Amina has been kidnapped!

     

This is outrageous.

Syrian blogger Amina Abdallah kidnapped by armed men.

Author of A Gay Girl in Damascus had shot to prominence for her frank views on Syrian uprising, politics and being a lesbian…

Note: there is now discussion on the identity of Amina and whether the blog is fictional. See the Guardian and New York Times articles on this.

The Real L word

5 reasons why the reality TV show, the Real L word, gets on my nerves!

One – are there any women of colour in LA? Any blacks and browns? I don’t know since I have never been there but maybe someone can tell me how come not one of them were “real” L word people?

Two – what is this obsession with mothers? I mean, I know we all love our mothers, biological or not, but what’s the acute obsessiveness with them also being your best friend? I am not sure if that’s healthy! I mean, my mum is my mum and my best friend is my best friend – I don’t confuse the two!

Three – The Real L word couple planning a wedding and getting married were like “oh my god!” They woke up in the morning and got on to their identical matching macs and started planning the wedding? Every day?! Jesus. What on earth will they talk about and do once the wedding is over? There surely is more to their relationship than that! Well if there was, we sure didn’t see it. Oh and don’t forget the chandelier!

Four – does anybody have, like, a “real” job? I mean, yes, fashion and TV production are jobs but does any one work in more regular industries? Or regular hours? Or hours at all? Is anyone a teacher, a nurse, a social worker or something a little more regular than producers of LA fashion week! (“My biggest and largest production ever”, we were reminded over and over again!)  I mean the world is in recession and people are starving everywhere not to mention the hundreds of natural disasters that occur every year, and you are worried about what to wear? Jeez, just be glad you have clothes!

Five – what is the obsession with small rat-like dogs and where are the lesbian cats? Lesbians have cats, don’t they? But obviously not in LA! And who the f*** will let a dog lick the inside of your palette! Dogs don’t use toilet paper remember!

But yes I watched it all – just so I could rant on this blog. Hope the second season is better!

Where is Amina?

One brave blogger has been telling her story of life as an openly gay woman in Damascus, Syria. But now she’s gone underground.

http://damascusgaygirl.blogspot.com/

Dear Sarah

I hope you don’t mind me calling you by your first name, even though we have never met. You see, the thing is, I feel like I know you – although I don’t. I only know your writing. And your writing is not YOU but I am having a hard time separating the two right now. But that is only because I am upset.

As your avid reader, I feel like I own a bit of your writing. After all, I have read every single one of your books as well as your inclusion in Granta’s ‘Best of Young British Novelists 2003’. I have also watched all the movie adaptations of your books. I even voted for you and cheered for you when you were shortlisted for the Booker in 2006 for The Night Watch and I am still devastated that you didn’t win.

So you can imagine what I am feeling right now, having just read The Little Stranger, your latest novel.  Like all your other books, I did enjoy this as well. But I just can’t understand why you have deleted lesbians from the book! It is your only book without any lesbian characters or references. And you know better than anyone that there is a dearth of good fiction out there with strong lesbian characters and I was so proud of your work. You made me proud to be who I am. And now you have deleted us! Aren’t there enough authors out there who write about British class issues and gothic novels and scary stories? And since I am not even British or Victorian, those elements of your books are often incidental to me. But not the characters – they are what connect me to you. And you have severed that connection now.  What do you expect me to do? And more importantly, how do you intend to repair our relationship?

Naming and shaming

Are we instigating murder?

You may recall, the Sri Lankan media, under the directive of the Police Crimes Division, published photos of men and women who they claimed appeared in porn movies.  Subsequently, these people’s lives have been completely ruined. Some have been expelled from their homes and can never show their faces in society again.

In Uganda, a prominent gay rights activist was murdered in his own home, following a newspaper article that published pictures of several Ugandan homosexuals. The headline that appeared in October 2010, read “100 Pictures of Uganda’s Top Homos” and showed photographs of some of them. David Kato was among them. By the end of January 2011 he was murdered.

In the months in between, David had sued the Rolling Stone newspaper that carried his photograph for defamation. In the meantime The Supreme Court of Uganda ruled that people must stop inciting violence against homosexuals and must respect the right to privacy and human dignity. However, it seemed like no one really paid any attention to Kato’s action of suing, nor to the Supreme Court directive.

This is a lesson for all of us and a lesson for Sri Lanka too. By trying to name and shame people  who are different, either because they sell sex, appear in porn movies or have sex with people of the same sex, we create stigma and discrimination against them and also instigate violence.  In some cases, even death.

Do we want to sleep with blood on our hands?

I came out for this?

Am still laughing, having just finished reading I came out for this by Lisa Gitlin. The book is about this older woman –who comes out as a lesbian at 47. She is madly in love with someone called Terri. But Terri is too busy delighting in temporary multiple relationships, and having been ‘through” the author,  has fast moved on. The book  traces the author’s ups and downs as she moves cities to be close to the one she loves and obsesses about. And all this, while not realizing that true love is right under her nose in the form of someone else. In many ways, it’s a coming out story where someone 47 feels like she is an adolescent and just can’t see the obvious.

The book is written as a diary, (where she writes awkward, embarrassing mishaps that are never meant for others to read) spread over the period of one year. It is easy to read, fast paced and full of humor. It left me with a feeling of “I’ve been there, I’ve done that”.

However the one failing of the book was, in my opinion, the lack of exploration of the other characters. I wish the author had delved into the characters a little bit more, to give the reader a better understanding of how she met the one she loves so much and the nature of their relationship before it became this one-sided obsession. I was also curious to better understand what her mother thought of her! But the book is written in the first person, so you don’t get to know anyone very well except the author!

Nevertheless, a fun light read for any lesbian starved of good lesbian fiction.

Love the sinner hate the sin

Every God fearing Christian has surely heard these words.

I don’t think there is anything that irritates me more than this line, especially when used on gay people. It’s like saying “we don’t hate you we just hate the act.” Like being gay is only about sex. (But I knew I was gay even before I ever had sex with a woman!)

Every other aspect of the relationship – the love, the sharing, the emotions

and the caring are all discounted. To me it’s like saying its ok to be Sri Lankan but don’t behave like one! So don’t eat with your fingers, and don’t drink tea with three spoons of sugar in it. It’s not a separate thing: to be and behave. How can it be? It’s just the patronizing attitude of people who haven’t experienced certain situations or emotions in their lives.

I just read the story of an Irish Catholic priest who was has been banned by the Vatican from publishing any more of his writings after he suggested that homosexuality was “simply a facet of the human condition”, and that same-sex attraction and acts have been a consistent feature of human life. The Church says it’s “not wrong to be gay but it is wrong to act gay”.

Can someone please tell me how the fuck I can separate the two?

porn today – gone tomorrow!!

The Daily Mirror reported that the Colombo Fort Magistrate has ordered police headquarters to publish in the newspaper photos of local men and women appearing in Web based porn sites. According to the Magistrate, they want to track these people and identify and punish them!

Bull shit!

What will the lives of these people be like once they are identified? The court punishment is one thing, but what about the ostracism they will receive from the wider community? Can they ever safely live in Sri Lanka again? What will their livelihoods be? How will the consequences for women be greater than those for men?

Furthermore, have they no realization that doing such a thing is not going to deter the making of porn, the demand for porn or from other people entering porn films? This is all assuming that those who are featured in the newspapers are willing participants in the movies. But we all know that there are many young people who are forced into such things, black mailed, and coerced. Some are even trafficked into the sex trade. And many are underage. Some are filmed without their knowledge. So basically what we are doing here is re-victimizing the victims. Is this the best way to address the problem? The government’s approach will only make it more difficult to help those who were coerced into the porn industry. A more productive policy would seek to reduce stigma to assure that those who are willing participants have proper access to medical care and those who were forced to participate could access resources that would help them reintegrate into their communities and rebuild their lives.

In Uganda, some 100 photos of gay men were published in a newspaper – apparently to shame them – so we are going the Uganda way or what?

x rated

an update:….

http://www.latimes.com/health/la-me-porn-hiv-20101208,0,5306958.story

 

In mid October this year, a male porn actor in the States was tested positive for HIV.

This is not the first time someone has tested positive in the multi-million dollar porn industry. In fact, a similar story broke out in 2004 when another actor tested positive. It led to the closing down of several porn producing studios at that time.

6 years later, nothing much has changed. People continue to have unprotected sex in pornography. No condoms are used, and even though the industry is regulated, the health concerns of the actors/actresses seem to have fallen from the list of priorities. Testing HIV positive in an industry such as this is definitely the end of your career. In one way, it is a health and safety issue and should be treated as such.

But why and how did this happen? One obvious reason is having unprotected sex with multiple partners which are one of the basic ingredients in porn. Secondly, we never see condoms being used in porn flicks, they just aren’t part of the deal. Buy why is this? Will the inclusion of condoms during sex in the flick actually decrease the demand for that movie? Are condoms too much of a ‘reality check’ for folks who watch porn in order to fulfill their fantasies, get their kicks, get aroused? Is the fear in the industry that including the use of condoms will remind their customers of the ‘real world’ and sexually transmitted diseases and ultimately put them off that porn? Or is all this just a perception?

And more importantly, why can’t condoms be made sexier? They have been around for over 400 years and they are still far from sexy despite developments such as flavored, vibrating and textured condoms.  We haven’t made them sexy, nor do we think about them in relation to sex in the same way we think of sex toys such as dildos and vibrators. Condoms remain medicalised, reminding us of sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies rather than eroticism and pleasure!

I know a few groups in Asia who can teach the American porn industry how to ‘sexy up’ safe sex. It’s time to get into the act…

Come out and play

It’s the eve of the opening of the Commonwealth Games 2010 and I can’t help thinking that the slogan for the games is so GAY! And I mean ‘That’s so gay’ in a wonderful way. The slogan, ‘Come Out and Play’ means only one thing to me…that too many athletes are in the closet and its time to come out of there and join the play!

In fact, when the Solidarity Gaymes was held in Sri Lanka in 2008, the same slogan was used to promote the event.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=30385828330

I’m not sure which came first, the CWG slogan or the Solidarity Gaymes one, but which ever it was, the same words have totally different implications, depending on the reader.

But then I can’t even think straight.