Most homophobes I know are men. They frown at lesbianism and
absolutely loath male homosexuality. My theory is that men frown at lesbianism
because it threatens what they perceive as their universal access to women’s
sexuality. But that is not a very big fear, they can see there are enough women
to go around. So they just frown at that. However, male homosexuality is
another story altogether. All the homophobic men I know are far more opposed to
men having sex with men than women having sex with women. For example, the Red
Pepper has often featured women kissing women or even doing more. That didn’t
raise much steam but God Almighty, have you seen what the Chris Mubiru pictures
stormed up?
My own theory is that men are mostly opposed to gay men
because their homosexuality mainstreams sexual vulnerabilities. The possibility
of rape, molestation and defilement is often seen by men as a women’s problem.
When it comes to enacting (and making enforceable) laws to curb such vices, men
are at best lax. At worst they banter about the issue joking that women
sometimes bring it upon themselves. Then, they see an image that slaps that
bunter across their faces. The cows have come home and the cavemen in them
strike out blindly and violently.
I empathize with the terror and anger men feel about these
images. Heterosexual pornography which almost exclusively features women as dominated
and usable gives me the very same creeps. What I don’t have any kind words for
are the lame arguments they put forward instead of admitting their fears. Dear
homophobes, the following were never very good covers for your fear and now
they are tired. Find new ones.
1. Homosexuals recruit others and that is how
come they exist at all
The propaganda goes that gay people are recruiting young
boys into the practice through secondary schools, basketball clubs etc. They
say that gay people give these young boys money, promise their trips abroad
etc. Well, well … First, this recruitment talk is like school ghost stories.
Everyone knows someone who saw the ghost but no one can say they personally saw
the ghost. In gay recruitment testimonies, people say that a certain boy in
their school was receiving money and literature from a certain organization in
a certain western country and he tried to have sex with certain other boys in
this certain school. So many certains
that do not bring with them any certainty!
Nonetheless, let us look at the evidence people cite for
this recruitment. That is; there is literature about gay sex. There are young
men who being in possession of such literature try to entice others into
performing the acts they see in the literature. There are gay people who
proposition others with the promise of money and the good life. All these are also
true of heterosexuality. Indeed it is exactly how our heterosexual culture is
structured.
From Mills and Boons novels through back issues of the
Cosmopolitan magazine to shockingly explicit Luganda pamphlets written by one
notorious Hajji, my teenage was littered with literature on heterosexuality and
how to have sex with a member of the opposite sex. Oh there was also the culturally
sanctioned Senga who gave me a live demo on how to move my body and make
appropriate noises. Teenage boys in my neighbourhood were exposed to similar
literature and they indeed tried to get lucky with me even at the age of 12.
Later on, older men tried too and they didn’t just promise me the good life.
They delivered it in terms of gifts and outings. Eventually, someone got lucky.
I was a reluctant participant the first few times but now I am a well competent
and eager heterosexual. So, was I recruited into heterosexuality? I don’t think
so but if we were to logically follow the homosexual recruitment rhetoric, we
would conclude I was. We would then
conclude that without these recruitment tactics, heterosexuality would not
exist at all.
2. Homosexuals have no children and therefore
threaten the continued existence of the human race
Does the fact that 8% of us are unlikely to have children
threaten the continued existence of the human race? Hardly. What threatens our
existence is in fact the capacity and tendency of the other 92% to have
children. As we agree elsewhere, there is need for population control because
the current population growth rates threaten to deplete the earth’s resources.
As we deplete the resources but continue to grow in numbers, we will start fighting
for the little left. Some would say we already doing that. It is in these
resource wars that we are most likely to annihilate our race with weapons of
mass destruction. That is the extreme outcome of course. Even if it doesn’t get
to that, a lot of suffering is going to happen as we continue to grow while the
resources shrink. So if the fact that homosexuals don’t have children such a
bad thing? Not for the human race at least. Indeed the human race needs more people
to have sex that is as unreproductive as theirs. Heterosexuals; grab a condom,
pill or IUD and emulate homosexuals in non-reproductive copulation. The continued
existence of the human race depends on that and only a few slip-ups per person.
Someone just this morning asked me. “Where are the children
from homosexual unions? Where do they get their legitimacy from if they don’t
bring forth their own?” Answer to first question, the number of children from
homosexual unions is increasing actually. I am ambivalent about that. I am all for
less reproduction as already stated. But
does choosing or being unable to have children take away a person’s legitimacy?
Of course not. Barren people are pretty legit. All of us having sex but using
contraception to prevent pregnancy are pretty legit too. No one tries to take
away the right to have sex from either group. Do we want homosexuals to give
birth to fellow homosexuals before they become legitimate? I am guessing this
is the same mentality that made men feel less of men when they didn’t father
sons. Homosexuals are legitimate because
they exist in nature. Unless we can find a way to undo that inconvenient fact,
we are kinda stuck with their legitimacy. Stop thinking of homosexuals as some
other type of specie. They are our children and friends.
3. Homosexuality is an offence to our African
values
Now which ones? The ones about God creating Adam for Eve and
so on? That ones we borrow from Christianity and other imported religions? I
would be hard pressed to think of a value system less African than these
imported religions. Where Africans are accommodating and welcoming to all as
evidenced by our accommodation of all the peoples that have come to Africa over
the centuries, these religions are exclusive clubs and all those who don’t
belong to them are condemned. Where African beliefs embrace many gods at many different
levels, these religions worship one jealous deity. Now, this is not to attack those
that embrace imported religion over the African belief and value system. I am
sure you have your well thought out reasons and everyone reserves all rights to
their spirituality. But, for the love of mother earth, please don’t call your religious
compulsions African values. They are not. At the very least, we don’t know what
African values say about homosexuality. Some say, our ancestors, knew of it,
and just let it be. I don’t know how true that is but I know of cliff off which
pregnant unmarried girls were thrown to their deaths and none off which
homosexuals were thrown.
4. Homosexuality was brought to Africa by the
West
My mother, a professional linguistic, has a linguistic test
for determining whether or not a thing existed in a particular culture or place
before it started importing from other cultures. She says, such a thing must
have an indigenous non derivative name. For example; Ebisiyaga. Related to
Okusiyaga. Also related to: Omusiyazi. To the best of my knowledge, the words
relating to homosexuality in my language are not derived from any other
language. If it is derived from another language, test out the pronunciation
and spelling of the above words and tell me the probability that they were
derived from a non-African language.
Talk of the importation of homosexuality reminds me of a
conversation on the subject I had with my grandmother once. I went to her with
the intention of shocking her about this new phenomenon – homosexuality. She
listened to my school tales about allegations of it with disappointing calmness
and then knocked me over when she returned my storytelling favour by telling me
a tale about a prominent chief in Ankore who lived during her childhood.
Apparently that chief, (who later donated land to a now very prominent Mbarara
school that is also named after him), used to get it on with his male porters. This
chief was of course older than my grandmother who was born around 1916. If the
he learnt homosexuality from a person of the west, he surely learnt it one of
the founding missionaries. I am going to gloss right over the irony that would
be in that because I don’t believe for a moment that anyone taught him anything.
We all know the story about Kabaka Mwanga who was homosexual
and also unfortunately a pedophile and rapist. But then again, is there a King
before Mwanga who would not escape that label today. How might the venerable
Muteesa 1 have reacted if a 14 year old girl had rejected his advances? Would this
Mutesa 1 have said, “Kiri Okay.”?
5. Homosexuality is in the same league as
bestiality
If a man having sex with another man is equal to a man
having sex with a beast, are both sexes finally agreeing with the rant by women
that men are beasts? But this comparison which too is most often given by men
is personally offensive to me as a heterosexual woman. Come on guys, we have been sleeping with you
for centuries. Are you accusing us of bad taste because we find the repulsive
sex (yourselves) attractive? What is
attractive to me can catch the eye of another person, male or female. Get off
your sexist horse!
6. The gay rights issue is being pushed by the
West
Well, so is the advancement of democracy… But this argument is simply escapist - a
tactic that is unfortunately all too common in this country. You are in a discussion where all the pro-gay
rights submissions are by the Mukasas, Namubirus and Onens of this country. The complete season DVD of Chris Mubiru’s sex
life that has you so incensed has an all Ugandan cast. What has the West got to do with any of that?
When I was in secondary school, my classmates found out that
one of us was a lesbian. They went on to
persecute her. People would throw cups and plates at her when she walked
through the dorm corridors. The savageness of this is what turned me into her
friend and raised my attention to the indignities suffered by those against
whom the majority choose to be prejudiced. You want to blame the west for me?
Well, of course you can. After all, they made the plates and cups that I saw
thrown at that girl. We always can blame the West, can’t we?
7. Anal sex repulses me
Don’t have it then. Duh! You know what repulses me?
Uncondomised sex. I think it is gross, messy and full of disease. I try to
avoid it except for when the need to reproduce forces me otherwise. That
doesn’t mean I am going to take away your right to CNN Live (as one prostitute
advertising her business called it).
8. We are defending family values
I agree with you. If it is going to survive at all, the
heterosexual family needs some serious help. We have way too many single mothers
and some of them even chose it! Tut! Tut! We have way too many errant men
sowing their seed without ever returning to even provide one diaper. But what
has this got to do with homosexuals? Want to fix the heterosexual family, then
fix it not the homosexuals. Make heterosexual men more interested in caring for
their young ones. Give the young women
who are tired of chasing their children’s fathers down a compelling reason to
chase again and this time keep them under lock and key. Homosexuals have
nothing to do with any of this. In any case, sometimes, they are part of the
solution when they adopt and give homes to children the heterosexuals spawned
and just dumped at children’s homes. No, you don’t need to thank them for that
little part. You can just continue sitting up there on your little high stool.
9. We have to defend God’s will
You all claim to serve a mighty God. So how about you let
him fight his own battles? He’s tried by the way. He reportedly burnt down two
whole cities in this same war. I do understand wanting to help him seeing as
that effort didn’t exactly wipe out homosexuality but let’s have faith people.
I am sure the almighty has another trick up his sleeves. He never fails. He
just bides his time, right?
My point is, while your fear of homosexuality is
understandable, it is also curable. Every woman in the world is acutely aware
of how sexually vulnerable she is as long as sexually active men roam the world.
And yet, we are not calling for the mass castration of heterosexual men just so
we can feel safe. Instead, we are asking and working on proper laws and systems
that prevent and punish sexual violence. Join us. As you now see, it is your
problem too.
