 Hello, everyone, and welcome to Inside Leather History, a fireside chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe, the host of the chats that I produce with Mistress Joanne Gaddy. The fireside chats are a program of the Leather Archives and Museum. Today, I'm speaking with Greta von Brittenbach in Switzerland, who is gracious enough to meet with us today. So, Greta, in what city are you located? I am located near Basel, a little bit in the countryside, actually, the village I live in is Brittenbach. So, my name, von Brittenbach, is just a local thing. Lovely. Let's begin at the beginning. Please tell us about your early life, a little bit about your family, where you're from. Originally, I was born in Germany in a small town, and it was like, yeah, I felt like the only gay in town because it was a very small town, and my parents were very welcoming about it. They knew before I spoke out, and they always supported me, and, oh, if you bring someone home, it's okay. And they didn't use the term of girlfriend or boyfriend. They just always said, if you bring someone home. At this time, my life at school wasn't so nice because there it wasn't so popular to be gay, typical bullying, and all this happened to me a lot. This time is a bit special for me because my parents always encouraged me. They said, everything's fine, but my other environment wasn't so welcoming. Did you begin to learn about the fetish scene at that time, the leather scene? How did you learn about these? I was attracted by biker gays since I can think. Since I was a very small boy, I always looked at those motorcycles and motorcycles and thought, oh my God, they are so interesting, but it wasn't the machine itself. It was the rider on it. Later, I found out I have got leather and rubber fetish, and so I started to connect with a local fetish scene, but it was very small because it was in the early 90s, and here we haven't had so many possibilities to go out. You are the only active sister of perpetual indulgence in Switzerland, correct? Yes, that's right. I would love to speak with about that. I think many people will be interested to hear how you combine being a sister with participation in the fetish scene and the leather scene. How do you see that? Fetish is an interest of me too, and so I made some connections with some nice guys. In 2017, when I already moved to Switzerland, I had the chance to be the sash wife of Mr. rubber Switzerland in 2017, and later he was elected Mr. rubber Europe 2018. In this time, I had the chance to get a little bit closer to see what the sisters actually do, because until this point, I always thought, they're wonderful, but I don't know what they do, how they do it, and why they do it. In 2017, we were collecting donations together with the sisters, and they had the chance to get a little bit more about what's driving them on, what's going about it, and this is where my sister journey started. How did you get your sister's name? My sister's name is a little bit history. Greta is taken from the movie Bend, and this movie is about gay love in Berlin of the 30s, 1930s, before the Nazis were coming up, and Greta was ruling a nightclub, and she was giving the gays and lesbians and the people coming together, their space to have fun, to be their selves. She was in the movie played by Mick Jagger, and a very wonderful Greta, and Greta was the person who saved some lives because she warned them because of the Nazis, and she said, oh, be careful, they're coming. And this is because of the racism thing I choose, and Greta was said to give an open eye, an open ear, and an open space to gays, and this is what I would like to do. And von Breitenbach, as I told you, I live in Breitenbach near Basel, and this is just the local put together, like Liesl von der Post or something like this. Please tell me about the appearance of the sisters, the white face. What is the significance of this? Originally, the white face symbolizes the deaths of HIV, and the colors we have in our faces, the joy of living, we try to set against this, because when the sisters found their deaths in 1979, the first thing was to go out and have fun, and then later in the early 80s, it comes that the HIV crisis came over the gay community and all the people were dying. And so the sisters start to paint their faces white. And as a symbol of all the people deceased on this disease, yeah. And in the different countries, nearly all sisters have the white face. In Australia, there's a chapter, not using the white face, but they have the wimples and then the habits and something like this. But usually you recognize a sister by its white face. When you go out on a regular night, which do you prefer? It depends on what I would like to do. If I would like to spread the word, to say take care when you have a sexual active life and go to a testing on a regular basis, then I go out as a sister. But when I just would like to have fun or have some drinks, I got as a private me, and this could be in rubber more often. Oh, I see. How do people react to you when you are a sister in public? Usually they smile. They stop, they look at it, and usually they smile. And this is my biggest intention. I would like to give a smile to everyone. Sometimes if it's getting later and people are maybe a bit drunk, it could be a bit difficult. But as a sister, I never go out alone. I always have a guard or someone with me, and I have had the luck not to be involved in violons or something like this. And here in Switzerland, I had never ever a bad word. In Germany, it happened, yes. It was in Munich. We have been out together in a bunch of sisters and became a home lately. And there was a drunk guy and he was up for some, well, let's say, for some mess or something. I don't know what. But when we have this, we don't react to this. We try to avoid the situation and leave this guy alone. How long have the sisters been growing in Europe? In Europe, it's a long history, more than 25 or 30 years. We have had the first house in the beginning of the 90s. I think it was in Heidelberg. When they were starting to move over to different cities, most active one houses are in Berlin and in Munich. And we have got in Cologne. And we have got sisters in Paris. We have got sisters in Lyon, in Edinburgh, but I don't know when they actually started. How active is the scene in Berlin, for example, for the sisters? Before the lockdown, it was very busy because there's always something to do. Not always the fetish things, but a lot of sisters are going to the fetish clubs. But in Berlin, they're nearly every second weekend on the tour. And then try to spread condoms and try to collect money. How in Switzerland? Because if you are the only active sister, what's going on in Switzerland with the sisters? Yes, in Switzerland, it's a bit... What's going on here? This is going on what I do. I try to be present towards the fetish scene, but to other scenes too. It's not so easy to find someone who would like to spend a lot of time, a lot of educating himself into becoming a sister, because it's not just to put on the white face, put on some headpiece, and then you are made a sister. It's a little journey to go there. The biggest part is to take yourself, your personality back, to be there for the community. And all these orders may be a Catholic non-order or something. They all have problems in finding someone who comes after them. Do you have plans to actively draw people into this system? I wouldn't say that I have active plans, because here in Switzerland, I am here as a sister for two years. This is not much for a sister to do their work. So I take a little time and wait until maybe someone comes towards me and say, hey, what you're doing is great, and I would like to join you. But many people know that we have got guards, too, in our house. This is the male opposite of the sister appearance. Sometimes people think, oh, my God, I would like to do some social commitment as a sister, but oh, my God, this drag. Well, I do have to do this, so no. But in our house, it's possible to do this in the male appearance, too. How many people are, you mentioned in the house, how many people are active in that? In our house in the Bavarian Abbey, it is about 13 fully professed members. If I count it right, and one sister who's just starting. So this is what we call, how do we call this? Novice. No, no, no, no. Novice is postulant. It's something like a postulant sister. Oh, yes. So we have in our house, we have four things to do for steps to become a sister. The first is the aspirat. This is to just go with the sisters and see what they do without makeup, without just as you are as a private. Then you decide, okay, what they do could be interesting for me. And after this comes the postulant, like in a real monastery order, we get our first veil. It's a short one and you look like, it's difficult to describe, but you look a little bit like you're going out to make the cows. It's not so nice. But yes, it helps to get you into being more visible in the scene because now you have got a little white face and a little veil. And then this is the postulant, not the nicest time. Now that's not all right. It has been a nice time too. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, after that comes the novice time, then you get a white veil a little bit longer and similar to this. And after this, when you think you are ready and your community of nuns think you are ready to get the black veil. And the time is not set in stone for everyone. It takes how long you take for every step. Oh, I see. I see. I wondered about that. It's always about how much time you are able to spend together with the sisters so they can see how you are improving, how you learn the things you have to learn, how you learn about contents, how you behave towards the community because when we go out, we will get in touch with some very, very heavy themes and heavy discussions or maybe something which is very heartbreaking. And we have to learn about this. How long was the process for you? I was the fast runner. So I had six weeks of aspirate. Then three months of postulat, three months of novice yard and a half year. All together, it took me a year to become a sister. This is very fast, but I spend nearly every week and together with the sisters because it meant very much to me. But a moment ago, you mentioned that during all of this learning process that you had to deal with some very heavy topics. What did you mean? Sometimes we are the first people who get known of a recently HIV diagnosis. Maybe if we go out and see someone sitting there, maybe being depressed, we go there, ask, hey, is everything fine? And it could be that this guy maybe just received an HIV diagnosis or maybe something other different situation in his private life and our appearance and our being is there to talk to them and to listen to them. And this could be tough, yes. What's the worst you've ever had to manage in that respect? I talked to someone who recently lost a good friend because of an HIV diagnosis, because this friend committed suicide. And this reminds me to my own way of becoming a sister. When I was younger in the 90s, a good friend of mine committed suicide of this too because he received this diagnosis. And to me it was okay. You find a way, we go through this together. But yeah, this was very hard for me because it was like a flashback. I'm very curious about the structure, the social structure that you depict in the house for the nuns. I don't know anything about it. Would you please explain a little bit about how the order works in that situation? So to be clear, every different house has its own rule and its own way, how they prepare and how they present that says. In our abbey, we have got a mother abyss. We have got a prioressa. This is the second sister of importance. We have got a tertia. She's always busy with doing all the writing protocols. If you have meetings and then there's the rest. It sounds like very, very strict, very hierarchical levels, but it's easier if you present something to be outward. And if someone has to do decisions for us, or to tell decisions, it's easier if this is one of those elected persons. But we are all allowed to talk to everything. I am very curious about the type of traveling you must do. Some of the places must find you very shocking, maybe. Do you visit places where it's difficult, like Poland, for example? I would love to go there if it's possible, because actually we have got a sister in Poland who's doing a very, very hard job. And I would like to support her. She's a wonderful person, and what she's doing there is outrageous. In Switzerland here, I've got a very lucky position, because in Switzerland, being gay is not a problem. It's not a topic. If I have the chance to go there, I will go there and support her. Yes, definitely. Okay. Do you think it would happen after COVID? Of course. We have the connection about the Berlin house. She has been made her sister education with the Berlin sisters, and I am in very good contact with sister Daphne from Berlin, and we will try to organize this to go there and support her. Lovely. But another question comes to my mind. In Europe, you have many different languages. Is the common language for you in English? Well, usually when I'm around in Germany, I tell everything in German, and when I'm in Austria, usually, even if it's a special event, we do all this in German. Here in Switzerland, I try to do this in German and in French, but yes, there's always the task to do it in English because we will visit international events like, it has been in 2019 in Austria, where I was together with the, for the election of Mr. Pappi, Austria, 2019, and it was very international. We had so many guests from all over the world, and I had to do everything in English, and it was a little bit, yes. Have you visited the sisters, for example, here in North America? Not yet, not yet. I mentioned the Mr. Pappi, Austria, election 2019, and there was able to met Papcona, Pap Sirius and Pap Keis, and they had the idea to invite me to IPOR in Indianapolis. And so, unfortunately, then came the COVID pandemic situation, and we have to postpone it, but this was planned to move sister greater to America. And yeah, it was planned to meet the sisters there too, which would be very, very interesting for me because what we sisters do here in Europe is, I think, a bit more different from what the sisters in America do. And what is that? I think in America it's, when the sisters go, it's different from what we do here because we are more in spreading condoms and being around. And I think in the sisters in America, they do a lot of voluntary donations, they collect a lot of money, they run bingo, they gather so much good things together to support the community because there's a complete different healthcare system and a complete different social care system as we have. And I would like to learn from them. I would like to go there and then see what's there, what's their drive to go on and how do they do it? You mentioned that the sisters in Europe tend to, for example, promote condom use. How do the people react to that? Different and that's a good way to get into the discussion because not only condoms are very good to be protected from HIV. We have got the prep, we have got the undetectable equals untransmitable commitment, which is in the world since 2008 and not many people know about it. And this is for us a good start to talk about HIV statuses or go to testing on a regular basis. We don't insist in using condoms. We say this is an option, but you have this option or that option too and maybe you didn't hear of U equals U is a way of HIV treatment too and it works to protect yourself. We're trying to get the peoples to a regular testing if they have a sexual active life. They should go know their status, they should check the HIV status, the other sexual transmittable diseases. They just should check. Do you feel people do that? Sometimes we can reach someone with this message and we say, oh, think about today, it's testing day and it's over there, go there. And then he said, okay, I should go and he goes. If only one person goes, I think, yes, this is a good one. Oh, okay, okay. I'm finding nowadays fewer and fewer people are using condoms because undetectable is untransmittable. There's prep. What are your personal feelings on that? If it helps to release a sexual life inside whoever, then it's a good way because sexuality itself is good. And we have been taught very long time, oh, only use condoms and only this. And if you don't, it's dirty, it's not good. And we put so much guilt on other people. And I'm not the person who should judge about using condoms or doing whatever. I'm the person who would like to say, go to a testing on a regular basis. The rest is your thing because it's your responsibility. You've mentioned the puppy community and iPod. This is how we were introduced. Of course, for the audience, I can tell the audience that the original plan was that I would do the interview at iPod, but unfortunately COVID has made the world miserable. So we are doing it this way. What is your connection with the puppy community? I have very, very good friends in Vienna, and they were the ones who brought me together with the puppy community. They gave me the possibility as a sister to host some of their events and to be together with them. And this is where my beginning, to me, the puppy community starts. At first it was like, oh, yeah, for this. And the more I have been able to spend time with them and to spend time together with these wonderful guys and girls and wonderful beings, no matter what sex they have. It was so welcoming. It was so enriching my life because it was so playful, so respectful, so including. And yeah, this is how I came in touch with the puppy scene. And of course here in Switzerland, we have some great puppies too. One is a very good friend of mine. And yeah, he supports me always when I'm around as a sister. And this is a very good feeling to have him by my side. Yes. So it's a very good joining of communities, yes. Definitely, definitely. I always wondered what it would be, what drives them on to do puppy play. And I'm still learning about it, but it's very fascinating. It's still fascinating. And it's so wonderful how they embrace me, not embarrass, it's not right, embrace. When you do the arms wide open and take someone. And this is what happens to me in the puppy scene. Is the puppy scene growing a lot in Switzerland? In Switzerland, I would say it's constantly, not growing like this way, like exponential growing, but yes, it's constantly getting more and more. Yeah, you admire us of it because it's a very, very interesting way to start with fetish. I think it's not necessary to have a fetish, but it's a good way to test things, to try out and yeah. How about the puppy scene in the rest of Europe? How do you see it in other places? Oh, we have a very active puppy scene in France. And one of those puppies who became Mr. Puppy Franz happened to be a guard of Sisters of Perpetual Indigence too. And we are in a very loose connection, but it's nice to see him somewhere at some events or when he's going on with his pack of other puppies and yeah. Are there puppy events, for example, in Munich or Berlin or other places? The events I have been to, they were very, very well organized. They were very, very structured. They were always the people around taking responsibility for everything. And they say, I'm here for this question. I'm here to guide you there. I'm here to bring you to this place. I want to introduce you to that. And to me it was very organized, very, very, very welcoming for newbies too. It was very playful and it pulls people inside. What do you hope you can achieve as a sister going forward? As a sister, I would like to achieve that everyone should feel welcomed. Everyone should feel happy. And our first thing is to spread universal joy. And this is what I like to do with all the people around me. And the second is to expiate stigmatic guilt because gay people are always told you are not right, you're not good. You're too gay, too much, too slim, too, don't know what. And this is the second thing I would try to put out of the word this way of thinking how everyone should be. Everyone is okay like he is. And if he's bigger or plus sized, he is like it. He and she is like it is. And it's good. It's wonderful. You don't have to be something for someone else. You have to be for yourself. Does being a sister require a big financial incentive? No, not necessarily. Because it's not about how much money you can give. It's about how much love you can give. And of course, you should be able to buy yourself your makeup because we are just buying these things on our own money. We don't go there outside and say, oh, we need money to buy our outfit or something like this. But in our houses, we help each other. When we have a sister which has not so much money, it's not about how much money you have. It's not about how much money you have. I have got a dress which could fit you. Maybe it's something for you. I can support you with some makeup. So this is not in our house. And in other houses, I think this is like this too. It's not about how much money you have because much money doesn't make you a good person. True. Not always. Sometimes. You have a sister. Your particular house. Yes. And yes and no. When I was together with the sisters in Berlin, there have been the sisters from Berlin from Munich and from Cologne. And I have talked to all of them for a very long time there. And the decision to go to one of those houses. It's nearly the same time to go to Cologne or to Berlin or to Munich. And so I have had one of a friend of mine who was in the Bavarian Abbey too. And so I decided, okay, then I go there. It's easier for me. What do you feel is the biggest challenge. For the fetish scene in Switzerland. And I think it's the biggest challenge to grow together because we have the leather scene. We have the rubber scene. We have the puppy scene. We have not so much space in Switzerland that it's space for so many scenes. So my wish would be to come together, not put everything under the same hat. But a peaceful coexistence would be very interesting. And I think with time, I think, yes, it is possible. And it has to be made sure that every, every community stays, every community, not that the leather scene would like to take over the rubber guys. And the rubber guys are not taking over the puppies. And the puppies are not going to be on top of everything. What are your plans after COVID? Oh, my plans after COVID are going to Frankfurt. Because I have got a very, very strong connection to the Leather Club in Frankfurt. And I would like to see the guys there to support the local HIV healthcare there. I'd like to go to Berlin too, because a very good sister of mine is living there. Sister Wester, she was, she is in our house, but she has passed a very, very bad health condition. She suffered from cancer. And I would like to go out with her, of course, as a sister and just have fun. And I would like to visit my friends in Austria in Vienna. And of course I would like to visit some, or to host some Swiss events, which are going to hopefully happen. And maybe we will see what comes and when I will have the possibility, but I definitely would go out and I need people because this is what I'm missing so much. Yes. What is the biggest misconception about you? I cannot find words for this, but I think it's, that I think everything is fine and everything is good, but it could be good. This is a misconception, yes, because it isn't, but I would like to tell other people we can do this together. Yes. Great Yvonne Brittenbach, I thank you very much for participating in a wonderful interview. And I sincerely look forward to meeting you in person.