I have been asked, more than once & by more than one person, about why the hell would I want to tell my parents about me and The Girl. Some of my cousins feel that I should hide the fact that I’m gay, from my parents, for the rest of my life. A few people have commented on this blog asking about this crazy need to out myself.
I know that they mean no malice & that they feel that they’re perhaps ‘protecting’ my parents. But let me reverse the situation.
There is an allure to a same-sex relationship. So many of opposite gender fights are over not understanding the importance of little things.[...]
Sharing a life with a person of your own sex seems to iron out so many of the differences that come from coming from very different genders. The things you feel a little silly explaining. The need for appreciation, validation of appearance or abilities. [Link]
Beautiful. Bloody hell so romantic that it makes me want to jump into a same-sex relationship like now now. But wait minute, I have been in one. Sorry correction here, been in several. Then how did I miss this unconditional romance? This telepathic relationship? Why no happily ever after for moi?
Now at the expense of sounding like the devil – let me decode the myth – burst the happy bubble as fantasized by many on the other side.
[Guest post by: The Bride]
I fantasize about men and women. But I’ve become wobbly about using the word bisexual.
It all goes back to my university days in Hyderabad again. Here, I met a significant number of openly gay people. It was rather fashionable to declare one’s alternate sexuality. So then a number of women started professing to being bisexual and wearing their girl-crushes on their sleeves.
However, this was greeted with scorn by the lesbian community in the university. They said that claiming to be bisexual was a convenient choice because as long as men were in the picture, you weren’t really taking on the special (unpleasant) reactions that society in general reserves for women that choose to not make men the centres of their existence. In fact, being bisexual sort of exoticised one, a matter of broader sexual horizons rather than deviance.
I like to think of myself as extremely broad-minded. Sometimes I wonder what my kids (the ones I will eventually have with The Girl) could do that would make them afraid of coming to me for acceptance.
Intercaste marriage? No big deal.
Interracial marriage? No big deal.
Same sex marriage? No big deal.
Wanting a sex change? Hmmm….
XXWhy is a documentary film on Sree Nandu, a Female to Male (F2M) transgender. The film is produced by Centre for Media & Cultural Studies (CMCS), Tata Institute of Social Sciences.
“Like a typical man, like a typical woman, I am a typical transgender”, declares Sree Nandu, a 25 year old transgender from Kerala. XXWhy directed by B. Manjula (Chair, CMCS) scans the translucent layers of Sree Nandu’s opaque personality through the virtual space Sree Nandu has painstakingly carved out to reach out the social space, hoping for a niche in the eluding comfort zone.
Suffering and redemption, destruction and self destruction, love and hatred, pain and joy all go entwined and entangled in Sree Nandu, while the under current is accumulating trauma and the determination to survive.
I was at a seminar with a group of people recently when one of them declared that he was gay. In the lunch break, one of my friends slipped over to me and whispered,
Of all the people, I never would have guessed that this guy was gay.
I didn’t follow my friend’s surprise. I hadn’t really had the chance to think about the guy too much since his declaration came pretty early in the day. But if I had had a chance to spend a little more time and if I’d been asked to hazard a guess, I’d have guessed him to be gay.
Why? According to my friend, he didn’t display any of the ‘classic gay mannerisms’ by which I take he meant the whole effeminate-loose-limbed thing that Bollywood portrays as ‘a mature view of homosexuality’. Obviously. This person was very ‘normal’ in his body language and expression and there was nothing effete about him.
And still I’m quite certain I’d have caught him on my gaydar. There was something, a little difficult to describe that set him apart from the straight men. A softness, a gentleness, a certain something that showed him to be very close to and cognizant of his own emotions.
Welcome to Gaysi. A space where the Desi-Gay community comes together and shares personal stories, their triumphs and failures, their struggles and their dreams, their hopes and despair. And in doing so, gives other gaysis a sliver of hope too.
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