An uncertain future, each time an agony of selfdoubt, of confusion, of terror lying ahead,” lamented of my friend ( sorry I will not mention his name ) about the kind of life he leads.
My friend is a gay who runs a boutique in the downtown of davao city. He said, ” Life is really unfair. In every game of love that we play, we always end up the loser.
Like what happened to me. I had an affair with a young man in his early teens. I met him in a movie house. It just started with a conversation. The next time I knew it, we were in bed. Things just happened so fast,” he recalled. “Since then, my life became more colorful and more exciting. How I wished it would go on forever. But just like any relationship doomed from the start, it had to end. I was devastated upon learning that he was marrying his childhood sweetheart in the province. It was so painful. The pain is so gnwaing I thought I would die,” said to my friend, lighting a cigarette.
“I was a fool sending him to college. In the end, somebody else got the reward. Next time.” He vowed, drawing a deep breath from his cigarette as circles of smoke formed in the air.” I’ll be more careful. I have already learned my lesson.”
My friend whipped out his wallet and showed me a snapshot. “Doesn’t he look like Richard Gomez? (one of the known pinoy artist) I nodded in approval. Then, he gazed at a distance and said in a flat tone, “Well, that’s water under the bridge now. I don’t want to think about it anymore.” He smiled sadly and as if forgetting I was around, he blurted out, “But that was a memory worth remembering. I have no regrets.” Asked if he would fall in love again, he replied swiftly, full of confidence. “Of course! I will. But, as I’ve said, I’ll be more wary. I’ll use my head instead of my heart.”
My friend is just one of the gays in the midst who have always been vulnerable objects of men who take advantage of their weaknesses; of men who bargain their passions for money. In the past, homosexuals were treated as outcasts in our society. Although they are now accepted, they still have to contend with sarcasm and mixed emotions from other people.
“It is not my fault to be born this way. This is not my own making,” explained my friend. “I don’t really understand why some people look at us as if we’re afflicted with a dreadful disease! They should blame it on my parets,” he added.
There is a popular notion that parents are somehow responsible for their children’s homosexuality. However according to Rita L. Atkinson, a psychiatrist, in her book introduction Psychology, parental influence is not a major factor in determining sexual preference. Sexual preference appears to depend on a complex pattern of feelings and reaction within the child that are not yet understood and cannot be traced to a single social and psychological cause.
According to Atkinson, although many people still view homosexuality as abnormal, most psychologists and psychiatrists consider it to be a variant rather than perversion of sexual expression and not in itselft an indication of mental illness.
