Telegraph story on how to spot a gay husband is pathetic

It took the suicide of Priya Vedi, a doctor employed with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi, for the Indian media to wake up to the potentially tragic consequences of the marriage between a gay man and a straight woman.

Individual responsibility and volition — or rather, the lack of these — are, to a large extent, to be blamed for such outcomes. But such behaviours are also rooted in, and fostered by, obsolete and oppressive social and legal institutions governing India even in this day and age (read here). As a result, to condemn the men who cause such upheavals, without deploring the circumstances that sanction or encourage their actions, would be to simplify a situation that is complex and layered.

It is doubly tragic, therefore, when a national daily adds to the existing burden of irresponsibility and ignorance by drawing up a list of attributes to help women "spot" gay husbands. Courtesy a website called "Straight Spouse Network", these pointers appear in the Kolkata Telegraph at the end of a feature pegged to Priya Vedi’s case:

1) You find pop-ups of gay pornography on the computer

2) He claims that he feels "trapped" in the marriage and won’t explain why.

3) You can’t track his activities.

4) He tells you about sexual abuse in his childhood/adolescence.

5) He admits to having a homosexual encounter in the past.

6) He uses the word "bisexual".

7) He visits gay bars claiming he’s there only to hang out with his gay friend.

8) He watches porn movies with gay male scenes.

9) He makes too many gay comments in conversations.

Had we lived in a saner world, one would have ignored such crass stupidity and moved on. But since such is not the case, one must dignify even the most abysmal idiocy with a response — especially when blatant ignorance masquerades on a widely-read news platform as awareness-raising knowledge.

The obvious riposte, which must come as a great surprise to the writer of the Telegraph article, is that none of the above are exclusively true for gay men. Not being able to "track" a man’s activity and his inability to explain the reason for feeling "trapped in the marriage" could hint at his lack of interest in his wife, but does not necessarily imply he is attracted to another man. There could, just as well, be another woman involved in the picture.

Next, a man keeping the company of gay men is not, by default, gay. (And since we are at this, it’s worth reiterating that gay men are perfectly capable of having close straight male friends in their lives without feeling the urge to make a pass at them.) Visiting "gay bars claiming he’s there only to hang out with his gay friend" or watching "gay porn movies with gay male scenes" are also not actions to set the alarm bells ringing. Do we suspect a gay man going to a straight club, hanging out with straight friends, or watching straight porn movies, of turning straight?

Further, "bisexual" is not a code word for being gay but actually means something quite the opposite. And if one knew what "gay comments" amounted to, one would have ventured a reply to that as well.

The most pernicious insinuation made in the article is that gay men are more likely to be victims of early sexual abuse in their lives. It goes on to reinforce the association of homosexuality with trauma (of which there is no proven record), of the perception that homosexuality is an "aberration" triggered by external circumstances, rather than something that is inherent to an individual.

It might be news to the writer of the Telegraph article, as also to many others reading his piece, but the chances of homosexual people, irrespective of their genders, of having childhoods that were as happy or as miserable or as mundane as those of any straight person are the same. Similarly, same-sex couples are as likely to have satisfying and unremarkable conjugal lives as the next happily married couple — perhaps even more so, without draconian laws criminalising homosexuality.

And finally, to cut a long story short, gay men and women are no less invested in stable, committed and caring relationships as straight men and women are. Society and law in India being what they are, it is not always possible, or easy, for gay people to realise these goals that most straight people can afford to take for granted.

It is not surprising but a real pity — in fact, a symptom of the time, the society, and the State we live in — that stories of happily gay people and couples almost never make news. And that points as obvious as the ones raised above have to made, time and again, in a country vying to join the league of developed nations. 

(The writer is a former Telegraph employee.)