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When you're gay but mom wants you to wed
Source: Xinhua |
December 2, 2009, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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IT'S an ordinary apartment in downtown Shenyang with several computers and bookshelves in three bedrooms.
In the frigid capital city of northeast China's Liaoning Province, boys dropped by the room in twos and threes, chatting with the staff or surfing the Internet to pass time.
But the rainbow flags hanging on the wall hinted that the room was not ordinary, as such flags are widely used to symbolize gay and lesbian community pride.
"Our Support of Love consulting center was aimed at providing service to the MSM group," said 24-year-old Xiao Shun (not his real name). MSM means men who have sex with men.
Xiao Shun didn't realize he was gay until six years ago after a bitter experience with a girlfriend, which he didn't want to recall much. "It hurt my feeling greatly," he said. Then a male friend approached him, and Xiao Shun found that he gradually fell in love with someone of his own gender.
At first, Xiao Shun was depressed and embarrassed. He tried to date girls, only to find himself totally uninterested.
"I wanted to know more about gays, but I would just hide in the corner of an Internet cafe to surf online." He soon joined some gay groups and became member of a non-government organization (NGO) of gays. "I began to know that I'm not alone," he said.
One of Xiao Shun's job in the Suppor of Love center was to teach "money boys" (male who have sex with men to earn money) about safe sex in nightclubs.
The Ministry of Health estimates that 740,000 people were living with HIV in China at the end of 2009. Among the 48,000 new infections in 2009, 32 percent, or nearly one-third, were through sexual transmission between MSMs, said the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). In 2005, the proportion of man-to-man sexual transmission in new HIV infections that year was 12.1 percent.
The HIV infection rate among gays was climbing steadily in China, from 2.5 percent (out of 480 interviewees) in 1998, to 4.2 percent (of 800 interviewees) in 2000, to the current 5.9 percent.
Unstable relations
Xiao Shun felt the threat.
On the one hand, anal sex is highly risky as the walls of the anus and rectum are thin and richly supplied with blood vessels that can be easily injured during anal intercourse, allowing blood transmission of the HIV virus that causes AIDS.
On the other hand, "relationships between men are not stable in China," he said. "If two men are together for three months, that is pretty long."
Many gay men not only have sex with men. Under social pressure in China, where filial piety means marriage and offspring, particularly a son, more than 90 percent of gay men would eventually get married, according to Liu Dalin, famous sociologist and specialist in sexology.
Male prostitution makes the problem even more serious.
Money boys
"In nightclubs, about 30 percent to 50 percent of the money boys are not gay at all, which means that if they get infected with HIV, they can infect their girlfriends," he said, adding that in almost all the nightclubs they could find HIV-positive cases.
Founded in August 2005, the Support of Love consulting center was formerly known as the Ark Tongzhi Care Group. Tongzhi(italicize), literally meaning "comrade, is how China's five to 10 million homosexuals are jokingly addressed.
According to its founder, 36-year-old Tie Cheng, they now have 60 to 70 volunteers. On average, it receives 20 to 30 people each day, with one or two of them found to be HIV-positive.
To prevent spread of the deadly disease, the center distributes free condoms in bathrooms, nightclubs, pubs and even public toilets. "We have about 6,000 condoms a month, but more than 10,000 are needed," Tie said.
Tie said he had difficulty registering his organization in 2004, but now it has gained support from local health authorities. Still, there are difficulties.
Yesterday, December 1, World AIDS Day, a gay pub was to open in Dali, a tourist city in southwest China's Yunnan Province. But the pub, partly funded by the local health bureau, was unable to open its doors as planned, due to public opposition.
The border province has about 23 percent of China's reported HIV-infected people and AIDS patients, while Dali is one of the worst-hit areas in the province.
"Prostitution is illegal and local public security bureaus always have campaigns cracking down on the money boys," said Xiao Shun.
"This (money boys) is a sensitive topic," said an official in charge of publicity in Shenyang's public security bureau surnamed Wang. "If we turn a blind eye to the violation of the law, it is a dereliction of duty."
Although Xiao Shun likes his work, he is unhappy to hear people associating gays with HIV/AIDS. "We don't want to be seen as demons who spread the plague," he said. "We are normal people as well and we want to be treated as normal."
Xiao Shun said he was under great pressure: his father has passed away and his mother wants him to marry a girl.
In the frigid capital city of northeast China's Liaoning Province, boys dropped by the room in twos and threes, chatting with the staff or surfing the Internet to pass time.
But the rainbow flags hanging on the wall hinted that the room was not ordinary, as such flags are widely used to symbolize gay and lesbian community pride.
"Our Support of Love consulting center was aimed at providing service to the MSM group," said 24-year-old Xiao Shun (not his real name). MSM means men who have sex with men.
Xiao Shun didn't realize he was gay until six years ago after a bitter experience with a girlfriend, which he didn't want to recall much. "It hurt my feeling greatly," he said. Then a male friend approached him, and Xiao Shun found that he gradually fell in love with someone of his own gender.
At first, Xiao Shun was depressed and embarrassed. He tried to date girls, only to find himself totally uninterested.
"I wanted to know more about gays, but I would just hide in the corner of an Internet cafe to surf online." He soon joined some gay groups and became member of a non-government organization (NGO) of gays. "I began to know that I'm not alone," he said.
One of Xiao Shun's job in the Suppor of Love center was to teach "money boys" (male who have sex with men to earn money) about safe sex in nightclubs.
The Ministry of Health estimates that 740,000 people were living with HIV in China at the end of 2009. Among the 48,000 new infections in 2009, 32 percent, or nearly one-third, were through sexual transmission between MSMs, said the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS). In 2005, the proportion of man-to-man sexual transmission in new HIV infections that year was 12.1 percent.
The HIV infection rate among gays was climbing steadily in China, from 2.5 percent (out of 480 interviewees) in 1998, to 4.2 percent (of 800 interviewees) in 2000, to the current 5.9 percent.
Unstable relations
Xiao Shun felt the threat.
On the one hand, anal sex is highly risky as the walls of the anus and rectum are thin and richly supplied with blood vessels that can be easily injured during anal intercourse, allowing blood transmission of the HIV virus that causes AIDS.
On the other hand, "relationships between men are not stable in China," he said. "If two men are together for three months, that is pretty long."
Many gay men not only have sex with men. Under social pressure in China, where filial piety means marriage and offspring, particularly a son, more than 90 percent of gay men would eventually get married, according to Liu Dalin, famous sociologist and specialist in sexology.
Male prostitution makes the problem even more serious.
Money boys
"In nightclubs, about 30 percent to 50 percent of the money boys are not gay at all, which means that if they get infected with HIV, they can infect their girlfriends," he said, adding that in almost all the nightclubs they could find HIV-positive cases.
Founded in August 2005, the Support of Love consulting center was formerly known as the Ark Tongzhi Care Group. Tongzhi(italicize), literally meaning "comrade, is how China's five to 10 million homosexuals are jokingly addressed.
According to its founder, 36-year-old Tie Cheng, they now have 60 to 70 volunteers. On average, it receives 20 to 30 people each day, with one or two of them found to be HIV-positive.
To prevent spread of the deadly disease, the center distributes free condoms in bathrooms, nightclubs, pubs and even public toilets. "We have about 6,000 condoms a month, but more than 10,000 are needed," Tie said.
Tie said he had difficulty registering his organization in 2004, but now it has gained support from local health authorities. Still, there are difficulties.
Yesterday, December 1, World AIDS Day, a gay pub was to open in Dali, a tourist city in southwest China's Yunnan Province. But the pub, partly funded by the local health bureau, was unable to open its doors as planned, due to public opposition.
The border province has about 23 percent of China's reported HIV-infected people and AIDS patients, while Dali is one of the worst-hit areas in the province.
"Prostitution is illegal and local public security bureaus always have campaigns cracking down on the money boys," said Xiao Shun.
"This (money boys) is a sensitive topic," said an official in charge of publicity in Shenyang's public security bureau surnamed Wang. "If we turn a blind eye to the violation of the law, it is a dereliction of duty."
Although Xiao Shun likes his work, he is unhappy to hear people associating gays with HIV/AIDS. "We don't want to be seen as demons who spread the plague," he said. "We are normal people as well and we want to be treated as normal."
Xiao Shun said he was under great pressure: his father has passed away and his mother wants him to marry a girl.
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