Live performance by L’homme Statue (@lhommestatue) at CURVS STILL PRIDE edition (Sep 2024 – pic by JONIRICOS)
In a world that often demands straight lines—straight paths, straight bodies, straight thinking—CURVS is a defiant curve. It is a space where bodies, identities, and desires are allowed to twist, bend, and exist outside the rigid frames of societal norms. Founded by Gustavo Gustrava, Bruno Phoebe, and DIDI, CURVS is a cultural happening, a platform for liberation, and a political act. It is a celebration of curvy bodies, curvy beats, and curvy ways of being—a rejection of the straightness that governs not only our physical spaces but also our imaginations.
Gustrava, Bruno Phoebe & DIDI, co-founders of CURVS
The recent police raid on CURVS’s second-anniversary party at Planeta Manas, a queer-led cultural association in Lisbon, is a reminder of how threatening such spaces can be to systems of power. Four raids in five months, carried out without warrants and in violation of Portuguese law, reveal a pattern of intimidation and control. These interventions are not about safety, as the police claim, but about enforcing conformity. They are about silencing spaces that dare to celebrate deviance, that dare to exist outside the straight lines of heteronormativity, capitalism, and colonial morality.
“CURVS is not escapism from reality; it is finding joy, freedom, and curvy lenses to look at reality better.”
Brazilian queer activist and anthropologist Gustavo Gustrava brings an intersectional viewpoint to this struggle. Their work with CURVS and their broader activism highlight the interconnectedness of oppressions—how the policing of queer bodies is tied to the policing of immigrants, racialized communities, and anyone who challenges the status quo. The raids on CURVS are not isolated incidents; they are part of a global rise in fascism, a desperate attempt by elites to maintain control as marginalized communities build escape routes from their oppressive systems. The fact that 25% of the audience stayed outside for hours after the raid, waiting for the party to continue, speaks to the power of this space.
Gustava holds their iconic “FCK ZIONIST” fan after the police raid at CURVS FAMILY REUNION edition in December, while DIDI plays (Dec 2024 – pic by @brunobrunophoebephoebe)
I spoke with Gustavo about the events that happened at the second anniversary of CURVS, about his mission, and about what’s next:
For those who don’t know, what is CURVS, and what makes it more than just a party? How would you describe its mission and the community it serves?
It all started because Bruno Phoebe, DIDI (my colleagues and co-founders) and I wanted to create a queer space focused on curvy bodies, curvy beats, curvy sexualities, and curvy perspectives. We named it CURVS: body-positive, sex-positive & queer oriented. Because, you see, having a platform to praise the beauty of a queer curvy body – our core – is the tip of a huge iceberg. It is related to processes of liberation, from straight thinking to curvy thinking, from fixed frames to elastic frames, from definitive answers to more questions, from rigid norms to plural, fluid, deviant sexualities, identities, existences, and possibilities. It’s not by chance that the word “straight” in English applies both to a straight line and heterosexual sexuality. We learn how to perceive the world through the normative illusion of straightness: walking in straight lines, having straight abs & jawlines, being a straight person sexually, praising skyscrapers, and respecting verticality and hierarchy. In that sense, the curve, the curvy body, the deviance, and the distortion, are sorts of escape routes. So I could say we are a platform that takes the curve and the curvy body as starting points for a wider, intersectional mission of bringing together a community of people fighting oppressive framings enforced by our systems in power. The body is the main character, the enabler, and the library. It’s all about embodied knowledge. And this is why we chose to do a party as the platform for this cultural happening: a place where showing off your body, dancing, hugging, sweating, shaking your ass, and exploring your sexuality freely are acts of political resistance and shared, collective knowledge. Back in 2023, for our first three editions, we made video manifestos with lots of these ideas. You can watch them here, here, and here.
Planeta Manas is described as a cultural association rather than a traditional club. What does this distinction mean, and why is it significant for events like CURVS?
Traditional clubs are businesses. They work from a profit-based perspective, they sell experiences for customers. Nothing wrong with that, it’s just not CURVS’ thing – and this is why we do it at Planeta Manas as a cultural association, that works for members only, because we perceive our party as a community-based cultural happening rather than a business enterprise. To be a part of this community, you enroll as a member of the venue – that’s how it works. Planeta Manas is a queer-led association that is aligned with our values as a cultural happening.
We get a lot of comments from people saying “Why don’t you start a business plan for CURVS to take it to the next level?” and the simple answer is: because we don’t want to. Of course, we sell tickets to have fair pay for the artists and ourselves. And we sure do have more artistic and creative ambitions beyond the party, that certainly will have to be financially sustainable. But everything is done from within the community, spontaneous, DIY, and will never become a profit-based company.
Artist Pingo Speed (@pingo_speed) at CURVS 1st bday (Feb 2024 – pic by @joniricos)
You had a police raid on CURVS’s second-anniversary party. The police claimed they were conducting an inspection “to ensure safety.” What do you think was the real motivation behind this raid, given the history of interventions at Planeta Manas?
We want to be very careful to not assume things and make accusations without proper evidence and facts. But the facts we do have are alarming enough: there were four raids (or attempts of raids) in Planeta Manas in just five months. Two of them during CURVS, two editions in a row. Although other clubs in the area were also raided on one occasion, all of the other times the operation just targeted Planeta Manas (including the last). I’ve personally never seen a club or a cultural association go through this amount of raids in the 5 years I’ve lived in Lisbon, or anywhere else. And I’ve been working with parties, queer culture, and queer nightlife for more than 10 years – whether in São Paulo, where I come from or here.
These raids were carried out illegally, as Planeta Manas is a cultural association, so a warrant is mandatory – which they never presented. This situation goes against four Portuguese laws and regulations: the Portuguese Constitution (Article 34), the Penal Code (Article 192), the Code of Criminal Procedure (Article 174), and the Internal Security Law (Law No. 53/2008). The raids never found any irregularities that could make people “unsafe”, and yet continued happening.
They were all very scary and definitely unnecessary, with a large number of armed personnel, the whole street closed with big police trucks, verbal aggression, sometimes physical aggression, intimidation, gaslighting, and tactics of confusion (in which each officer says a different thing). One officer would tell people at the line or inside the venue to go home “because the party was over”, then another officer would say that “it would be a quick inspection and then we could continue”, then another would say “We would have to wait for their superior to arrive”. Even when they couldn’t manage to enter, they would block the entrance for people in line, always finding a way to interrupt the event long enough to dismantle it.
The police entered without presenting a warrant, which you’ve stated is illegal under Portuguese law. What steps are you taking to hold them accountable for this unconstitutional action?
Since CURVS is a cultural project that happens inside Planeta Manas and does not represent the venue itself, I can’t speak for them. But as an activist & artistic initiative, we will definitely go to the streets in protest against these arbitrary police operations that keep on restraining our constitutional right for cultural creation and fruition in collaboration with cultural associations, guaranteed by Article 73 in the Portuguese Constitution. We’re currently organizing meetings for the articulation of a protest that doesn’t have a defined date yet. I’d be happy to talk to FY! again when we have more info.
CC DISCO! (@ccdisco) djing at CURVS STILL PRIDE edition (Sep 2024 – pic by @joniricos)
This was the fourth police intervention at Planeta Manas and the second at CURVS in just a few months. Why do you think these spaces are being targeted so frequently?
Again, we want to be very careful not to make accusations we cannot back up with extensive evidence. But, in my point of view, it is not a coincidence that a venue like Planeta Manas and a party like CURVS are being victims of these senseless, illegal raids, during a time in which we witness the exponential rise of fascism in Europe and worldwide through the growth of its far-right parties. The first symptom of this phenomenon is the increase in police violence against communities and identities that are considered “deviant”. And we’re literally an underground cultural happening that celebrates deviance.
The rise of fascism, Zionism, and the far-right are desperate responses from the elites as they see an increase in intersectional awareness of class, gender, race, sexuality, body, and decoloniality. It’s also a reaction to the growing escape routes that different marginalized communities are creating to resist the framings of a system that profits from our precariousness. The ongoing genocides in Palestine, Congo, and Sudan, the obscene wealth growth of billionaires since Covid, and the modest but important amplification of minoritized voices all over the world since the wave of global protests during the 2010s unprecedentedly exposed who the real enemies are. And these enemies are desperately enforcing (via media control/propaganda and/or police violence) their fake narratives as if the victims (queers, immigrants, POC, Muslims, Latinos, etc) were the enemies. Every accusation they make is a confession. And what they say they do is actually the opposite of what they do.
If you read again my answer to your first question, you can imagine how important a space like CURVS (and Planeta Manas as a whole) can be for queer and/or curvy and/or racialized and/or immigrant, neurodivergent, deviant bodies, etc etc. Bodies that suffer so many forms of oppression and judgment on the outside. Bodies have a chance to find their community, to enjoy music and dance, to express themselves the way they want, kissing, hugging, and dancing with who they want. A place to leave your social armor at the door and be vulnerable, with no fear or worry.
Then the police abruptly invade this “sacred” space with guns and helmets, shout at you, push you, corner you and your friends, and force everyone’s evacuation. The straightest, most rigid, cut-throat, oppressive lines that could ever invade our curvy realm. And then, the chief officer said that the inspection (the fourth in five months) was mandatory to guarantee that the space was “safe for everyone”. It really sounds like a distasteful joke.
Do you want to conduct a raid to actually, truthfully see if the place is safe enough? Sure, have a warrant. And do it in a time where no events are happening. Oh, you really need to do it during an event? You still need a warrant. Then, if you have the warrant, you can also be collaborative, treat people decently, try to be as quick as possible, and don’t apply verbal or physical force. And most certainly: you don’t have to do it four times in five months. Again, no irregularities were ever found. Why do they keep doing it?
In your Instagram stories, you mentioned a lack of solidarity from other colleagues in Lisbon’s club culture. Why do you think this is the case, and how can the community build stronger alliances to protect spaces like CURVS?
From awkward silences to cringy opportunistic statements made by some parties happening close to Planeta Manas at the same moment, trying to take advantage of the situation by saying “We don’t have any irregularities and are still open!”, we firmly believe that some other venues, queer parties, and collectives could do so much more. Not just in solidarity with us – they could also use their platforms to really talk about queer intersectional struggles rather than creating liberal, pinkwashed, politically empty “queer experiences” that “follow the norms”, implying that we are “illegal”. Some people talk so much about the “queer community”, about being “led/owned by queers”, as a sort of commoditized rhetoric, as a product to be sold, and in fact act very business-like, with zero solidarity and questionable work ethics.
Drag artist Bixa Fina (@abixafina) performing at CURVS STILL PRIDE edition (Sep 2024 – pic by @joniricos)
Despite the raid, 25% of the audience stayed outside for hours, waiting for the party to continue. What does this level of solidarity mean to you, and how does it reflect the power of the CURVS community?
That was the only cute thing we had as an outcome of all of this. It’s really powerful to see that a significant number of people would rather wait 3+ hours in the cold, believing that CURVS would be back, than leave or go to another of the many parties that were happening that day, some in the same street. It shows that CURVS is really meaningful for many, and not merely about partying to “escape reality” as a sort of “queer magical world”. They were also living the harsh reality with us because they knew that queerness is resistance, and sometimes resistance is hard. I’m a bit allergic to some naive, pinkwashed queer narratives that abandon reality over fantasy/self-indulgence and avoid voicing any sort of support to important causes because “it’s not fun” or “it’s too political”. CURVS is not escapism from reality, it is finding joy, freedom, and curvy lenses to look at reality better. To find collective strength & affection so we can discover more creative abilities to get in touch with our realities and struggles. And the people that chose to wait 3 hours for us in the street rather than going anywhere else get this.
How do you plan to continue resisting these kinds of intrusions while ensuring the safety and freedom of your attendees?
CURVS’ strategy now is about mobilization, street occupation, and enhancing awareness of the political aspects of this scenario within our community. In terms of the space itself, Planeta Manas can answer better than CURVS.
Gustrava, DIDI and performer Sun Lee (@leesunon) minutes before the last raid during CURVS RESISTANCE & ABUNDANCE edition (Feb 2025 – pic by @joniricos)
How can allies and supporters outside the immediate CURVS community help in the fight against these kinds of injustices?
Definitely going to the streets with us!
But when it comes to discussing the role of allies, it’s important to acknowledge that this injustice against us is not separate from a wider system of injustices that targets many other identities, communities, and realities. A person can be straight, cisgender, or “fit”, but still an immigrant. Or racialized. Or having trouble paying the rent because of the housing crisis. Or losing their job for expressing solidarity for Palestine. CURVS is queer and body positive, but the word “ally” gets a new meaning when people who are not queer and/or curvy realize that the same systems of power that oppress us also oppress them, even if in different ways, scales, or intensities.
Two of these recent raids at Planeta Manas happened one day after the police raided hundreds of immigrants at Martim Moniz Square. In October, the police killed Odair Moniz, a black man from Cape Verde. The fascist establishment agents continue to fabricate the narrative that queers, immigrants, POC, and underground/independent spaces are the “problem” and the “enemy” enforcing “security measures” against us – to hide the fact that they’re the biggest enemies themselves.
So our problem is necessarily intersectional with other problems: police harassment of immigrants, police racism, the housing crisis and gentrification in Lisbon, pinkwashing, the Palestinian genocide, the global fascist-nazi-zionist escalation, the rise of police violence across the EU, etc.
From an intersectional perspective, if you’re not part of the white-straight-cisgender-super-rich 1%, supporting our cause indirectly benefits your own too. Because they’re all interconnected.
What changes would you like to see in Lisbon’s nightlife and cultural scene to make it more inclusive and safe for queer and marginalized communities?
I would love to see less pinkwashing, tokenization, and co-optation of queer narratives and creative expressions for the benefit of liberal, business-oriented, often cishet-owned venues. I would love to see queerness stop being transformed into a commodity, a product to be sold. I would love to see queer collectives talking more to each other and developing creative models for cultural creation, that could dodge as much as possible from liberal/capitalistic perspectives, and still find a way to be funded fairly – because no one wants to work for free, of course.
The birthday cake of CURVS first bday (Feb 2024 – Pic by @joniricos)
How do you plan to rebuild and strengthen CURVS after this incident, both financially and emotionally?
We want to continue doing what we do. But right now all of our energy is focused on going to the streets and protesting for the right to continue doing what we do.
CURVS is described as a space for freedom, inclusion, deviance, and resistance. How do you balance creating a safe space while also challenging societal norms and taboos?
We often talk about the safe space paradox when promoting the parties. Because every party, especially self-proclaimed queer ones, loves to claim it’s a ~safe space. Without a doubt, CURVS holds this as its guiding principle. But this mission carries within itself a paradox: while we strive to create an increasingly safer space, we are fully aware that safe spaces do not exist – perhaps “safe enough”.
This is because it’s impossible to draw a “finish line” in this process. Our identities and subjectivities are constantly evolving, gaining new paradigms as each he/she/they embarks on their journey of self-discovery. The encounter between bodies from different contexts and perspectives, with different scars, and at different points in their journeys, can indeed generate tension and conflict because every person is having a different internal negotiation with societal norms and taboos. Conflict is not abuse, but it can become abuse: therefore, we must remain vigilant. A safe space is a continuous process. It’s a building always under construction, never finished.
Ideally, we believe in an inclusive and welcoming environment where all people/bodies can freely express themselves in their multiple ways of being and existing, without fear of judgment, discrimination, or harassment. We want to build connections between people not only through their similarities but *especially* through their differences. We don’t want to be a party where people have to “fit in too much to belong.” Frames are straight and we are curvs. However, this intersectional intention—especially in the context of sexual freedom—makes our mission even more challenging. That’s why we have our leader of hospitality, Amina. She’s our producer and also the person responsible for “hospitality” and the well-being of everyone. She’s the one to look for if you feel uncomfortable, or unsafe, or witness any behavior you deem inappropriate.
Go go curvy Paolle performing for CURVS STILL PRIDE edition (Sep 2024 – pic by @joniricos)
How do you think spaces like CURVS contribute to broader social and political change, especially in a country like Portugal?
Portuguese culture has, of course, a lot of colonial bias. Kids learn in school that Portuguese colonization was “the great era of the discoveries”. You often hear people saying that the Portuguese were responsible for “bringing civilization to its ex-colonies”, like Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, etc… as if the genocide of Indigenous populations, erasure of their cultures and traditions, looting, land theft, exploitation, and enslavement of African populations for hundreds of years was any sort of civilized behavior, lol. Then and now, people that come from the countries that Portugal colonized are low-key (or high-key) treated here as primitive, less rational or intelligent, more “vulgar”: savages. The rise of the far-right in Portugal helps reinforce these colonial biases and the alleged “greatness” of the colonial era. It’s that same inversion that raises the question: who’s really the savage?
When it comes to the relations between sexuality, Christianity, and colonialism, this moralist perception of “vulgarity” aimed at Latin American/African immigrants and/or racialized people plays a big role – times two if they’re also queer. As a Brazilian queer curvy slut living here, I can attest to that. But this also affects Portuguese people themselves. The combination of Christian morality/guilt, the European binary thinking that creates an illusionary division between body/mind, and colonial bias can make it very hard for a Portuguese person to let loose, connect with their body, be proud of it, not be afraid to show it off, live their sexualities freely – because the judgment is real.
CURVS is a space to question colonial bias, Christian guilt/morality, and binary thinking by focusing on the body. We exist to dodge moralistic framings of how your sexuality or your body should be, to show off your body the way you feel more comfortable with, to dare question your own guilt, to love your fat ass, and to twerk the hell out of it – or not. But the point is: when we question what constrains our own bodies, that’s the first step to question so many more constraints in our social/political fabric.
Artist Pingo Speed (@pingo_speed) at CURVS 1st bday (Feb 2024 – pic by @joniricos)
What does the future of CURVS look like, and how do you hope to grow and evolve despite these challenges?
CURVS will most likely turn into a wider artistic platform. Beyond the party, we want to make music, lives, video content, and maybe even publications. There are many creative ways to develop the conversations we want to uplift, and we’ll explore as many as possible. Right now, as I said, the focus platform is the street, fighting for our right to party 🙂 So meet us at the curb.
