I love gays!

I love gays—of both genders.  And they love me, too.  Whether strangers, colleagues or friends, the gays in my life easily open up to me like I were the reincarnation of Tia Dely—they air their woes and fears, bring me gossip, ask me for prayers, daydream in my presence, give me beauty tips, and in moments of weakness describe to me in lurid detail things like—how their boy toys served them milkshake the past night, for instance.

Encounters with them almost always amuse me and offer me glimpses into the human condition, and when they speak most sincerely from their guts, I am led into a different world.  Like that time I interviewed in the mid-70s the first Filipino sex-change patient—let’s call her “Jeanne”.  We met in New York City.  At first I wasn’t quite sure how to talk to her because she was such a lady and I was careful not to offend her with my questions, but the moment she opened her mouth, there was no stopping her.  She was so funny, yakking on about her adventures with her new “instrument”.   Sex change surgery then was little heard of; Jeanne kept hers a secret from her boyfriends.  I asked her, “But how do you manage to keep it a secret when you do it?  I mean, how can you keep him off it?  Wala ba siyang mata, kamay, dila?”  Jeanne grinned, puffing at her cigarette, “Nilalasing ko muna habang pa-kissing kissing.  I do a lot of foreplay while he drinks, then he’ll be too high to notice where his thing is stuck in.  At that point he really couldn’t care less—all men want is to get it off, you know—so whether I squeeze it in my armpit or up between my thighs, he’ll come deliriously and wouldn’t know what hit him!”  

Sometimes I think I magnetize gays because they sense I have an ear and a heart for them.  I have a gay friend, “Jake”, who happens to be a Muslim, from central Mindanao.  Whenever he’s in town we’d meet for snacks and girl talk, since with me he’s free to feel like a girl.  Jake has to keep his sexual preference a secret back in his hometown because his father, a respected community leader, would definitely disown him if he found out his son (whom he wants to run for mayor) is in reality “a woman trapped in a man’s body.”  Jake would say, “I have a cousin who’s also gay.  Muslim din.  When in our hometown, min kami, we act and sound like men, malaki ang boses namin at saka barako kaming mag-aasta, pero sa men’s room, tita, naga-apir kami, ahahay!  Dito lang sa Manila ladlad ang kapa namin!  Otherwise, babayoo, inheritance!  Poor, unsuspecting papa, gusto pa akong mag-mayora!  Kaawaan nawa siya ni Allah, ahahay!”           

A lesbian friend says I must have been gay in a past life because with me she feels “like a tilapia in a tilapia pond”, at home and cozy.  It’s her kind of gay that’s most poignant to listen to, because she hasn’t quite come to terms with herself.  Her family thinks she’s a girl; she likes to think so, too, sometimes, and insists she will marry a man someday.  Meanwhile, she revels in same-sex affairs.  She has never had a boyfriend (still a virgin, technically) but she’s had at least eight bedmates, all women, whose photos she still proudly keeps in her wallet.  With her—and other closet gays—I’m Mother Teresa, Fr. Confessor, Dely Magpayo, Margie Holmes, and Sigmund Freud rolled into one wise and levelheaded expert, but unlike Ms. Holmes I come cheap.  One afternoon’s session costs them only a 49-peso value meal at McDo, with senior citizen discount to boot. 

I feel blessed to have gay friends, for they can be some of the most honest and brutally frank people around.  And while they bare their souls to me, they also take wholeheartedly what I have to dish out—whether advice or admonition which I dispense with clinical detachment.  I never have to mince words with them, like some days back when the subject of same-sex marriage popped up as we were having cocktails at a movie premiere.  My limp-wristed friends asked me if I’d been to a gay wedding in the Philippines.  I said I only got a first hand report from reliable witnesses—the waiters at this garden wedding held at a restaurant in the suburbs.

The waiters were giggling in the kitchen because they had thought it was a… well, a normal wedding, until they heard the pastor say to the couple, “Ang churva ng Panginoon, magmahalan kayo…”  It turned out the pastor was gay, and so were the bride and the bride.  One of them wore a white party dress, the other sported manly attire; the pastor wore a chasuble.  The wedding ceremony was replete with cord, candle and veil, with corresponding sponsors, but the pastor used grape juice instead of wine for the “consecration”.  At the reception that followed, the newly weds cut a wedding cake and fed each other a spoonful, while the pastor teased a boyish looking waiter “Nagpatuli ka na ba?” (Have you been circumcised?).

My friends thought my little story was a blast; we were the noisiest table in the room.   One of them said there is hope for gay marriage since Pope Francis is reportedly pro-gay.  “Sorry to disappoint you, guys; the pope may be pro-gay, but not pro-gay marriage—same with me,” I said, and gave them a mean piece of my mind:  “I love you all, you know that, and whatever you do with your milkshake is your business, really, but don’t try to change the dictionary, pleeeze!”  (“Mother, we’re not changing the dictionary, we’re crying for equal rights!  Kayo lang ba ang may karapatang magpakasal?”)  “By all means, fight for your equal ek-ek rights, privileges, opportunities, whatever, I’ll march to Malacanang with you, but leave marriage alone!  (“But we want lifetime commitment, fancy weddings, love in the open, mama!”)  Go ahead, legalize your union, hindi kaya ng powers kong pigilin yan, but don’t call it a marriage.  I’ll keep my sermon short: marriage is between a man and a woman, male and female, created for the propagation of the human race, foundation of the family.  To make another human being you need sperm from the male and ova from the female.  That’s a fact of life, and a law of nature.  Even Grade 5 pupils know that. Sperm and sperm, ovum and ovum—no way!  Male plus male equals a swordfight.  Female plus female, clanging cymbals.  Gets nyo?” 

LOL!  Mwah-mwah!  Everybody’s happy.  Straight talk between me and my gay friends always leads to a win-win situation.  Despite the blunt language they get my drift.  I think it’s because deep down inside they know that—I love gays.