Don’t worry, we wouldn’t be here talking about it if it happened between a boy and a girl.
Versions of the facts – those from the manager of Fregene Navy Beach and from the two boys roughly sent away for a kiss – that will never match, but we didn’t expect them to be so.
The event was reported in a press release by Fabrizio Marrazzo, spokesman for the Gay Center Italy (which helps many cases of discrimination and violence every day), who made sure the incident got the attention of the media:
“Last weekend in Fregene, Fiumicino, Rome, a couple of 20-year-old boys, while taking selfies and exchanging a kiss, at the Lido of the” Marina Militare “Fregene, were interrupted by a swimmer who threatened them to call the ‘executive marshal to have them kicked out the beach’; the boys replied that a kiss is not a crime, but to avoid turning a day of leisure into a quarreling one, they left. The couple then reported the fact to Gay Help Line. What happened is a real offence, because even today LGBT+ couples are not free to spend a few hours of leisure in peace, without feeling offended or threatened. Therefore we ask the managers of the beach to take distances from the facts reported and to propose their bathers to take selfies where they kiss and post them on social media with the hashtag #LoStessoBacio [the same kiss] as a sign of solidarity with the young couple. “
The manager of the beach that houses the employees of the armed forces, their family members and some guests, instead affirms that this is an exaggeration: “Our clients who witnessed the scene said that it was almost an obscene act, even in front of children. The boys have only been invited to “refrain from those acts, and if they want to come back, they are welcome. “
I repeat: we would not be here to talk about it if it had happened between a boy and a girl. The manager of this beach probably has never stopped to observe the “sweet effusions” of straight couple in the water or on the beach – which go well beyond a kiss – and which strangely do not “bother” the other swimmers.
