A Not-So-Straight Tinkering

Out with the old; in with the new – this blog has decided to jettison homophobic entries of its sordid past and swear by the new eco-friendly colours of GLBT. It is time we came out of our shells to share with you issues, stories etc. affecting the other half. In the first of our monthly columns titled “ Dear Horny”, we carry excerpts of mails that we’ve received over the years from gays & lesbos in our midst.

Dear Horny:
Me and my partner live in a gated homosexual community of around 50,000 not far from here.We have raised 5 young men as our sons who continue to do us proud in all that they do. We have watched them grow from the tiny tots they once were into the irrepressibly handsome men they now are. Because we have reared them the gay way it is but natural they have grown up feeling & thinking gay. Imagine our shock therefore, when we started to get an inkling of our youngest son’s latent heterosexual tendencies. My partner would recoil in horror each time someone in our compound would mention to him our youngest Sami was showing signs of deviant behaviour . To many, in our neck of the woods, being even remotely heterosexual is a sure-as hell sign of weakness and / or emotional fraility.
The literalists among us would fall over each other trying to convince us Straightness is solely the Satan’s doing . Although I know much of this is literally going quite close to the bone, the ground zero of reality in today’s Gay Man’s World is such that there is standing room only for straights . The reaction of our other kids is well, one of intrigue and scorn : our eldest Ari’s initial bemusement at Sami’s queer behaviour is now superseded by anger and disgust. As you can make out I am deeply troubled by the angst my husband and kids suffer over this disillusionment crisis gripping my youngest . Whom do we look to to offer them counsel ? The local gay match makers are hopeless; they are vain beyond belief and imagine heterosexuality to be an illness that needs curing. Thousands of years of gay oppression has meant that you won’t find too many willing takers who are prepared to accept Sami’s sexual orientation : I should think it an unfortunate case of inverse discrimination at work. Could this only be a transitory phase in Sami’s life so like a dark summer - cloud and what can possibly be done to wean him off girls ? Partly, the media is to blame also with its highly heterosexualized content hitting the airwaves 24/7 which puts many of us in alternative lifestyles in bit of a spot cue Al Jazeera English.
Although my partner is new school I remain very much the old school with my firm belief in balance, a sense of proportion and above all, empathy towards others and yet somehow in this instance, I seem to be losing the boat. As an aside, do you find it inappropriate that some of our young gay men should only ever be attracted to straight men, and not to other gay men like themselves? Personally, my partner has no qualms over this issue but I find myself unable to stomach this factoid of gay life.

To most of our gay peers, it is simply a case of if you are born into a gay family , you stay gay. This isn’t about teaching grandma to suck eggs but at the same time it’s high time our gay nitpicks stopped mucking about with people’s private affairs and learned to embrace diversity.
How can we rise to the occasion and stay afloat?
Help!!!SOS