The Hypocrisy Of The Small Minded

 The biggest story this past week is Thabiso Mmethi who appeared on an episode of My Perfect Wedding. Thabiso and his wife invited Mzansi Magic and its viewers to witness their perfect wedding and let’s just say the wedding was anything but perfection. All thanks to Thabiso’s pedantic feminine streak. Of course 'social media self appointed jurors' proclaimed that Thabiso is gay and is just marrying the girl to quell any perception that he is not straight. 

Closeted gay men marrying women and having kids is nothing new. Thanks to our homophobic society, the issue is more common than we'd like to admit. With that, personally I was not really taken by that whole hoohah. 

That's until I found myself reading some comments from gay guys on social media. Lo and Behold, the very people one would think would have a better and more understanding perspective on the issue turned out to lead the lynch mob against Thabiso. 

The barrage of ridicule and scorn proved that gay men have some serious hypocrisy issues. One comment on Facebook said that Thabiso exhibited "bottom" tendencies. Majority of the comments reduced Thabiso to joke only because they boxed him into a stereotype. 

I won't go into the labels, I exhausted that topic on my article In Bed With JAson And Senzo, but would instead probe this issue of not creating an environment where a man's manhood is not measured by societal stereotype. 

If we did not put so much emphasis on how a "real man" should behave, would we have a situation where gay men are under pressure to marry women to assert their manhood? Would we have a situation where straight man can not express their emotions simply because if they do, they will be labelled gay? 

Over 30 young black men are reported to have died in ritual circumcision school in the Eastern Cape this year alone, on this quest to define manhood. Is having your foreskin cut from your penis really the catalyst from which one can be defined as a man?

Gay men on the other hand, are quick to cry fowl when society boxes them into a stereotype of effeminate hairdressers and flight attendants, but they are also the ones who will label someone gay if he shows some traits of that stereotype. Hypocritical much?!

You can not have it both ways. If the gay community want to be recognized as a community with diversity then that same community can not be the one that judges people on the stereotypes that marginalize that community.

Gay people branding Thabiso gay because he exhibited some femininity in his behavior, simply reinforces the prejudice from straight people that all gay men are queens. And we all know that is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous as it is to think a soccer playing macho guy can't be gay and a feminine netball playing guy can't be straight. 

On a more sadder and completely different note, it is disheartening that in 2014, because of our prejudices, a man would marry a woman just to "appear" straight.

If you are gay you still subscribe to this dating-women-to-front thing and only "hook up" with guys on the side, the reality is that inevitably you will be 50 years old some day. Then... you will look back and regret not having given yourself the opportunity to experience real love with the right person for you. At that age it will be too late and you will find yourself buying attention and affection from 20 year olds, who will use you or even kill you. 

If you worried about your family having issues with you dating a man, remember how the Gasa family was humiliated when a story about Nhlanhla Gasa's secret gay life was exposed to the whole nation after he was killed. I choose love over shame, than a lifetime of secrecy and a disgraceful death followed by a tainted legacy. 

The reality of life is that you are on this earth BY YOURSELF. You do not share your life with your parents, siblings and relatives. Your family members will have their own families. When your father or sister or uncle goes to sleep at night, its his own desires, problems and life that runs through his mind not yours. They will all die, as will all of us, and at every stage of your existence in this world you will be alone in the decisions you make and their consequences.

Your pastor is not going to be in that empty home with you when you are 70 years old and you have no -one. He will have lived HIS life on this planet and moved on. Something to ponder on when you make decisions about your life based on the comfort or discomfort of others about who you should spend your life with.

Families and our communities are there to support us when we need it but just as your ID number belongs to YOU alone so too is your life. When you buy a car and default on payments, they do not say, lets blacklist Phil's entire family because he bought the car to please them. That's life.

Then again... this is just ONE MAN'S OPINION.