Cape, Tights & Undies Outside

If I could be any superhero in the world, I think my name would be The Rainbow Warrior. Even though I'm not one of those loud-and-proud kind of guys or even a flaming queen by any means, I'm very proud of being gay. When Chip and Reichen, two gay lovers, won series four of The Amazing Race, I leapt out of my seat and let out a triumphant roar. And when Anthony Callea finally came out (seriously though, who didn't know?), his act of courage so filled me with pride that my eyes welled up with tears. While I wouldn't be the first to volunteer to front the gay pride march, when it comes to defending the gay commmunity, you can't shut me up because I find every argument against homosexuality completely spurious and motivated by either lack of understanding or hatred.

But yesterday, I stumbled upon a subject that completely made my stomach turn and, dare I say it, feel shame for the gay community: Bug Chasing. No, Bug Chasing does not involve entomologists scouring the Amazon for new species of creepy-crawlies. It's when guys go out and bareback with the intention of being infected with HIV. You have the Bug Chaser (the HIV- guy who wants to be infected) and the Gift Giver (the HIV+ guy who will infect the Chaser). The whole concept is completely insane. But that's not the worst of it. This is where it gets really sick. There are events called Bug Parties. At Bug Parties, there is the host and the participants. There are a couple of variations to the set-up but a particularly sickening one of is where there is one HIV+ man amidst the crowd, whose status is only known to himself and the host. The remaining participants are HIV- but are aware that there is a Gift Giver among them. The crowd then participates in an orgy of unprotected sex. And so the night ends with one or more participants possibly contracting the virus.

There are cases where men deliberately place their partner at risk by not divulging their HIV status to them. One such case is Michael Neal, a 48 year-old Coburg man who not only lied about his HIV status but also admitted to deliberately attempting to infect other men with the virus. The reason for his actions? To breed the virus and widen the pool of men with which he can engage in unprotected sex. To me, people who deliberately infect others should be immediately castrated as punishment and prevention of further infection. But this case is different to Bug Chasing in that his partners did not actively seek to be infected.

So why on earth would anyone want to be infected with HIV? There are a number of factors that may explain why there are Chasers out there. One theory postulates that some men live with significant anxiety and feel that HIV infection is an inevitability. So they actively seek to be infected to 'get it over and done with'. In The Gift, a documentary about the Bug Chasing culture, one character says, "I was relieved, I didn't have to worry anymore. Do I need to be careful? Not anymore."

Another possible explanation attributes the Chasers' psychology to upbringing. Gay men grew up as boys who have always felt isolated and different from everyone else. Since HIV is almost synonymous with being gay, they feel that having the virus is like an initiation into an exclusive club; a matter of feeling like they belong. Then there's lack of education or a misunderstanding about the nature of the course of HIV/AIDS. Since the advent of antiretroviral therapy (ART), many people perceive HIV infection as a disease that can be held in check simply by taking a few pills. So fear of the illness has slowly dwindled over the years. Unfortunately they don't understand that there are different strains of the virus, with different levels of susceptibility to ART and can lead to different degrees of the disease's severity. Furthermore, the virus may become drug-resistant, therefore leading to a disease-state that is very difficult to manage or no longer manageable.

The culmination of these latter two factors is embodied in Doug, a character also featured in The Gift. Doug moved from America's homophobic mid-west to San Franscisco in search of the gay community. There, he became a Bug Chaser and when he was infected with the virus, he felt a sense of finally belonging to a community. Unfortunately he is now trying to cope with the unexpected severity of his illness.

The fact that there is this sickening sub-culture amidst an already ostracised and misunderstood community brings up so many mixed emotions in me. Many gay men feel or have felt an intense angst of loneliness, guilt and self-loathing when coming to terms with who he is because he was raised to believe that he is 'incorrect'. So on the one hand, I'm saddened that this bottled-up angst manifests itself through self-destructive activity. But on the other hand, I am angry that instead of building a positive and constructive face for the community where we are each others' keepers, there are those that choose to self-destruct, adding fuel for further misunderstanding from the rest of society. So this vicious circle continues.

I once said that I am a happy gay man because I refuse to accept society's irrational doctrine that gay men are warped and twisted (see entry: BB & P'n'P). But I shouldn't blame all of the gay community's problems on the way we are receieved by the rest of the world, especially now we are more widely accepted and welcomed than ever before. After all, we have to accept at least partial responsibility for our actions. But I wonder, what would happen if the blanket of disdain was lifted from us completely? Until then, I only wish I could don some tights and a cape and fly all over the world to protect my brothers from harm.

Karmic Return

What goes around comes around. That's a saying that's been ingrained in us since the budding of our consciousness. I've always thought that's a weird way to teach kids about honesty and generosity because it implies that acts of kindness are motivated by fear of retribution delivered by the rebalancing of the cosmos. But it works. Whatever the motivation for goodwill, as long as goodwill exists, the world is a better place.

I was out shopping for Christmas presents today. I don't care what anyone says, shopping can be exhausting, especially if you're scouring every inch of the city streets on an empty stomach and only two hours of sleep, searching for that perfect gift that holds still the precarious balance between functionality and sentimentality. But of course, it is still a fun experience nonetheless, despite the blow to the hip pocket.

So weary-eyed with tired legs, my friends and I relaxed our feet at a sushi bar to tuck into our dinner for the day. After the splurge, we put everything down, let all the weariness melt away the moment contact was made with our seats and partook in the act of exchanging the daily happenings and gossip of not only the day but the events of the week that has passed. This act of bonding and relaxation is certainly welcoming and blissful enough to make you forget all your world-weary blues.

After re-fuelling, we picked up our bags and were ready to leave. "But what is this?" I thought to myself when I was at the counter paying the bill when a strange fellow tapped me on the shoulder and asked me, "Is this yours?" He handed me my very expensive Prada sunglasses that I had absent-mindedly left at the sushi bar amidst the hubbub of conversation and mirth. I will leave justification for making such an exorbitant purchase on a novelty item for another blog entry. Suffice to say, I would have felt a lampoon shoot through my heart if my little piece of European designer-wear was forever lost in that sea of wasabi and raw fish.

My immediate thought was, "That was incredibly kind of him," a sentiment shared by my friends as well. He could've walked off with my prized sunglasses. But instead he showed some goodwill and empathy for a fellow human being and returned them to me.

Despite the cynicism with which I eye the world, this single act of honesty has somewhat restored a little of my faith that goodness does exist out there, even if it is a rare commodity. Perhaps what I'm feeling is hope. But that's not to say I'm blinded by this kind gesture; I will still lock the front door before I retire at the end of a long but glorious day.

Skin-Crawlers

The first thing we worry about before we leave the house to face the world is how we look. If we look in our bathrooms, there are probably a million appearance-enhancing cosmetics; shampoo, soap, hair gel, razor and so forth. And it's amazing what a blow is served up to our self-confidence when we don't feel we look our best. I know I'm definitely guilty of obsessing over the way I look, grooming and preening trying to look the best I can.

These days, the streets of Melbourne are full of men who look like they've just finished another day on a Vogue photo shoot. And sometimes if can feel like nobody wants to know you unless you look like that. But I think I can hold my own against these mannequins. For those who don't know what I look like, I am definitely not the model type. I don't have washboard abs and rock-hard pecs or the perfect trendy hair style or anything like that. But I'm slim, fashionable to a level commensurate with my income and, I think, attractive enough. So, aside from a few things I would change, I'm generally pretty comfortable with the way I look.

But we all get self-conscious sometimes. The solutions? Attention from complete strangers. Occasionally, when I shuffle through the Melbourne streets in my unobtrusive, space-economising gait, I've seen girls trail off in mid-conversation with their friends and turn their heads to follow my path of movement as I walk past. And once there was this guy at JB's phone section who, just as I walking past, rushed up to me and, with a big smile, asked me if I needed any help (I wasn't even heading in his direction!). Okay, maybe that's a little over the top but when something like that happens, it certainly is a huge confidence booster when you're feeling down.

As comforting as it is to know you're attractive to someone, sometimes the stranger doesn't always conduct themselves in a respectable manner. That's when we enter a grey area. At work, there is this courier who comes to my department every morning. He is probably in his 30s and speaks with a lisp at an almost falsetto pitch; very obviously gay. Of course, I have nothing against gay men, since I'm gay myself. But each time I see him, he jangles my nerves and I shudder involuntarily. What draws this visceral reaction from me? The first time I opened the door for him, he literally looked me up and down, licked his lips and proceeded to salivate profusely while not bothering to pick his jaw off the ground. He then wailed in his jarring high-pitched voice, "Oooohhh, helloooo!"

I feel extremely uncomfortable when subjected to his daily leers and jeers, his eyes scrutinising every minute detail of my body. I thought, "Okay, maybe I'm just being sensitive." After all, I'm not openly gay at work and maybe the presence of another gay man just heightens my paranoia of being outed. But even my friends at work have noticed his disgusting behaviour. If I'm not there when he arrives, he looks around the department, hoping to catch a glimpse of me. Now I have an agreement with my workmates that when the courier arrives, I run off and hide and they would open the door for him.

Unfortunately I may be the mark of something close to sexual harassment. The courier's behaviour isn't so lewd and extreme that it warrants reporting. But I feel like a boundary has been crossed here and it's enough to make me run and duck for cover. So it seems that my daily grooming and upkeeping habits has attracted some unsolicited attention. Nevertheless, I will keep making sure that I look my best. I will not let a perverted individual disrupt a ritual that imbues me with confidence and pride.

On Resilience

Life has ups and down but you don't need a watermelon to tell you that. The variety is a good thing I suppose. But sometimes when you're down, it can feel like the worst moments you've ever experienced. The thought of something so bad happening that it has a permanent, irreparable impact on my life is probably enough to send me into the rescue position with hyperventilating fits because time is something you can't take back. And when something can't be undone, that's something you have to live with for the rest of your life. So I walk around with this mentality where I won't allow myself to make the wrong decisions (even though I still make plenty of them) or do anything wrong in order to minimise any negative impact. Unfortunately, that means I'm extremely guarded and pessimistic. And when something does go wrong, it hits me very hard.

Just as a very facile and small-scale example, I was at work the other night and it was the worst shift I've had since I've been there. I won't go into the details of what I do and what exactly happened but basically, I could get into a lot of trouble if I don't get certain things done. But it was one of those days where absolutely everything that was out of my control went wrong. I knew that I was going to be the mark of some scathing and colourful linguistic missiles, which I really wasn't looking forward to. I was in a constant state of agitation and stress, anticipating the lions pouncing on me and ripping me to shreds. It was like waiting for a death sentence. Even though I really did everything could, lo and behold, towards the end of my shift, the missiles came flying and hit me square bulls-eye right between the eyes. It was, at that moment, the worst few hours I've ever experienced.

But when it was time to leave (and boy, was I happy to leave!), a question sprang to mind: despite having some of the worst few hours in my life, what lasting effect did it really have on me? It got me thinking that maybe sometimes we tend to exaggerate the significance of negative occurrences. That's not to say we do it intentionally to cause drama. While you're experiencing it, the bad times really do feel like you're free-falling down a dark hatchway towards your death. But it occurred to me that maybe people are unaware of the strength and resolve they have and utilise, perhaps subconsciously, to help them fight their way through tough times. Perhaps it's a survival, self-preservation instinct that kicks into action.

I know my example is a superficial and inane one to use to demonstrate the integrity of human resolution and tenacity. But he bottom line is it that humans are, by nature, strong, resilient and driven creatures. And maybe there aren't that many things that we can't get through.

Doppelganger

I think I'm pretty in tune with who I am. In fact, I think most people would say that they're pretty self-aware. After all, you grew up with yourself, experienced everything in your life with yourself and carefully measured and monitored your reaction to every stimuli life threw in your direction. So there is no one who knows you better than you. Now I'm not so arrogant that I won't accept some observations other people might have about me. But sometimes you get people who like to point out things about you that you feel is completely contrary to who you are and then say, "I think I know you better than you do." To me, that has to be one of my top 10 most irritating things anyone could say. But of course no one can ever claim to know everything about anything, including themselves. Nonetheless, each time a self-discovery is made, you can't help but be a little shocked.

Last night, I started chatting to this guy on msn. I had no idea who he was but apparently he's been on my contact list for a month now. We were talking about nothing in particular, just things like past relationships. Turns out he's bisexual. I don't understand bisexuality so I was interested and asked him questions about it. It was a pretty enlightening conversation. But eventually the topic turned to sex. I probably did meet him on a personals site after all. And most of the time, these guys are about sex. Usually, if a guy goes a bit blue on me, I just shut down and tell him I'm not interested in hooking up.

But it wasn't as if he was asking me to hook up with him or anything sleazy like that. We spoke about it as a discussion. I might not be into hooking up but I'm interested in how the whole process works. So he was telling me about how he chats to guys a few times and sees how it turns out. If they get along, then they meet up and take things from there. I never knew that that was how it works. I thought people talk and if there is mutual physical attraction, they meet up and get down to business. But it seems that the reality of hooking up is more like finding someone you can talk to and get along with as a friend with whom you just happen to have sex with. So maybe hooking up isn't the dirty, back-alley affair I envisioned it to be.

He felt he got along with me pretty well so he asked me about the prospect of meeting up with him. But instead of recoiling in horror, I found myself responding to his light innuendo with flirty and open quips. It was like I'd become this completely different person. I'm normally shy and reserved but here I was being witty and extroverted. The strange thing was I didn't even notice I'd taken on this strangely out-going persona until he said, "You don't seem shy to me." Maybe it was the rhythm of the conversation, my curiosity in the sexual habits of other people and the fact that it was an anonymous, online conversation but it was like I was possessed, like a second, darker and personality took over; a shadow slowly seeping in to insinuate its presence. I even thought this could be a possible sexual arrangement; a thought that is completely out of character for me.

Here was a stranger who knew nothing about me, whose approval or disapproval of me is completely inconsequential. Perhaps when there's nothing at stake and no limitations placed upon you, you are free to choose to be whoever you want to be. It seems we never really know the full extent of our capacities until we are put in an unfamiliar situation and certain traits and characteristics emerge to deal with the it. So the question for me is: was I acting when I flirted back or was that really part of who I am underneath all the shyness? I think I know the answer to that.

Houston, Do We Have A Problem?

I'm a painfully shy person when it comes to meeting new people. Unfortunately, that's going to cause all sorts of problems for me. I have only very few friends, all of whom are the best sort of friends anyone in this world could hope for, but nonetheless, very few in number. Just as a yardstick, I have about 20 or so people listed as friends on my Facebook account. Everyone else has at least 60. For most people, this scenario generally would be no cause for concern. After all, how many times have we heard stories of people who are surrounded by an entourage yet still feel achingly lonely? Quality over quantity, as the old adage goes. So from this perspective, I'm doing pretty well.

But the problem for me is that I'm a gay boy amidst a hoard of straighties. I don't feel ostracised or anything like that. I love my friends and, as far as I can tell, my friends love me too. But I can't help but feel none of my friends understand what it means to be a twisty. Of course, they don't think of me as gay so they don't behave as if there is this underlying factor that separates us. But it's hard for them to understand what it's like underneath to know you're different, that the world sees you a certain way. Maybe that's just me focusing on the differences but it's human nature to want to be among people that are like ourselves and be understood. I guess I feel a little out of place sometimes. But a greater concern is that I'll never have the opportunity to find true love if I dont venture out of my circle of (straight) comfort.

About three months ago, with loneliness in the heart and the computer at hand, I decided to sign up for one those personals sites, Gay Matchmaker. Skip three months to the present and nothing much has changed. I put myself out there but I'm still within my circle of comfort. I have not yet managed to make a single gay friend. I've gotten plenty of winks though (I'm hot apparently) but generally not from people who are looking for the same things I am. Sure, I chat to a few guys here and there but our intentions don't seem to coincide. I think I made my intentions pretty clear on my profile. I explicitly stated that I'm looking for people I can get along with on a purely platonic level and if things progress, then great. If not, then we've both gained another friend. So I assume that any wink was sent with the intention of making new friends too. Even with my clearly defined criteria, some ineligible people still apply, perhaps just to try their luck. I guess I should be flattered.

In any case, apart from being painfully shy, I have another factor working against me: I don't understand gay etiquette very well. You can't live a life surrounded by straighties and simultaneously be a social butterfly in the gay world. So I might've made a grievous mistake.

I've been talking to this guy. He winked at me once a long time ago but I rejected him because it looked to me like he just wanted to 'hook-up'. But we somehow got to swapping msn details and began chatting. As he and I chatted, I found him immediately engaging. He seems funny and friendly and complex. When I talk to him, it feels like talking to a real friend, as opposed to an online friend. And I find him endearing. He's like a nice guy who has a few underlying issues, which doesn't bother me. Who doesn't have issues? I once told him he has sad eyes and that seemed to have sent him through the roof. I didn't understand why. I thought his sad eyes looked nice. The point is, he seemed very human.

I thought to myself, "Hey, this is a really great guy that you could probably just hang out with, go to clubs with and explore the gay world with." In other words, a decent guy to be friends with. So I took what would seem like a small step to most but a giant leap to me: I gave him my phone number, not to 'hook up' or with the intention of a relationship or anything heavy like that, but just to talk or sms and see what happens from there. After all, there's only a certain distance online chatting can take you and my objective was to get to know real people, not digital words on a screen.

I don't really know what's going to happen from here. I've seen him online twice since but he didn't send me any messages on both occasions. And I'm a little ambivalent about sending him one. Maybe he thinks I came on too strong and is now running the other direction. Have I violated some rule in the book of gay etiquette? He knows I write this blog but he might not read it if giving him my number has caused problems. In any case, if he doesn't talk to me the next time I'm online, I guess I'm going to have to take another giant leap and be the one to initiate the dialogue.

Self-Discovery Blues

I wouldn't exactly call my life busy. I work part-time and study here and there, hang out with friends every now and then, nothing the average guy can't handle. That's me, just an average guy. In fact, I think my life is a little insipid so I tend to take things on just to give some variety to my day. For example, I read a tonne of books (my to-read pile is now taller than me), I'm an avid shopper (my credit card is heat-warped) and I play the piano, just to name a few things. And of course, I've started up this blog.

I'm a prospective medical student and assuming all goes well and I finally decide to stick to medicine (but that's a story for another blog entry), I think the way my mind works is very suitable to becoming a doctor. I've heard stories of medical school where your life is pretty much engulfed by it. You have to live it, breath it, dream it because there's such a huge volume of information that needs to become second nature. I know I definitely have the capacity to absorb all that information because I've always been the type that tends to focus on a unified subject and master it rather than having a scattered knowledge of disparate matters.

But aside from medicine, I'm also an avid music lover. Now when I say music, I mean pretty serious music: Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt and so forth. And so it came to no surprise, to me at least, that when I first laid my hands down on those black and white keys at 19, they just made sense to me. So now I can the piano. The only problem with me is that I do everything instinctively. That's not always a good thing because there's no progressive development and honing of skills and technique. After 6 years of frustratingly clumsy finger work, I finally got around to attending my first piano lesson last week.

But to my horror, my piano teacher thought I was pretty good. She then gave me 5 eighth-grade level pieces to learn in a week. Now I know I'm alright at the piano but I'm nowhere near talented enough to learn 5 any-grade pieces in a week. So in my flurry of sudden musical obligation, I've been slaving away at the keys, trying to master the music the best I can. As a result, any attempts at writing a blog entry - and I do have a lot of things I want to write about - have been thwarted. Instead of thoughts of words and sentences, everything I want to say is transmuted into a mental slurry of treble clefs, key signatures and pedal indications.

Amidst my concerns about my retarded writing, it occurred to me that I just made an interesting self-discovery: I'm a uni-tasker. I've always dreamed of being a Renaissance man so it pains me deeply to admit it but I think that's what I am, a uni-tasker. Faced with such a devastating revelation, I lowered my head in shame and wallowed in the despair caused by my inability to multi-task.

But here I am writing an entry. It's not a great entry but the words started to come to me because I picked up my copy of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray and lo and behold, the words are flowing, albeit stunted and clumsy. It seems that my mind is elastic: it tends to activate certain abilities according to what I'm focusing my attention on at a given moment. If I continue reading, maybe my mind will recognise that I'm in literature-mode and my writing will pick up again. And that's how I made the second interesting self-discovery: I'm adaptive. I'm cheerful again. I may not be able to do many things at once but I'm able to do many things given the right head-space. Now, I can lift my head up high and poignantly and romantically whisper to myself, "I'm capable. . ."

I'm sitting next to my piano as I write this. I'm a little scared to touch the keys because, having written this, I may have negated 3 days worth of work tortuously trying to elucidate the structural complexities of the two Beethoven sonatas I've been trying to master. I feel my fingers stumbling already.