Freakshow

So here we are, the world poised at dawn of a new era, with homophobia vanishing like wisps of incense at an open temple.

But not for us. We're caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. Our choices are to be unhappy and live in hiding, or slave away in some hideously demeaning job abroad, and be unhappy for an altogether different reason.

Being a hairdresser and strutting around Colombo like a parakeet in heat has crossed my mind. But that will make me more outcast than I already am. My parents will have a fit, and probably throw in a heart attack for good measure.

A friend of mine wants to take up law just for the heck of it, thinking he could battle ignorance with the righteous hand of legislation. What righteous hand of legislation he's got in his mind I've yet to discover. Battling for rights in this country is like asking a killer whale if you could have your fish back.

There's the other way of course. Hope on the next plane to Canada and refuse to leave when I get there. I get it, that sounds sane. But what happens if they don't buy my story and decide to deport me instead? Chances of happiness will vanish like ink in a river.

So here we must remain and eat our meager dish of porridge, and dare not ask for more. What s freakshow we make.

Stop being so anal about it

So since of late, I’ve noticed that most of my sapien* acquaintances have taken it upon themselves to research about the physics of homo bed time.

‘We sleep, just like everyone else’ proved to be an inadequate answer.

After ignoring most of the licentious questions about the schematics of using the ‘backdoor to heaven’, I started wondering what all the inquisitiveness is about. Maybe it’s that their ultra-conservative girlfriends give them the finger every time they approach the subject. Anyways, without a prostrate gland I really don’t see what women get out of it, so stop trying.

So here are answers to the most frequent lewd inquiries thrown my way about the forbidden path:

Does it hurt?
I cry when someone pinches me. Do you really think I’ll be pointing my heels to the big blue sky if it did?

What does it feel like?
It feels like an half-hour orgasm without even touching your willy. The actual orgasm that follows is more akin to a stroke.

But does it hurt, though?
I thought we covered this.

But aren’t there ‘cleanliness’ problems down there?
No. unless you’re really stupid, you’d use the loo before letting someone go up electric avenue.

Really, no ‘residual‘ problems?
If you had any education, you’d know that your body took like 2.5 million years to evolve. Since then, it has become surprisingly good at keeping itself clean. Even uphill.


(*Sapien as in, not homo, i.e. straight)

Dog Days Are Over

Love the words here although the video is confusing.

Cricket and Doll Houses

When Christmas came around every year, father would ask us what we wanted from Santa. He wanted to ‘deliver the message’ apparently. Brother dearest, obviously privy to who really bought the presents, played along anyway. I would always ask father for a house. A small house, with small people and small furniture, small windows and small doors.

I was asking for a doll house but didn’t know the term back then.

Father would look at me with a quizzical expression, and come Christmas, I would find myself receiving Cricket Bats. Cricket Balls. Cricket Wickets and Cricket Bails.

Disappointment in the Christmas pillow-case. Every Christmas. Until one.

That year, though there was obviously no house, there were in fact, little bear-people, with little bear-people beds and colourful mini-furniture. I was thrilled. An old shoe box, a roll of celo tape, 6 platignum sticks and three hours later, my father regretted having got me the little bear people in the first place, as I proudly went about displaying, first to him, and then to whoever walked into our home, my very own doll house.

The day the doll house won over the cricket bat. That was a good Christmas.

The Book of Self Righteous Condemnation

The Bible – the big book of moral benchmarks that we are all judged by. And recently, the gay community more so.

Which is quite ironic. For a book that preaches love, it seems to inspire a whole truckload of hate. Maybe the Vatican was right in not letting lay people read it for centuries.

Misunderstanding under the guise of heavenly interpretation has lead a lot of people to believe that there can’t be any other interpretation of it other than their own. So they cite Leviticus and say that homos are going to hell.

But if the Bible really preached that being gay is a sin, that’s a big flaw that should have never made it past the editors. Sin assumes choice. Choice assumes absence of inherent behaviour. So the sin here is actually a completely lopsided argument. Because most gay people know they are different at a very early age, and grow to identify the difference with age, maturity and a fair mix of hormones.

So how is it a sin, if it isn’t a choice?

Making an Issue

Honestly, sometimes I really don’t get it. I mean, what the hell is all the fuss about? If you want to show people you consider yourself the furthest from ’an abnormal abomination’, why not stop acting like one?

I’m talking about those people who have made their sexuality such a focus point that if you subtracted their sexuality form their personality, you’d end up with just about nothing.

Why do most of us spend most of our lives trying to convince everyone around us that we’re normal by yelling at them, getting into pointless arguments about a misplaces word or two, getting into moods and then calling them homophobic pricks? Why do we want others to accept us so bad? Is it because we can’t accept ourselves? Is it because we think the world has been exceptionally harsh on us by making us gay and feel the need to dish out some suffering on that note?

Why can’t we stop flaunting our gayness all the time? People don’t flaunt their straightness (usually). Why do we make ourselves the exception?

Walk this way, talk this way

“Why are you walking like that? Walk like a normal boy willu!”

Later onwards in life, I would realize that ‘normal’ is a covert reference to hetero. But at that point, I was none the wiser.

From an early point in life, I remember that my father would instruct me, with a sort of severe look on his face, on how to conduct myself. Brother dearest, however, received no such lessons. But I was always coaxed. Coaxed to walk properly, to talk more boyishly, to watch the right tv, to play the right games. To do what ‘normal’ boys do.

Luckily, I didn’t seem to care two hoots about my father’s lofty goals. So I talked the way I wanted, and walked the way I wanted.

But there must be so many people out there who didn’t do that. They must be the ones who got married I guess.

Hide and Seek

I can’t recall much of my childhood. But the little I do recall almost seems to make sense now. I was child who seemed to enjoy everything a typical boy wouldn’t. But being in the company of several such typical boys, I remember always feeling nervous and ill at ease while playing and hanging out. I soon noticed how everyone else’s preferences, likes and dislikes fitted in like clockwork, except for mine. They didn’t make an effort to fit it in – but I had to try so hard.

I remember envying them for not trying. They were so flawless, so effortless. They liked these things naturally – playing catch, playing cricket, watching wrestling and Rambo.

Talk about conflicts of interest. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why the hell no one wanted to play hopscotch.

Was I the only one that felt that way? Or were there more of us pretending?

I suppose those are the earliest signs. But I was too young to recognise how these small differences in my innate preferences and my suppression of them would leave me doubting myself for the rest of my life.

Maybe we’re all just a victim of circumstance.