Being Gay in India
Posted by Ergo on August 31, 2007
Having lived in India now as an openly gay man for more than a year, I have some interesting observations to report:
Most gay men I meet like to say that they are–”not gay. I’m bi.”
[uh-huh, sure honey.] “Have you ever had sex with a girl?”
“No”
“With a guy?”
“Yes.”
Hmm…..
There is a fairly dominant belief among Indian gay men that one is not born gay but is initiated into “gayhood.” I am amazed by how often my conversations with the gay men I meet in person or online go somewhat along these lines:
“So, how long have you been in this line?”
“What line?”
“This! Gay line!”
“Oh, you mean how long have I been gay?”
“Yea yea.”
“Since I was born.” — This answer noticeably disappoints them. So, I continue:
“Since as far back as I can remember, I remember having an intense attraction to another boy in my second grade class, so much so that I remember writing down in the last page of my notebook “I love you, [name].”
“Oh my, so early! How is that possible? I just become gay [one/two/three] years ago!”
“Maybe you became fully aware that you are gay only just a few years ago. Perhaps, you may have had that implicit attraction for the same sex all your life; you may have always found boys attractive but never thought much of it.”
“No. I was always attracted to girls. I still like girls.”
“Oh, so you’re bi?”
– and then the conversation goes back to how I described it above.
Most of the gay men I meet here are amazingly adept at hiding their gayness (or, most straight Indian men are incredibly androgynous). One would be hard pressed to identify a gay man in a crowd of men; and the fact that Indian men in general are rather fussy about their appearance, visit their salons for facials and manicures regularly, and dress in the most fashionably form-fitting clothes they can afford, makes the task of identifying gay men here that much harder. Therefore, I am often surprised when I meet a gay man here; often, the first thing that strikes me upon seeing one is “You’re gay!? I wouldn’t have guessed!”
Many gay men are married; and I do not ever care to meet them. The ones I do meet are not worth my time. They are psycho-sexually immature and largely non-introspective. Most of them are still in the closet and actively deny their sexuality by having and flaunting girlfriends.
Gay men in India have little to no resource to healthy ideas about gay sexuality, psychological maturity, and shrugging off feelings of guilt or moral depravity. Also, many of them holding strong religious tendencies does not help the matter.
Homosexuality is legally a crime in India, which creates further psychological, social, and existential barriers to coming out of the closet–indeed, it is positively life-threatening to be an openly gay man in India: the only most widely known gay-interest website in India keeps track of attacks and harassment of gay men by the Indian police and gang members who exploit the fear of being “outed” in the Indian society.
In general, gay men in India are often intellectually and emotionally immature, which often reflects in the kinds of relationships they enter into and endure. Relationships here are fickle, impetuous, and short-lived. Since talking about sexuality in general is still taboo, homosexual issues are rarely ever brought up in discussions–either in the privacy and security of one’s own home with one’s family or on the public debate shows on news channels. In other words, gay men in India are left to fend for themselves and have to learn the relevant psycho-sexual and physical issues on their own. Hence, beyond just the misinformation of all sorts that pervades the Indian gay community, few gay men have a healthy assessment of their own psycho-sexual and moral worth, which means their level of self-esteem is usually very harmfully low.
The constant monitoring of their personal behavior and the persistant filtering of their mannerisms until the point where it ceases to be conscious and becomes a habit indicate a distorted self-image; some grow up with an internalized malevolence towards the society that forces them to hide under a facade. This malevolence over time gets rationalized into a sense of justified sacrifice for the sake of sparing themselves, their wives, and their families the shame of coming out as being gay.
What does all this mean for me?
I have yet to encounter a gay man in India who can even mildly captivate my interest. The slightly more interesting and psychologically healthier ones are mostly expats who don’t intend to stay in this country for too long. Further, being that I am an Objectivist–which means that I hold strong, radical, and unyeildingly rational principles with an intense passion–and an atheist, the likelihood of me finding a partner who can be my intellectual companion as well as be worthy of being “my highest value and the object of my passionate worship” is most certainly non-existant.
Addendum
I wanted to add:
Most gays in India adopt either one of the following ways of living–
1) Live in the closet all their lives, marry, have kids, and engage in discreet sexcapades with other men
2) Come out of the closet and caricature themselves along the most extreme of homosexual traits such that they come to be perceived as a social freak, which distracts society from the essence of their sexual identity and focuses attention on their jarring persona and loud behavior.
Both practices are attempts to ensure the safety of one’s life and dignity. Those adopting the second approach hope to create such a barrier of “foreigness” or freakishness about them that society will rather choose to ignore them entirely (through ostracism) than bother to be associated with them at all. The manner of protecting one’s dignity in the second approach is by donning on a whole new persona that is superficial and hence acts as a sheild to the true emotional core of such gay men, where their bruised sense of self-esteem is guardedly nursed.
Finally, the extreme freakishness of those adopting the second approach also affords society with a benign target of jokes and derision, thus allowing society to perceive no sense of threat to their morality or beliefs from the reality of homosexual men in India.
The ones who choose neither of the above paths are relatively very few.
[For a related post, see Dissecting the Gay Indian Male.]
August 31, 2007 at 10:36 pm
It’s interesting to see how that situation is similar to what goes in Iran. well, with the exception that if they openly acknowledge being gay they risk their life here.
But i have known gay friends and i must admit, not only they themselves are a little bit “intellectually and emotionally immature” but the society around them too is not ready to accept them.
i feel like the whole concept of “gayness” has turned into an act of revolution against the society here in Iran… instead of being a natural sexual tendency.
And that’s a real problem, it has turned into a tool, a way to go against the current … here it has turned into all that it is not!
August 31, 2007 at 10:41 pm
i wish Iranians would (and could) discuss it as openly and as frankly as you guys… Bravo!
August 31, 2007 at 10:48 pm
My earliest memory of gays was coutesy Ashok Row Kavi, may be the most well-known of ‘em in India..i remember he was described as a “gay activist” in the papers..there was a huge hue and cry then over his calling Gandhi a “bastard bania.”
And then there was Philadelphia…However, I haven’t interacted with any gays, leave alone having any gay friends..But now i know you
September 1, 2007 at 12:54 am
Antiutopia,
Good points: A big reason why gays in India are psychologically unhealthy is because of the society around them. However, I’m also firmly believe that man is a self-made being, of self-made soul. I do think that once a person gets that initial spark flamed up (by a teacher or a book one has read, for example), or that first hint of light, that first witness of greatness in a role model, then it becomes very possible and incumbent upon the person to climb out of the allegorical cave and get on the path of discovery.
When you say that being gay has turned into a tool, I assume you are referring to the emergence of the political “gay agenda”; and again, I agree with you there. Homosexuality is becoming a reason for demanding a whole asortment of new “rights” and special treatment like the feminist movement did. In the social realm, homosexuality can become a rebellious fashion statement like being a goth or anarchist might be. These are all perversions of individualism and expressions of second-handedness.
Satyajit,
But ya, I love the movie, and when I first watched it, I was so inspired to write a poem on it. It’s titled “nature’s song” and you can find it my poems category.
Ashok Kavi is perhaps the most prominent gay man in India. I commend him for the things he has done, to the extent of what I know about him. Philadelphia was good. Brokeback Mountain is superbly amazing! It’s played on HBO several times here–although highly censored, so much so that if you didn’t already know that the lead characters are gay lovers, you would have no clue what the heck is going on in the movie!
September 1, 2007 at 4:34 pm
The gay LINE!
You CANNOT be serious!!! hahahahahahaha!
September 1, 2007 at 4:38 pm
It’s like “industry”—How long have you been in the fashion line? or “I’d like to enter the publishing line.
I cant believe you’ve been asked that! Ohhh jesus! hahaha! ::wipes tear from eye::
Seriously though, I can totally feel your pain.
September 4, 2007 at 3:40 pm
I wanted to add:
Most gays in India adopt either one of the following ways of living–
1) Live in the closet all their lives, marry, have kids, and engage in discreet sexcapades with other men
2) Come out of the closet and caricature themselves along the most extreme of homosexual traits such that they come to be perceived as a social freak, which distracts society from the essence of their sexual identity and focuses attention on their jarring persona and loud behavior.
Both practices are attempts to ensure the safety of one’s life and dignity. Those adopting the second approach hope to create such a barrier of “foreigness” or freakishness about them that society will rather choose to ignore them entirely (through ostracism) than bother to be associated with them at all. The manner of protecting one’s dignity in the second approach is by donning on a whole new persona that is superficial and hence acts as a sheild to the true emotional core of such gay men, where their bruised sense of self-esteem is guardedly nursed.
Finally, the extreme freakishness of those adopting the second approach also affords society with a benign target of jokes and derision, thus allowing society to perceive no sense of threat to their morality or beliefs from the reality of homosexual men in India.
September 6, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Its very difficult for people to accept that you are gay in India. Its the culture thats the overwhelming factor out here.
September 10, 2007 at 9:19 am
This is my first posting on this blog so let me introduce myself. My name is Rohan, and I came to hear of the blog through Edgar, a friend of Jerry’s. I read some of the postings, and one article in particular that struck me was “Altruism and Homosexuality” that Jerry had written sometime in February. Something about the article bothered me, though I could not put my figure on what exactly did. After many re-reads, I came to the conclusion that Jerry’s prediction of his mother’s reaction and his argument of altruism bothered me the most.
Before I continue and in order to make my argument seem that much more valid, let me expound my situation. I am from Bombay –born and raised. I came to the US to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in 2002, following which I began a PhD in 2006. I came out at the end of 2002, to my sister in 2006, and just recently to my parents when I came back for a visit. I am Catholic. My parents are both religious. My mother is in every form of the word, staunchly Catholic. My dad raised a Hindu, is more of the spiritual kind. I’d talked to each of them on previous occasions about my being gay. My dad’s response was lukewarm. My mother’s response was downright negative: “Gays go to Hell; they spread AIDS”, “I’d be very disappointed” and so on. Needless to say, I was terrified to come out to them-hence the 5 year delay. My initial plan this summer had been to come out to my dad first and then to my mother. It failed brilliantly. I was too scared, or didn’t have time, or didn’t want to hurt them. I rationalized my excuses in my head enough to make me genuinely wonder if I’d return the US closeted. One night at dinner, my mother mentioned a friend, with whom I’d had a phone conversation earlier that day. I’d told her about Parmesh (who also works in Bombay), his job, and his boyfriend. She then at dinner, asked me why I had so many gay friends and if I was gay. After a few non-committal responses, I answered her.
In retrospect, coming out was one of my more fabulous experiences. Yes, my mother said that she thought she was going to die, and that there was distance between us, and that she didn’t think I was her son. But my dad surprisingly enough, took my side. He said that he’d had suspicions regarding my sexuality. He explained a lot of things to my mother: gay = AIDS (not true), gay men are wildly libidinous and promiscuous (not true), bible says gay is wrong (well true, but the bible says a lot of other things -Leviticus also forbids wearing blended fabric, touching the skin of a pig, mold and planting two different crops in the same field). While my dad did a lot of talking for me, I did most of the really important talking, I think. I’ve always known that I was different/gay/liked boys (whichever definition works). Once I came out, I’ve always been completely open about it. I’ve lived my life as my parents raised me to; in a way that they would be proud of -my academic, social and personal achievements, all encompassing. Most importantly, I have become closer to God after I came out. I told them all that. And it touched a chord, especially with my mother. That said though she has not even begun to accept it. She told me that she’d rather I was alone for the rest of my life (like a priest would?) than act on my feelings. Till today, she tells me that she’s praying for a Miracle and that I should be open to the changes that God can affect; that I’m a borderline gay, who can be “changed” and so on. My dad too did say that he’d prefer it if I were not gay, and that he doesn’t think that I should have children. Well let’s be honest, every parent will find it difficult to accept the fact that their child is gay. More importantly however, they were both glad that I had told them. My dad said that he was proud of me for it, and that I was open about it. They both said that I was still their son and that they did and always would love me. Most importantly, they both agreed that I should not have waited so long to tell them. They expected my trust and were hurt that I felt that I had to safeguard my own interests (financial etc) first, before telling them.
I am lucky. I have my parents’ love and their respect. However, the situation goes beyond luck. To say that I had the same fears as Jerry would be an understatement. I don’t know whether my mother would have committed suicide, but I do know that she is emotionally fragile. She had breast cancer 6 year ago and recently two of her closest friends died from it. The specter of that experience has never quite left her. Furthermore she retired this year, which sparked unforeseen insecurities in her. All of this if anything has made her cling to her faith even harder. Given that and her generally histrionic personality, her reaction was largely positive. She didn’t throw fits. She didn’t start to cry. And if anything, her constant prayers are because she loves me. She’s doing what she thinks is best for me. I do not know if my mother will ever come to accept me for who I am, or for that matter, my future husband and my children. And when she consistently tells me that she’s praying for me, praying for a change, it does hurt. But any form of acceptance takes time, and I am willing to give her the time to get used to this.
The reason for why I think my coming out went well, apart from a relatively subdued reaction from my mother, was because I did it on my own terms, and I was completely open. I was not defensive and I didn’t hide or lie to my parents. I bared my soul, expecting to be hurt, only to realize that it doing so, it made me stronger, and made my parents realize that I was being honest and real by telling them. I think by coming out to them, I finally came out to myself, in the process eradicating most of the “internalized malevolence” (that Jerry talked about—posting 31st August 2007) that we as gay Indian men have. This leads me to Jerry’s other argument considering Altruism.
If the argument regarding “internalized malevolence” is true, and I think it is then the problem with coming out and the like, is not from without but from within. As Indian people, we find it difficult to look inside ourselves at our sexualities, and see beauty, or find pride. At best, if we do accept it, we do so because we have to, not because we would not have it any other way. This is also true in a way for a dark person growing up battling Indian prejudices against dark skin, or a black man growing up in the American South battling racial prejudices, or a woman in the work place battling gender prejudices. In short, we are similar to other minorities (quite obviously). The difference with us, especially as a gay Indian people, is a lack of community, of safe place where we can establish self-identity. Since few of us have legitimate, mainstream communities to call our own, we find self-acceptance and love that much more difficult. This in turn, further fuels our own insecurities, for example, making us over-dramatize coming out to our parents. I can’t argue with Jerry’ opinion of his mother’s reaction when he comes out to her; she is his mother and that is his family. He knows them best. However, I do think that some of that fear is his own instead what she would think and feel. It is a function of the “internalized malevolence”.
Lastly, I heartily disagree with the notion that one would be altruistic by “sacrificing their lives for their parents”. I think that that is if anything, selfish. I think the altruistic act would be allowing your parents to share in something beautiful that is such an integral part of you. To get married for one’s parents’ sake, would be to disguise a version of cowardice as “altruism”. Call me an idealist, a romantic and a fool, but if love, as our Bollywood movies proclaim, is such a beautiful thing, then wouldn’t the love that we have for our husbands/boyfriends/significant others be something worth sharing? Many who read this will argue that I can afford to say all this because coming out to my parents went well. I am well aware of that, and I have already said that I am lucky. But all of the self-acceptance and self-pride that I have achieved has been a difficult, uphill struggle for me, most especially since there were so few Indian men I knew who were out. And what I have achieved is my own –something enforced but not wrought by my parents’ acceptance.
I will not encourage other people to come out. I believe that that is a decision each person must make for himself or herself in his or her own way and time. However, hiding behind the veil of altruism if anything, perpetuates homophobia. We need to feel a sense of pride in ourselves, feel love for ourselves, in who we are and who we love. Only then can we truly come out to the world, our families, and ourselves. Only then can be achieve tolerance and acceptance.
September 10, 2007 at 4:35 pm
Rohan,
I’m certain that you are not familiar with my use of the concepts of altruism, morality, and selfishness. That’s okay. But because of this, your critique of my analysis of altruistic behavior in the context of homosexuality in India misses the point.
In any case, I just wanted to highlight one sentence from your comment to illustrate how our familial backgrounds are worlds apart:
“My mother is in every form of the word, staunchly Catholic. My dad raised a Hindu, is more of the spiritual kind.”
Your catholic mother married a hindu man. Our families–and their reactions–cannot be compared equally.
September 25, 2007 at 4:38 pm
Amit,
This is not a dating or personals site. Hence, I am deleting your comment.
September 25, 2007 at 8:58 pm
If India wants to boast it is “the world’s largest democracy,” implying that it is the world’s largest free country, it should legalize homosexuality and join the rest of civilization. Is there a political movement active in India to change this unjust law?
September 26, 2007 at 12:17 am
There were several plaintiffs who moved the courts on the issue of legalizing homosexuality; all of them have been squashed. I blogged about one of the court’s rationale for the decision: “We are not ready yet.” The society is not ready to honor the legitimate rights all of humans equally. This, not surprisingly, is a logical expression of democracy at work.
December 9, 2007 at 12:32 am
I found the piece extremely accurate and relatable. I’ve been out to my closest friends for about 6 months now and it’s almost as though someone has peeped into my mind and put my thoughts in words.
December 26, 2007 at 12:50 am
Accepting homosexuality in various countries can definitely be a difficult and long road, as in any country. It takes time, and each “society” has it’s own pace and sequence of events and people that influence the big picture and acceptance of homosexuality.
February 9, 2008 at 11:30 pm
This is a good piece of writing. Though I do think differently on some of the last comments you make. Yes, Gay people are divided into the two broad patterns that you have mentioned - but the others who fit into neither of the two are not ‘relatively few’ - there are quite a few people out there who are absolutely comfortable with who and what they are…though they are ‘not’ the norm, they are not in a slight minority.
Besides, I have never thought of the attitude of the second as ‘freakish’, but it is just another gamut of the whole spectrum of what being gay is all about. We all have our mindsets when it comes to human behaviour, and being gay, I feel, we should respect whatever that is different, if not go ahead and try and understand it, if not within the entire gamut of sexuality then certainly within our own.
February 10, 2008 at 9:00 am
I have a question, how do gay Indian men meet for social functions or just to talk? Are there websites or social networks available for young gay Indian men? I imagine, people that have access to the internet? Are there websites in Hindi for gay Indian men that want to make friends?
February 10, 2008 at 9:06 am
I think some gay Indian men are in the closet because of social pressure from the public sphere. I am guessing, it would be difficult for these men to negotiate being gay with their culture. Also, remember homosexuality is still a controversial issue in many cultures across the globe. I personally don’t agree with men that live on the down low and marry women or have girlfriends on the side. I do understand, the intense social pressure these men must be under from their families, from friends, and even themselves.
February 11, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Rish,
Good to see you here. The “freakish” label for the second type of gay men was from the perspective of heterosexual (or closet-homosexual) Indian society. It is to *them* that the second type of men are so freakish that they become harmless and benign targets of derision.
The way I analyze this is as such: the more “normal” (in heterosexual terms) a homosexual man appears to be, the more of a challenge this poses to the Indian society to deal with: it is much easier to look at something different *as* something different; it is much more difficult to be faced with something different that is not perceptibly or obviously different but appears normal: it challenges one’s own notions of normality, and therefore, is rather disorienting. This is because it does not permit the person to make easy in-group/out-group categories of “he’s one of us” or “he’s a wierdo and different.”
Orville,
Since homosexual activity is illegal in India, there are no explicitly gay social establishments like clubs, pubs, or bars. However, there are a few online resources of/for gay Indian men, which provide the desired opportunities for meeting, socializing, partying, and/or networking. A simple Internet search will reveal the sites to you. Most of the off-line establishments in India operate under various guises of social services and are not explicitly gay-oriented, although their “clientele” is predominantly homosexual–such as organizations providing counseling and support for sex workers, safer-sex advocates, and STD clinics.
February 26, 2008 at 3:52 pm
by “freakish” do you men drag queens and transvestites?i happen to be a transvestite and yes i admit i DO enjoy the attention i get-specially from straight men.however i strongly believe that homosexuals vary in their degree of femininity.homosexuals can be broadly classified into the “butch” and the “femmes” depending on their level of masculinity or femininity, as u wish.obviously the feminine variety stick out more as in a typically male dominated gender orientated society like ours they transgress accepted codes of gender behaviour, specially conventional male behaviour patterns.i dont think the ulterior motive is to purposely stereotype homosexuals or make a mockery of our subculture-it just so happens that people in our society arent conscious and intelligent enough to understand the complicated and diverse nature of human sexuality, specially homosexuality.if you must blame someone blame the ignorant heterosexuals that laugh at us and endorse the “cliche” surrounding homosexuals.
March 29, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Interesting discussion. Things are quite different today from how they were in the past, thanks to the Internet. Any self-aware gay or bi person in the past who was afraid to come out, had to suffer in solitude and often faced moments of intense desperation. Now anyone is able to “connect” with others online thus no longer having to experience those most difficult moments of isolation and abandonment. Whether to come-out or not has become a less important question, as the most important benefit of coming out in the past was to escape the trap of desperate isolation. Online buddies, as transient as they may be, still provide a meaningful outlet to the individual to know that he is not alone.
There are more options now than the two presented by Ergo as to how the gay or bi man can comfortably manage his sexual identity. The only reason now why a man in India might still need to come out in the traditional sense is to stave off the efforts of relatives to secure a marriage partner. While this is still a critical issue, it is at least decoupled from the sense of absolute loneliness that such men had to suffer in the past. In dealing with the pressures to marry, one might again find some measure of solace and advice from the connections one makes online; and there is always the solace in knowing that one is not alone in facing these pressures.
Now the level of desperation for the gay man being forced into marriage by his parents will not be that much greater than the angst experienced by the heterosexual man likewise being pushed to take a mate not of his choosing.
I’d like to go off on a bit of a tangent and share an interesting anecdote that leaves me somewhat baffled. It is from the life of my own partner who is an Indian man (I am American). I will relate this tale as briefly as I can. My partner’s father is gay (or bi) and it is very much a case of like father, like son. Father–a migrant worker out of the village and into Mumbai. There he falls into a long-lasting relationship with a man of higher stature. Son–a migrant worker out of the village and into Dubai. There he falls into a long-lasting relationship with a man of higher stature (me). The parallels are uncanny. The father, of course, is married and lives apart from his family. This, it would seem, is key to allowing the homosexual relationship to prosper. But in time the family finds out. The sons who have later joined the father in Mumbai are the first to find out, and so too eventually do the wife, family and neighbors in the village. Yet somehow–and this is the most baffling part–everyone goes on as normal. Although what has happened is known by all and even continues–the father’s partner sometimes visits from Mumbai–it is as though it exists not in reality but in a twilight zone.
The son, following in his father’s footsteps, seems to be having an easier time of it as, I suppose, the precedent has already been set. His wife and others in the village may not yet know (but then again they may). His brother, who is a friend to me and here in the UAE as well, clearly knows although no words have ever been spoken about it. It seems almost as inevitable as fate that not only will the story of the son continue to unfold as that of the father, but I would predict that it will continue to play out in a third generation, as my partner’s own sons seem likely to in time become migrant workers themselves. One of them, I imagine, will be sure to find a man who loves him and likewise makes him a life-long companion.