Sajakkini

X is at the crossroads of her life. She has been on the Hajj twice. The last trip had her questioning the one main issue that had brought her much love and happiness, but did not coincide with her religious beliefs.

X is a lesbian. She is in a dilemma: if she chooses the right path, she knows she may find a place in paradise, but her life will be without companionship and sex. Should she decide to opt for love and a home with a woman, she can pray all she wants, flagellate herself if need be, but she’ll never touch the lowest of heavens.

“I don’t know what to do. When I went to Mecca for my Hajj, I prayed to God to take away my sexuality, make me normal, because no matter how hard I try to justify myself, the Book does not sanction homosexuality. But when I came back… imagine… it’s been years since I’ve been on a date with a woman. I go off for my second pilgrimage and wham! Women everywhere!”

DINA ZAMAN lives in KL. This is a Muslim Issue will be a series on Islam and HIV/AIDs, and will be published as and when, as she is still completing research on the topic. On the personal front, she has not taken up swimming classes yet. It’s already May! It’ll be June soon! She can be contacted at dina@malaysiakini.com.

“What do I do?” she asks plaintively.

In her bid to cleanse herself from her sins, she goes from one ustaz to another, in vain hope that her sexuality is erased and she becomes pure. She seeks solace in dzikirs and prayers, while yearning for that one thing.

These are stories for you

And (remember) Lut, when he said to his people: “Do you commit the worst sin such as none preceding you has committed in the ‘Alamin (mankind and jinn)?

Verily, you practise your lusts on men instead of women. Nay, but you are a people transgressing beyond bounds (by committing great sins).” Verses 80-81, Surah Al-A’raf

“Thing is, I don’t see myself in conflict with God,” Haji Zainal Abidin tells me. Haji Zainal is 35 years old, and an accountant. He runs a few small businesses, and looks… manly. No, he’s not effeminate. He is the archetype of Malay manhood.

“The Book talks about how God creates perfection. So if you’re born handicapped – without an arm or leg, or you’re blind; that in God’s eyes is perfection itself. My homosexuality as far as I am concerned, is perfection in God’s eyes. I didn’t ask to be gay. I was born gay. I never knew anything else.”

But it has been stated clearly in the Quran that you and men (and women) like you are to be condemned, I prod.

“If I have committed great sins such as murder, I would not have been able to face the Kaabah when I went on my Hajj! Look, I’m not like some straight men I know that marry women even though they are either impotent or unable to have sex with their wives. I don’t lie. I don’t do all the bad things.”

Look at the Prophet Lut; Sodom and Gomorrah existed during his time. The Revelation didn’t materialise from nothing.

“At that time, they were sleeping with everything under the sun, even their own children. It was a huge orgy then. Now we do, but it’s discreet, and not so much.”

“To answer your question: yes. I am very comfortable being a Muslim that happens to be gay. And vice-versa.”

Do you know where your husband is tonight?

Homosexuality is a lifestyle we must accept that exists, whether we like it or not. While many gay or bi-sexual Malaysians prefer to keep mum about their sexuality, it’s an open fact. Go to Bukit Bintang or KLCC, and you’ll see quite a number of men walking together.

To generalise their appearance would of course be wrong, but you can more or less suss them out. Sometimes, clichéd as it may sound, it’s the walk. Their hair and tell-tale earring in their left earlobe. Muscled physiques. Lean bodies. Walking slightly ahead or behind their partners. On the other hand, there are straight and buff men sporting ear-rings.

Many times you cannot see who is or is not gay. There are thousands of men and women that marry and have families. Some accept their fates and are straight and narrow (pun not intended) but many have other lives. There’s this urban legend about a pair of lovers that married sisters, who think they’re oh-so-lucky to have found husbands that are best friends. Tsk, tsk, if only they know.

According to Hisham Hussein, the chairman of PT Foundation, 50 percent of the callers that communicate with PTF’s counselling centre are gay men. Yet there is an increasing number of men that call, who are confused about their sexuality. These men come from all races and backgrounds.

“When it comes to HIV and Aids, it is no longer a gay man’s disease. It is everyone’s. And believe me when I say that straight men play a big part in this,” Hisham said.

There is this common perception that when a heterosexual man infects his female partner – wife or girlfriend – with HIV, he has acquired the services of a sex worker or is having an affair with another woman. That has happened and is still happening.

What is becoming a more visible phenomenon is husbands or boyfriends that have sex with men. These men do not see themselves as cheating on their partners, for these reasons:

• Receiving fellatio or having sex from a male/female/transexual sex worker is just services rendered
• Receiving said sex act or having sex with a man does not constitute an affair because the third party is a man, not a woman

“I wouldn’t say it is a Malay-Muslim issue,” Hisham stated carefully, “but it is a phenomenon. We have so many problems. Has anyone attempted to question the root of the problem? Has anyone asked what is happenning and why is it happening? Are we in a state of (adamant) denial?

“There is a lot of head-shaking and moralising in Malaysia. Whether you’re gay or not, we have a serious issue to deal with: HIV and AIDs. We also have to deal with perceptions – for instance, sodomy sometimes or may happen among prisoners. This is not considered homosexuality. It’s just an outlet. So where does that leave straight and gay men?”

My gay male friends are always scandalised when they get picked up in chat-rooms by straight men. These men are happily married. Is it the thrill of the unknown and dangerous that makes these men leave the comfort and sensuality of women?

“Why do straight men sleep with men?” I once asked.

“Because only a man knows how to please a man,” my friend said.

Tudung lesbians

I used to write for two mainstream newspapers in the 90s, and last year I started blogging (my blog is now defunct). I have a few readers that stayed loyal and followed my work all these years, and picked up a few new ones along the way. I have been Agony Aunt, Matchmaker, Headmistress to quite a number, and it was earlier this year when I noticed a trend among the correspondence I received from them.

They were all young women.

They all wore the hijab.

They think they’re gay.

It was one thing to advise young women on studies, dating, possessive parents and diets, it’s another thing to deal with sexuality. And I certainly am ill-equipped to advise them on their confusion.

What struck me was my ignorance and small-mindedness pertaining to this matter: I actually thought that there was no way a girl in a tudung could have homosexual tendencies. You’re wearing a tudung, for crying out loud, you have taken a divine oath to be a good Muslim, you can’t be a lesbian.

Later I thought, what you wear and practise has no bearing on the person you really are.

They were confused and frightened. They too asked me the same question: how could they be gay when they were brought up as good Muslims? They wear the scarves, they don’t mess about, they pray, they’re good daughters and friends, but they desire only women.

“Women are softer, and smell nicer than men,” one of them wrote to me.

One, in her bid to become straight, had an affair with boy her age. Yes, she even slept with him. Anything, even though it’s wrong, so that I become straight, she said.

It was awful being with a man. Men were so rough.

I never replied to her e-mails. I didn’t know what to say.

When I performed my Umrah last year, I met one of my Arab cousins in Jeddah. Sahar told me that there was a huge number of young men and women in the city turning gay as there were little interaction between the sexes.

She asked me this: in Malaysia, you’re pretty free to mingle among the sexes. If one has to be orthodox about homosexuality, then why are there gay men and women – closeted or out in the open – in KL (Malaysia)?

The interview

I did communicate with one reader. She kindly agreed to an e-mail interview, which is furnished below:

When did you realise you were gay? Were you conscious of it? Did you know what it was?

To be honest I don’t really know if I am gay. I know I am attracted to women, sometimes emotionally, sometimes physically. More than I am attracted to men, that’s for sure, although I won’t deny I am attracted to men too. Being with women makes me feel safer, makes me feel more confident. Men just… scare me. On some level I suppose I’ve always known, on another I’ve been in denial. In terms of accepting it as a fact of life, I don’t think I’ve even accepted that word: gay.

I just tell my friends - those who know-lah, and this is not many - I’m not quite so straight. I went to an all-girls’ boarding school; I was semi-popular, was a school jock, I got girls then. But I figured that was just a phase, you read a lot about it in books about growing up, about attachment to members of the same sex, they say it’s normal. Ten years after high school, and you’re still stuck in that place, you start thinking, is this a phase still, or are you not quite who people think you are?

How is your background? How were you brought up?

My background - middle-class suburban Malay, live in a predominantly Malay area. I come from a very religious background but very liberal as well. My parents made sure I kept to my fives (prayers), I don’t drink and I don’t do the normal KL lifestyle thing: no dancing, no clubbing. Worst of my vices is probably teh tarik.

But my parents taught us to be open minded; we read a lot, we were allowed to ask questions and often were given straight answers. They also operated based on trust - they just assumed we told the truth at all times. I spent my childhood abroad, then boarding school, then abroad again.

How do you feel now? What is your struggle like?

Most of the time, confused. I am trying to define who I am, not just in the eyes of the world, but the eyes of God. I talk to some people, they say to me, if you’re gay, you’re gay, just embrace it. I can’t, I think a lot about religion. It’s clear that no conventional religion in the world accepts homosexuality, not just those of the Abrahamic tradition. That underlines to me how wrong this is in the eyes of religion.

I know it’s the 21st century, I know religion is uncool, but I am a Muslim. I say the Syahadah, I submit, so I play by the rules. That is my commitment. I don’t own my life, God does. But I also have human needs; I want to be in a relationship, I’m a sappy romantic at heart despite the exterior. I see people walking together holding hands, I want that too. But with who? If it’s another girl, then what am I risking? Where is the line that religion draws? Therein lies the conflict.

You mentioned once you may just succumb to that life and then repent. What’s stopping you?

The fact that I might not be led back to repent. It’s easy when you say it, Alah tua nanti aku taubat la (I’ll repent when I’m older) but how do you know for sure that you will be led back? There are no certainties in life; and my fear lies in the fact that I would be so lost, I can never find my way back. So I try to keep on the straight and narrow, hard as it may be. Spiritual aspects of my life means a lot more to me than the here and now.

Obviously wearing the hijab is not a deterrent. How do you reconcile with the image and perception? Do you feel guilty?

I think wearing the hijab has deterred me from a few things. While I’ve accepted the fact that I am not as straight as people think I am, I’ve never done anything about it. I’ve never actually pursued a relationship with another woman, for instance, since I left school.

I’ve thought about it, obviously, but wearing the hijab somehow reminds me that I am a Muslim first, and if Islam prohibits this there must be a reason why it is prohibited even though sometimes it may not make sense to me. ‘Islam itu syumul, kita yang tak’ is what I say to myself a lot. I don’t go out to gay bars, I don’t seek out women to date, I don’t do personal ads.

Internally there is a lot of conflict between who people think I am, and who I am learning to accept myself to be. Because of my religious upbringing, people sometimes ask me stuff about fardhu ‘ain, hukum hakam agama, (the basics and principles of religion) and also sometimes I get asked to lead prayers (women only congregations, I am no Amina Wadud!) I haven’t done that in a long while though, I keep relegating, because I am unclear how Islam views someone like me: admittedly not straight but not living a homosexual lifestyle either. Am I living in sin? Who I ask about this, I have no idea.

I read a lot, and the advice seems to circulate around the fact that if ‘I don’t want to go to hell’ then I am to repent, leave behind the lifestyle, be with more righteous people and get married. I have no ‘lifestyle’ to leave behind - I think I am a pretty conservative modern Muslim. As for marriage, it’s all fine and dandy to say that, but if men just don’t do it for me, then what on earth would marriage be for me and whoever my husband will be, if not one massive heartbreak?

As for guilt - in the beginning there was a lot of guilt. I wasn’t quite sure where I stood in the eyes of God. I felt very distant from God for a while, even though I was still praying and reading the Quran as I always was. Then I thought a lot, I figured, what sin have I committed?

If I felt a certain way towards women, then there must be a reason - be it psychological or biological, I’ve never really wondered about which - but there must be a reason: be it something as simple as this being a test from Him. Nowadays I am trying to regain the closeness with Him I once felt.

Can you live with a woman and not have sex?

I suppose. But if I fancied this woman, and there are feelings, even if I’d never act on it, there would be a lot of associated guilt. I’d want to clear this with scholars first. If Islam allowed it, then I’d have no problem with it. I’ve never had sex before, so I don’t really know what I’m missing, haha.

Can you live with a man?

If I trusted him, yes. If he can accept me warts and all, then yes. But again, this is not something tried and tested. I am open to the idea of living with a man; but when push comes to shove, I still don’t know. I am uncomfortable with the idea of marriage in Malay society - the man as the provider, the woman as the carer; I’m not sure I fit that mold.

What is stopping you? Really.

Religion. I live my life by the rules of religion. What religion allows, I do, what it disallows, I try and stay clear from.

How would you advise other females? Do you have friends that are like you?

I don’t even know if I am in the right place to advise anyone, given my own state of mind. I think sexuality is something very personal; I am not in the right place to judge how others should react towards theirs. I’ve never really asked my friends if they are gay. Those that are, seem to be comfortable with their lifestyles as gay men and women. But there must be others like me, I can’t be the only one, I’m not THAT special.

If you could have anything, if you could put religion aside, would you embrace your homosexuality?

That’s a very big if. I can’t ever put religion aside, so there is really no question about that. But if religion allowed it - then bring it on! Look out girls, hahaha.

It is said that the Quran clearly stated that gay men are to be abhorred but there is no mention of lesbianism. What do you say?

I think homosexuality is homosexuality. It may refer to gay men, but that may just be translation and the use of the male nouns and verbs; I think it still applies to women. Although I know in syariah law, women who sleep with other women aren’t punished as severely as men - something about keeping them captive until they see the error of their ways, or something like that. Hey, if there is a loophole somewhere… I am all ears!

***

At the end of the day, one may question one’s self: does sexuality choose you or do you choose who you want to be?

And what matters most is your goodness, yes?

Coming soon: It’s a Muslim issue, Part 2

It’s a Muslim issue: How gay are you?