The final chapter to the explosive revelations of some weeks ago about Catholic sexual abuse in Uganda and rampant sexual activity by priests with women is yet to be written.

Here is an addition to the saga from Los Angeles, narrating Father Musaala’s travails since the letter he wrote to the Catholic hierarchy in Rubaga was leaked. It makes for uncomfortable but predictable reading. The Catholic Church in Uganda seems to have acted as was to be expected -  by hiding their heads in the sand, laying the grounds for what is only likely to amount to a bromide, and punishing  the messenger.

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The Catholic Church suspends Anthony Musaala indefinitely for shining a light on what he calls an open secret: Sex abuse is a problem in Africa too.

By Robyn Dixon, Los Angeles Times

 May 4, 2013, 6:10 p.m.

 KAMPALA, Uganda — He is a celebrity across eastern and central Africa, a gospel music star known to many as the “Dancing Priest.” But for years he also was a keeper of painful secrets — his own and many others’.

In going public, Anthony Musaala has forced the Roman Catholic Church in Uganda to confront a problem it had insisted didn’t exist. And he may stir a debate far beyond Africa’s most Catholic of countries.

The Ugandan priest has been suspended indefinitely by the archbishop of Kampala for exposing what he calls an open secret: Sex abuse in the Catholic Church is a problem in Africa as well as in Western Europe and North America.

The African Catholic Church is fast-growing, pious and traditional. As the church elsewhere forks out billions of dollars to compensate the child sex abuse victims of priests, few African Catholics have questioned the assumption, voiced recently by Ghanaian Cardinal Peter Turkson, that the African church is purer than its counterpart in the West, which is regarded as secular and permissive.

It’s not more pure, says Musaala. He says he has the evidence to prove it.

“The Vatican turns a blind eye because it doesn’t want to be embarrassed about this blooming church. But I think it’s time we had the truth,” Musaala says.

In March, he wrote to the archbishop of Kampala, Cyprian Lwanga, about priests who fathered children, kept secret wives or abused girls or boys, and called for a debate on marriage for priests.

One of the cases of abuse he cited involved himself. He was one of numerous boys sexually abused at 16, he says, by Catholic brothers at one of Uganda’s best boarding schools. He also alleged several other cases of child sex abuse in his letter.

“Wherever you go, people know about this. It’s like an open secret. People know. Nothing is ever done,” said Musaala in an interview.

The letter was leaked to the news media. And in response, Lwanga suspended Musaala, saying his statements stirred up contempt for the Catholic Church and damaged the morale of believers.

Later in the month, Lwanga acknowledged that abuses had taken place, apologized to victims and set up an internal inquiry. But he did not backtrack on Musaala’s unpaid suspension.

Lwanga’s limited concession came after South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban said in a BBC interview that he had dealt with cases of child sex abuse, which were handled by the church internally, and not referred to the police. He suggested that the perpetrators weren’t criminals and needed counseling.

“Some of the priests went, according to the wisdom of the time … for treatment, came back and have been under — what we call it — personal surveillance and have functioned quite normally ever since,” he said. Napier later apologized, but also accused the BBC of twisting his words in the radio interview.

For African Catholics, the revelations of child sex abuse in Western churches are shocking enough. But the idea that African priests might be sexually abusing boys had been unthinkable. Paradoxically, many believers in Africa are aware that some priests break their vows and father children, but talking about it is taboo.

Catholicism is the most popular religion in Uganda. In the center of the hilly capital, the faithful gather daily at Christ the King Church, and so many touch the foot of a large statue of Christ that its shiny toes gleam in the sunlight.

Parishioner Stephen Sanya, 68, a retired postal worker, said it was common knowledge that some Ugandan priests have sex, or, as he put it, “serve nature” instead of God.

“There are cases where [priests] indulge in these things. I have seen and heard of cases,” said Sanya, dawdling in the warm afternoon sun after dropping in to pray. “It’s scandalizing. I suggest that if a priest is not ready to be celibate, he can resign and get married. But I haven’t seen that happening in Uganda. Here, it’s secret.”

Anyone who calls for these embarrassing secrets to be brought to light, placing the church in an awkward position, doesn’t get much sympathy from Uganda’s conservative churchgoers, even if the allegations are true. To traditionalists, what Musaala is doing is un-African.

But then, Musaala is the kind of man who doesn’t exactly fit in, and perhaps it took an outsider like him to toss out the first allegations.

Educated in Britain for many years, he’s a creature of two worlds, not completely at home in either. His clipped British accent and his quaint turn of phrase mark him as an outsider in his home country. His attitudes, and his soaring sense of individual freedom also are imports.

Related articles

• Ugandan Priest Exposes Abuse Only to Get Suspended Without Pay (patheos.com)
• Uganda priest ostracized for publicizing sexual abuse (latimes.com)
• Priest ostracized after breaking code of silence on sex abuse (seattletimes.com)
• Father Musaala blows the lid off priestly sexual abuse in Uganda (Africa)
• Father Musaala: the Catholic Church blinks … sort of (sebaspace.wordpress.com)

The scathing analysis below was posted by someone else on another forum. With their permission, I am reproducing it, more or less verbatim, because I broadly agree with its thrust.

Holier than thou religious pontificating is the main reason Bahati’s Anti-Homosexuality Bill ever made it off the back of the drafting envelope, and it is pompous dogmatism that has kept the bill alive for almost four years now.

Ugandans also need an education urgently to understand that they live in a secular, and NOT religious, country. This means that religion should not, must not, be used to make national laws. Sadly, this lesson doesn’t seem to be sinking in and the Bible is constantly trawled out by fawning Ugandan Christians to justify why this and that moral code should be imposed.

Anyhow, here is that excellent excoriation of the hypocrisy, blindness and, dare one say it, ignorance of the Ugandan Christian:

The average Ugandan Christian is the most hypocritical, sadistic, evil, promiscuous, pretense-filled creature I have ever met; his/her concept of Jesus is weirdly wrapped around superstition, fear of hell, nauseating individualism, emptiness , meaningless religiosity and unusual levels of spiritual confusion.

The average Ugandan Christian is a cesspit writhing with jealousy, pettiness, sexual immorality, thievery, dogmatic heresies, selfishness and extraordinary ignorance. This piece of creation thinks that by attending religious services once a week and engaging in all manner of social filth during the other 6 days, it will earn eternal life.

Being ignorant and also spiritually illiterate, the Ugandan Christian is properly exploited by the eloquent con artist brandishing the Bible, proving that every day a Christian sucker is born in Uganda.

A Ugandan Christian thinks that s/he can bribe (tithing) God into giving him/her a BMW that will act as a tool for admiration /envy by the walking populations. A Ugandan Christian claims to know Jesus but a short discussion with him/her will prove that s/he knows Jesus as much as a hyena knows the origins of the universe.

The Ugandan Christian will joyously float in lakes of filthy wealth when his neighbor is dying of hunger; the Ugandan Christian man will have no qualms cheating on his wife 35 times a year; the Ugandan Christian will have no compunction prostituting herself to her lecturers to pass her degree; the Ugandan Christian harbors some of the most severe strands of jealousy you [will] ever come across.

The average Ugandan Christian man who spends all his fortune on alcohol to the financial detriment of his family will find no problem attending a church service. The average Ugandan Christian girl will find no problem sleeping with 140 men before she meets [the] man of her dreams and is whisked to the church for a ‘Christian’ wedding.

Christian Uganda is a religio-socio-economic filthy lake where all manners of sexual immorality, greed, individualism, corruption, alcoholism, pettiness, nudity, backbiting, jealousy and spiritual darkness find their roots and germinate, being water by the collective hypocrisy of members of this faith.

In short, Christians in Uganda have mental issues. (Kojo Cyril Ojigbani)

Amen, amen, amen.

Related articles

• Father Musaala blows the lid off priestly sexual abuse in Uganda
• Uganda and the gay question: what next?
• I am embarrassed to be African

Kevin Grayson (right) and ‘boyfriend’

I think it is in the water.

Yet another gay sportsman who looks like, if not better than, other sportsmen you have seen is out of the closet. This time it is Kevin Grayson (25) and his boyfriend. Grayson, following in the footstep of Jason Collins, came out as gay a couple of days ago.

At the rate they are coming out, we might run out of room to put them in. And that will be a fantastic thing because then they will have to spill over into the public arena.

Related articles

• Former College Football Star, Kevin Grayson, Comes Out As Gay (advocate.com)
• Local football champion Kevin Grayson helps break barriers (wtvr.com)

The former is what aid agencies tell you they want to do when they set up development programs in Africa and elsewhere they have decided, usually unilaterally,  that their money, technical expertize and presence are needed.

Papa Chavez

What brought this into sharp focus for me was the death of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez recently. The “poor” came out in numbers almost not seen since Jesus conjured two fishes and a loaf of bread into a feast that fed the 5,000. The jury is still out as to whether Chavez really gave his poor people a fish or taught them how to fish. And it is on that issue that it seems appropriate to segue to Uganda.

It is absolutely true that if you have money to give away, you will always have willing takers.

And so, it seems, it is the case for what passes for gay activism in Uganda. In just a matter of two or three years, the number of gay activists organizations in Uganda has mushroomed from around 5 to more than 30. All of them seek funding from have foreign constituencies in Europe, the United States, Canada, South America, Britain trying to … help. Most of the would-be helpers are Chavez-like paternalistic do-gooders with clear terms of reference to showcase their caring credentials.

Some of the donor organizations, however, don’t seem too interested in accountability for the money they disburse. The popular rationale for this tends to be that they can’t demand accountability from the oppressed and downtrodden who are operating in secrecy. The oppressed gays, lesbians, bisexuals (LGBTI) of Uganda would be putting themselves at risk if they so much as cast around for a part-time auditor to make sure that donations are being used for the reasons highlighted in their proposals, wouldn’t they?

Gay activism is the latest “sexy” bleeding heart bandwagon to roll into Uganda. on the back of a pro-gay worldwide wave that is sweeping everything in its path. So far so good; after all what caring soul would decry any efforts to help the downtrodden?

An example of a Ugandan LGBTI public begging bowl set up on the internet a couple of months ago -  and eventually pulled down

This being Uganda, savvy people haven’t taken long to figure out that there is money to be made in gay activism. I have it on reliable authority that some donors are nonetheless disbursing to groups and individuals enough money to pay 10 teachers’ salaries in Uganda for 8 months -  even when they are cautioned that they might be funding little more than a jamboree of conspicuous consumption. I have received e-mails from people complaining that money sent to them for their “security” is being diverted to other purposes by their leaders.

Then there are the fictitious membership roll calls. My phone number and name appear on the members’ lists of two relatively new Ugandan LGBTI organizations. But I am not aware of when I signed up to be their member or attended any of their meetings.

Left-right dichotomy

Can the donors really be this gullible?

Yes and No.

Yes, some of the organizations going around cup in hand in the West ‘on behalf of ‘suffering Ugandans’ are run by naive young people,  barely out of school, who are out of their depth in dealing with crafty Ugandans. The internet campaigns that have sprung up in the last few months are good examples of this.

No, in 2013 the more experienced donors know that there is waste and misuse of resources going on but gay rights are highly sexy worldwide right now and it is good public relations to be seen to be doing something towards the LGBTI cause in Africa. So they simply turn a blind eye to the more egregious evidence of charlatanism.

Why?

I think it is part of a worldwide ideological war between left and right in the Americas (mostly) and Europe that leads to such disregard for standards of accountability that the donors demand of organizations in their own countries and mainstream NGOs in the developing world. If Scott Lively’s Defend the Family is using money to fight the ideological battle for minds in Africa, the argument tends to go, so can the left.

With the right-wing in retreat even in their last bastion, the United States of America, the liberal/left wing has an excellent opportunity to prove their caring credentials by wearing their bleeding hearts on their sleeves. If some of the funds are being wasted, so be it; the wider goal of changing mindsets globally justifies relaxing some of the oversight on the donated funds.

It is a disturbing trend but you will not see it change soon because that is how practically every crooked, thieving, lying, inept regime in Africa has managed to stay in power; with a lot of unconditional help from friends in America, Canada, Britain, and Europe and so on.

As someone told me when I asked her about why the demand for accountability seems more lax with some LGBTI donors than one would normally expect, “it’s the nature of the beast.”

Related articles

• Arnest : Ugandan goes online to seek a loan to pay his kids’ school fees (kiva.org)
• Canada funding opponents of ‘abhorrent’ anti-gay bill in Uganda
• Quebec launches $7m campaign to fight homophobia

You might recall that barely ten days ago, we attended the funeral of a young man, Abby Mukasa (Love) who had lost his fight with HIV/Aids at just 27.

We might be seeing the tip of the iceberg in these cases.

The incidence and spread of HIV/Aids in the gay community in Uganda continues to be the elephant in the room that, if not addressed with the seriousness it deserves, will have far-reaching consequences on the gay community … and ultimately the entire country.

This is one area, though, where everyone has to play a part, not just activists.

We all know how HIV/Aids spreads. We know that unprotected sex especially puts one at risk. In Uganda, one hears of horror stories of young men having impromptu sex in bar toilets and all these seedy places (it is never clean, nice places, is it? Not that the venue makes a difference but there you have it) they meet. Yet, it is also true that gay boys are not showing much interest in health programs or adherence to using condoms.

The message, thus, needs to be blunt:

Activists can’t hold everyone’s hand; it is for grown-up people to wake up, smell the coffee and take control of their own lives.

Yes, ARVs now help HIV/Aids sufferers live long fruitful lives and HIV is no longer the sure death sentence it used to be 25 years ago – if you are a government minister or have tons of money to pay for your medication and care.

But if you are a struggling 20-something man out of Kampala’s slum areas, with a so-so education and dreadful work prospects, please remember that you  live in a banana republic where social attitudes are as Neanderthal as medical facilities are medieval. If your ass is broke, which is the case for most of you young men having raw sex in toilets and dark alleys after one bottle of beer that you couldn’t afford,  you are likely going to catch something lethal.

Then you will eventually end up at Mulago Hospital in a filthy, smelly, mosquito-infested ward where all the poor go to die because that is how the poor in Uganda die.

One or two of your relatives might eventually show up at your bedside and give some token help of fruit juices you can no longer hold down and platitudes. But it will be too late because you will have wasted a lot of  critical intervention time, refusing to be tested, refusing to accept the test results, or  pretending that you are fabulous and all you are suffering from is malaria.

The terrible conditions at Mulago, the lack of support from your relatives and the attendant lack of money to meet your medical needs will cut your already frail immune system tenfold. Then you will slip away, leaving behind a motley crew of shocked gay friends who will not know how to tell the world that you died of a preventable, manageable, sexually transmitted disease.

Finally, your embarrassed relatives will pretend to the world that they did all they could for you.  One of them will announce to the mourners at your freshly filled grave that you were much-loved, you had a child (whom no one will have heard of until then), they did what they could for you but the Lord had other plans in the brain fever that you died of.  And that will be it.

As the mourners walk away, one of your friends will ruefully remark about how the festivities to put your body into the ground cost twice as much money as was needed to provide you with the medical care that you never got.

Your fate is in your hands guys. Get tested to know your status.

And put a condom on it.

Related articles

• HIV/Aids claims a promising gay Ugandan’s life (sebaspace.wordpress.com)
• Will AIDS activist’s death boost HIV support services? (76crimes.com)
• HIV Aids is already killing LGBTI Ugandans
• 35% of MSM in Kenya have HIV!
• Raymond Kiwanuka RIP!

But now I am wondering about whether I haven’t heard enough. He is apparently giving all sorts of interviews, speaking to every celebrity and their house help, will go on Oprah with his “family” and … and … and …

While I see all the benefits of Collins coming out, albeit in the twilight of his career, I am beginning to wonder whether he is well advised to turn his coming out story into a ring circus.

Overkill? Jason Collins

Yes, finally having a 7ft, 255lbs sportsman who’s been in the game for 12 years come out as gay is groundbreaking, historical stuff. But unless Jason Collins himself looks at it as an event that must quickly reach its dénouement, he runs the risk of making it look as though the coming out is more important than his sports prowess.

Yet, in my view, the real story is that a gay man is standing before us saying to the world that there is really no physical difference between a good gay athlete and a straight one. End of story, game-set-and-and-match.

So, I am going to presume and tell Jason Collins what to do.

Jason dear:

You have made history in America. You have opened the gates I am sure for many long-suffering gay athletes. You have proved to doubters that there is really nothing to fear from a gay athlete who might be playing at the highest levels of basketball or any other sports for that matter. You have shed the yolk of silence and lies about your sexuality that might have otherwise choked you. You have blazed the trail and long may you live to enjoy the fruits of your decision to come out.

Now, hunker down, focus on finding a team that will have you as a gay man and continue playing the best basketball you can. Remember that your work isn’t done yet; indeed your work as a gay athlete of some renown is just beginning.

If you can talk to Oprah tomorrow, you can talk to her next month or even next year. Same with all the clamoring journalists who likely had never heard of you ten days ago but are now writing about you as though they were/are you other twin.

You have made the point, Jason Collins. Go away, keep to yourself and your real loved ones and focus on your future and what you want to do with it. Otherwise, the more you talk to the press, the more you will create the impression that your homosexuality and coming out is a bigger story than the fact that you have made it to the highest levels of a professional sports known for its physicality and machismo and made a reasonable impression – as a gay man.

There is really nothing more to say about your sexuality or decision to come out, Jason. Not to Oprah, not to Michelle Obama and certainly not to the fawning press.

Move on.

Related articles

• Jason Collins discusses coming out as gay with TNT
• Gay sportsmen look just like any other sportsmen you have seen

It shows young black boys having all types of sex, most off it without protection, raw.

Exploitation or informed choice?

All the boys in those images are Africans, a number of them Ugandans. And, yes, they are all likely over 18.

Why then would I say that they are being exploited by whoever is filming these scenes when the players are adults?

Simple.

I am an adult man of, ahem, 38, well-traveled, more or less seen it all. It’s rather more difficult to manipulate me than a 24 year-old who has never been beyond the slums of Kawempe in Kampala’s outskirts.

These guys are as vulnerable as they are impressionable and will do anything for just $100 or the mere promise of it. But the consequences of making that money by doing bareback porn films are too catastrophic for them to appreciate, given their limited exposure.

As a friend from another forum pointed out, the camera work is quite good which suggests that these scenes are being shot by people who are experienced in what they are doing. For them to let these young naïve boys have bareback sex, water games and goodness knows what else for the camera is exploitation if not abuse. One could argue that it is even racist but I have no evidence of that so I am not going to make that charge at this time.

What can be done about this sort of abuse? Technically nothing since the boys are older than 18. But pressure can be put on the film-makers to make sure that protection is being used given the fact that medical facilities are nearly non-existent should these boys catch a communicable disease.

The people filming these bareback sex scenes have blood on their hands and pointed questions to answer.

I am not even going to start on the potentially career-destroying repercussions should the images become public which they usually do.

Enough said.

It is true.

The HIV incidence rate in the gay community in Kenya where they have done the studies stands at 35%. It stands to reason that it is around the same pandemic levels if not higher in Uganda where hardly any studies are being done due to government disinterest, paranoia and, likely, bewilderment and/or ineptitude where dealing with HIV in the gay community is concerned.

You have also heard me rant and rave about how the gay activist campaign in Uganda needs to retool its approach and stress the humanitarian health (read HIV/Aids) angle more than than the “stop the hate” one since even our most homophobic relatives will step up to the plate if/when we are sick? Events continue to assure me that my thinking is right.

Abby Love (RIP)

Only last week, I attended the funeral in Entebbe of a young gay man/lady of just 27. Yes, 27. S/he died of meningitis brought on by HIV/Aids complications. I knew of Abby Mukasa and spoke to him once or twice in places I cannot quite place in my mind at this time. At 27, he still had his entire life ahead of him and his death cut shot a promising performing career.

Here is the tribute from Abby’s confidant and carer, Stella, a woman whose selflessness knows no bounds and who is going beyond the call of duty for a cause that she doesn’t have to be involved with since she is not even gay herself. Uganda really needs a lot of people like Stella.

Stella’s ode to Abby Mukasa is rendered all the more poignant since there must be hundreds of HIV/Aids sufferers in Uganda’s gay community who are going through exactly the same travails as Abby struggled with – mostly alone:

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“My CD4 count is only 47!” she confided in me.
“That is really very low,” I replied and stared at my confidant. “Why didn’t you go for anti-retro-viral therapy much earlier?” I asked.
“I was afraid of those medicines, very afraid,” she replied.
“But what are you afraid of in the medicines?” I shot back.
“People can talk and talk about you if they ever find you in that line for medicines,” she stated as a matter of fact.
“Let them talk. One day they will stop and move onto another gossip topic,” I replied.
“I also hear that the medicines for AIDS give you night-mares and you see things chasing you in the night. I also heard that you can lose sleep to the point of losing your head. Hmm!” she replied as she continued eating her lunch at a restaurant near the university.
“So tell me, now that you have started taking these medicines, tell me what night-mares you have had so far?”
She rolled her big soulful eyes up and down at me. She laughed. I laughed.
“Ah-ah-ah, tell me about your nightmares these last two weeks since you started taking the medicines,” I pressed on.
“No, I never got nightmares, I am a lucky girl! But then I take long to sleep. And I feel very cold. But then at night, I get night sweats which make my clothes wet.”

She started taking her ARVs too late to be useful. And then she deteriorated in her physical well-being and her body struggled to contain the immune-boosters. This reaction, and then that reaction and then one day, I had to drag her out of bed, onto a bodaboda motorbike with the support of a good friend and into a clinic. She was too ill to remain in bed.

Abby Mukasa

At that point, I had also been buying her food every week for a while. She would send me her shopping list – mainly starch staples, animal and cereal protein, fruits, spices and apple juices of all varieties. She was a fussy eater: no posho, no white porridge, no passion-fruit juice because it stinks, no this not that. But she was also very appreciative of surprises: I loved that fresh mango, the millet flour with crashed soya was yum, chicken is better than beef… I started buying her food when the supply from the support organisation was suddenly dropped. She was struggling with her ARVs and she needed a good nutrition – common sense said so.

At the clinic, laboratory tests diagnosed typhoid, malaria, syphilis, and a UTI. Her CD4 count had dropped to 35 during the recent hospital visit. The dehydration was treated instantly by drip. Members of her support organisations were there to pay the bill. They came after some cajoling – but they did come and they did meet the bill for a week of treatment. She seemed to be recovering on the treatment.

And then there was a relapse… More illness – this time stronger than before. More pain. A pleading to stop taking the medicines because they were not working. This time the support organisations’ representation ferried her to Mulago Hospital. They posted representatives at her bed-post. Friends visited her bedside. Her family also eventually came to her bedside. She would slip in and out of sanity with such ease. At one time she used the usual address of Mummy-Stella and then she would instantly refer to me as Joseph. We took pictures. She said she wanted to remember this time of misery when she recovered. She asked me to burn her a music play-list. There were twenty songs on it. She planned to listen to this music as she lay in the miserable hospital bed, surrounded by other very ill patient. She told me she was excited about attending the upcoming Badilisha concert, and would do whatever it took to attend – even if it meant crawling to Lugogo! She made me promise to post all her pictures on her Facebook wall-page.

Within four days she was finished, gone, dead. At her funeral, they announced that she died with meningitis.

At her funeral they never thanked the people who informed me about her condition when the organisations were not aware. At her funeral, they never thanked the people who carried her onto the motorbikes. At her funeral they never mentioned the single mother of a lovely baby who cooked her food every day. At her funeral, they never thanked the person who was faithfully bathing his sick body, attending to her toilet needs, sitting her through long dreary days and long wee evenings, the person who tended to her even when it she was no longer cooperative. At her funeral they never thanked her friend who forcefully carried her to hospital, got us a safe doctor’s appointment, connected us to the wider support organisations, or did daily follow-up.

At her funeral they never thanked her friend who supported her regardless. You see, at her funeral, they named and thanked the support organisations and their representatives for the money and the other material support. At her funeral, I never heard acknowledgement of people that had no money but cared for her.

Related articles

• Will AIDS activist’s death boost HIV support services? (76crimes.com)

NBA’s Jason Collins come out

Jason Collins has tried to answer the question. No, he has answered the question: just like any other basketball player. Check out his beautiful coming-out story in Sports Illustrated.

In circumstances like these, one’s opinions are rarely apt. Suffice it to say that Collins’ own words say it best. Money quote:

Imagine you’re in the oven, baking. Some of us know and accept our sexuality right away and some need more time to cook. I should know — I baked for 33 years.

When I was younger I dated women. I even got engaged. I thought I had to live a certain way. I thought I needed to marry a woman and raise kids with her. I kept telling myself the sky was red, but I always knew it was blue.

Related articles

• Why NBA center Jason Collins is coming out now – Fortune (sportsillustrated.cnn.com)
• Phil Jackson, retired NBA coach, says he’s never run into a gay basketball player

Kerry Rhodes’ Beyonce wannabe has outed him to the press

I first posted this in 2010 (from another website) and it has become relevant again recently, thanks to an American football player’s unfortunate choice of male companion. Kerry Rhodes’ current gay travails are splashed over MediaTakeout.com and he needs to just come to terms with his situation now that his date of yonder times has made decisions for him.

It just goes to remind you that if you sleep with below stairs riff-raff, they go to the press. I can’t for the life of me understand why Rhodes went for this classless, skinny, twerp (see Skinny Bitch below).  In my day we … oh, never mind ….

Just remember … if you are going to eat a frog, at least choose a fat, juicy one.

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After reading “A Handy Guide to All Gay Men” by Brian Moylan over at Gawker, what stood out to me (obviously) was that I don’t know many Black men like this. Any one of these archetypes can apply to my Black gay brethren, but by and large, in my experience, they do not. So some mischievous friends and I decided to compose a more colorful equivalent to Moylan’s classifications. Your education begins now.

8 Gay Men You Will Meet in Your Lifetime

 

The Skinny Bitch

Skinny Bitch

This strain of Black gay is typically very young (”green”) but quickly rises in popularity in his newfound social circle because of his youth, pliability and quick mastery of shade. His goal is to accrue as many enemies as possible since he’s convinced that having enough people that despise him means he’s “doing something right.” He will spend an entire month’s salary on designer sunglasses because he considers them social currency.
Activities: “Walking”, throwing shade, wearing eyeliner, being penetrated, hogging the camera, starting arguments with strangers, making youtube videos, going to the mall.
Diva of Choice: Beyonce or Rihanna (there is no in-between)
Top or Bottom: Bottom.

 

The Homo Thug

Homo thug

The Homo Thug’s days are numbered since this is a group that usually patterns itself after trends in Hip-Hop, and the thug image is slowly fading. However, this image is still a selling point in gay porn and a popular refuge for closeted men. He usually has archaic notions about Black male sexuality and equates “thug” with masculinity. He is disrespectful, self-hating, and needs to pull his pants up.
Activities: Hiding, lying, saying “I don’t do that gay shit”, smoking weed, being ignorant, having kids, having a limited vocabulary, not returning calls, breaking hearts.
Diva of Choice: Lil’ Wayne
Top or Bottom: Outdoor Top/Indoor Bottom

 

 The Big Boy

The Big Boy

These teddy bears are sweet, loving, warm and always horny. The lines between a good meal and good sex are often so blurred that any conversation involving “meat” will simply have to be taken in stride. He is way more confident than you think he has a right to be, always has a date (because he looks “healthy”), he’s funny, and will give you anything in the world as long as you are consistently fucking his brains out.
Activities: Calling skinny bitches “skinny bitches”, cooking, hugging, making inappropriate double entendres, grabbing.
Diva of Choice: Jennifer Hudson
Top or Bottom: Bottom.

 

The Muscle Queen

The Muscle Queen (Butch Queen/Muscle Mary)

They roll in packs and only date each other. You never see them during the winter months because they are in the gym 24/7. Come summer, he’s wearing the smallest tank-top or the tightest t-shirt. Don’t bother lusting after him, because you do not exist in his world.
Activities: Making fun of fat people, lifting weights, talking about lifting weights, accusing skinny people of being sick, dating white guys, bumping into people, being penetrated.
Diva of Choice: Creatine.
Top or Bottom: Power Bottom.

 

The Church Queen

The Church Queen

In spite of the Black church’s reputation for homophobia and intolerance, you will find that a number of Black gay men make the church the cornerstone of their social interaction, perhaps out of a sense of familial or religious obligation, or simply because the choir is so fierce. The Church Queen is usually loyal and loving, but is prone to Tourette-like outbursts of “Jee-suss!!” in any given situation. He listens to gospel music constantly and considers Loretta Divine his spirit animal.
Activities: Cooking, talking loud, clutching his pearls, singing, being called “mother”, being single, speaking with a southern twang even though he’s from the midwest or the northeast.
Diva of Choice: Karen Clark Sheard
Top or Bottom: Sanctified Bottom.

The Uppity Snob

 

Uppity Snob

He is educated, has a six-figure salary, a nice car and a big house, but nothing is good enough for him. He will throw dinner parties with his Coven Of The Articulate and they will all wear hard-soled shoes regardless of the season, time of day or theme. When he’s among other types of gays, he will roll his eyes, sneer, or attempt to oppress them intellectually. In spite of all his accomplishments, he’ll never be happy, can’t take a joke and never laughs. He can usually be found in the club wearing a blazer and sipping a cocktail against the wall.

Activities: Debating, sighing, having a small penis, having furniture delivered, going to the spa, being offended, finding excuses to use any word that requires a schwa.
Diva of Choice: Whitney Houston
Top or Bottom: Bottom.

The Alterna-Queen

 

Alterna Queen

He doesn’t like the “gay scene” because he finds it “too mainstream.” You can find him a coffee shop with his MacBook Pro listening to underground Soul or Hip-Hop, writing poetry and waiting for someone with whom he can debate the oppression of goats and librarians. He often accuses people of “not getting” him and reactively dislikes anything that everyone else likes. He’s basically “The Uppity Snob” but with dreadlocks.
Activities: Poetry slams, debating, having his locks re-twisted, blogging, shopping at outdoor markets, calling himself a photographer, quoting Marcus Garvey, dating white men.
Diva of Choice: Some bitch you never heard of.
Top or Bottom: Top for white guys, otherwise bottom.

The Old Queen

 

The Old Queen

The Old Queen has seen everything and done everyone. He thinks you’re frivolous and that you stole everything from his generation. He will say things like “in my day, the men were men” and “remember when House music was House music?” He is short of patience and doesn’t want to hear your whining.
Activities: Knowing everything. Remembering everything.
Diva of Choice: Stephanie Mills, Teena Marie, Chaka Khan or Luther Vandross.
Top or Bottom: Like it even matters.

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