Close and personal

Kapil
Kapil
Sep 4, 2018 · 13 min read

I wanted to know about the lives of Indian gay men from inside. Because I was added to one Facebook group of gay men from Pune, I put a post there telling them about my research. I receive many positive responses to participate in the study. Then I shared a questionnaire with them online. The questions primarily were on what is to be gay in 21st-century India. I received the answered questionnaires from thirty-two members. There were some objective questions and some open-ended questions in the questionnaire. If I had more questions on the answers I had received I followed them up with a second round of questionnaire online.

Because I found these gay men from a facebook group, all of them were English speaking middle class who use social media to meet other gay men in the city. Most of the participants were either in their 20s or early 30s, rest few were in their late 30s and early 40s. Most of them were residing in north-east and north-west regions in the city, which are also the areas where there is a concentration of IT industry. All of them were male and all of them were gay. None of them was lesbian or bisexual. That allows me to strongly conclude that it is still way difficult to be a lesbian in India. Leave alone coming out to people, even there is little of lesbian network online where one can make other lesbian friends in a city like Pune. Maybe the scenario would be slightly better in the bigger metropolitan cities. Also given there was no bisexual, it could be concluded that bisexual men in India are predominantly avoiding to make other bisexual or gay friends and are leading only heterosexual part of their identity. The reason for it would be homophobia prevailing in the society.

Almost half of the participants were ethnic Maharasthrian and the other half was made of other ethnicities from other parts of the country (Bengali, Marwadi, Telugu, Tamil, Punjabi, Sindhi, Hindi, etc). Most of the participants were Hindu, few were Buddhists, one was Jain, few were non-religious and few reported they ‘follow all religions’. While one Tamil participant was born and brought up in Pune, all other non-Maharashtrian participants had moved to Pune in the last couple of years and even within Maharashtrian participants only a few were born and brought up in Pune while rest of them were from smaller towns in Maharashtra. Thus, this together reflects the cosmopolitan and growing nature of the Pune city. Pleasantly within such a cosmopolitan network of gay men, there was none of the caste-based or religion-based discrimination that was reported by any of the participants. One member shed a light further to different kinds of discrimination that are more relevant in the gay community on the basis of skin color and body shape. On religious views, few participants reported they tried to judge the religious attitude of people, especially Christians and Muslims before coming out to them.

Caste-based discrimination might be dying out but there are subconscious class-based preferences coming into play. Most of the participants did write they tend to be friends with people of similar class strata which they attribute to their subconscious matching of thoughts and worldviews. One participant wrote that “In online dating, economic and physical factors play a crucial role wherein everyone is looking for rich hunks or Greek gods.. though they write all preachy words in the bio, they hardly even think about it.” Another member wrote “..some gay men take immense pride in being born in big cities and they look down to people who are from a non-metro. They regard themselves as superior to others and thus act in a haughty or snobbish manner.” One participant did write that for dating class matters to him as he does not want to become a sugar daddy for someone. One participant even wrote there are different groups of gay men getting formed on the class lines. There is also a consumerism of flaunting accessories, apparels, shoes, and bags that were reported, which also subtly creates or reflects the class divide.

Almost all of the participants wrote globalization has been a positive influence in their lives. Internet was indispensable. Even though only a few of the participants had traveled to western countries or had friends from there, almost all of them had got their ideas about gay identity through either English movies, porns or other material available online. Even soap operas such as RuPaul’s drag race, Queer as folks and Will and Grace were watched by many. Now due to Netflix and Amazon, one could watch or order gay films or books online. “It has become quite easy.” Also within India, there are online web series on queer themes made such as All about Sec 377 and Romil & Juggal.

Web series is a new phenomenon in India. Its content starkly differs from the television saas-bahu soap operas which mostly caters to the older segment of the population. Web series instead try to focus on the urban younger segment of the population which is online. To grab the younger views, its content is relevant and tailor-made to the lives of youths on themes such as love and relationships or startups. Internationally also web series phenomenon isn’t that old, there it only took off in the mid-2000s, thus in the language of Thomas Friedman, the world is flat!

Globalisation is also making money as an incentive to be gay-friendly through means such as the travel industry or other businesses. India is a major travel destination, and to attract more tourists some states and travel agencies try to be gay-friendly. In short, the market provides!

But at the bottom line, almost all of them felt after having started earning money it gave them liberty to be who they are.

Most of the participants knew some gay person(s) at their workplace, especially those working in MNC and creative fields found their workplace quite gay-friendly, those working in public sector industries found it otherwise.

Roughly half of the participants were working in the IT industry, roughly one-fourth of the participants were in the creative fields, mostly it was fashion and art. Most of the participants did feel that there is a higher proportion of gay men in the creative fields, the rest felt it is just a stereotype.

Most of the participants were single at the time of filling up the questionnaire though many of them had been in a relationship before, few were in a relationship at the moment, few were dating someone, few said they were in a complicated scenario while one guy had undergone a divorce from the heterosexual marriage. One participant wrote his relationship with his boyfriend had become complicated as his boyfriend “wasn’t out.”

Most of the participants reported they were selectively out, few reported they were completed closeted except to the other members of the facebook group, few reported they are completely out in Pune but only selectively out or in closet in their hometowns, while one guy reported he is completely out to everyone and everywhere.

On the question of having homophobic friends while growing up, there was a mixed response. Although almost all of the participants reported having homophobic friends while growing up, some reported having lost the touch with them either proactively or unconsciously, while some reported having confronted and having come out to them which turned them gay friendly, while some lost some of their homophobic friends after coming out to them, ‘showing the true colors’ as one participant wrote. Also, another participant wrote “the number of straight friends decreased because the number of gay friends and gay bros increased hence straight friends became last priority”

Half of the participants who were from district towns had no gay friends back in their hometowns. Some of them reported that they left their hometown before realizing their sexual orientation so they never made friends from their hometowns. The other half who was from tier-II towns like Nagpur, Bhopal, and Allahabad had some gay friends in their hometowns. A guy from Nagpur sarcastically wrote “Nagpur exports oranges and gays”. During Diwali when Nagpur gays are in town they have their own award show and as a memento, for the particular year, they have planted trees. Also, most of the participants reported they might move to another city in near future, thus reflecting a quite fleeting association of gay men with the city. Moving to a new city after every couple of years seems to be the case with young white-collar generation in India. Also few of them reported they wish to move back to their hometowns 5–10 years down the line.

Most of the participants were on social media and dating sites since five to ten years where they had made gay friends, although some participants reported that friendships formed through mutual contacts or at community meets had a higher probability of them lasting longer. Almost none of the participants had any gay friend while growing up. Now in Pune, many of the participants hung out with their straight friends and gay friends together at their house parties while some separated their straight friends from their gay friends. Some did it purposefully while others thought their straight friends would get bored or would be hesitant to join a company of gay men. “Straight Girls are fine partying with us, but not the straight guys, They are little hesitant.” wrote one participant.

To keep a track of gay happenings in the city participants used social media and dating sites. Few of the participants wrote about the problem of plenty in gay dating sites — “ as people are quite upfront there and as have actually started treating each other as an option. Well it can be so .. but mostly I guess it’s because we have forgotten the value for people .. and also it takes a lot of effort and time to create a bond .. which is not gonna happen overnight .. people lose patience and interest .. especially if you have slept with them once .. and now when they know they will find another one the next day .. they don’t actually care .. Social networks are just making it a little more vague .. as people are quite upfront there and as have actually started treating each other as an option.”

Another participant wrote “ You have a fight, XYZ comes to your emotional rescue…where you should have had sorted things with your significant other, you already calmed yourself with someone else’ support. You now probably don’t feel the need to sort or mend things, you let it go. This attitude of letting go never lets that bond becomes strong rather makes it weak. And eventually leading to break up. To add one more, breakups can because of a lot of reason. It’s not always, the sex that’s cheating part, no. A relationship is beyond all of it. You cannot bound anyone to be with self, you have to keep trying when it comes as natural. You have to learn to not let go and to give that beautiful thing (relationship) a chance. (Of course only when it’s two-way and genuine… and not forced) To sum it up, communication, no lies, and will to hold on is what that matters.”

“I think earlier people used to give each other time, were more patient, used to invest in people.”

To compare the dating sites Grindr and tinder, participants felt safer on tinder because one could see the facebook profile and other information of other people, on Grindr one could fake anything. While plus point of Grindr was one could find all the guys nearby you while on tinder you can’t thus for hookups Grindr is quite convenient. Also, Grindr is more picture oriented while on tinder one could see the different aspects of a person’s personality more than face, torso or dick.

On social media, some of them would share political posts including the ones on section 377 of IPC. However, one participant wrote that on social media “ I become more conscious on what I am posting/writing/chatting. These days its easy to get trolled for any misconduct you do online.”

Those in the older segment of the population had experienced some life before the dating sites. It was the era of internet chat rooms. “I Started meeting through yahoo chats and mirc dos-based chat rooms. People were less and were scared to meet. Now the confidence level of individuals has increased” wrote one participant on his experiences with the chat rooms. “Mirc and yahoo chat rooms were random chat rooms but the chat. I’d usually have up if they were in M2M, else message would be sent in a group looking for M2M. Few would take up a girl name and chat and later would say they are guys interested in m2m.”

“It was actually more fun back then when we hardly had an idea about it .. and blind dates were actually interesting and exciting .. especially through yahoo messenger. Well this was when I was in school say 2008–2009 I was new .. and yahoo messenger chat rooms were the only option to explore this new world .. LGBT was something which we didn’t even know about… Of course not everyone was comfortable sharing pictures on messenger .. but the chats were long .. the bond that we had back then will never be achieved now .. as we were dealing with the same problems and were really scared of it .. we did care about each other’s emotions more then face color status and body .. top and bottom wasn’t the issue .. the purity was at its peak .. it was Soft .. wherein these days everyone wants to check online first and then wish to go ahead ..” wrote another on the role of different dating platforms on relationships. Also, one participant wrote on the dating scene in Pune vs in Mumbai, “the people of Mumbai are more intellectual, more coffee dates happen in Mumbai.” He wrote.

Because all of the participants either used social media or dating sites, none of them felt a need to go to cruising places. Almost none of the participants had any lesbian friend either. One guy sarcastically wrote gays and lesbians cannot be friends unless it is a community work which they have to do together. However, almost all of the participants felt India is becoming more open to the idea of homosexuality.

Participants reported that it is different to be gay in India compared to other parts of the world for the issues such as marriage pressure, criminalization of gay sex, seeking and validating the presence of homosexuality in Indian heritage that Indian gay men do, most of the Indians follow different religions so it affects the experiences of gay people, in the group of Marathi gay men in Pune Quest Prayatna they also have one event celebrating a very typical Marathi festival. Indian pop culture also affects because Rekha, Sridevi and Madhuri are really a thing for gay men, then there are family values such as one participant wrote one of his forty-year-old gay friend was fearful to come out to his parents even at that age in life, also HIV shaming within LGBT community was reported by one participant, while one participant wrote that people are same everywhere.

To express their gay identity in real life participants go to gay parties in clubs or house parties or events such as prides, while some out gay men said they can express their gay identity everywhere.

Almost all of the participants understood the queer word as an umbrella term for all sexual and gender minorities but none of them knew the actual or another meaning of the word queer i.e. resisting the normativity.

Whether asked what would scenario be if there wasn’t internet but a bar in the city to connect with other gay men in the city, response was whatever progress that has been achieved is solely because of internet, thus without internet the progress would have been quite less as gay men would have to depend on mouth to mouth publicity which has smaller reach. Also finding the gay bar in the city without the internet itself would have been difficult. Also, not everyone feels as comfortable to meet random people face to face although some found the idea of the gay bar in the city to be adventurous and interesting. “People would talk more than post more.” Wrote one participant sarcastically. “Internet dating gives more personal space for getting to know each other. Community events may have unwanted stares and judgemental looks which may turn off a few.” Wrote another.

Few participants wrote if they weren’t gay their life would have been much boring. “There’s so much that’s always happening! Right from over the top drama to even the fact the there’s some bit of secrecy that one needs to maintain in queer life. It’s all fascinating.”

Also, there is the body image and fashion within the gay community. “I became more conscious on what I am wearing. Dressing sense has changed” One participant wrote being gay “made me more open-minded, I am more into networking, but again I am not bound by the social standards/constructs of a relationship. My social outreach would have been limited. Because I’m gay I have made friends from across the world”, while another wrote, “If I weren’t gay I would have got married and had children by now.” While most of the participants felt their life would have been the same if they weren’t gay.

Participants mostly faced a problem in finding accommodation because they were single, their gay identity being invisible it wasn’t an issue, rather a boon in some way as one participant wrote that landlords feel “only boys flock our apartment. Sanskari ladke hain (boys are civil).” Although there wasn’t any overtly flamboyant participant who could have shed a light on if it gets difficult to rent a house when one is overtly flamboyant or effeminate, though my guess is it would certainly be more difficult.

On the question on activism, most of the participants praised the role of activists in their lives. Few of the participants also wrote about the activism that they do through their hobbies or professions such as starting GSA (Gay Straight Alliance) at their university or running job portal for gay individuals on Facebook or making funny videos on youtube on LGBT issues.

Though there was one negative experience with an activist that was reported by one of the participants. “What I have faced and felt about the activism in India is the so-called leaders just want publicity, power and money .. and other than that they hardly care to actually work on the deeper issues. Well ..Being an activist Of course they are gonna get publicity .. which is being followed by power and money as everyone sees them as the represented .. they do try and fight for community rights but at the end of the day they are open and quite sorted in their life .. every now and then they wake up .. create a movement and then sit back and just see .. one of my friends was harassed within the community .. we tried to get justice.. but these activists did nothing and instead tried flirting with me so that I could sleep with them !” wrote he. And his experience with the police wasn’t any better either, “I did try to seek help from the police but turned out to be worse .. they tried the same rather than helping…It happened twice .. once by an auto driver .. I was talking on phone with a gay friend of mine and I guess he heard it .. first he tried to pull me down by saying I am a bad example for the society and then he tried to assault me sexually .. when I complained to police said it happened because of you only and also tried to sexually assault me.”