go discover the Turkish market in Neuköln or head to Azzam to enjoy the tastes of quality food. We love the smell of a Turkish grill in the summer. Local brewery – Neulich Berlin is a city where you often find independent and small businesses doing a better job than the big ones, and that’s what makes the city so authentic. Neulich is proof of that, and we recommend you to pass by their bar in Neukölln, or to just get their beer from a local Späti and bring it to a park. Enjoy!

Four years ago, Ivy Rossiter arranged the first Eclat Crew meetup: a music making event for female, trans and non-binary people. Today Éclat Crew have been encouraging hundreds of people. At the meetings, the participants learn everything from the basics of electronic music-making, to building self-confidence as producers. New Zealander Ivy Rossiter began her music career as an indie guitarist and singer and toured around Europe. When she came to Berlin, the electronic music scene caught her attention which made her retrain from traditional guitar to the world of digital soundscapes. For Ivy herself, the transition to electronic music seemed natural, but already when she began her new musical journey, she noticed that something was missing. "When I first started I was going to different music making meet-ups around Berlin, but I was very often the only non cis-male person there. Everyone there was very friendly, and having real people to ask for help made my learning much faster and easier. But there was only very few female, trans or non-binary people there.” She tried to invite her female friends who were also interested in starting to create electronic music, but was always met by the same answer. They didn’t feel confident enough. For Ivy, the friends' answer became the start of what would later become Éclat Crew and she took matters into her own hands. “When one of the meet-ups I was attending stopped running, I really missed the social environment and practice. I also wanted to start something for my own community - for those people who, for whatever reason, weren’t showing up at the events I’d been going to. I hoped that creating a designated safe space would encourage music-makers from underrepresented genders to feel more confident and comfortable about walking into a music-making space.” In September 2018, the first meet-up took place at The Workshop, Kreuzberg where the Founder, Mary Fischer, let the music makers use the space for free. “We kept the same format as the events I’d been attending - a time-limited, sample-based music making workshop - except that it was only for female, trans and non-binary people. At the first meet-up we had five people attending, we did it again two weeks later and it kept growing. Now we get anywhere between 10 and 20 music makers regularly coming every 2 weeks.” And that was the start of Éclat Crew, who is now one of the well known music making collectives for female, trans, and non-binary producers in Berlin. “Everyone who attends our workshops are considered to be part of the Éclat community. Some come very regularly, and we have a core of around 20 members. Across the course of a year we’ll have maybe 100 different music makers attend at least once. Because our workshops are very regular, happening every two weeks, people can decide themselves how often they want to attend our meet-ups, and most do come back.” Today Éclat Crew is a safe space for mutual support where the participants can gather, evolve and support each other in learning everything from basics in any DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) to advanced music production. The meet-ups are always following the same procedure, which has been given great response from the participants over the years. “The meet-ups always follow the same structure. After some quick introductions, I introduce the night’s music-making challenge. Everyone starts with the same set of samples or sounds to work with, and everyone has two hours to make a new, 2-minute-long piece of music from those sounds or samples. After the making time, we meet again and have a ‘celebratory listening session’, where we share what we’ve made and how we made it.” The listening session isn’t characterized by critical listening, rather the opposite. “I like to call it ‘celebratory listening’ rather than critical listening. It’s all about celebrating the fact that we’ve all had the courage to join the group, to sit down at our computers or hardware for two hours, and to make and share something new. No matter how new the person is to making music, or how nervous they might be about sharing their track, everyone always has something positive to say about what they’re hearing, and that’s such a huge confidence boost. I want everyone to leave feeling encouraged to keep making things, to keep sharing them, and to start putting their music out into the world.” Do you want to join the Éclat Crew? Get to know the collective better through www.eclatcrew.com Ivy’s five tips on how to start with Ableton Live. Find a non-trash YouTube channel to follow and watch their tutorials. My favorite intro to Ableton is called "Don't Panic! Ableton Live Explained in 37 minutes or less" by a fellow called LoopOp. Set yourself a time limit each time you sit down. Try playing with the software for an hour, or maybe two. But STOP while you're having fun! Don't keep going til you're frustrated, cause then you'll never want to open the software again! Learn how to export your tracks right from the start, even if they're only 15 or 30 seconds long. Save every single one in a playlist on your computer, even if you hate them. As you add more tracks to the playlist, you'll keep track of how much music you're making, and how much progress you've made. There's no such thing as 'cheating' when you're making music. Like a loop? Use it! Like someone else's track? Try copying it! Remember, Rihanna's 'Umbrella' was made with a straight-up Garageband drum loop. Find a production buddy and send each other the things you make. Better yet, come to Éclat and find a whole community of production buddies!

By: Alexis Smiley Smith Illustration: Allis Bergstrand As a human growing up in a household with little or no control over its chaotic contents, I evolved into quite the control freak myself- the queen of the grasp, the clutch, the manipulation. Monitoring the way my partner cleaned the sink, only to do it ‘right’ after they left the room. I am a hover agent, a wasp with rules. I can even control the tone and timbre of the air in a room I enter. I am so tightly wound; I wake up with my hands in fists. It’s exhausting to be in charge. Berlin is the perfect collage of a city to look, to be a searcher or a seeker. I came here four years ago as an act of some version of faith. A fool at the edge of a cliff, armed with a writer’s mind and maybe a little talent, but certainly not prepared for the labyrinth the city is…a twist of turns and tunnels, dark corners and millions of endings and beginnings. Berlin was the perfect place to embrace my old patterns of finding any sweet deliverance into a loss of control through drugs and partying. But this methodology…so tired. So tired of this easy fix. I wanted something else. There’s a complexity to the hedo-liberated psychedelic sex geometry of Berlin. If you’re open or already know who you are and what you want, let the sexual shapes begin! If you have the courage and ferocity for exploration, welcome to adventure! But, if you’re like me, and found yourself so far divorced from your own body, your own deep wet, your own map to any pleasure…you can feel like a stranger in a strange land amidst so many sex positive humans. Isolated, confused and certainly not ‘Berlin cool’. I am 43 years old and haven't had a proper fuck in ages. I haven't made love in who knows when. I am disconnected from my body. I don't know myself. Where is my g spot? What do I want? Am I pretty? No, am I beautiful? How do I cum? How to slow fuck to slow screw, to grind in a sticky wet? How to say there or there or here and here? No performance necessary. Sweet, let it be sweet, but deep and slightly dark, slighty rough. Give me back to myself, let me back in. As Rumi says, I was a hidden treasure and desired to be known. I'm looking for something, someone, but what is it? Is there a player out there that holds the key to unlock this fist inside, rolled rubber bands, hard knots? It’s time to go to the professionals. I decide to honor my inner submissive. Let’s make a death ritual for these old internal patterns that keep me from myself. My deepest gratitude to Berlin is that the city normalizes just about anything considered deviant or transgressive elsewhere. And because I have an air for the dramatic, I decide on attending Mozart’s Requiem followed the next day by an afternoon session with a dominatrix. This will be the juxtaposition to unlock, to release, to give me back to myself. The beauty of paying for an experience is the purity of transaction. Cash. No head games, no rejection. It’s a ritual. A beginning, a middle and an end. After, you’re on the other side. I won’t give you a step by step of Requiem. I’m not a music theorist or critic. However, I will tell you three things. One, I brought a fellow friend who is also a latex fetishist. She is deeply complex, totally in her power and the perfect witness and co-conspirator for a death ritual. We get stoned and dress like we’re a couple of lesbian Manhattan art dealers. Personas are best when close to the truth. Two, I paid for good seats and we switch to even better ones at intermission, fueled by the courage of Cremant. Three, I cried. I cried because there is nothing that can rival the power of insane acoustics coupled with live human singing and an orchestra. Sound and its reverberations echoed and danced and rearranged my DNA, my atoms hummed and renegotiated themselves. I died, I was born, I died again. The next day, still humming. I have the taste of Istanbul tea on my tongue as I step inside Sir Alanis Lilith Cane’s studio. Black tea with mint. Sexy. I want to be sober, present, aware. I want to remember. Sir invites me in and I enter the main chamber. I can smoke while we have a little chat about what’s to come. The room is more than I imagined. Wall to wall of things, shapes, items- some I know and can name, some I’ve never seen before. A massive upside down pentagram made of chains adorns the wall opposite to the dark wood four poster bed. Sir asks me why I’m here. I’m oddly shy and totally at home all in the same moment. I tell Sir I want to find my way back into myself, I want pain to be my guide back into my pleasure. They listen and nod and smile and their whole being is an invitation. Sir briefs me on the green, yellow and red ample system. Because this is my first time, we will take it slow and consider this a tasting menu of the dance between dom and sub. I am ready. I am shown to the bathroom where I’m told to shower and ring the bell when I’m ready. Every article of clothing I take off, every drop of water that runs down my skin is all an undoing, a cleansing, a removal of old skins and beliefs. I slip into a silk smoking jacket and ring the bell. Sir opens the door. They are dressed in a black lac dress and I can smell a deep floral musk emanating off their skin. They lead me back into the main chamber. Between the candles’ glow, the pagan-esque mise en scene and the classical music playing, I don’t know what year it is, I don’t know what time it is and I don’t give a fuck. ‘I move you. You don’t move you. Understood?’ Yes, Sir. I’m positioned standing at the foot of the bed. The robe comes off and I am naked, except for the black knee high socks I kept on for warmth. First things first. Sir adjusts my posture because it’s important that I present myself to my dom as a proud offering. We don’t slouch in this room. ‘Now turn around slowly and show me how pretty you are.’ I start to turn. ‘No, no, no. Slooowly. Take your time. Let me look at you.’ I’m struck by the intimacy between us. The power Sir holds balances my power as a gift. I am a gift. Sir calls it motivation. The nipple clamps will motivate me. What I know is that the specific pain, hyper focused on my nipples- these raw eruptions of sensitive skin now made even more sensitive with pinpointed pain- this is driving me into the moment. I am the moment. I’m only in this room. With Sir and scent and touch and that taste of mint still on my tongue. And as I’m led through the metaphorical corridors of bondage- its own twists of ropes and tightening- I am beginning to release, relax, lose myself. By the time I’m led to the bed and told to lay down, every cell in my being is at attention. Like a sentinel, like a receiver and watcher. Both. I feel my flesh warm and shatter and regain itself at every contact of the crop or flog or open palm. The dark sheets I press my face into become a black chasm I sink into with every SMACK. Sir turns me over. A kiss like a warm peach at my lips and then the blindfold. Without sight, everything is on hyper now. I hear the buzz of the vibrator. My pussy is now my eyes and ears, sensing the contact just before it actually occurs and then the warm pour of vibration through my labia, my clit, deep into my solar plexus. Those reverberations and sound find my cavern of knots and tightly wound untouched bands. I find out later that it’s called edging. With the wand, Sir takes me almost to the point of orgasm and then…stops. Takes it away. A cliff, but not I’m not a fool this time, I am standing on the edge and at the mercy of a wind, Sir is the wind, almost pushing me over and then bringing me back again. The blindfold comes off. ‘I want you to ask me if you can cum.’ I start to speak and have misbehaved. I get a spanking for that. ‘I’m not done speaking.’ I wait. ‘I am going to count down from ten and when I get to zero, you will ask me if you can cum. And if I think you’re being honest, I’ll let you cum. Yes?’ Yes, Sir. 10. 9. 8. 7… I don’t know if it’s the wand, or Sir, or my heightened senses, but I’m falling, falling as if finally my illusions of self have been undone. Not a violent fear falling, but a silk fall, a sweet release fall, down down down. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2… 1… Please, Sir. Let me cum. I want to cum. Lacrimosa. This tearful day. This cry of slick wet now night. I come back into myself, I meet myself somewhere between life and death. My orgasm fills in the shadows with a diamond streak of light. I arch my back as an offering to Sir and we pour into each other. Sub and dom, a oneness of giving and receiving. The borders blurred and who gives a fuck? This, my dear, is the now pain pleasure you’ve been looking for. I’ve arrived on the other side. Sir holds me close. This is aftercare. I can smell myself. I’m leather, I’m mint, I’m musk. I’m night, I’m diamonds. I am atoms rearranged, I am a reunion. I am a perfect shattering made whole again. I am requiem in lac.

Playful got the honor to premiere the premiere track "Broken" of Naty Seres debut EP "If There Is One" – which also turned out to be the artists favorite track. Hi Naty! It's your debut EP, can you tell us about the process and what "If There Is One" means to you? I wrote this EP during the lockdown when all I did was spend time in the studio, slicing drum breaks, experimenting with harmonies and manipulating and obscuring samples. This release is very personal and dear to me as it was a venture into other fields than pure club music. I have been DJ'ing since such a long time that all I always wanted to produce were tracks which I could play in my Sets. Comparing my own production to the producers I play in my sets made me struggle and often didn't allow me to enjoy the time in the studio. The pandemic gave me space to break free from thinking to much about what it should sound like, or being influenced by music I’d usually hear on the weekend in clubs. It made me connect to my roots where I started off with electronic music as a teenager frequenting drum and bass parties and to music that I was listening for pleasure. Tell us about the opening track "Broken”. "The opening track Broken was my first attempt to work with vocals, and turned out to be my favorite track of the EP. I wanted the vocals to be the main element in the track but didn’t want to place them in the classic way. Instead, I arranged them rhythmically only playing from time to time, repeating some of the words, adding other phrase variations over time. I sliced sentences and picked words that would play nicely with each other, experimented with transposing, time stretching and reversing the vocals to make them sound the way they do now. I wanted the dreamy synth sound to be floating in the background without being too present in the mix. My idea was to have the drum break and the child-like vocals to be the main elements of the song while the rest of the synth sounds sit in the back. I called it "Broken“ because of how it sounded during the process of arranging the vocals... like a broken record, stuttering and dry, not sounding harmonic at all. It was late at night and I just wanted to save the project so I could go to bed. So I randomly named it "Broken". Later, when I put the EP together, I decided to keep the name as it reminds me of the moment in time I wrote this track. The entire EP will be released on June 2, 2022 and you can pre save it here .

By: Amanda Sandström Beijer Photos by: Joseph Ohlert This party girl shines her sparkling presence over Berlin and electro shocks us with her performances that keep on shining on stages all over town. We’re obsessed with her glitter lips, colorful clothes and sassy personality – Bring the Absinth(ia)! Where did you grow up and who were you as a kid? I’m from Hamburg, and I was a pretty shy guy who got called out to be a girl very early on, just because I didn’t fit into other people's gender norm. So I became very anti. No matter what names I got called, I tended to get more extreme with my appearance just to prove that I wouldn’t give in. I brought the french pop-art-nails to school, long hair and middle finger in the air. I had to get strong to survive every day's shit parade in school, as well as later on in everyday life. Which is a real task when you’re a shy person. How, when and why did you come to Berlin, and what was your view on the city then? My impression of Berlin was: loud, dirty and too busy. In Hamburg you get this point of view of the city sort of injected into you from birth. It took two friends, four years of persuasion and finally a fantastic secret party in 2012 in Berlin, to say yes to a one year tryout here. My impression of the city actually hasn’t changed in these ten years of living here, but I really enjoy living here still today and still experience all of what the city has to offer. What made you fall in love with the city? I quickly fell in love with the queer scene. In Berlin I felt liberation, almost an eye opening feeling of how a world of possibilities was available in terms of living my own true life. Sometimes even without going through shit parades of stupid people. Here I realized that I’m not just gay but a queer person. It’s not always easy to break out of the limiting mindset that you grew up with, but I met incredible friends in this city that today are my family. With them it’s an ongoing discovery to always find new and great queer things and experiences in the city. Where does the name Absinthia Absolut come from? There’re so many ways on how to choose a drag queen or performer name. Mine happened at an underground party where I drank Absinth for the first time. The taste, effect and the happenings of that night somehow made me wanna relive these feelings. So as a reminder, the name Absinthia came to life. Absolut just came as a joke. But the mixture of both drinks gives you a feeling of what I try to bring across through my performances. Today you’re a big name on Berlin’s drag scene – tell us all about your journey to the stage and as a performer and artist? Berlin is where I have tried many things for the first time ever. When it comes to my first ever experience with drag, some friends took me to a screening of drag race in 2014, where Pansy had a live drag show afterwards. I was so mesmerized by the people on stage. Then my friends said that we should try out drag as well, and that’s how it all started. The freedom of this artform proves the feeling I got from the first time, which is a feeling that I have always been seeking – liberation. There was no question about one's gender or anything like that. Neither did it matter how you looked, you were already a queen and that’s a label with a lot of freedom. So the journey as a genderfuck queen began! Since then I’ve performed on bigger stages like SchwuZ, Milkshake festival in Amsterdam, Pride in Zürich, and the cool Bushwig here in Berlin. But also many more intimate places like Tipsy Bear and Silver Future. No matter the size of the stage, I always loved the energy exchange with the audience. My introverted and shy sides got a new output to become extroverted for a moment. One day I began to work on my own backdrops. That gave me more possibilities to set the mood in a bigger way of how I imagine the effect of my performance. But it takes time and actually it really also takes a muse. You’re a real party gal, did the lockdown make you realize something special? That shit situation did a lot of unpleasant things… One of them was realizing how much of an introvert I actually am. Luckily I know how to keep myself busy. But since I was 16 years old, nightlife has been a big part of my life. The dance floor is where I bloom. It’s my battery, my area of no holding back, creative pool, connection point and inspiration. Without this, my drive crumbled. Sure you can find substitutes or find a new way of putting yourself out there. I did for example release some nerdy videos on YouTube, which is fun but I need to be experienced in person. The outgoing part of myself is coming to life on stages and on the dance floor. I honestly have a feeling that the lockdown made me even more of an introvert than I was before. It’s a tricky situation which requires a lot of work for many of us to be able to reset. So hell I’m ready to dive back into the liberating scene and give the title of being a club queen more foundation again. Where can one find the best parties in Berlin, tell us your gems! My holy grail is of course Panorama bar at Berghain. It brings such a lovely harmonic mix of diverse people. Horse meat disco also gives me the eternal groove, as well as Cocktail d’amore – well, you know, it’s the freedom of the parties. SchwuZ of course became, at a time in my life, like a second home. The list could go on and on of incredible parties in this city but these are my shining stars. Why do you choose to live in Berlin today? I wish I could give a very creative answer to this but basically I’m a person who has found my family here, and I tend to stick to wherever they are located. There’s no other city that gives me the same feeling that Berlin has brought me. It just has the whole package. If you could change something in this city, what would it be? I'd love to see how this “open minded city, as it’s been called so many times, could hold up way more often to its own label. Besides a professional party attender, you’re a glitter lover. Tell us about the obsession! Glitter gives you that extra joy. As a club queen glitter is like ecstasy. When the light hits my glitter lips it makes people smile and brings out the disco diva in all of us. What are your hopes and dreams for this year/ the future? Usually I don’t make any New Year's resolutions but one thing that’s on my list is to get out of my corona-lockdown-anti-social-holding-back-dilemma. I wanna divorce my couch and marry the night again. If a friend would visit you in Berlin this spring, where would you take them? I would bring them to the Sanssouci park. I just love it there and can spend a whole day walking and dreaming away at that place. Then I would show them Tipsy bear, as it’s always good to watch a queer performance show. On a Sunday we would have brunch in Südblock, where I actually had my very first performance, and have experienced many historical moments. After the brunch I would take them to Tempelhofer Feld. Maybe even go for a walk from the Landwehrkanal to Treptower park as that’s also very nice for a good conversation. Later on, if it would’ve been possible we’d be turning back time and going dancing in Griesmühle in the sunshine. I could go on about the fabulous clubs but then the list wouldn’t end.

Playful Magazine met with wine expert Jeff from Rocket Wine. Written by: Amanda Sandström Beijer Naked wine, also known for most as natural wine, recently became the new trend all over Europe . Some missed it when it hit Berlin, but a few picked it up. But the word is spreading that the more you drink it the more you want it. Berlin may not be one of the worlds wine capitals, but it's a city full of passionate people. And some of them focus their knowledge on natural wine. Playful Magazine met with wine expert Jeff from Rocket Wine on Linienstraße in Mitte. There is a lot of energy in Natural wine, it has made me fly quite a few times To Jeff, natural wine is merely good wine, just as the butt-naked Freikörperkultur is nothing but swimming and sunbathing. His life experience spans all the way from the farm where he grew up to an educational and professional background in law. But just like many people in Berlin, he let his passions and interests lead the way. So today, instead, he hosts wine tasting sessions and owns the mythical wine shop Rocket Wine. The starting point: from Drink Naked to Rocket Wine " This all started with me, Etienne and Julia, who are today joint owners of bar and restaurant Jaja Naked Wine. I changed the name from Drink Naked because I wanted a name that reflected my own personality when I got involved", says Jeff and continues; "There's also a very emotional meaning behind it. The name Rocket Wine comes from my favorite bar, Rockette, in Montreal, Quebec." What is your connection with natural wine? "As our logo shows there is a lot of energy in Natural wine, it has made me fly quite a few times. But my connection with natural wine started many years ago." How does natural wine make you fly more than ’regular wine’? "I find conventional wine super boring; it always tastes the same. Natural wine becomes a lifestyle. It's impossible to disconnect from it once you have truly tried it out. Culturally I can compare this to the Japanese, who are a lot more connected to what they eat and what they absorb than Westerners are in general. There is a reason for it. With natural wine for example, you can sense that your whole body enjoys it. That takes you to new heights." What is different with the natural wine-makers? "It's connected to the mindset. With all the add-ons in conventional wine, the process kind of just happens somewhat randomly, and it's not what you thought it would be when you started. With natural wine you make the product that you really wanted to make from the beginning, it's not by chance. That is why there is much more diversity and spectrum in the natural wine tastes than in conventional wine." Why don’t you like that natural wine is becoming a trend? "Trends die. People who drink this merely because they saw people on Instagram drink it haven’t got it right. To really enjoy it you need a story behind the bottle. You need to be curious. If you come to our shop, we will share the connection we have to the bottle you buy and engage you. But a lot of people today are stuck in the rat race. They consume things with such high pace, but I think that people want to feel something more than just getting drunk. Though getting wasted on wine is always nice as well." They say that natural wine doesn’t make you hung over? "This is why people get addicted to it. The difference is that you add a shit load of chemicals to regular wine. Stuff that the body cannot digest very easily, and the additives poison the body. Of course you get hazy the day after you have drunk a couple of bottles of natural wine if you forgot to eat or drink water. But it does not stay for hours, and after a shower you feel fresh again. Your body digests it because there is no weird stuff in there." And Organic or Bio wine? "They still have the additives. So yes, that is still regular wine. With natural wine you get high, your body basically likes it. It's just grape juice." It seems like the trend has not fully hit Berlin yet. Why is that? The rest of Europe and the fancy restaurants got addicted in 2015? "No, it has not exploded. It's still tiny. Even though there is quite a nice selection of natural wines in Berlin. I started four years ago. I assume people here want to get drunk cheap, but when they get to taste this they'll probably get stuck." So, it's not really a great investment machine even during its European hype? "For the people making these wines, it has nothing to do with the hype. Neither about making money quick, they do it for the passion of it. The regular wine industry is nasty, it's killing the bees and everything." But is this process new? "It all started in the 70’s when they noticed that insects were dying and that people got headaches and such, but they wanted to keep on drinking. That is why they started to make wine without additives. It got a boost in Paris, but still. This is decades ago, and it still has not quite hit Berlin." If you have just one sip it blows your mind. You think, what the fuck is this? Who drinks natural wine in Berlin? Is it a hipster thing or is it a thing for fancy finance- people? "The hipsters are drinking it and they get surprised because they get more addicted then they ever knew. Maybe they first came to the shop because they wanted to see what the hype was all about and wanted to be part of it. Even if you only have just one sip, it will blow your mind. You think, what the fuck is this? And you also understand the difference between a natural wine shop and a regular one. People want to come back and be a part of this family”, Jeff says and continues; "A lot of expats drink it. If you have been connected with someone, or if you are from London, Paris, Copenhagen, Tokyo, New York, where the natural wine is massive. It's definitely a boom but let’s hope it's here to stay. Because a hype is shit and does not last." So, this is no wine for people pretending to know wine? "To drink it, sure you will like it. But not to work with it. If you serve it in a restaurant and leave it open for a couple of days and then pour it for a customer. It tastes horrible, and then they think; well it's just how natural wine tastes like. And the one who tastes it thinks, ’My god, it tastes horrible’. And the waiter says, ’Yes, it's funky, natural wine is funky’ and then you are all done with drinking it." What was your best wine experiences? "I have a background in wine, and have been working in wine cellars, so I know some things about it. But wine is very personal and the thing behind it's the sharing of the stories and the background. When I started with wine tasting I got in these formal groups that did not make sense. It felt like I had to transform myself to also think some of these wines were good because we were in a very nice castle and so on. But it was the opposite. Today when I taste a wine, and I visit the wine maker and even if I do not know them, they invite me to stay in their home the first night and they invite me for supper. This is people who like to share what they have been doing and discovering, and they like to have fun while doing it. This is the reason why I get a specific feeling with some types of wine. I remember the place where it's made and the story behind it. We have the same interest, and this is something we're building and a business we're growing together”, Jeff says and continues; "Sometimes I taste a wine that is holy shit amazing, but to me' more important to take in the wine that someone with whom I have spent an evening, has made. We're all learning and in some of these winemakers I can see a lot of potential, maybe in the same way they do in me. Then we can work together. I do not pretend that I buy things just because I like them. I focus on what I feel connected to." What if I go to a fancy dinner and want to pretend to know wine. Are there any life hacks? "You cannot pretend to know wine. If you do not know it, it will show. It's the same as pretending you are a construction worker; can you pretend this? No. To me this is the same”, he says and continues; "But in the same way, if I would sit here with a sommelier, a wine taster and a wine maker we're all going to have our own background. The wine maker is going to talk about the chemistry behind it, and specific parts of the process, and the sommelier is going to talk in a way that is only understood by restaurant customers. The wine taster is going to focus on all its defaults, and I am going to focus more on the story behind the wine and the wine maker. We do not have the same language; we can share a bottle, but the discussion will go over our heads."

By: Filip Sandström Beijer Photos: Weisse Maus We had a chat with Billie Rae about the new immersive theater and dining experience in Berlin. 100 years have passed since the classic Kabaret in the 1920ies which means the Berliners must have learnt from their past and this time, it will get even better than it once was - this time it’s freer, open to all, gender fluid and with a greater creative twist. The Kabaret experience in Berlin pushes the boundaries of performance together with several local artists that we’ve been missing during the pandemic. Billie Rae - tell us about it! The name Weisse Maus is a homage to the infamous night spot of Weimar Berlin, looking back to the decadent and debauched Kabaret of the 1920s. The club was an exclusive revel for Berlin's creative elite. And with only 98 precious seats, it was a place where visitors were able to experience the beautiful, the bizarre and the Erotic performances of Berlin's underworld, delivering a stage for the likes of Anita Berber and many other wildly experimental artists of that time. Guests were given black masks to hide their identity whilst the weird and wonderful happened around them. Our aim is to harness and recreate this energy and to explore the sinfully sumptuous world of Weisse Maus with our very own creative twist whilst respectfully celebrating the inspirational Libertines who were pushing the boundaries of performance, sexuality and gender fluidity over 100 years ago. Who are the people behind Weisse Maus, and what did the concept grow from? The Weisse Maus is created by myself, Billie Rae, Co-Founder of Bad Bruises and the Creator and Director of The House of Red Doors, plus my partner, Benjamin Strafe, who has been working in Berlin gastronomy and hospitality for many years, and, of course, our incredible team of artists and dreamers whom we work with here in Berlin, you will recognize many of them from previous events. We are also working with Ricarda Farnbacher, award winning caterer, to create a delicious feast for our guests. The concept is an idea we've had for many years, to combine the indulgences of fine dining with our unique, inimitable blend of sex and theatre. Within all our careers as artists and performers we've been heavily influenced by the decadent and debauched aesthetic of Weimar Berlin. A period which still continues to influence and to inspire us even now. This event isn't a play event but we are not shying away from the more sensual content. What will we as visitors be able to experience? We don't want to give too much away just yet as the evening will be something that can only be truly experienced in the flesh. But needless to say, we will be bringing food, immersive theatre, choreographed performance and that very special ingredient to the table that we like to bring to all our events! This will be a truly unique experience for each individual that comes, but the key is to come... explore... and find out… it will be exciting, bizarre, beautiful and utterly, utterly delicious. A true ’smorgasbord’ for the senses! Why does Berlin need it and who do you see as your guest? I think now, more than ever, we need new experiences that will make us feel excited again. After such a long break from performance and after such a hugely devastating hit to our social scene and to our industry, the need for freedom within entertainment is demanded from both sides of the stage. We are all yearning to perform and create again and to share those experiences and moments with our audiences and our guests are feeling the same. After such a turbulent time of lockdowns and restrictions we all need the opportunity to rediscover our playful side. Our event is open to all with an open mind and an adventurous side, for the bold, the experimental minds of Berlin. It is strictly 18+ only due to the nature of our entertainment. It’s described as a dining experience, tell us about the food experience! As this is still very hush hush we can’t give too much away, we want to give our guests a surprise. But it will be truly a feast for the eyes as well as the palette. This will be an experience that very few will have ever had before, and it will be something to satiate all types of appetite and arouse all senses! Prepare to be wined, dined and thoroughly entertained. When can we visit you and where is your building located? The location is still kept completely secret until booking tickets. There's a choice of also choosing a nighttime cruise, which is a boat ride on the spree before finding your way to the secret location of Weisse Maus. Just remember to trust the Weisse Maus and get ready for something deliciously new. What kind of artists and performers will we find there? If you have ever been to one of our previous events you will certainly recognize a few of our beautiful and strange starlets, but we are very excited to be introducing some new performers and talents to the stage, perfectly complementing our eclectic mix of sensual eroticism and delivering utterly exquisite performances as part of our mad fantasia. You can find our full cast on www.weissemausberlin.de How can I join in? Guests can sign up to our mailing list and we will be sending our new dates out soon.Be sure to sign up to be the first in the know of where and when you’ll find us. Can we expect a door policy? If yes, what's it going to be based on? Absolutely! We will be inviting our guests to dress up in an outfit of the era but with their own twist. We can't wait to see everyone’s decadent and experimental costumes as it’s been such a long time since we have had the pleasure of dressing up together. Guests can find costume inspiration on our website or here we have a mood board here . We ask guests to be bold, be wild, be whoever you want to be. And of course, like with all our events, to have an open mind, a kind heart and always respect everyone around you. These events feed off the energy from both sides of the stage and this time the dinner table! So , we encourage all to come and let loose, feel free and lose themselves for the night. After the last year, I think we all deserve it. Don't you?

By: "Diva D" Illustration: Ewa Zak Like many people I have a bucket list, but unlike most people my list is written on an actual bucket. This way I have a container in which to collect small symbolic tokens. Objects of nostalgia which fills its up. Tickets, photos, body parts etc.Its my shrine of memories to where I can return and dwell.It also gives me a chance to add things afterwards. experiences i didn’t know I wanted. Or, for that matter needed in my life. It’s slowly filling up and it's a good bucket. It's a bucket of love and pleasure. It's my bucket of lust. My bucket lust.One thing I haven't got written on my bucket is:“To sit in bed with a cup of tea like Carrie Bradshaw and write a vibrating story about a city that never sleeps.“ But here I am. Doing exactly that. So… (check) I have many friends using Berlin as a valve to release the pressures that society builds up within us. A weekend in Berlin can be everything from a hop on hop of around the city to licking Pep of a toilet seat in Kit Kat club. We are all looking for different kicks in life and on our travels. But weather people just daytime stroll in the heart of Europe or nighttime stroll to score blowjobs in a sex kino at Kurfürstenstrasse is individual. But Berlin is where, at least I, tick of most of my dreams from my bucket list. I am fortunate enough to work as an artist and I quite often find my way to Berlin and its alternative ways around my art form. Shows are funnier to do there. Risks are more often taken and audiences expect more in this city. For me as an artist that is a great way to develop and to push the old boundaries. It has become a favorite place to come and hunt more encounters with a destiny seemingly on speed. So thats why I go there. Thats why I manipulate my agent and spice her coffee with coordinates to Xberg. Because I want to land there in the middle of you all on a float through endless adventures. Every time I leave I wanna feel that there was absolutely nothing else I could do. Maximum satisfaction guaranteed even if I need a blood exchange every time I leave. Kidding aside. I have never changed blood (at least not under medical supervision) but I always leave with quite a hangover. But it is not all fairies and `alles poletti`. Unfortunately I have also walked out of a club after a hug, not knowing it is the last time I see my friend. He was swallowed by this city. Berlin giveth and Berlin taketh away.And yes I am an agent of chaos in some senses and you might guess what I am looking for in life. What I buy, look for and consume tells the story that is me and it is sometimes dark and weird. And criminal in some parts of the world. Maybe this story is about bucket lists and escapes from reality. Or maybe it is a reflection on how we sometimes like to take a holiday from ourselves. I mean… how many of you are interested in hearing about me having a threesome with a Schlumpf involved (check) or being abducted by a pack of witches to be be sacrificed in the woods (check)? Your buckets are hopefully filled with equally juicy stories. But we come to Berlin for different reasons. All of us. I remember coming to a, then not so developed Hackescher Markt and mesmerized myself into a underground exhibition in a cold and wet basement followed by a night getting absolute hammered on “Alkoholfrei bier”. The pure excitement of it all made me forget to look at the labels and yes, the beers worked anyway. Because of magical Berlin and the power of expectations. So there are ways of filling our buckets with Berlin wonders without challenging our health system. The city offers it all. For example. The “easiest” marathon to do is supposed to be Berlin Marathon and one day I will do it. And maybe, when the race is overI will have myself wrapped in cling film with only a tiny hole for my mouth to breath through. And maybe, just maybe, someone will put a colorful little pill through that hole (check). Now the editor needs this text to be done and the way of making me deliver on time is simple.I have a butt plug inserted which has an electrical current running through it. And when I am past my deadline I have a charged reminder shooting through my body and I know its time to stop. This is a lie. There are nothing electrical up my ass. But you know what. It is on my bucket list.

By: Agnes Crayfor Illustration: Marta Braga So, ‘things are going back to normal’. As a night worker, ‘normal’ usually means laying in bed at 4 am unable to sleep because my schedules are completely fucked, body rhythms confused. This would have been the norm a year back. Now, after a few shifts, I get a taste of what it will potentially be like again. And, quite frankly, my anxiety is almost bigger than my excitement at being able to regain a sense of normalcy. Weeks spent in a blur and mental fog, wasting scarce and precious daylight sleeping, the question ‘what am I doing with my life’ ever lingering in my mind. I am torn between nostalgia and a physical rejection to falling back into the black hole. Since I still can’t sleep, I go smoke in the balcony and start looking back to some of my nights in the time before the pandemic. I was barely eighteen when I came to this city, and I fell in love with all the possibilities it brought me, and the extreme escapism of the never ending party, which was what I needed at the time. The first night I went out to Kitkat, with some of the women who were to become my best friends, I was wearing a chainmail bra and nothing else, and I had never felt so liberated. I fell in love with a stranger -the MDMA used to hit me properly back then before I started abusing it. We ended up in his ridiculously fancy apartment in Charlottenburg, not even having sex, and I had multiple orgasms just from cuddling. On the next morning, I accidentally met his parents who were coming from Bavaria for a surprise visit. My life here was off to a good start, but it wasn’t long until it started losing its shine, mostly from unfortunate encounters with men. I remember the time before I established strong friendships, how I soon felt the acute loneliness of moving to a foreign country. My ‘foolproof’ plan for fighting this sensation were random hookups on Tinder. I entered a dark stage in my life, of thrill chasing and unclear boundaries, combined with overworking and substance abuse. Ranging from absurd to ridiculously creepy, my strongest memory from those blurry encounters is a date in a bar with a guy who was fifteen years older than me, who couldn’t even pay for his own beer. Embarrassed, he invited me to his shabby apartment to smoke DMT to ‘compensate’ for it. I said yes. The next morning, I decided I had had enough, and it was time to go away for a while. The magic of Berlin and its safe spaces could easily be tainted by the lack of emotional responsibility of the predatory cis hetero men I had pushed myself to interact with, and I was lucky to realize that sooner rather than later, without incurring too much damage. Fast forward a few months, I had gotten rid of my toxic workplace, made deep connections and leant more fully into my queerness. Berlin was slowly but surely recovering the charm that had lured me into it. I could indulge into its excess without destroying myself -too much- in the process. One particular Sunday morning in Berghain I dropped a tab of acid that turned out to be really strong, and I stayed right until closing in a psychedelic trance, absorbed by the music, the people, and in spite of all my bad experiences I could let my guard down, feel at home. I then watched movies with some party friends I had just met at their home, then attempted to take a Capoeira class and nearly fainted from the effort. My body was exhausted, but I felt detoxed, lighter and renewed. I saw if I managed to keep these extreme experiences for a few occasions, I could begin to fully enjoy them. I realize looking at how my relationship to Berlin nights evolved, that the most important element has always been having people to trust and rely on and a strong sense of community. And that has only gotten stronger during these months where everything has been on halt. I finish my cigarette and go to bed, feeling a bit more peaceful, ready to rest. In the end, it is in my hands to decide what to do with my nights (and days). Right now, going out again feels like jumping into the cold pool at KitKat after twelve hours sweating on the dance floor. A bit of a repellant thought without being intoxicated, but kind of exciting too.

When thinking of what gift you could give a loved one, we looked at a report that was created by Klarna, the leading global payments and shopping service, together with consumer psychologist Kate Nightingale. Illustration by: Kirsten Ulve This Article is made in collaboration with Klarna. Did you know that Pisces love gift shopping the most out of any star sign (50%)? This is one fact they found out together with Klarna. In the report, we also recognized other interesting aspects, such as that star signs, sexual identities and birth order greatly influence our shopping behavior. Here’s what Kate and Klarna noticed: ● The LGBTQIA+ community are the most eco-conscious. 1 in 2 (48%) want their gifts to be environmentally friendly, compared to the global average (43%). ● Pisces love gift shopping the most out of any star sign (50%), and 3 out of 5 (61%) want to find thoughtful and meaningful gifts. ● Millennials are more responsible than they’re given credit for. 25% start their Christmas shopping between September and October. Millennials are also more concerned about their finances (37%) compared to other age groups. ● Millennials are the most likely of any age group to regift an unwanted present to someone else (16% respectively). Do you know your consuming behavior? Based on all the insights and with the help of consumer psychologist Kate Nightingale, Klarna identified different shopping personas - and matched them with tailored tipps and Klarna features. Take the persona quiz to find out which holiday persona you are and to receive tailored tips for thriving this holiday season. No matter which type of holiday shopper you are, Klarna is the ‘smoooth’ shopping solution for you. We got inspired by Klarna’s collections to inspire your gift shopping with a personal Playful gift guide. Here are 5 different ideas that make the eyes of your loved ones shine: 5. A COURSE Masterclasses can be both fulfilling and entertaining and vary from everything between learning how to paint, produce music or becoming a better chef. There’s even an ‘Online Pop Art Make-up Course’ by theonlinebeautycourses.com to check out. 4. RECORDS If you’re in Berlin you’re probably familiar with several legendary record and vinyl shops. If you’re to do so online, we recommend checking out thevinylfrontierbarry.com for example. 3. WALL ART Art is appreciated by many, but can also be very personal. Therefore people may be scared to purchase it as a gift. We believe you can lead by example by giving someone a piece that you yourself are a big fan of. If you want to find unique designers, check out various prints at inkanddrop.com. 2. JEWELRY Timeless jewelry is always appreciated, and together with Stilnest, Klarna is presenting the campaign #BeMyAlly that supports the LGBTQIA+* community by giving four queer personalities a stage to bring important community issues closer to a broader public. Besides the amazing jewelry, 10% of each sold piece from the #BeMyAlly collection will be donated to three non-profit organizations. 1. EVENT TICKET The live event industry has been struggling during the pandemic and still is. We are missing it a lot and who isn’t delighted with a ticket to their favorite artist’s sold-out show or a hyped-up club event? Giving away an experience to look forward to is our first pick and it’s always a good excuse for you, the gift giver, to join as well. Go to Ticketmaster to get inspired and pick amongst a wide variety. You want to keep an eye on some gift options? Create your personal collection with your favorite product ideas in the Klarna App and receive price drop alerts. Or use Klarna’s flexible payment options when shopping for the perfect gift for your loved ones. Klarna always provides a full overview of all purchases as well as your budget. About Klarna Online and in-store – Klarna is a shopping service and payment method that was founded in 2005 and is today active in 17 markets. The one-click purchase experience offers direct- or pay-after delivery options, as well as installment plans to make life a bit smoother.