The recent video clips on gay men rekindled the interview I had with some gay men from Pink Triangle Foundation two years ago.
For Aswan Ismail, Pang Khee Teik and Peter Ong, they took courage to disclose their sexuality in a positive way. Any gay or lesbian will experience critical time having to decide the disclosure because they are often fearful of negative reactions to the person they are telling to.
The gay men census is difficult to conduct because of too many different sub-groups. They too, are from the marginalised community and in the dire need to be accepted in our judgmental society.
When I was a young boy in the fifties, I heard about man-with-man sexual relations. Boys of our age were easily frightened by our mothers and grandmothers by the threat that we would be the “gone case” boys if we were caught by the man-with-man sexual relation’s man. We came home early promptly every day ever since. That was the way how we were disciplined with fear instead of the truth.
When I was in my teen, I realised that a distant relative was a man-with-man sexual relation’s man (I have not heard about gay man then). He had a family but was always in the company of the same man friend. In my later years, I came to realise that he was a bisexual. He had died since and no one knew if it was from HIV.
You see, in those days we were made to believe in superstitions, myths, folklores and anything “they” could cook up just to put fear for discipline. If there is no line drawn to all these mumbo-jumbo, the present generation has to take years to find out the truth. Anything that should be deemed truthful has to be substantiated with facts or the closest we can get is that what is said should make sense through sincerity.
The fallacy about gay men are highly sexed has to be further clarified. Gay men are normal physically but differ in sexual partner because they choose their own gender. Some prefer cross-dressing but most of them will dress like any male would. Many keep their sexuality a secret, while others may decide to “come out”.
Anyone who proudly identifies himself or herself as gay or lesbian by disclosing such identity is referred to as “coming out”. Such honest gay men and lesbians deserve the respect because they should not be bothered about what people think of them as long as their families knew and accepted them as who they are.
In the Chinese community, having sons are a blessing because they will generate their clan’s expansion with their surnames. Just imagine the bitter resentment when the son’s sexuality is known to be a homosexual. The “losing face” syndrome prevails because the fear that the homosexual son will not have a family of his own; will he be ostracised by the society; will he have trouble finding and keeping a job and the dreaded of all, will he be physically attacked?
Parents of homosexual children be it gay or lesbian, they are struggling with their own acceptance of the fact. This is a real concern especially in a small community where the understanding of sexuality is still paucity. The homosexuals have no choice over their sexual orientation because homosexuality is the true nature that they are born with.
My perception about the attitude the gay men have for themselves is basically their positive way they look at reality. They do not have to mince their words and be pretentious about who they are, but proud to announce that they are the gay men. My vaulting curiosity emerged to the point that I wanted to know how their faculty of thoughts work and how they perceived the heterosexuals.
The ingrained prejudices from the society have to change. There is nothing sinister about gay men because they have done no harm to anyone and their civil rights must be duly respected. The wrong perception of licentiousness about them has to be corrected through education to alleviate the parochial way of thinking about them.
The difference between a gay and a heterosexual lies in the erotic attraction and sexual pleasure between males (unlike heterosexual) which should be accepted as part of the cultural norm.
I feel it is against our conscience if we heterosexuals do not stand by them. We should be supportive by giving them the latitude to live their lives as it should without even raising an eyebrow.
