Last week, I woke up to the women on "the View" debating about whether you choose your sexuality. Of course it was on national TV so, everyone agreed that people chose to be gay just as much as they chose how tall they wanted to be. Agreed in yankee, everybody is accepted as they are but even in Naija where being gay is considered an abomination; we still have them. It made me wonder, would anybody in their right mind choose to be an outcast?
My awareness of the gay community began when I was about eleven years old. We had two gay teachers. I went to a northern public school in Nigeria and for those who are not very familiar with goings on in the North, the gay community though still being treated as outcasts, are a relevant community. They were openly gay, lived in houses paid for by their lovers, and were friends with each other. Both teachers were obviously the women and never molested the male kids.
Both teachers were were obvious because of their feminine ways but even at that early age, I wondered about their "men". Personally, I have no openly gay friends, but I have come across people who I suspected to be gay. A guy I served with, who well, was just too neat and well groomed for a guy. When he admired ladies, he did it with respect and of all my male friends on camp, he was the only one who wasn't getting laid, don't ask me how I knew. On the other hand, he was a devout Muslim and never joked with his prayers but I must confess I didn't see him ogling any guys, he just sent out gay vibes.
I also had two suspiciously gay female friends: one told me suggestively that we should get it on. I laughed it off and thought nothing of it, but my friend went to great lengths to tell me she was joking and I began to wonder. I had another friend who was trying to seduce me and when I ignored her overtures, she began to snub me and that was the end of our friendship.
Fast forward to today. I have never met so many gay people in my whole entire life. In fact, I've been so fascinated by them, the lesbians are a bit more like ordinary friends, its hard to think about them sleeping together, it makes me wonder why I'd want to sleep with my best friend. The guys are something else, over here most of them wear their trousers just below their asses. I recently discovered the difference between the people who do it cos its gangsta like and those who do it because they are gay. They wear earrings some do their hair, some dont, some are overtly feminine with the make up et al, others are feminine in a subtle way. The people who fascinate me the most are the "men" they are just like regular men who ladies would readily trip over themselves for. Some of them are so good looking, well dressed and good mannered its heartbreaking that of the billions of women available in the world who would readily throw themselves at their feet, it makes me wonder why they would choose to make another man's asshole their p***y (as my hubby colorfully puts it).
On the one hand, I think its not a choice. They were probably born that way. I have always had my personal preferences about men and most of the more superficial choices are not things I can rationally justify. First of all, they had to be dark, taller than me, older than me, didn't care too much if he was an Adonis but he just had to be clean, etc. Funny enough, I've wanted it that way ever since i was a preteen and my hubby today, almost twenty years later, fits the category. On the other hand, maybe its a choice because in naija homosexuality is predominant among students who go to single sex schools. Does that make it an environmental thing then?
Personally, I don't care about another persons' sexuality. As long as you and your partners are fulfilled sexually, as long as you are both adults and it makes you happy, its really none of anybody's business. I must confess though, that the two months I've spent here in my new place of work have been eye opening and full of things that make me wonder.
