5 Realities As A Gay Person Forced To Stay In The Closet

What's interesting is that I had friends in the Peace Corps in Botswana who were also gay, but were placed in larger cities -- thus, they got to talk about it more. Of course, rhapsodizing about last night's hookup to a stranger is bad form anywhere you go, but they could at least broach the topic, since they wouldn't see the same person for weeks at a time. Where I was, they didn't have TV -- they didn't even have the electricity that is somewhat necessary to turn on a TV -- so they were a lot more culturally closed. Of course, they also didn't have Two And A Half Men, so maybe there was something to the tradeoff.

Even in villages the size of a Sub-Saharan Lego set, it's not like the topic of homosexuality was off the table. Believe it or not, it came up quite often. For someone like me, your first instinct is going to be akin to splitting up teams for gym class: "Pick me! Pick me!" Well, you can't do that anymore. But you can talk about homosexuality -- just in the abstract.

For example, if you wanted to mention how awesome Pride parades are or how important it is to you that gay people have equal rights, you could frame it in terms of a friend. Instead of you being gay, you have gay friends back home. This way, you can claim some ownership of the issue without having to personally defend yourself.

This strategy can still get you in trouble. Sometimes, people would question why I would want to be friends with someone who was "unnatural." One fellow teacher advised me to cut all ties with my "gay friend," since he was evil and corrupted. Apparently, they think of gay people kind of like sexual werewolves.

Now, I had no idea who had my dirty little secret stashed under their mattress. The Peace Corps had already invited me to stay in the capital after my house was broken into, so I spent the whole night building Legos by candlelight to keep myself awake and ducked out of town the next chance I got. For about a month, I ended up living in a hotel near the Peace Corps office because there was no other space for me at the time. Eventually, I got a new work site and things started to look up.

There is definitely a leather bar with this exact motif.

Needless to say, it was Heaven. After a year of being trapped in the closet, I was finally in a space where everyone was gay and no one cared. Imagine walking outside to find a new Corvette parked in the driveway the day you got your license. Then, imagine you could potentially bone that Corvette.

Besides the attendees of the somewhat-regular gay bashes (Note to self: Think up a better term), there were other people whom I thought were gay. But there was no way to approach the topic without creating a catastrophe. In fact, I went out of my way to avoid talking to them for safety's sake. It wasn't anything they did that outed them; it was what they didn't do that tipped me off.

In Botswana, it's customary for men to hold hands while chatting and walking. (No, the irony of such a homophobic country being filled with men skipping down the street holding hands was not lost on me.) There's no way to be certain, but I was suspicious of men who seemed uncomfortable with this custom, quickly breaking away and looking around nervously after someone held their hand. Maybe I'm making too much of that or, considering that being gay is thought by many in Botswana to be a Western phenomenon, maybe their failure to pick up on these cues was merely blissful ignorance.

That willful ignorance had its advantages. It meant I could give subtle signals without tripping the gay trap. For example, I didn't have to hide my tastes in music, which in the West is considered the equivalent of an "I HEART DICK" tattoo. I didn't even have to hide my boyfriend, whom I met at the gay underground party. He came to visit me for a weekend in my tiny village, and no one seemed to notice or suspect anything unusual about two dudes quietly holing up in a house together and sweating a lot. They must be great friends who love to work out!

For more insider perspectives, check out 5 Realities of Being Gay In A Country Where It's Illegal and 5 Things I Learned At A 'Pray Away The Gay' Camp.

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