Q&A: Sex & Sexuality

OK here we go, here is the longer answer to the question I received on comparative homophobia around the world. Sorry I took so long finishing this post - I have been rather busy and I had to speak to a few friends to complete my research for this piece. To kick us off, here's the original question:
I'm still coming to terms with myself but I would like to ask you to, if possible, please write an entry on homosexuality and homophobia in the places you've been to. I'm curious as to the level of acceptance people worldwide have for "queers" (boy, I do hate that term). And if you could juxtaposition it with Singapore, it would be the best."

Now to begin with, I would divide the countries into 4 levels of gay-friendliness/homophobia:

1. Super-liberal: Sweden, Iceland, Netherlands, Norway, Canada
2. Liberal: Italy, Greece, Czech Republic, Ireland, South Korea
3. Borderline: Poland, Baltic States, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey
4. Very Hostile: Iran, Somalia, Uganda, Jamaica, Sudan, Saudi Arabia

Of course, I am only listing a few countries in each of those categories above. Now I'm sure gay people would argue about which country should go into which category and there are several mitigating factors - take Spain for example. The laws in Spain are so progressive and gay friendly and they have gay marriage - great! But the Spanish are so Catholic and the Catholic church is so homophobic, uh-oh, I sense a conflict... or not? Spain is also a secular state - so the Catholic church does not get to preach their homophobic hate message to the state. Their economy may be in such a total mess but at least they understand how secularism works! 

I'm going to put the UK in the liberal second tier - we're doing okay, there's been a lot of catching up on equality issues in the UK, but we're still quite far behind more secular states like Sweden and Holland. Religion is always gets in the way of equality issues and that's why the more secular a country is, the better their track record on gay rights.

As for Singapore, it falls squarely into the borderline third tier. Things are not great, but at least it's not as bad as in places like Jamaica or Uganda where the government go out of their way to hunt down gays and make life hell for them. Gays have no rights in Singapore at all, there is no concept of gay rights in Singapore - but gays in Singapore enjoy a lot of privileges that all Singaporeans enjoy and often take for granted. This is a good place for us to kick off the argument.

Now many people will talk about homophobia in terms of hate crimes - such as gay bashing. This happens in most countries but in Singapore, we simply don't hear about gays being beaten up or murdered for being homosexual. This is not because Singaporean society is more gay-friendly than other countries - far from it - it is rather, simply a question of policing and law-enforcement. This is something you Singaporeans take for granted and don't realize how lucky you are.

In most other countries, the government needs to fund the police force and all policemen receives a salary from the police force. Certainly in the UK, due to recent funding cuts to reduce our budget deficit, the police has been forced to cut the number of police on the streets in the UK. They simply cannot afford to hire as many staff as the cuts cut deep and British people are quite rightfully worried about the situation - would crime increase as criminals know there are fewer policemen out there to catch them? Certainly, the total breakdown of law and order last year during the summer riots was a clear indication of just how stretched the UK police's resources are and how they were unable to cope with a mass outbreak of looting and rioting.

In Singapore, the government is a lot richer and can afford to fund the police force a lot better than their counterparts in the UK. Furthermore, the number of police serving at any one time is greatly boosted by the men who serve their national service in the police force (rather than in the military). This system has served Singaporeans well over the decades and has resulted in a very, very low crime rate in the country. This means that all citizens - gay, bi or straight - are protected by this low crime rate. So regardless of the government or society's attitudes on the issue of homosexuality, gays in Singapore enjoy the benefits of Singapore's very low crime rate.

I've lived in Dubai and it is well known that the crime rate there is very low - most people do not want to end up in a Dubai jail. The police force in Dubai is extremely modern and well funded. The UAE does not have a merciful justice system and is vehemently homophobic. You're unlikely to encounter any kind of crime in Dubai and by that token, gay or straight, you are extremely safe. Just don't be openly gay there.

Limpeh lived and worked in Dubai.

I am extremely pissed off by people who claim that S377A doesn't matter because it is not actively enforced in Singapore. It is still be big middle finger by the government to the gay community in Singapore - it still goes to show that the PAP are stuck in the dark ages and give in to hatred and bigotry. Homosexuals deserve equal rights and their relationships need to be recognized by the law to be equally valid - this is what civilized countries in the west do. Fuck the hateful bigots who think that gays in Singapore should be grateful that they are not arrested for what they do - I recently attacked another Singaporean blogger for being homophobic - make no mistake, you know where I stand on this issue! Here's a well written blog post by a local who has addressed the issue of S377A in detail: http://akikonomu.blogspot.co.uk/2007/10/conservative-case-for-377a.html

Why do you think there's a gay brain drain from Singapore? Would gays want to live in a place like Singapore where they are barely tolerated when they can be in New York, Sydney, Berlin, San Francisco, Toronto or Barcelona? I have written plenty about moving abroad here:
http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/eight-tips-for-working-abroad.html
http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/for-naedyn-working-abroad-part-2.html
http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/singapore-day-in-nyc-2012-marslows.html
http://limpehft.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/swiss-ft-vs-singaporeans.html

The problem with S377A being in Singapore is that there is inadequate safer sex campaigns targeted at the gay community - it's not the well-educated gays who pay the price for this, but often it is the younger gays and lower-educated ones who are simply ignorant about safer sex and this has resulted in a recent surge in HIV infections in Singapore amongst the gay community. Sure there are organizations like Oogachaga trying their best in these difficult circumstances, but until S377A is removed, how can there be a wider, more open safer sex campaign targeting gays if gay sex still remains (technically speaking) illegal?

Regardless of how you may feel about the morality of gay sex, you cannot argue with the issue from a financial perspective. It will cost the government relatively little to educate gays about safer sex and HIV than for the state to fund the treatments for HIV patients who become so sick they are unable to work and becomes a burden on the state. Heck, Singaporeans are human and are a horny bunch fucking around anyway, Singaporeans want to have loads of casual sex and yet the government still wants to bury its head in the sand about it? Wake up and smell the poppers lah PAP. You may not be interested in sex, it doesn't mean the rest of Singapore isn't. You can't stop them from having sex, you can at least teach them about safer sex. HIV awareness and prevention in Singapore is a joke and the PAP have let Singaporeans down big time when it comes to the HIV/AIDS issue.

What frustrates the hell out of me about Singaporeans is the extremely immature way a lot of them approach the issue of gay rights and civil liberties. They view gay rights as a gay issue that only concerns gay people and if you're not gay, it doesn't affect you and they talk about gay people having a 'gay agenda'. Oh for fuck's sake you idiots. You don't need to be a woman to care about women's rights. You don't need to be an ethnic minority to care about racism and you certainly don't need to be gay to care about gay rights - this is about the kind of society we live in, the values that define us as a society. Do you want to live in a progressive, open minded and tolerant society or do you want to live in a society defined by narrow mindedness, bigotry and religious intolerance?

In the west, gay rights are seen in the wider picture of civil liberties and stamping out bigotry in our society. The umbrella of civil rights brings together different people from different backgrounds - gay and straight alike - who care about creating a society free of intolerance and bigotry. This unites us as liberals and we all care about a range of equality issues (including gay rights) - Singapore has got an awfully long way to go because Singaporeans are just so bloody politically apathetic and are more interested in shopping and eating than civil rights.

It is ironic that in the UK, the government has passed very progressive and liberal laws on the issue of gay rights, yet the poorly unfunded police force are unable to protect the British public and we have a higher crime rate which we all have to put up with, gay or straight. So really, when you compare Singapore or Dubai to the UK on this issue on how safe gays are in the country, homophobia is less of a factor than government spending on the police and law enforcement.

In any case, in the UK, I think it is a fallacy to talk about an acceptance for gays as if gays are a monolithic entity. There are rich gays, poor gays, gays with phDs and gays who are illiterate, gays who are working class and gays who are oh so posh. There's isn't so much a cohesive, monolithic 'gay community' as such, but many gay communities divided by factors such as class, culture, wealth and ethnicity - much like the straight community. Any surprise there?

Let's look at an openly gay politician in the UK: Alan Duncan, our current minister for international development. He is openly gay and is in a civil partnership (ie. same-sex civil wedding). He has enjoyed a long and illustrious political career. He is also incredibly posh - his family is fabulously wealthy and he went to Oxford before working in the oil industry where he became a multi-millionaire. He's a classic example of how rich people in the UK get richer because the rich can afford to buy their children a great education and set them up for life with the right connections in the business world.  Did you know that Alan Duncan lived two years in Singapore - from 1984 to 1986? (Yes I got that from wikipedia.)

For Alan Duncan, his sexuality was never an issue - he was rich, he was intelligent, he was capable and it was not like he ever tried to keep his sexuality a secret. In fact, he has won five elections (as an MP) - it goes to show that the British voters don't care about his sexuality, they just want a man who will be a good MP. So yes, I can't ever see that happening in Singapore where people are a lot more homophobic. But to make my point, let me ask a rhetorical question, had Alan Duncan not been from an extremely rich family, had he not gone to Oxford - had he instead been from a working class poor family and had not even been a graduate, would he have gotten anywhere as a politician? Of course not.

The bottom line is this: (and I know some of you will disagree with me on this) one's social class matters far more than anything else in Britain, including one's sexuality. If you're rich and posh, your sexuality is such a non-issue that you can easily win five elections in a row. If you're poor and working class, then you probably have much bigger problems to worry about than your sexuality. Thus in the case of the UK, it's pretty much your social class that defines you rather than your sexuality, so within the gay community, the working class gays and the upper class gays don't really move in the same circles, it's not any different from the straight community by that token.

I suppose in Singapore as in any other country, the same principle applies - money does buy you privileges. The quality of life you will have is not so much determined by your sexuality but by your earning power. I was told about gay men who cannot afford to move out and thus have to stay in the closet because they don't dare to come out to their parents - whereas if you are able to get your own place, then you're not going to have to face awkward questions about what you do and whom you do it with.

Whilst homosexuality may be technically speaking illegal in Singapore and society is still homophobia, Singaporeans are by and large very practical when it comes to making money. I remember being in a rather exclusive restaurant entertaining clients in Suntec City last year when there was a gay couple on the next table holding hands. The staff at the restaurant didn't even bat an eyelid - why? Because this gay couple was spending a lot of money and when paying customers spend that much money, the staff look the other way. This might not be the case, if it happened say in a food court or hawker centre where the gay couple would've spent under S$10.

I brought a gay French client out for a drink once at the pool bar at the Grand Park Orchard - he brought his boyfriend along and they were holding hands, being affectionate. I half wondered if the staff was going to kick up a fuss, but no - nobody bat an eyelid again. Why? This was an expensive hotel poolside bar where they overcharge you for the drinks and in exchange for that, they look the other way when it comes to their gay clients. These classy, expensive places are not specifically gay-friendly, rather, they are rich-friendly and they love all their big spenders including the gay ones. In short, if you're gay in Singapore, make sure you're a rich gay. A very rich one indeed.

Hey big spender...

In Western Europe, you can come out at work and if other people have a problem with it, they're breaking the law. There are loads of laws to protect gays from all manners of hate crime and homophobia. It is not to say that conventional bullying doesn't exist, it's just generally perceived to be unacceptable to be racist or homophobic, whilst it is quite okay say to discriminate against someone else for being stupid or fat. Let me give you an example - we had a guy in a company I worked for years ago with a stutter. People made fun of him for stuttering, it was unkind but there you go. It felt okay to make fun of someone for something like a stutter because that's being personal, rather than being racist or homophobic.

I must say however, that America is a bizarre example - one would usually perceive western countries (ie. North America, Europe, Oz, NZ) as more progressive and open minded when it comes to gay right but America seems to defy that rule. Now given what a huge country America is, we cannot treat America as a monolithic entity but it is possible to generalize like this - the Eastern and Western coastal regions are generally quite gay friendly: New York, California, Vermont, Maine along with places around the Great Lakes: Wisconsin, Michigan. The big swathe in the middle are very religious, very homophobic and very evil.  Oh Americans turn Christianity into something so ghastly and evil, it is scary. I fear that Singapore is headed the same way given how the AWARE episode panned out - thank goodness common sense triumphed in that episode, which restored my faith in Singaporeans. Look, I may be atheist, but I have nothing against Christians - I just want them to keep their beliefs to themselves rather than impose it on others.

If you are not sure, just look at the results of the last election. The 'blue states' which voted Democrat are the gay friendly ones and the 'red states' that voted Republican are the ones that hate gays. The way American politics works means that each state does get a lot of autonomy when it comes to a lot of their local laws, so you can have states like Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire being very gay-friendly whilst the inbred evil Republicans down in places like Texas, Wyoming and Mississippi go out of their way to make life hell for gays in those states. That's why so many gays from such places simply move to big cities like New York and San Francisco in search of tolerance and acceptance.

Another observation I have made in Asia is the stereotyping of gays - now this isn't really applicable in Singapore but more the case in places like Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines. When you talk about gays in Thailand, it does tend to conjure up a stereotype of the kind of "ladyboy" image of a very effeminate man who acts in a womanly manner (disclaimer: I know this is not always the case, but such is the stereotype). The concept of a masculine homosexual doesn't seem to exist in those countries (at least not in the same way as in the west), so whilst these countries are actually very gay-friendly compared to Singapore - you may find yourself constantly battling stereotypes.

I don't think there's any one country that is perfect - each country will have its pros and cons and ironically, the main factor is money. The richer you are, the better quality of life you will have. A lot of it will also boil down to how much confidence you have to deal with the challenges of your life and this is the same for anyone gay or straight.

OK, I am not sure I have done the topic justice - but let me know if you have any other questions on the issue and I will try my best to answer your questions. Leave a comment, you know the drill.