Questions from Trinidad

I have written quite a bit about homosexuality over the last two years. I have also had lots of letters from readers. Recently, I exchanged email with a reader from Trinidad and Tobago, a Commonwealth country in the Caribbean. He was heterosexual, open-minded, with lots of questions to ask. Apparently, gay people are virtually invisible in his country, and the internet offered the best avenue for discovery.

I have culled some questions from the letters he sent me [1] and put them here for my readers to tickle their minds with.

There are no answers provided here. It would be intolerably didactic, and would spoil the fun. In any case, I don't think there are right or wrong answers for most of them. But you could consider how you might reply to the questions if they were posed to you.

More interestingly, I often find that others' questions reveal much of their pre-assumptions. The questions tell the story. These are no exception. That's why they are so intriguing.

The totality of these questions together should offer food for thought. They hint at the gulf between what homosexual persons know, and what heterosexuals (generally) don't. Does the gulf look narrow or wide?

Up till the third letter, he used the word "homo" to mean homosexuals. He was not being ill-intentioned. He just didn't know that it was derogatory. After I pointed it out in my reply to his third letter, he switched to using the word "gay".

Words in square brackets [xxx xxx xx] are Yawning Bread's.

 

Questions from the first letter
1.1	I will like to know from a confirmed gay person how the life is in normal living.
1.2	What was the major factor that caused you to be gay and not ashamed?
Questions from the second letter
2.1	You asked me if I chose to be heterosexual or if it was natural. It was natural. I want to know if it was natural for you to be gay and from when you noticed that tendency.
2.2	Is it possible to "horn" your many sex partners or for they to 'horn' you? [Note: to horn someone is to have sex with someone else (Trinidad slang)]
2.3	If a woman were to offer her rear to you would you be aroused enough to enter?
2.4	What are the physical hurts you have and can suffer for using your rear so regularly and for as long as your partner wants to in relation to the fact that the hole was not made as the vagina with similar walls for expanding and contracting? [Note: until he asked this question, there had not been any prior discussion of anal sex; nor whether I engaged in it]
2.5	Do you always have to use condoms?
2.6	I need to get the biological answer from you as to what is the function of the anus in humans. We all agree, I hope, that the vagina is for urination and the exit of babies.
2.7	Give me a background on your father and mother's history and how they treated you, before you knew you were gay.
Questions from the third letter
3.1	I was always of the view that anal sex was the number one form of sexual satisfaction for all homos, followed by penis-in-mouth. [Is this true?]
3.2	What turns you on on seeing men going about their usual business? A man will see a skimpily dressed girl and get an erection without getting near to her.
3.3	Have you courted a particular man and have entered into a contract with him that he will be your only homo partner?
3.4	Do most homos operate like Muslims by having many homo partners?
3.5	What states permit homo-marriage?
3.6	Married heterosexuals do have close non-sex heterosexual friends they socialize with, and no bad feelings remain. The husbands will socialize with other husbands and wives will socialize with other wives and singles and joint socializing takes place too. Do homos socialize with non homos without trying to woo one to sexy matters?
3.7	Can a homo partner of yours be seen socializing other homo friends without your being concerned for his wanting to bed the friends?
3.8	The homos that [have] sex [with] men and women, are they betrayals of true homosexuality?
3.9	Is it true that the majority of homos are not easily identified by watching them but from their telling you?
3.10	Since less than 0.5% of men are homos, could it be a mishap that causes men to have homosexual feelings and lesbian feelings?
Questions from the fourth letter
4.1	There are morals for heterosexuals like no sex before marriage and sex with your spouse alone. Let me know the morals for unmarried gays and married gays.
4.2	Can I assume that just as how heteros break their morals and have orgies before marriage with other than their spouse after marriage, you gays have orgies with many men in one room just changing partners and having three or more men doing different things with each other and another at the same time.
4.3	Just as how heteros pay to sex the opposite sex do gays pay to have gays and others sex them?
4.4	What biblical guidelines do gays use to support their lifestyle?
4.5	Since you said no state allows gay-marriage, is it that two gays meet and agree that verbally that they are going to be the exclusive sex partner of each other. It there a written document of some sort that is signed by witnesses?
4.6	Can any amount of gays also agree to be the exclusive use of each other?
Questions from the fifth letter
5.1	For the gays who make money from their gayness [i.e. male prostitutes] what is the most regular act, isn't it anal sex?
5.2	Is it not the same mentality that the female prostitute will have that of making the most money per act and not necessarily to love or please the partner?

Footnotes

1. In my very first reply to the reader, I cautioned him that I might quote from our correspondence to make a Yawning Bread article. 
   Return to where you left off
2. Trinidad and Tobago is an island-nation in the Caribbean region, off the coast of Venezuela. It has a population of about 1.3 million, with a standard of living roughly similar to Malaysia. The population is a mix of (a) African descent, with some Caucasian admixture, and (b) East Indians. Almost all those of African descent are Christians. Those of Indian descent are Hindus, Muslims or Christians. Trinidad and Tobago was a British colony and the main language today is English.
3. Another article concerning pre-assumptions and bias in questions can be seen at Beware the bias in your questions

Addenda

None