sex, lust and money must be accompanied by responsibility

Jabulani Dube (BTM Fellow)

SOUTH AFRICA- 21 January 2009: Truth is some gay men pay for sex, it’s an open secret. Some heterosexual men often agree to have sex with gay men provided that they [gay men] pay them. It is also true that gay men, particularly the feminine ones are often very desperate to get partners to be in relationships with.

This is not an easy task because it is a fact that there are many feminine gay men than masculine ones and because they are so easily identifiable as gay to the heterosexual community, they immediately attract hatred and harassment in the form of hate speech or hate crimes.

This results in many feminine gay men staying single, lonely and desperate. And they end up having sex with anyone who is willing, anywhere and regardless of whether there is protection or not.

Recently a fellow gay man was murdered in Johannesburg, I am not so sure of the facts but rumor has it that he had asked a heterosexual man to go with him to his house to have sex.

The agreement was that he was to pay this heterosexual man a deposit of R300 before the service and another R300 in the morning.

When he failed to meet his part of the deal the following day, the heterosexual man started hitting him to his death.

There may be various arguments around his death, such as who knows whether the man he took to his house was heterosexual? Who knows that he murdered him because of the fact that he hated gay people? Or just because he did not fulfill his promise?

Some say he could have just taken some of his property and paid himself instead of killing him therefore assuming that he killed him because of homophobia.
 
It is a fact that the majority of the South African population is women, men are fewer that women so it really becomes difficult for a small number of feminine gay men to get partners and this results in them using money to buy sex.

There may be various reasons for people to buy sex such as greed, people who just can’t get enough and who get easily bored by the same partner, this also amounts to polygamy.

Another one may be desperacy, where one just can’t get a partner to be in a relationship with.  
Some buy sex just for the fun of it while others just want to explore different techniques which they don’t get at home.

Now gay men are not doing anything that some heterosexual men don’t engage in. Truth be told is that we all pay for sex directly or indirectly. Buying that expensive gift for your partner or treating him/her to an expensive dinner can be a sort of payment, I stand to be corrected.

Anyway a myth doing the rounds is that all gay men ‘rich’ which results into some poor heterosexual men who are desperate for money throwing themselves at gay men.

Whether we pay for sex or not is not really important but what should be considered is the use of  protection to prevent HIV and Aids as wells as STIs.
For gay men, they need to make sure that they trust whoever they take to their homes because homophobia is a fact in this country despite paper laws.
Respect yourself in public and look decent inorder to attract a decent partner. I say the latter because many feminine gay men would act more feminine than even women, They would be the loudest in any gathering, therefore irritating everyone who can’t help but notice them. And ladies and gentlemen it won’t hurt to fulfill every promise you made to the person you took home for the night.

Now go and have fun and be responsible!