Janine recently posted an entry about how the Munt and Anas are still pissed off about the column I wrote using them as an illustrative example. Here's the piece.



In which we discover that not all gay clichés are off the mark, that gay men can be homophobic too and why husband-wife stereotypes have absolutely nothing to do with gay relationships.

For six months, I shared a flat in London with a gay couple. For six months, I tried to figure out which one was the husband and which one was the wife. Hans, who was Danish, was obsessive about keeping the flat clean. He had a thing for chic cutlery, was obsessively neat in everything he did and never said a word if something was bugging him. On the other hand, Rocky, who was Indian, was a slob who pretended he was a neat freak, sat around at home smoking pot and watching television all day while Hans ironed his shirts in the kitchen. So Rocky, I figured was the husband and Hans the wife. Except Hans was the one working two jobs to support demanding Rocky and would do anything to make him happy. Rocky meanwhile, went partying with his friends and was always spiffily dressed and took great pains over his appearance. So was Rocky the wife and Hans the husband?

It took me six long months to figure out that my own stereotypes of a ‘couple’, the stereotypes I had grown up with, thanks largely to the conditioning drilled into our heads from the day we’re born, could not possibly apply to two gay men. Ours is not the most liberal of societies at the best of times and most of the couples I knew, whether straight or gay, generally had their specific roles and they adhered to them, by and large.

My great epiphany came in an alcohol and tobacco fueled haze in my final week there. ‘They’re both men, you idiot!’ a voice whispered in my ear. It was then that I realized I had finally (and entirely) overcome my homophobia.

The first time Rocky and Hans kissed in front of me, I couldn’t help but smile, no matter how hard I tried. It was one of those slightly embarrassed, slightly voyeuristic smiles, one of those ‘I sort of wish I wasn’t here, but I’m sort of glad I am’ smiles.

Pretty soon, I was completely comfortable with the gayness, or gaygiri as Rocky put it, that surrounded me. They walked around the house in tight t-shirts, black and pink striped boxer-briefs and shared all their clothes. Including their underwear. I hung around on the couch, quite blasé about the making out, semi-naked men. There were nights I heard thudding sounds coming from their room and mornings when I saw condoms in the trash and didn’t even flinch. My homophobia was cured.

But homophobia is a loaded word, a multifaceted emotion. I met the most interesting homosexual in a suburb of London. I forget his name, but I do remember him proclaiming himself a homophobic homosexual. ‘I can’t stand these gay cliques,’ he said to me. ‘I don’t understand gay men. All they want to do is hang around gay bars and gay clubs. They never go to regular clubs and they don’t want to have anything to with straight people. I just don’t get it.’ This is a man who had run away from home to join the circus, had swallowed swords and flown the trapeze until, at one point, he abandoned the carnie life to set up telephone chatlines (both gay and straight), made potloads of money, bought a villa in Portugal and, at some point, bonked his hairdresser. This man certainly had a point.

Rocky, for example, refused to go to a straight bar. The furthest he was willing to go was what he called a polysexual bar. A bar that, according to him, was frequented by both gay and straight folk. In reality, it was just a euphemism for a gay bar that wasn’t in-your-face gay (unlike, say, the G-A-Y bar on Old Compton Street; the gayest street in London)

The G-A-Y bar is another story altogether. Rocky and I went there once and the bouncer stopped me at the door. He looked me up and down and gave me the third degree. ‘You know this is a gay bar, right?’ I nodded. ‘Have you been here before?’ he asked. I told him I had. He didn’t seem to buy it. ‘Have you been to any other gay bars?’ I rattled off a list of names. He looked over at Rocky, who was waiting impatiently, dying to get into the bar, and in his element. ‘Is he with you?’ he asked Rocky. It was only when Rocky confirmed that I was in the company of a legitimate, card-carrying homosexual that the bouncer finally let me in. I still don’t get it. Either the homosexual community is militantly gay or they’re wary about outsiders. One way or the other, straight people aren’t the only ones who’re intolerant.

Rocky himself was quite militant about his sexual identity. Everything in the world revolved around it. When the tube bombings happened in London and brown people were being given ‘the look’ by fellow commuters, Rocky was sure no one would ever suspect him of being a suicide bomber. ‘I’m too clearly gay for anyone to think of me as a terrorist,’ was his theory. When he was mugged by seven kids at Charing Cross, he was dead certain it was because he was gay. The fact that he dressed well, flashed his fancy cell phone and was rather drunk had nothing to do with it, of course.

But while being gay means having a completely different outlook on life altogether, hanging out in the company of gay men and women is a bit like falling through the looking glass. My first night in London was spent at a lesbian joint called The Candy Bar. Unlike most men, I’d never been particularly enamoured of gay women. I figured they reduced the available female population for people like me. That first night though, was a revelation. Stepping into a bar loaded up on estrogen, full of women making out with each other without a care in the world and discovering a lesbian stripper in the basement led me to change my mind. This was only my first night and I hadn’t even begun to overcome my homophobia, but I’m pretty sure that the sight of a hundred women hooting and cheering on a female stripper had a lot to do with setting me on the path to sexual tolerance.

Illustration: Scritch