'69

Boys getting down like its 1966 (pic stolen from here)

Immorality Amendment Act of 1969

3. The following section is hereby inserted in the principal Act after section 20:
“Acts committed between men at a party and which are calculated to stimulate sexual passion or to give sexual gratification, prohibited.  

20A. (1) A male person who commits with another male person at a party an act which is calculated to stimulate sexual passion or to give sexual gratification, shall be guilty of an offence.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1) ‘a party’ means any occasion where more than two persons are present.(3) The provisions of subsection (1) do not derogate from the common law, any other provision of this Act or a provision of any other law.”.

In the same year as the Stonewall Riots in New York City, the South African Immorality Act of 1957 which infamously criminalized sex across colour lines, was amended to curtail gay people's freedom to assemble. This was the result of a moral panic that was sparked by a party in a suburb of  Johannesburg.

The Forest Town raid of January 1966

"Police had heard that a party for gay men was being planned in a quiet suburb of Johannesburg. Undercover agents posing as guests infiltrated the party where they were stunned to find more than 300 mostly white men dancing, kissing and cuddling each other. They called in a raid and made arrests. The scandal made headline news and sparked further undercover operations to find and round up suspected homosexual networks." 

"The Minister of Justice, P.C. Pelser, went so far as to warn parliament that the survival of the nation was at stake. Referring to the ghosts of ancient Rome and Sparta, he thundered: 'Formerly glorious civilizations are lying in the dust and South Africa should beware of a similar fate.  The canker of Sodom has to be sliced out before it ruins the moral fibre of the nation.'

"In 1967, Pelser submitted a proposal to parliament that would give policy sweeping new powers to crack down on homosexuals.  A Select Committee on the Immorality Amendment Bill was then formed to study the issue and make recommendations. For over four months, the Committee heard conflicting evidence from a range of experts about the nature and extent of the homosexual threat. On the basis of these, it finally concluded that the state did indeed need greater ability to repress what it called 'immoral, indecent or unnatural acts'."*

Such is the power of our dancing, kissing and cuddling. 

*Epprecht, M. 2008. Unspoken Facts: a history of homosexualities in Africa. Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe (GALZ)

(I didn't change Epprecht's wording, but cut some sentences out)

#CapetownIsRacist

I indulged a guilty pleasure last night, by lazily hopping onto the twitter trend #CapeTownIsRacist. It was two guilty pleasures actually - one is talking about race, and the other is getting into an online barney. Doing either of these is almost always a waste of time, doing both together is a always certainly a painful waste of time.

I don't know how it started (I don't know how to go to the beginning of a twitter-trend, can someone young and hip tell me? #25yearsOLDnow). Times Live claims it was Lindiwe Suttle who tweeted "No matter how famous/rich you are, you're still a 2nd class citizen if you're Black in Cape Town. @helenzille when's the change you spoke about happening". Ms. Zille, of course, dismissed this as a baseless assertion, as did her subjects. Enough people tweeted #CapeTownIsRacist, though, to make it the number-one trending hash-tag yesterday - either denying or affirming, or being very conspicuously disinterested in the whole thing.

My plan for this post was to carry out a sort of proof-by-humiliation, where I enumerate the countless small indignities I have encountered in Cape Town. Things like the bill folder going to the white side of the table, or the security guard who follows you if you are brown and in a retail store, or the time I was told that I am not gay enough to be admitted into a gay bar in Greenpoint. I was even going to recount the time I was accused of stealing bubble gum! (truthfully though, this last incident happened in another city). This is not a great strategy though, I risk being labelled a #ProfessionalBlack by my #ProfessionallyRaceBlindLiberal compatriots.

And too much is required of me: Not only do I have to endure indignity, I also have to chew it up into b(wh)ite-sized pieces for you to understand. I understand it just fine.

I remembered a very painful email exchange with a (then) close friend who proudly identifies as an "old-school liberal". It was about his hilarious (to him, and his other friends) impression of the Cape-Coloured. They way it goes, is to say "jou ma se poes" in the most nasal white-boy-sounding-coloured accent you can muster. I spent many precious words and minutes trying to explain the role of his white privilege in this ugly caricature of a diverse group of people, trying to explain that the fact that he's one-eighth coloured does not exonerate him when he is so very apparently white, trying to explain that his view of coloured people was frighteningly narrow. He was proudly non-racist, of course, so you can imagine how long it took for the explanation to take.


But Explaining over, and over, and over is its own kind of torture.

I don't think the #CapeTownIsRacist tag will achieve much. You cannot say anything in 120 characters - you can only shout a little. Clearly, the intended audience of these shouts cannot, or will not hear. (Now trending: #CapeTownIsAwesome).  At least, though, those of us for whom #CapeTownIsRacist resonates with a dull pain we have yet to articulate will know that we are not each imagining things.

Birthday ramble

I am a quarter of a century old. Yesterday I pulled out a lone nose hair poking out my left nostril. My newest preoccupation is my 8-month belly - an inheritance from my otherwise skinny dad, and beer I suppose. His hair only started running away in his 50s - no silver yet.  My mom still has a full head of jet-black hair, dread-locked into a crown. They are both hypertensive, but neither diabetic. My grandma would take insulin shots. Actually, I am not sure that they don't dye their hair. They are sneaky. Both of them wear glasses, and my younger sister does as well now. She is 21.

Are my nipples lower? What is this fold of skin when I bend to the side in the shower? I run now; twice a week. 3 miles, 30 minutes. I tried to cut carbs out last week - had salad for supper two nights in a row. Life seems too short to eat salad. I will switch from beer and to that turpentine-vodka they serve at No Parking. Right now I am having rice and beans because that is what is in my fridge.

My little sister is graduating from UCT today. I am extremely proud of her. I stayed at her apartment when I visited home. Judging by the contents of her fridge, she is more of a grown up than I will be for a while. Fridges dont lie.  She is also my friend. (When did that happen I wonder? Who knows.)

I guess it being christmas and all, I should reflect or whatever. I don't want to too much, I don't want to jinx things. I am on a winning streak that began on 1 Jan 2007 a little after midnight, after some heavy drinking, when I told my friend Iain that I am gay. He listened and bought me lots of chicken. Real friends buy you chicken (or Tofu or whatever) and they listen. And they hang around. Friends have helped me to gain sanity and to grow.

I am going to work tomorrow, in an organization that helps people all over the world to realize their human rights. Particularly, I'm working in the section that helps people who are gay or lesbian or transgendered.  People who may or may not be recognized as worthy of dignity by their own family members. Some who may not be deemed worthy of their own lives.

I have met some people, this year, who work "on the ground" in spaces like that. They do amazing things. Despite. Gay people always seem to do amazing things, Despite.

Anyways, I am excited to go to work tomorrow, and about the next quarter-century. Maybe over the next two months, I will do one thing that will make one person's life a little easier in a small way. Who knows? It is exciting.

Yours,
Tata Keletso

Things that I am thankful for

(in no particular order)

• living in a strange city with strange people
• no parking bar
• a scholarship
• ken "kennedy" nadolski's drunk voice message from last wednesday
• josephine karianjahi's jokes
• pedro "slut" carneiro's sassy sex column-like advice 
• daniel lyons's 'tude
• my family's ability to laugh at anything
• my research supervisor's openness
• facebook
• the ability to go to (almost) any country for $2.25
• the diaspora (you know who you are) for bringing home here
• people who hold the door open or say thanks when you do, help people with strollers, give up seats for elderly people, or in some other small way make this crazy city more livable for other people.
• the 24-hour $3.50 falafel guy on 168th and Fort Washington

Surprise Pap

I just had a consultation with a doctor.  I have had a few this year; I am almost used to the awkward silences and fluorescent lighting. Some involved nudity, one left me a bit angry and confused. Today's was awkward (but not silent) and definitely flourescently lit. As we all know from encounters in clothing shop fitting rooms, there can only be truth under flourescent lights.

The first thing I did when I arrived in my new doctor's office is to take a furtive picture of a book on his desk (the book shown above). It set the scene for our consultation (which, by the way, had nothing to do with the topic of the book... or so I thought when I made the appointment).

I don't want to go into details about our encounter (maybe I will later, when I have processed).  Right now, I just want to tell you that if you are a homo man you should probably get the HPV vaccine. What I will share about my consultation is this unexpected pamphlet I got at the end.

You Have Just Had an Anal Pap Smear 

Introduction - Over the last decade, medical providers have become more aware of the risk of infection with the human papillomavirus (HPV) in the anus. Doctors have long known how HPV affects the cervix in women and we now know that it can affect the anus in a very similar fashion.  The surface of the anus is made up of the same tissue as the cervix. When HPV infects a cell it can occasionally cause the cell to develop changes in its DNA called mutations. As more and more mutations occur there is a chance that a normal cell will become a cancer cell.  In the cervix we perform Pap smear to check for abnormal cells which can then be easily treated to prevent cancer. In fact, forty years of cervical Pap smears have reduced cervical cancer rates in this country [U.S.] by 500%. In recent years rates of anal cancer in gay and bisexual men have been rising dramatically.  In an effort to combat this problem we recommend the same kinds of preventative screening in the anus to prevent cancer as we do in the cervix.  And that is why you've just had an anal Pap smear.

Stephen E. Goldstone, M.D. 

Brazen and lewd as I am, I don't know whether I would have been able to talk about my last sex, bottoming and topping, condom use and sexual partners in the clinic if it all frightened or disgusted my doctor. I can only imagine how much more unpleasant a pap smear could have been. When I have energy, I will write about the time a doctor tried to ask me all of those things without making eye contact and without speaking in full sentences... Or the time a nurse asked me with deer-in-headlights-eyes if I was ok with her looking "down there". I would have been ok if I knew that she knew her way around "down there". Anger, confusion, flourescent lighting and awkwardness.

What I am thankful for, this thankstaking holiday, is medical providers that recognize my life as a gay boy, and are well prepared to take care of all of my health needs, not only the polite ones.

*Read this New York Times article about the neglect of LGBT health by the medical profession. The comments are especially entertaining (but in a distressing way).

speak now

"What are the words you do not yet have? What do you need to say? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence?"