Islamabad, July 03: A self-proclaimed homosexual has launched a blog to voice the angst of the gay community that is forced to lead a closeted life in conservative Pakistan where same sex relationships are illegal.
Jalaluddin Ahmed Khan, a 27-year-old banker who describes himself as a "psychotic, sarcastic and socialist blogger from Karachi", writes about the vibrant gay life in the southern port city and in Pakistan, inviting people "looking for gay love" to join him in the virtual world.
"Homosexuality is illegal in Pakistan. Homosexuality is religiously unacceptable in Pakistan. Homosexuality is socially unacceptable in Pakistan. (But) homosexuality is an
entrenched cultural truth in Pakistani history. And in the Pakistani life today," Khan wrote about the hypocritical attitude towards gays in his blog "Tuzk-e-Jalali".
"As long as people are quiet about it and pursue homosexual desires before or after marriage and are not caught in the act, it is ok. Men are allowed incredible leeway in
their sexual pursuits as long as they are not discovered," he wrote.
Khan feels Karachi is the city where homosexuality finds the most social acceptance. "Peshawar and Quetta are cities where acceptance of pederasty and the homosexual act
are considered normal but any open avowal of this would not be acceptable to anyone. In contrast, in Karachi people might still accept you for being a homosexual," he wrote.
Khan, who claims most Pakistan homosexuals are forced to marry and that some lead active gay lives post-marriage, details in a long post his parents` reaction when he told them he was gay and decided to call off his engagement.
"I am gay. I have told my father, mother and sisters about it. They find it disgusting, wrong and morally corrupt. They are not ready to accept that i am gay....I want to be
gay. I want to live a life of my choosing. That is not possible if I live with my parents like all other normal Pakistan guys," Khan wrote.
"Don`t get me wrong. I love my family. They are everything to me. But, at the same time, they are so seriously irritating. I don`t care what they believe in, or what they
think, or how they think life is to be lived, I don`t care. What I do care about is to be allowed to live my life how I want to live it. Period.
"On top of this, when I asked my mom that I wanted to move out because they were not ready to accept me and I was not ready to reform myself and i still wanted to lead a life
that could make me happy, every time she cried. It is not crying. It is blackmail."
Khan says there are hardly any "cruising spots" for gays in Pakistan unlike other parts of the world --"(therefore) beach parties and farm house parties are quite common because of the secluded location".
But the plus side, according to khan, is the gay community is not divided into strong sub-groups like in the rest of the world. "This leads to a stronger bond and cohesion
in the group and one can flit from a `bear` to a `muscle boy` and then back again during the course of three shots of vodka and a beer," he wrote.
"My family will never be happy at how I want to live. They do not believe in letting other people live their lives, they believe in their extremist interventionist lifestyle. If
I cannot be who I am and I am forced to live a lie I will be miserable. If I don`t, my family will be miserable, and that would make me miserable," khan wrote, encouraging gays not to give in to "blackmail" by their families.
Bureau Report