Coffee at the Barista opposite VT, and I was chatting with my friend Midnight's Child, who happens to be a year younger to me, though much ahead of me in terms of maturity, I feel at times. Except this one - we were talking about Prominent Activist who works in her office. Of course, she knows about PA because he doesn't take the pains to hide his sexuality from the people at his workplace and there's a kind of acceptance about it there, and she knows that I know him through my own Rainbow Network, but he doesn't know that MC and I know each other. Complicated? It gets worse.
MC, bitching about the coffee: "I hate all Baristas! I told you we should have gone to the Cafe Coffee Day instead!"
CT, ignoring all and concentrating on the black forest on his plate: "So what's new these days?"
MC, grinning mischievously, "Well, there's a lot of gossip about your Friend PA at the office!"
CT, puzzled: "Really? Why should they care? I thought PA is very open with the fact that he's gay and all? I thought he's generally well-liked there."
MC nods head: "O, he's liked and all, but there's still loads of gossiping. How he's gay and all that. You can never stop the wagging tongues."
CT laughs: "True. You're wagging yours here, and I'm not stopping it!"
MC, unfazed: "And he surfs gay porn and all!"
CT, stunned: "I'm sure he does not! PA's hardly the kind to surf porn in the office!"
MC shrugs: "Well, the guy who used to sit next to me has a vantage view of his computer screen, even though he thinks he can't be watched, and he says that he's seen some guys' pics on the comp. So....!"
CT shakes head: "Well, maybe he was just looking at some gay lifestyle site or something. Hell, it may not even be a gay site - maybe it was an ordinary guys' lifestyle or clothing site or something! Ever thought about that?"
MC pouts and takes a sip of her bitter cold coffee: "I suppose that could be the case."
Well, after that admission, I teased MC and called her a 'homophobe', to which she took great offence (in her typical MC way: "I hang around with you, don't I?"). But then, when you think about it, that's what most straight people look at gay sites as. It doesn't matter whether it's a lifestyle or a clothes mag, or even an agony aunt thingy. If it's 'gay', it's gotta be 'porn'.
And to an extent, you can't even blame them too much. Even if you open gay.com on your site, who in their right minds would believe you when you say that you're actually reading the cover story on gay priests protesting in midtown America? They won't, for the simple reason that, other than the teeny text portion on the screen, you have this looooong pic of a seminaked guy at the right side, an overhead bar that screams out WATCH LIVE GUYS AT HOME, and various assorted ads on the other side for everything from penis pumps to viagra.
Ummm... what text?
In Chennai and Delhi, when I used to visit cybercafes, the single most important reason why I usually cruised on indiatimes.com, despite the awfully ugly men available there, was the fact that there were NO such huge banners proclaiming HOMO to the rest of the world. It made your daily gay viewing palatable to the world at large, unless you were caught jacking off in the cybercafe - which I've actually witnessed firsthand (excuse the pun) in Chennai once.
;-)
And then, there's the other side of the story: the part where you staunchly defend the fact that you're gay and your freedom of expression (and experience) should not be stymied because of a couple of prudes who haven't been laid in centuries. Thats the part of me that argues, if PA was reading a couple of articles from gay.com at office, he very well can, since he's not watching porn or doing anything obscene. He's reading, for God's sake, and that's all.
Before you elect me as the chairperson of GB, however, I must admit that I'm not quite that brave or that outspoken or that militant. And no, I wouldn't surf gay.com myself at the workplace.
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