A world without Internet

For our crowd, I always have wondered that, the internet is such a blessing. It brings us together breaking the barriers of location, timezone, race & everything. I wish religion played the role of the internet in bringing together people & collectively help us achieve better with our collective potential.

Anyway, day dreaming is no good! Religion will remain a divisive force & internet, an unifying force.

I am imagining how life would have been without it. When I was growing up & came to understand my sexuality, the internet was parallelly evolving too. In the early 2000s, during my teens, when I realised my fondness for men with chest hair & my natural obsession with the scruffy, I could search on 'Outpersonals' or 'Guys4Men' or chat on the classis Yahoo chats, Room number 9, to discover similar people with similar preferences. I don't remember meeting anyone through the internet at that stage, nevertheless I did have my own fair share of sexual experiences with some people I knew already or I knew later after the sexual encounter.

But, imagine, even in a country like India, which is supposed to be an IT country, there are 10000s of villages that are still yet to get the power of the internet. There are so many boys & men like me from the early 2000s who are discovering their sexuality & coming to terms with it but are too afraid to talk to anyone about it. How would they express themselves? How would they meet people at all but for online dating & things like that?

It seriously makes me wonder. If you think I am sort of over imagining this, login to Planetromeo & see the number of users online in small cities like a Vizag or a Tirunelveli or Salem. Even in big cities, when we have a choice between the 300-500 odd users online, barely 2-3 are we able to strike a meaningful conversation with. Logistics, priorities etc. are enough reasons to screw up the meeting. When your choices are less than 10, imagine what the scene is!

I don't mean to sympathise with anyone because I am a strong believer of 'they'll figure it out themselves'. I do, all the time. Many do, all the frigging time. One in need, real need, will figure it out himself. Yet, it makes me wonder how. Sometimes, I even wonder if things were better that way. The uncertainty of the interest level of the person in front of you. He could be a neighbour or a cousin or some random guy at a temple festival or a wedding or a nearby storekeeper or anyone at all. That smile that gives away, the thrill that you get, the minute of self-doubt where you imagine the worst things happening with this guy, the impulse which you succumb to, the rush for grabbing something within 2 minutes of meeting someone(In the PR world, it just NEVER happens!), the instinct to run along with the person to find a dark corner for just the two of you, the moment when you are in the middle of the act and somebody barges in & you run for your life to save your ass!

After all, writing is a way to keep things that you imagine in a parallel universe. How I wish these things happened & these would rather be memoirs than lines of fiction! 

5 Reasons why Gay people make the world a better place

We live in a world that could have been better. For every new medicinal innovation, there is a new disease. For every treaty signed, a war breaks out elsewhere. For every life saved, somewhere else, someone's is lost. The disparity between the first & the third world is staggering.

Where is the hope?

Well! It would rather be sweeping to say 'gay men'. But, there's a lot more advantage for the society due to this community than possibly any other community.

How?

#1 Population

We seriously don't need more population on this planet which is already very crowded. The common notion is so skewed and twisted that if a man has to be responsible, that will either happen when he is married(to a woman) and if that doesn't happen, it will automatically happen when he has a kid. Now, what about the woman and kid? For every man who is course-corrected to be "responsible", aren't 2 irresponsible beings being created? Barring very few rare cases, gay couples prefer adoption to procreating using test tubes. The world needs more such people!

#2 No sexual violence against women

Women will feel a lot more safer in a world where they aren't sexually oppressed and subjected to violence. There is no way gay men would resort to that kind of violence with women(I can even vouch men). Everything works with mutual consent.

#3 Happiness

The world would seriously be a happier place. Aren't we all called 'gay' with a reason?

#4 Pursuit of Excellence

It is a well-established fact that gay people are far more relentless and focussed in their careers and create success, wealth and value as much as anyone else, or even better. Tim Cook, Megan Ellison, Elton John, Ricky Martin, Ellen DeGeneres you could go on and on. The standards they have set are really high and we wouldn't settle for mediocrity at any cost. This is not just good for themselves but they create value for the society at large.

#5 Goodness

I have met 1000s of gay men and I am yet to meet a man who is as greedy as a straight man. There's a lot more contentment, happiness and gay people are greedy only for love. Nothing else. There will be no plundering of natural resources or wealth or other people's happiness when you are at peace with yourself. The gay community is extremely good as gold at heart. This goodness only spreads and we don't go for wars. All we go for is Love Jihad!

If a lot of people are going to be homophobic, it wouldn't be wrong to say they have a problem with a peaceful, happier world with civilised people who do just about their own thing. This is the kind of (not so)humans that is a bane to the planet spreading hate, chaos, violence and all sorts of negativity.

It is good for the world that there is still a small amount of human race that constantly strives to make this place better by being just their natural self. Here's to all the gay people in the world. Big O! 

5 Real reasons behind homophobia

It is sickening to think people use the word 'gay' as an abuse and often times, it is not even apparent to them that it is as heinous as racism. What is even more appalling is the liberal unmindful usage on apparently evolved streams of social media where they use the word for name-calling, thinking that's what they are doing. What one doesn't realise is that gays are actually better than straight men at practically everything they do. Now, I will reserve that for another post. 

What one cant' deny is the fact that a large section of "modern" society is naturally homophobic or they at least need to pretend to be so, in order to get majoritarian acceptance. There is a stigma around being 'gay' and it is impossible for many to even reason with the fact that they are as normal as anybody else. Being gay is an attribute and not an identity. 

#1 Minority Community

The world isn't a fair place. In a planet of 7 billion people, of which let us safely assume at least 3 billion are grown up men, only 45,000 people are online on Planetromeo. That, for a small sample, proves that we are 0.00000642857% of the human race. Small enough to be called 'minority' community. To most of the planet, we don't even exist considering how small the numbers are. Despite that, our voices are heard. Thanks to the power of the internet and other mediums of free speech. It is natural, at least according to Charles Darwin, we need to fight for our existence. 

#2 Stigma 

In reality, people are actually not that homophobic. Seriously! With the kind of everyday battles people are fighting day-in and day-out with disease, distress, war, unemployment, economic issues and many more roadblocks for peaceful existence, who really has the time to think about 0.00000642857% of the human race? Let us be practical. Nobody gives a damn! Yet, imagine if 1 person among a group of 5 men says something in favour of the gay community. The very next question would be 'Are you gay?'. It is as stupid as asking a male advocate of woman's rights 'Are you a woman?' or an animal activist 'Are you a cow?'. Yet, nobody thinks for a second about asking such ridiculously stupid questions. The easiest way to deal with such situations or rather avoid them altogether is just be part of the larger group and nod in favour of their opinions, no matter how stupid they are! 

#3 Drama

Gay men are partially to be blamed for homophobia too. I know a lot of my readers wouldn't buy this idea of mine. Yet, I am going to go ahead and say it. A lot of gay men are unnecessarily dramatic and the air they carry around is often annoying even to other gay men. Like I mentioned, being gay is a part of you and that isn't the ONLY thing that defines you. Subtlety is an art. Overdose of anything isn't good and that applies to expressing oneself too. If you are loud and attention-seeking, the phobia that you receive is more on account of that and not being gay itself. It is also because of this kind of crowd that Karan Johar movies portray them in a certain way and further reinforce the opinions in the minds of people. If you would like people to accept you normally, the way you are, there is just one way to do it. Be normal. Nobody likes tantrums! Seriously. 

#4 Religion

A lot of religious beliefs have been misconstrued and propagated incorrectly over the years. The gatekeepers to God have unfailingly chosen to either ignore or add to the agony by further giving their own not-so-creative touch to it. So, these so-called messiahs and God-men have time and again made sure that the 0.00000642857% of human race is some sort of typo on the planet. In any case, most religious outfits and institutions have been built using oppression as brick and fear as mortar. It is rather too unsurprising for me to believe that we have been easy targets. 

#5 Frustration

Most humans are in real, frustrated creatures. They look for excuses all the time to cover up their inadequacies and incompetencies. Let us just face the fact that most people live a terrible life lost in paying education loans, car loans, EMIs and where is the time for living your dreams and that vacation that you wanted to take to Venice? Gay men are often free from such commitments and far more successful in life in terms of career, finance etc. and can afford to take such luxurious vacations. I don't want to stereotype here but a lot of gay men are opulent and love living a good life and having the best of things. They are because they bloody can! The only way for the losers to get back at them is homophobia. Well! who cares! :P 

I know this isn't the most thought-provoking piece of writing ever. It isn't even the most sensible one. Nor is the language savour-worthy. Yet, when you look at things deeply, these are some basic things that we fail to take a look at and that actually influence human thinking and behaviour. If you have a different point of view, feel free to share it with me.