Is Homosexuality Such An Abhorrence And Don't We Have A Say In Our Sexual Preference?

A young boy recently confided in me how his parents hauled him to a Family Service Centre for counselling when they discovered his homosexual clandestines and inclinations. This is the 21st century. I would have thought that we have been enlightened enough to know that the World Health Organisation and even socially backward China has taken homosexuality off the list of mental health disorders. Other sexual dysfunction like fetishes remain on its hotlist.

He was later taken to a private hospital where two former flight attendants now turned psychologists, behaviourists cum counsellors grilled him over his sexual identity. What this episode shows is the dark ages of a Third World mentality we are still living in. Imagine the increased stress a young person has to suffer just because he has a different sexual preference. It isn't as if if he turned straight and narrow that he could be assured of an equally happy or more satisfying life.

It is his life. Doesn't he have a say how he wants to live his life the way he knows he will be happiest? After all homosexuality isn't like criminality now, is it? He dreams of romance and love with someone he can wholly devote his life to, something I have long forgotten and given up on since my primary school days.

When I hear him sob softly over the telephone, it reminded me of the torture and pain I have to endure myself growing up gay. Firstly I realised I was different. Secondly I have to hide my real feelings for people of my same sex. Thirdly I have to pretend to persecute my own kind to show my concordance with a predominantly "heterosexual" world. Fourthly in my time, we hardly have channels for proper dates and meetings. Fifthly everyone doesn't own his living space to be able to build a life together. Sixthly since a gay life is condemned and persecuted both in society and in religious circles, gays go underground and can only sustain short term relationships with no strings attached except when older. In short we live a double life.

With society and family not accepting of a gay life, anyone could crumble under the weight of constant threats and pressure. This poor boy actually had his parents threatening to throw him out of the house and beat him up if he does not mend his ways. Imagine the insecurity, the hatred and the enmity bred all round. What kind of family life are we encouraging? A violent and hate environment?

It is also the wrong signal the gay community is sending out. The gay chat channels, the gay parties , the gay clubs , the gay saunas and the gay advertisements have degenerated to become places for a quick pick-up , instant sexual gratification, amorous advances and displays of sexual promiscuity. Worse, it could be a back-alley for sexual peddling to the highest bidder. Escorts and rent boys.

They promote homo-eroticism spilling into the realm of commercialisation, commercialised sex and one night stands . It is one sculptured torso after another attired in various skimpy underwears to entice and lure. It isn't about sending out a responsible message of wholesome gay living and relationship. The people who gain most are the profit-motivated capitalists. No different from the heterosexual world of sexual commercialisation.

Even an organisation like AFA (Action For Aids) hits straight on a sexually transmitted disease and its prevention. It never did emphasize on responsible same-sex dating and monogamous long term coupling, did it?

This should be the main thrust of its sexually transmitted diseases' prevention campaign. Responsible and faithful relationships. Creating opportunities for genuine gay dating and coupling. Providing avenues for communication and debate. Fighting for a stable home life with civil union rights (and thus conferring all the rights a matrimonial union would between a man and woman and which the Woman's Charter now so vociferously condemns as void a same-gender marriage) and the right to adopt children (which singles can do anyway) .

Alas I am not going to wait around for this to happen just when I am aging and ailing, bald patches , teethless and all. If we can't have it now, I might as well leave for a First World Developed Nation who does.