Being gay in rural Thailand

[Oliver2]

I posted this elsewhere as a response to a discussion about Thais' views of homosexuality.

I knew that my boyfriend was very close to his parents and he claimed that they were fully aware of his sexuality but that the subject was never discussed.

We'd been together for four years or more before I received the invitation to visit in Kamphaeng Phaet. I had felt rather hurt by his reluctance, particularly in view of the falangs I knew who'd been "taken home" at an early stage in their relationships. I wondered whether the poverty in which they lived was an issue, and without explaining why, I talked to him about my experiences in West Africa, where the poverty in some rural villages and compounds I'd visited (and ate in, from communal bowls) was way beyond that of rural Thailand.

But no. I had to tease out the reasons why my invitation was relatively late in arriving; nothing to do with poverty, parents or family; everything to do with the close-knit village in which his family lived and its collective view of homosexuality. A gay man, he told me, was considered to be effeminate. P is straight-looking and acting. He didn't want to be considered a ladyboy, or anything like it.

About a year earlier, I'd paid for a house to be built next to his parents to provide a better environment for him....it even had an indoor toilet and bathroom! However, he was there for only six years when the opportunity arose for him to move about ten kms away, to a secluded (relatively speaking) but older house with its own plot of land.

I have to admit to being upset. That house near his parents had cost me dear; I'd been involved in every stage of its planning and construction. I must confess to a feeling of pride for what I'd done for him. And of hurt by his decision.

But again, the desire for privacy and separation from the village trumped everything else, including being willing to swap the smart concrete house I'd paid for an old and traditional one.

I stress that P , who's now thirty-eight, is straight-looking and acting. And exclusively and assertively gay. But the hold the community still had on him was immense.

He visits his parents everyday; but his sexuality ensures that he will no longer live there. I friend explained to me that, In an odd way, bearing the mind the part financially I played in his two houses, including the fitting-up and refurbishment of his new one, I am something of a victim too!

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