'I felt like prey': The problem with huns in queer spaces

Sana* spent weeks designing his My Little Pony outfit to wear to an LGBTQ+ festival he went to with a group of mates.

He left the house feeling empowered and sexy, with his abs exposed and just the right amount of bum peeking from his shorts. 

‘Me and my friends were really excited to go out, and the outfit was received so well,’ says Sana, a 31-year-old doctor from Greenwich, London. 

However, before long partygoers started touching his body without asking permission.

‘It wasn’t only straight-presenting girls, it was lots of gay guys as well, but it seemed like the girls were far too comfortable, maybe overly comfortable with touching and grabbing,’ he says. 

Over the weekend Sana found himself ‘snapping’ at multiple women for unsolicited touching and says the women seemed to be more ‘overtly inappropriate’ than the guys. He ended up getting changed into a less revealing outfit to stop the unwanted attention.

‘I do think this is an issue generally with straight-passing women in gay crowds or at gay events,’ says Sana.

‘With the girls it’s always the same stuff. “Oh my God, your abs,” and that immediately means touching, “Oh my God, your arms.” Girls also feel like they can grab a gay guy’s ass without consent: “Oh my God it’s so perky,” which I guess in jest is fine, but it does get a bit repetitive. If I were to do that to a straight girl in a straight club I’d get slapped.’

It was a similar story for Will*, who wore a pair of assless chaps to the same festival and was surprised to find it was girls touching him non-consensually more than men. 

‘As a high-pitched petite gay man, I am used to casual homophobia and microaggressions,’ says the 26-year-old government employee, from London. 

‘But can you imagine my surprise when attending this festival — a safe and inclusive space — I felt like prey to a new and rather unsettling kind of sexual harassment. ‘Huns’, as we like to call them in gay circles, were acting very much like straight men. They seemed to have forgotten the dialogue around consent and predatory behaviour.’

Like trying to describe campness to someone who doesn’t get it, a ‘hun’ is best experienced rather than read about. It is a nebulous term, more a feeling in the room than a science. 

Huns are largely straight women who identify with queer culture and pop culture. The famous Instagram account Love Of Huns celebrates all things in this sphere. 

Mostly, ‘huns’ are brilliantly powerful allies to the queer community. In my life, I’ve found huns are there when I need them most. When I’m doing an Apple Sours shot at 2am aged 33 and my (gay and straight) male friends are rolling their eyes, the huns pull through. 

The hun community has also been praised as a gorgeously inclusive online space.

But as the term ‘hun’ has grown in prominence over the past year, with VICE, DAZED and the Gaudian writing articles dissecting ‘hun culture,’ I’ve noticed more and more of my queer circle talking about the problem some straight-passing women can cause in queer spaces. 

We might not have enough research yet, but there are some high profile examples. Brighton Pride was famously criticised when Britney Spears played in 2018 for feeling like a standard summer gig, rather than an LGBTQ+ event. And in 2015, Drag Race star Miz Cracker penned a piece about the straight “invasion” of gay spaces.

John Sizzle, co-owner of The Glory gay pub in east London, had issues with groups of straight-presenting girls booking tables at the pub during the pandemic and blocking out queer audiences. 

John says his bar staff get complaints about women touching without asking consent, and while ‘a peck on your cheek isn’t going to spoil your night and make you live in fear of the attack of the huns,’ John agrees there is an issue. 

‘It’s just marauding, going out and throwing themselves around a bit and determined to drink a lot and behave in a bit of a hooligan kind of style,’ he says, his description not dissimilar to when Vice referred to huns as the modern day interpretation of 1990s ladettes.

John believes unwanted touching in general is “on the rise,” and that the huns issue is a culture clash: straight women not understanding the rules in queer environments. 

Queer people are ‘a lot more expressive of their sensuality through their clothing’ and are mixing with non-straight crowds who ‘aren’t necessarily used to being around that culture and that representation,’ explains John. 

‘They don’t know how to behave,’ he adds. ‘They think it’s all just a laugh but what it really is is queer men and queer people in general feeling objectified and being seen as objects and toys and not taken seriously as individuals with feelings and emotions.’

Will has a more cynical take, seeing the unwanted touching as more of a power dynamic imbalance.

‘Heterosexual women have assumed the role of straight men,’ he says. ‘They feel empowered in a way, but that’s just my reading of the situation. They feel free to misbehave.’

It’s of course important to look at the wider picture, especially when we have so little data or research around what Sizzle jokingly refers to as the ‘attack of the huns.’

I spoke to Matt Horwood, who runs the Loose Change club night to raise money for queer causes, who expressed that ‘inappropriate behaviour, and touching in queer spaces, is not limited to straight women touching queer men’

Sexual abuse in gay bars has long been under-reported, and Horwood’s point is that historically a lot of that touching has been from men. ‘In 2023 we continue to see queer men exhibit misogyny (and in particular misogynoir) in the way they behave towards women, especially women of colour. We also see this same group peddle fatphobia, often laced too with misogyny,’ he says. 

But that doesn’t necessarily get us any closer to understanding why there may have been an anecdotal rise in recent ‘hun’ incidences, described by Will as a “new sort of nastiness” on the queer club circuit. 

Still, venues are taking action. A few things the queer festival Mighty Hoopla has done for instance is employ queer bouncers and work on a new extensive code of conduct that is specific to queer spaces to help keep queer people safe, who statistically are more at risk of feeling unsafe throughout their lives. 

‘We find ourselves in unsafe spaces again and again, even from an early age in school,’ surmises Matt. 

‘This continues into adulthood, be it at work, while watching sports, in ‘straight’ clubs or in other unexpected places. This is why our own spaces being safe is so important.’

*Surnames have been omitted. 

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