The latest advertisement by Lee jeans depicting lesbians (top) has created a furore in some circles in Bangalore with the group Morelove taking strong exception to it.
A five-minute movie on homosexuality by four students of St Joseph’s College of Communication in Kerala’s Kottayam district earned them a suspension. As a society, are we tolerant or intolerant towards people with alternate sexual choices?
Metrolife spoke to a few gay men in Bangalore to gauge society’s reaction to their choice of partners of the same sex. The only line that rang true after an interaction with them was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s classic line written over a century ago: ‘For non-conformity, the world whips you with its  displeasure.’

Their numbers
The MSM (men having sex with men) population in the City is estimated to be between 30,000 and 40,000, according to Reginald Watts, the executive director of ‘Sangama’, a human rights organisation. As lesbians rarely come out in the open, it is impossible to estimate the numbers of WSWs (women having sex with women), he says.
The desperate attempts by MSMs to integrate into mainstream society have come to nought in the face of a preset mindset. Take the case of 42-year-old Ramesh.
While working at a vegetable shop at KR Market seven years ago, his obvious feminine gestures earned him taunts and nasty comments from co-workers and those in surrounding shops.
Unable to take the constant humiliation, he walked out of the shop. Today, he runs his own grocery store. He says, “We are not asking for anything. Do not ridicule us, that’s all. As human beings, we deserve some respect.”

NGO to the rescue
Rajesh, a 23-year-old resident of Ramanagaram was the butt of jokes at a printing press in the City where he worked three years ago. He did have a fondness for applying kajal and bindi. “The owner liked my work. However, my male co-workers did not even speak to me. I was teased by people who lived near the hotel where I went to have lunch with my female colleagues. But things did not stop at that. My owner’s son would detain me after office hours and fondle me. He also forced me to have sex with him.
 After some time, he insisted I bring women to him. As I was unable to do so, he used his friends to bully me; one of them constantly stalked me even after I left the job.
Only after I contacted Sangama, have they stopped harassing me.” Rajesh is gainfully employed here in a project to spread Aids awareness.  
Raghu was working as a receptionist at a maternity hospital. His behaviour attracted attention. “Patients or their relatives would call up the hospital after getting discharged and invite me to have sex for money. I was working at nights in the hospital to pay for my college education as my family could not afford it. If I rejected, they threatened to inform the hospital owner that I was not ‘straight’ and that would have cost me my job. Hence, I succumbed to their demands. Gradually, it became a habit and I gave up studying. Today, I am a sex worker. I have been sexually abused several times by policemen on night rounds too,” he says.
Narayan (32), who works as a temple priest, belongs to what is referred to as ‘double decker’ (bisexual) category. He is married and has a child. But he also has affairs with men.
Recounting his experiences, he says, “One of the men I went out with, narrated the experience to his friends and I was ridiculed. I quit my job and have started work in a new place now.”  
The families of homosexuals show them the door when they come to know of their sexual preferences. They have no protection under Indian law. The policeman is a tyrant who abuses and also harasses them for money.
Society’s stings have been so sharp that people with different sexual orientations have been forced to recoil as they feel humiliated and worthless. They have just a humble demand—to be treated as human beings.
(All names have been changed on request)