Homophobia
As some of the "civilised" well read population of the world reeled over the news of Tyler Clementi, I find myself reacting on several emotions.
Firstly there is the sadness naturally from another fellow human being's death.
And then there is the rage. Rage at the homophobia that drove this young man to his death, and Rage at Tyler for being so incredibly stupid think this was the only way.
Click to viewBy now I am pretty sure most of you would have seen that short clip by Ellen Degeneres, and as I saw and digested her poignant words, I could not help but think back to my own childhood, where I too was the victim of homophobic bullying.
Of course my situation is not unique. Many of you have gone through that phase in life and it's not worth mentioning or going into details; anyway I think I have spoken about that before in an old old entry.
However I digress greatly.
During the course of our colourful gay life, we did many things outrageous for love, for fun, for dares or were simply drunk. I am pretty sure each and every one of us at some point, took nude photographs or even filmed a sex video with someone else.
So what if hypothetically that video got leaked out? What would you do? Would you go the same route as Tyler? How would you react?
For me personally I would have been aghast and then be embarrassed, and then shrugged it off. It's sex. Everybody does it. Everyone by now who has read my entries already knows how much sex I am having and by my rather graphical description, you don't exactly need a video to tell you that!
However in view of Tyler's actions, I would add that I am fortunate to live in a country where while homophobia does exist, and where the homosexual sexual act is outlawed, it is relatively safe from crazy religious bigots, not withstanding Professor Page 74. From what I read and know(indirectly), homophobia and the likes are very much rampant over in US.
Where ever he is now, I hope he is at peace.