HomoParents

All over the world, same-sex couples are feeling the crunch because they are restricted from having children of their own. Whether its religious groups or a political candidate trying to garner support, there is always a shit load of people out there that love spending their free time denying same-sex couples the rights to parenthood. Some even claim that gays and lesbians can’t be good parents.



Well good parenting doesn’t remotely depend on the sexual orientation of the parents, but rather depends on how they are as a person. Same-sex parents can be as good or as bad as any hetero parents, and that is a fact…


When I was back in Malaysia, I was having dinner in one of the ice-cream parlours, and to my disgust I saw a young family with a boy no older than four summers old dining as well. I wasn’t disgusted because they were breeders with a child while homos are denied that basic right… rather the fact that the child had a hand-held console all throughout the dining process irked me.


These parents were obviously not at all fit, because they clearly gave the little kid a Nintendo to play so that they can have a peaceful quiet meal. This is BAD PARENTING 101, exposing a child that young to video games is only paving the way for lifelong social ineptness and bad eyesight.


Another thing I personally saw that took my breath away for all the wrong reasons was this:



Can you believe the nerve of that parent, pushing the toddler around in a stroller with a DVD player? Seriously even if the kid doesn’t grow up with a television addiction, he is bound to be at the very least harmed by the radiation of that mobile player.


The bottom line is that parents are good or bad for a variety of reasons, their own upbringing, stress level at work or for the simple reason of being plain ignorant. The once reason I’m sure cannot be directly linked to bad parenting is being gay.


Signing out.

ALSO Directory

I've been cleaning up my room lately, mostly because I'm procrastinating studies for my final exam next week. But I'm also cleaning due to the fact that my parents will be staying with me when visiting next month, and I don't want them to find any gay related reading materials or pictures lying around the house. They'll be visiting because if all goes well with this semester's exams, I'll be graduating next month, so they're here to attend my graduation ceremony :)

While cleaning through the rubbish, I came across this book called the 'Also Directory', it was a directory I obtained from the Uni's Queer Department.



This book is basically a directory of all the gay and gay-friendly business establishments. It has everything from doctors, to dentists, to veterinaries and also from legal advisers, to counselling, to event organisers. So instead of a yellow pages, its like a mini pink pages.

I thought to myself, this is actually pretty cool. Its sort of a way for us gays and lesbians to stick together, for us to help out our own gay business owners. And then I thought wouldn't it be great if Malaysia had something like that as well, as I'm pretty sure there isn't such a thing back home. That way we can support our local gay business owners, ensure that our 'pink' dollars are spent at the right places to help out our own community.

But then just as this 'brilliant' idea manifested itself, reality dawned upon me that Malaysia just isn't ready for this yet. If such a directory was made back home, what it'll probably end up becoming is a hit-list for homophobic bigots. And the business owners will probably be targeted.

Its sad really, coz there are a lot of gay business owners in Malaysia, and if there really was such a directory, I'm sure it'll benefit a lot of parties, both the business owners and customers. Unfortunately, with homophobia so evidently present, it'll be hard to ensure the safety and well being of these businesses once such a list is compiled and made public. In fact I'm sure at this point in time, most owners wouldn't even want to be placed on such a 'hit-list' for fear of any homophobic reactions...

Would straight people stop shopping there? Would homophobic people vandalise the business premise? Who knows, but personally I hope all these bigotry back home will end... at least in my life time... Then maybe we can have a 'Juga' Directory, which is also translated to malay :)

Signing out.

Posters For Anti-Homophobes

Today is anti-homophobia day… so in spirit of this day, there are all kinds of anti-homophobia posters plastered all over Melby, and last Saturday there was even a march for anti-homophobia, in which I can shamefully admit that I didn’t dare attend for fear of being spotted by friends. Well the march was down the main street of Melby, so the chances of me bumping into someone from uni or friends were pretty high… so I guess that’s my defence on why I didn’t go, after all… I’m not really that out yet.




Here are two posters that I particularly liked, because they portrayed to straight people how much less complicated their lives can be… Haha check out the second poster… funny eh? And honestly if the kid I adopt in the future doesn’t turn out to be gay or lesbian, then I guess in some sense I’m relieved for my child, because he or she doesn’t have to go through what I’m going through now… although the difference of course is that I’ll always give my children all the support and love that I can, even if they turn out straight.


I later googled the posters and found out that they were created by a youth group called Minus18 and they even won the Premier’s Young People’s Community Participation Award, the Premier of Victoria would be something like the menteri besar of a state. How nice if there was a ‘Tolak-Lapanbelas’ in Malaysia too eh?

Signing out.

Bending A Straight Twink

So last weekend I went out clubbing with my friends... I was firstly at Zouk, but then ended up at MarketPlace, lol. Mind you it was with two different groups of friends... The straight ones at zouk and obviously the gay ones at MP. Luckily I didn't have to pay to go into Zouk, because MP had a hefty charge of forty ringgit that night... I could really feel the pain when handing over the cash to the bouncer...

Usually mp members are allowed to bring one guest in for free, so I usually don't pay to go in. Anyway, that night mp had some guest dj from Sydney... So members weren't allowed to bring guests in, and I had to pay for my own entrance... :( the guest dj was very normal, he or she, played mostly latest hit songs as well as RnB hits. I generally think Malaysians (both gay and straight) are very easy to please. You just have to play us a lot of latest songs and RnB, and we will be very satisfied, and think that you're the best dj ever. Well obviously dj-ing is not just all about latest hits, but most of us are clueless about these things. So anyway, that dj was supposedly great, so that’s why I had to pay the expensive entry fee just to enter.

Not much happened that night, I really don’t know why I paid so much to get in. I like to dance, even though I cant dance for nuts... But that night the dance floor was soo packed, it was like sardines packed in a can trying to dance. If any of you ever take public transport, imagine trying to dance in the tram, train or bus during peak hours when everyone is crammed into one tiny compartment, if you can imagine that, then you are already picturing the mp dance floor that night. Not to mention everyone was sweaty from the heat (temperature) and the dance movements.




One interesting happened that night that really got me thinking... You see a friend's friend actually brought two straight guy friends with him to mp. Why he decided to bring them along - I don't know; but the more confounding question would be why did they agree to come? Even for me I was rather reluctant to pay forty ringgetoos to go in, but these two straight guys paid to come in? Wtf? Okay I really shouldn't complain because one of them was rather cute and I wished he was gay. This brings me to the main issue I want to talk about. The behavior of some of us that night (me included in thoughts), could be the very reason why straight guys dislike us.

You see a number of guys there were like, 'woah your straight friend is hot’ 'you're sure he is not gay?' 'watch me convert him'. The two of them also went to the over-crowded dance floor, and some guys were totally grinding in to them and trying to dirty dance with them... Assuming that they really were just two regular open minded straight guys that followed their gay friend to a gay club, the sort of behavior from many of the guys there that night might have scared them away from gays for good. I feel that we gave them an impression that almost all of us just wanted to get into their pants, and seriously... If I were straight, I would be terrified.

By trying to 'feel up' or attempting to 'convert' every open minded staright guy we meet, we're just painting them the image that we are sex hungry creatures that cant keep it in our pants. And that is the very image we don’t want the general population to have, cause that will only breed misunderstanding and fear of gays into their minds, I recall a wise man once said, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, and hatred only leads to suffering. So these gay fearing straight folks will only turn into homophobic bigots and that leads to our suffering.



So maybe next time we see an open minded straight guy hanging out with a bunch of gay guys, we wouldn't be in such haste to try and convert him, because that might give us a bad image. Of course I am assuming both the straight guys there that night really are straight and just very open minded, some may argue that they could be curious, bi or even closeted, but lets give them the benefit of the doubt. So remember to think twice about trying to seduce or convert a straight guy, because if he really was straight, then these sort of actions would make him scared of us, and he wont be so open minded anymore; but then again if he was really curious, bi or closeted, then it would be a wasted opportunity not to do so, lol!

Signing out.

Bloody Discrimination

Before going back to Malaysia I bought the December issue of DNA :) it was a cool issue because they had many pages of swimwear models to usher in summer in Australia. Anyway, an interesting article appeared in this issue of the magazine… and the debated gay topic is whether or not gay men should be allowed to donate blood.

Apparently in Australia, just before donating blood… you have to answer a series of personal health questions and one of them for men is “Did you have sex with a man in the past 12 months”. Well if you did, then you are not eligible to donate blood in Australia. This has sparked widespread anger within the GLBT community in Australia, particularly Tasmania… where by the GLBT community there has tried to take the case to court under the anti-discrimination law.




I cant say that I’m particularly pleased about this form of discrimination between blood donors, but also I guess I’m not as offended by it as some other gays because I personally hate needles and wont be donating blood anytime soon anyway.

In fact there is another story about me and a blood bank that infuriated me more than reading that article. You see once, sometime last year, when I was walking around campus I was approached by this man asking me to fill out a survey for the Red Cross. As usual I expressed my disinterest in the matter and tried to politely walk away, but he was quite persistent in saying that it would take less than a minute for me to fill out. So I thought to my self, I guess filling in a form wouldn’t take long… and would do much harm anyway… so I filled it in.

Well silly me I filled in some personal details as well such as my hand phone number and e-mail. You know what happened, roughly a week later, a nice lady gave me a call and said that I can just pop in anytime in the next two weeks to donate my blood at the blood bank in my suburb. I was like, ‘WTF!’. I mean I know donating blood is good and all, but I hate needles… and I don’t fancy donating my blood. I was actually quite angry at that phone call because I never agreed to donate any blood in the first place, and I calmly (tried) told her so. She replied saying that I filled in this survey form agreeing to do so. That brought be back to that shifty guy that ask me to fill out the ‘survey’ in uni. So I sort of gave her a piece of my mind saying that they cannot just ask people to fill blood donating forms in disguise of surveys. Well I guess at the same time I knew it wasn’t her fault… and it was probably just that shifty guy profiting from selling information of ‘donors’ to the blood bank. I mean seriously, I’m Malaysian and I don’t even donate blood in my own country, why would I donate blood in a foreign country. I hate needles, period.

Thinking back now, I should have just told her that I was gay and had sex in the last twelve months… hahaha that would probably have deterred her… anyway…I guess in the bigger picture it is unfair that gays cannot donate blood. I mean the reason behind it given by the Red Cross is that gay people are more prone to catching HIV and other sexually transmitted disease. This maybe true with some gays that sleep around, but isn’t this the same with straight man and women that aren’t choosy in their sex partners? Coz I know some of them that sleeps around just as much. Not allowing gay men to donate blood is really just a form of discrimination.

Hmm… the Red Cross’ explanation is that they do not discriminate homosexuals, because apparently lesbos are allowed to donate blood… only gay men aren’t allowed to do so. Erm in some ways I can understand why the GLBT community is offended… its not really the Red Cross discriminating homosexuals and not allowing them to donate blood. But rather it’s the Red Cross stereotyping gay men as sexually charged individuals that sleep around. This is most certainly not the case for most of us (definitely me) so I guess the blood donation ban does infuriate me in that sense.



Oh well, why donate blood… as a friend of mine says, the blood bank is just a sophisticated organisation run by vampires to harvest their food. And if I may say so myself, this fact seems to be strongly backed by quite a few literature, particulary the Twilight series. And I’d just like to add that Jacob is sooo fucking hawt!

Signing out.

Semi-Homophobic

Just yesterday I went out with a group of friends, 2 other guys and 2 chicks. The two other guys were gay as well, and the two chicks were most certainly not F** H**s, we were all just good friends. Anyway, over dinner we were having a discussion about homophobia. And the girls were saying how they don’t understand why some of their straight guy friends can be so homophobic. One of them was even saying that she feels she can’t ever date a guy that is homophobic coz she has so many gay friends :) Hurray to her!



So I sorta tried to rationale with the girls by saying, yea some straight guys are homophobic because they think gay guys would jump and rape them whenever we get the chance. Some of the straight guys fail to realise that gay guys are just like any civilised human being. Just coz we thing you’re hot, doesn’t mean we’re going to rape you, its pretty much the same thing as a guy saying another girl looks hot… that doesn’t mean that straight guy is going to just rape her… right? I mean c’mon, GET REAL!

I told the girls that if I was straight and a gay guy told me I was hot, I should really just take it as a compliment. I mean if a girl walked up to me and say “Babe, ur hot!” (which incidentally never happened before T.T) I’d certainly take that as a compliment, even though I’m gay. And the girls were totally nodding in agreement. I then said to the girls, I mean if a lesbian walked up to you and told you you’re hot, you’d certainly take that as a compliment right? WRONG! The girls started shaking their heads saying that they would be totally weirded out. Huh?



I spent the next hour trying to reason with them that it was basically the same thing, but nope… no matter what I said, the girls didn’t see it from my point of view. After the whole conversation, they still feel that they would be totally weirded out with the idea of another lesbian having the hots for them.

I suppose its another case of getting spooked by the things we don’t understand. The girls, which were our good friends understood gays quite well, and didn’t feel threatened by gays, so they weren’t homophobic towards gays. But, since they didn’t understand lesbians, they were homophobic towards them. So I guess in some sense, they were semi-homophobic. I was honestly quite taken aback with the things I discussed over dinner last night. I mean, here they are bagging their homophobic guy friends for disliking gay guys, whereas on the other hand, they dislike lesbians because the idea of lesbians having the hots for them is weird.

I suppose its high time people started to understand each other better so we can stop all these hatred in the world. I guess it would be perfect if the girls understood the fact that the lesbians wont rape them anymore than gays would rape straight guys just because we have the hots for them. Sigh… it takes time for these things to happen, I understand that. So for now, I’m just glad my girl friends understand gays and accept us for who we are :) Coz its always nice to have a girl friend to discuss things with :P

Signing out.