Is Gay Rights All About Gay Sex?

Suggested Citation: Hammish, R. S. (2021, September 6). IS GAY RIGHTS ALL ABOUT GAY SEX?. Queer Academia. URL.

“Are we, cis-hetero (they used the S-word that are used for heteros, and I deliberately am abstaining from using it) people, having a pride month for being heteros? Are we announcing to everyone around us that we are cis-heteros?” asked Mugil, a close friend of mine, and they further added, “Nowadays, there are a lot of series that are trying to overly normalise homosexuality.” Mugil definitely was a guy who laughed for those silly stereotypical gay jokes in movies, and at present, Mugil seems to miss all those idiotic jokes when homosexuals are shown in a positive light.    Mugil’s homophobia seems to be different from the usual cat-calling and slur-using hatred that most of the gays (yes, I am using it as a noun) are used to hearing. There is an element of unwilling acceptance and fear in this hatred.

Acceptance, because this person understands that being gay is normal. Though they live in a world of denial and ignorance, they (want us to) think that gay-way-of-living is already normalized in India, and that queer people are at an equal footing with others.  For all other purposes, they don’t speak about equal treatment of homos and heteros, but when it comes to normalizing (which according to them is ‘bragging’) homosexuality, they ask, “Are we bragging about our being heteros?” To me, this seems quite similar to how the so-called upper castes of this country deny the other people their rights for all other purposes, whereas when it comes to caste reservations, they want equal opportunities without even knowing that it is because of caste reservations that there is equity. The privileged feel superior to the unprivileged in all ways, but the privileged also want to play the victim card, in the guise of portraying the unprivileged to be equal to them. We can expect this fear to get manifested into slogans like ‘Heteros are in danger’ (‘Heteros khatre me hai’).

That being said, I question my own way of coming out to my university mates in 2020. I would go on to say that I regret coming out to them. What was I expecting from them when I came out? Was I expecting to be a crusader for gay rights in my university? Definitely not.My university has always had an active gender studies group and a queer collective group. I certainly did not need anyone’s sympathy at any cost because I genuinely don’t feel that a gay guy needs someone to sympathesize him for being gay. And, the questionthat people might usually have in their minds when someone reveals their sexual orientation is - is this guy soliciting gay sex? As the answer to that, all I can say is that I did not and do not have such a thought. But according to other people, what else can be the reason for a gay guy’s coming out to his classmates?

After all, being gay is to have sex with other men, and that seems to be the “PRIDE” of the majority in this community - the pride in penetrating and getting penetrated by an indefinite number of men. The members of this Fuck-and-Forget-Mafia often ignore their deadliest enemies AKA STDs unless they contract them or worse still, even after contracting them.Ezhil, a 20-years old not-so-close friend of mine, tested positive for Chlamydia. While conversing with me about his diagnosis result, he spoke at length about a few people (with whom he was intimate) to whom he had informed about his testing positive for Chlamydia, and asking them to get their diagnosis done for Chlamydia. The reaction of one of those men was something that I did not expect. Vel, a 30 years old, had apparently not saved Ezhil’s mobile number as any other Fuck-and-Forget-Moron would do. And so, when asked by Ezhil to get tested for Chlamydia, the first thing that Vel asked was for Ezhil’s Pics, so that he’d identify Ezhil. As asked by Vel, Ezhil sent his photo. The next reply from Vel was, “We met in Coimbatore for high fun, right?” Ezhil said, “No. We met in Bangalore, and I don’t have high fun. We went shopping to….(I don’t know that place), and then we went to my home to have sex.”  Vel replied, “Oh! Yeah. I remember. Fuck you. What other STDs do you have?”

I find Vel to be problematic. First of all, Vel should have thanked Ezhil for saving Vel’s mobile number. If Vel had been diagnosed with an STD, would he have been able to inform Ezhil about the same for he did not have Ezhil’s mobile number? Second of all, and most importantly, Vel should have thanked Ezhil for letting him know about his STD status, so that Vel could be safe. Thirdly, I can but appreciate the audacity with which Vel presumed that he might have contracted Chlamydia from Ezhil. There is every possibility for Vel, a guy who sleeps with so many people that he does not even identify a person whom he slept with, to have spread the virus to Ezhil.

What Ezhil said to people like Vel is something that is not so usually done by men in the MSM community as far as I have noticed. The reason being the fear of being scolded by people like Vel as one of my friends, Arasu, pointed out to me. 40-years old Arasu was infected with Hepatitis B a few years back. He did not tell anybody, whom he hooked up with, about his infection as he thought that he might be abused by those men if he told them, and he also thought that the words would spread to many other MSM men and no one would eventually want to sleep with him.   

The military celebrates military pride as it serves the state selflessly. The MSM community prides itself on its Free STD providing services. If homophobia is merely about homoerotophobia, I do not think there is much to worry about for the MSM community. As even when there is enormous homoerotophobia amongst many people, there is no less homosexual sex. It seems that homoerotophobia is not a concern for most, if not all, gay men. The most worrisome concomitant that homophobia entails is Femmephobia, and especially femmephobia among children.

Boys can be the most dangerous of human beings. In particular, when they see 'a boy who behaves like a girl', needless to say, they can be more crueler (emphasis added) than the cruelest. They will keep torturing that 'girlish boy' until they make him weep or the worst - make him commit suicide. This did not happen with me, but with another 'girlish guy' like me in my school - Arul was going to the restroom, and was followed by two of his classmates. These classmates were catcalling Arul throughout his way to the restroom, and by the time Arul reached the restroom, he broke into tears that he’d been controlling all his way to the restroom. But, those classmates couldn’t care less. In fact, Arul’s crying was like adding fuel to the fire as those classmates believed that it was for girls to cry, and so Arul is a girl. They continued harassing Arul verbally. Till date, I don’t understand what those people were in need of. They clearly weren’t satisfied with making Arul cry. Then what else would have satisfied them?

As opposed to popular belief, according to which girls are gay boys’ best friends, girls can be as femmephobic as, if not more than, boys. This happened a lot of times with me - many girls that I have come across when I was in school spoke nicely to me on my face, but at my back, they were just another lot of femmephobic pieces of shit. What can be worse for a school kid than teachers being ruthless to him for being feminine? This is especially true of those macho-male teachers. A sports teacher in my school named Basha had allegedly told a few of my friends I was not a ‘man’. But, there can be people worse than ruthless teachers - sissyphobic parents and relatives. Personally, these people were, and still are, the worst tormentors of mine. The problem is, I cannot do away with these morons until I am dependent on them. “You walk like a girl.” “You talk like a girl.” “You behave like a girl.” “You gesture like a girl.” “Your likes are like a girl’s.” They literally said that whatever I did was like a girl. And so, I stopped talking to any of them only to hear them say, “Why do you remain silent like a girl?” - they went on to say that whatever I did not do was also like a girl. 

I have always seen people speaking about their yearning to go back to their childhood where there was no responsibility, but for me I do not want to go back to those dark days of my life. If any, I want to delete those memories of my childhood, but unfortunately I am left with no other option than to cry at nights, thinking about how I was ridiculed by probably everyone I knew - schoolmates, teachers, relatives, and parents. Gay rights, to me, is not only about a non-homoerotophobic society for the Lusty Me to exist, but more importantly, a non-sissyphobic children community for the Innocent ‘Girlish’ Me to live.

 

-Richard Shane Hammish