I am not your typical Goth. I don’t have piercings or tattoos (I refuse to pay for pain), I have no mental illnesses and, most shocking of all, I am heterosexual. On the other hand, my birthday is on 22 May, World Goth Day, so maybe it was my destiny.
I find comfort in the gothic world. As a child, horror films never frightened me because I knew they were fictional. What really gave me nightmares were the ‘Kill your speed, not a child’ adverts. I memorised the Bride of Frankenstein film to stop me thinking about those terrifying adverts as I went to sleep.
While I didn’t start wearing black clothes ornamented with skulls until I was 16, I was always drawn to the macabre. I think the first time I found a woman attractive was while looking at photos of vampires from Hammer Horror films.
I’ve known only a handful of Goths who were Satanists and I suspect that was mainly for shock value
I suppose I became a full-blown Goth when I started going to Slimelight, Britain’s oldest Goth club. I quickly noticed that nearly everyone there is isolated from mainstream society. Some of the stereotypes about Goths are spot on: a lot of them really do love poetry and suffer from depression. But I have known only a handful who were Satanists and I suspect that was mainly for shock value.
In a gothic club, you encounter lesbians with their spiky hair and leather jackets, autistic people debating Game of Thrones theories for hours, ADHD people talking twice as fast as everyone else, naval veterans with PTSD, schizophrenics talking about the ghosts and angels that speak to them, and trans people sharing their horrific childhood stories.
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