Pride and Prejudice

A few months back, I happened to see a best personality contest conducted by SCT College. The contest was nothing home to write about. The questions were vulgar, answers extremely vulgar. It was supposed to be funny. Why do people have to equate wittiness or comedy with vulgarity every single time? That in itself was very embarrassing to see. If people with the best personality came out like this, then God help us!

There was one particular question that was mind boggling. The answers more than the question.

Q: Imagine you are with a gay trapped inside a lift. What will you do?

A1 (a lady): I will use my umbrella to hit him on the head.

A2 (a gentleman): I will say to him, "Look dude! Stay where you are. Any stupid moves or I will kick your ass!"

A3 (another lady): I will call out for help!

Others answers were more or less in the same notes.

Incredible answers! Its so painful to hear such bigotry from the so-called best personalities.

Homosexuality is dreaded by our society. Much more than drugs, alcohol, or tobacco. Recently I came across a news article. Psychologists raking in moolah out of 'curing' homosexuality. Whether its a disease is an incredulous question in itself, but the cure was barbaric to say the least.

The treatment involved showing the person nude pictures of men and women. When pictures of men came, the doctor gives quite a high voltage shock, regardless of whether the person is aroused or not. No shock while he is flashed with nude girl pics. Its like teaching a person whats right and whats wrong. First of all the procedure reminds me a lot of the movie A Clockwork Orange (must see picture by Stanley Kubrick). Second thing was that, can a person have an arousal while a doctor is staring intently while you check out a nude pic? Not me!

Its said that Indian Penal Code in itself is against gays. As far as I know it prohibits unnatural sexual intercourses. That would mean that all a lot of the couples (regardless of homo/hetro) will be guilty! Laws need to be modified to accommodate changing times, else we will be stuck up with our old ways unnecessarily harassing innocent people.

There are people who say homosexuality is against nature and will be eradicated by evolution. Well, evolution has not eradicated it for the past several hundred thousand year! Neither is this antinatural nor is this a new phenomenon. Check the Hindu scriptures and for once think logically and not literally.

There are several misconceptions in place: Gays talk and walk in a feminine way ala Chandupottu, gays are always on the lookout for "victims", gays will crossdress if given an opportunity and so on. There are a lot of people of both sexes who lead a life undercover. Once I was profile storming through Orkut and came upon a profile a gay person in Trivandrum. What caught my eye was the community "Gay Trivandrum". That opened the floodgates. I discovered many, many communities. But, in the end all most of these communities or rather a few members, do is to alienate the general public. Almost all the posts where advertisements for gigolos offering "top" and "bottom" (I honestly have no idea what that lingo means). No scope to discover any Brokeback Mountain there!

Perverts exist in the society regardless of their sexual orientation. Gay community as such faces the problem of too many people hiding behind the curtains, which makes the entire community look bad due to a few perverts. It would take the really bold step of coming out by the closet homosexuals to start the move towards the mainstream. (A small trivia, Karan Johar is gay according to a lot of unreliable gossip machines. Even if he comes out and says he is gay, he still sucks!)

A solution to the problem? At the current disposition of people towards homosexuality, they will be telling to implement the Final Solution! In order for the people to change, they have to be educated. It will be a (painfully) slow process. We should make sure that the coming generations don't turn out as homophobics. Educating them through proper channel will be an impossible task given our social setup. Education through properly researched literature, music, movies etc seems to be the way to go.

A gay/lesbian pride parade was held in India on June 29. A really huge step for the community. Check this blog for pics and more information.

6 comments:

Praveen said...

coool blog:D..
first of all, liked what u said abt tht moron karan johar...
tht treatment for gays u mentioned was horrible...
clockwork orange is one of my alltime fav movies:D

only sad thing is tht the dialogue happened in a fest conducted by SCT:(

Resmi... said...

Hey nice thought...
In the beginning I felt that you are writing about reality shows. But before I was about to stop reading it (I hate discussions on reality shows), the topic changed. I really appreciate you for talking about such an issue in the right sense. Most people don't. The treatment is wierd. I suggest jus leave them alone. Why all this hype and treatments?

Unknown said...

@praveen: I dont think responses would have varied if it was in another college!
@resmi: reality shows are like dead horses. I have to feel necrophiliac to write about that. Then again, there no hard and fast rule that I can't be one! :-P

Crazy Sam said...

Dude! Thanks for linking to my post.

I haven't watched A Clockwork Orange, but the similar treatment for "curing" was shown in a movie, Latter Days. Truth to be told, at first I didn't understand what was going on then. It was only when I read somewhere about the said treatment that I became aware of the significance of that scene. And the fact that his parents put him there to undergo such harsh procedures is really shocking. ( I know it is just a movie, but they could be showing the fate of thousands of gays whose parents are just not happy with their children fantasizing people of the same sex. )

The reaction towards the question is disturbing. The answers from the contestants speaks volumes about their personality. I especially liked your stand, "Perverts exist in the society regardless of their sexual orientation." It's only when the law (actually it applies to straight people too) becomes friendly to the gay community that the people will have the courage to come out from their hidings. You don't want your sexuality to be the cause for losing jobs or being thrown to jails, right?

You don't know what is top and bottom? Just to clear any misconception you got from that community, those terms are not at all associated with gigolos! And Orkut has a lot of good gay communities where you don't have to see the sex adverts.

And I honestly think Latter Days is any times better than Brokeback Mountain. So if you get a chance to watch Latter Days, please do.

Unknown said...

@Crazy Sam: It was my pleasure to read your post and wanted to share it my friends. :) Will check out Latter Days.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, very very much! You have no idea how elated I feel seeing a straight person defending us. All we need to do is spread out the message that we are normal people too. India may be homophobic but a country like India can´t even come close to turning it into a holocaust for gay people. We defeated the Britishers through non-violence, remember? I am GLAD that the pride parade was absolutely without violence! And I truly hope there are many many more people like you - it really warms my heart!

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