Where Girls Are Married At Age 12

Yes, you read that right. Girls in part of Uganda are still being married off (to old men) at the age of 12.

Not only that, in the same places that these children are married off before they reach puberty, the same report says that the practice of surgically scraping out their clitorises and sewing up their vaginas using primitive equipment and no anaesthesia is still commonplace in parts of Eastern Uganda.

Yes, this is Uganda where Parliament is debating consensual adult same gender loving and has largely ignored female genital mutilation and blatant child abuse among the Kupsabiny of Eastern Uganda.

Martin Sempa, Stephen Langa, Luke Orombi, Hon. Bahati, Nsaba Buturo ... please get your priorites right. I know you have a living to make by attacking soft targets. If you really care about children, the Sabiny is an obvious case to start with. The law against child molestation is already on the Ugandan statute books but is not being enforced. How about leading marches to Parliament and lobbying MPs to stop girls' childhoods being robbed of them at such a tender age?

Martin Ssempa, you are sponsored by Wait Training, USA, an organization whose avowed aim is to prevent child abuse and under-age sex. Why, oh why, have you not once said anything about this kind of abuse? Or are you saying that consensual gay sex between adults is a more important priority to your handlers than female genital mutilation of children?

Take it away, gentlemen, take it away.

Related Reading:

1. Why Govt Is Concerned With Gays And Not Corruption
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Rachel Maddow Joins the Fight Against Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill

Rachel Maddow on Uganda's Nazi anti-gay bill

Rachel Maddow featured Uganda's anti-gay bill tonight, giving the subject coverage of about 5 minutes, bless her.

In her usual sardonic manner, Maddow highlighted Rick Warren's distancing himself from Martin Ssempa's vindictive tactics while, on the other hand refusing to condemn Uganda's Gestapo parliamentary legislation that seeks to jail hundreds of thousands of homosexual Ugandans as well as parents, teachers, onlookers and sympathizers.

The evangelical right in America scarcely deserves anyone's time. So rabid and paranoid are their views on almost any human interest aspect that one would be excused for thinking of them as Stalin and Adolf Hitler reincarnate.

But, as usual, I digress. This was about Rachel Maddow decrying Uganda's attempts to legalize mob justice.

Silly me.

Related Reading:

1. Gay Pressure Mounts on Museveni, Bahati

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Gay Men And Good, Honest Relationships

I always say gay blacks ... haven’t had as much exposure or practice. We don’t have a strong community or strong support groups that foster our self love and existence, so we still date in fear and self-loathing. Then there’s the new generation that idealizes relationships which only encourages “serial monogamy,” meaning that they’re committed to someone new every other month because of the most trivial things. No one sticks in there and gets to know anyone. ... (Quincy and Deondray)

It's official! There are a lot of lonely gay men out there today. No, rephrase that: there are a lot of miserable, lonely, frustrated, disillusioned, muddled, bewildered, emotionally empty gay men out there today.

Yet, having gay sex has never been easier for gay men all over the world.

Thanks to the internet, one can log on to Adam4adam, Men4now, Gaydar and a plethora of gay dating/sex sites and find someone to grope you within a few seconds. Sex parties are advertised openly, providing yet another outlet for those who are looking for quick, anonymous sex round the neighborhood so to speak. Being gay is now so passé even in backwaters such as Burundi and Uganda that parliaments are taking up precious parliamentary time to try and curtail homosexual activity, and presidents are secretly signing anti-gay bills in the dead of night.

In terms of publicity and raising awareness, this couldn't be a better time to be gay and searching because homosexuality is being given prominence by everyone; from hypocritical, self-serving, pontificating pastors and wannabe presidents in America to hypocritical self-serving pontificating pastors and cabinet ministers in third world backwaters. As a gay fraternity that used to be hidden in the furtiveness that Oscar Wilde called the love that dare not speak its name, we are now feted in national parliaments all over the world by friendly legislators and pilloried by vindictive and confused parliamentarians as well the press. We are now employed as openly gay men in the highest offices of the land in such diverse places as Britain and Israel.

It was this thread online about what good, honest relationships mean today that got me thinking about this subject:

[Edited] money quote:

Do gays people in 2009 still have good, honest, lasting relationships or is it mostly a "SEX thing" for a couple of months and then they move on? Many complain about not being able to find a good lover, but then want to screw half the town and expect their mates to behave as if everything is okay. Do we put unreal stipulations on what an ideal mate is without considering what we bring to the table? We are only human and we all have some kind of baggage/imperfections. What do you think gays need to consider for having a (honest) lasting relationship? Do gays guys even have good honest relationships these days?

Difficult questions, that no doubt don't have a straight yes or no answer, AfroGay will nonetheless hazard a long-winded one.

Coupled Up; Quincy and Deondray

Just 50 years ago, when gay relationships were still conducted clandestinely everywhere in the world, gays took the trouble to nurture personal relationships because having them seemed like a godsend. There has always been a lot of one-night-stands going on in the gay shadows, of course, but the secretiveness of gay life forced many to take relationships seriously relatively early. Only 15 years ago, I knew at least 20 couples who had been together for more than 5 years. Today, I struggle to count on one hand the gay relationships that have lasted that long among my peers.

The more fertile climate for easy sex seems to have run a coach and horses through our collective conscience as nesting human beings. Where we used to make effort to try and understand others, we now grope their pants within minutes "to see what they are working with" as an acquaintance recently remarked. Dick size is the be-all-end-all and many of us openly admit that once we are not impressed with the size of the dick, we are off again to search for better endowed specimens. The freedom to explore as our desires demand has, paradoxically, led to the loss of the most crucial ingredients in establishing lasting relationships - forbearance and fortitude.

Thus, one hears a lot of gay boys saying that they don't want relationships; just sex. One just has to scratch the surface, however, to realize that this is just mock braggadocio for the most part. Human beings, be they gay or straight, are meant to be with someone. When one is a teenager, that is the time when one can act like a bar fly without compunction because that is what teenagers do. Slinging one's hook with everything that comes your way throughout one's twenties is also not something terribly unique in the gay world especially since many gay boys get the ability to explore their sexuality in their twenties. But when one gets into one's thirties and is still looking solely for hit-and-run sex over establishing meaningful relationships, one has to be very careful as that can portend the road to a slippery slope.

And have you ever noticed that the men in their 30s or older who claim not to want long term relationships are also the most jealous and territorial if one of their conquests is snatched from them? Forget the cattiness of teenagers; hell hath no fury than a 30+ something man who loses a conquest to someone else. The bitchiness is internalized and thus less pronounced but the hate that develops in such situations can take years to heal if ever. That, to AfroGay, is the clearest indication that, deep inside, we all want to have someone to call our own.

Once you hit your 40s, life alone is exactly that; life alone. Anyone who has been having sex since their 20s kn0ws that there is nothing new anyone can show you sexually after 20 years of active service. What one is looking for, as one approaches middle age, is companionship and a meeting of souls, with sex as the icing on the cake. Sex is of course still available for 40 and 50+, but the absence of a soul mate is usually a grating reminder that one is not complete.

Check out any gay dating/sex website today and you will be shocked at the number of men over 45 on there. In reality, they are looking for much more than sex but the environment has been bastardized to such an extent that they must now settle for what they can get. And let's face it, unless one has gone to almost superhuman lengths to stay "with it" a man of 50 is not as attractive as he was when he was in his 20s. Yet, on Adam4adam alone, there are more than 1200 men in Washington, DC and New York City alone, over the age of 45 who say on their profiles that they are searching for relationships. That is a very conservative number, though, because in typical Adam4adam 'airbrushing' 55 years is the new 45 and it is not unheard of for 58 year-old men to say on their profiles that they are 36. You are, therefore, talking about more than 2,000 men out of at least 18,000 in just those two metropolises who are in their 40s or older who are alone and.or lonely, and are searching for lasting love. Unfortunately, time is no longer on their side and life should get even more complicated as more of us grow out of our eligible 30s into the precarious 40s.

Still in your 30s and saying that you are only interested in quick sex without commitment or emotional capital? Look around you and stand warned; the club of middle aged gay men who are alone is growing.
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Freak Show Heading to Kampala

If the reports are to be believed, a boxing freak show is about to be put on in Uganda - with the protagonists being two elderly grandparents who should know better than to take off their clothes in public, let alone engage in a commercial boxing bout.

Evander Holifield has just turned 47 and his opponent (and looks very good for that age), Francois Botha is 41 and looks a tired 60. The prime fighting age of any boxer is between 25 and 32. When Muhammad Ali retired for good, he was a shadow of his former self and his last bout was in 1981 when he was 41. He duly (and fittingly) lost that fight to a much younger, but ultimately unremarkable, Trevor Berbick.

What drives men like Holyfield to carry on despite the writing on the wall that they are past their shelf life? AfroGay doesn't know and, truth be told, is too embarrassed by the whole thing to bother finding out. Suffice to say that when men of a certain age deign to take off their clothes in the name of sports and lumber around the boxing ring like elephants , the words sad and desperate take on new meaning.

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Uganda Debating the Judicial Persecution of 500,000 Ugandans

Recent statistics show that Uganda's population is now at 33m people. In most countries the percentage of gay men and women is anywhere between 1 and 10%.

For the sake of argument, let us assume that only 1% of Uganda's population is gay. Based on those statistics, Uganda has at least 300,000 gay men and women. That means that Uganda is about to debate the judicial murder of 300,000 Ugandans whose crime no one can pinpoint, and indeed who most people don't know because they conduct their same sex loving in private. Add to that number the parents that will get seven years for not turning in their gay children, and the teachers who will be sent to Luzira Prison for not snitching on gay students, Uganda is preparing to sanction the legal killing and jailing of 500,000 Ugandans.

Can someone pass the people who wrote the Bahati Anti-Gay Bill a detailed history of how Nazi Germany came to be?

Related Reading:

1. British PM Against Gay Legislation

2. Uganda Hits Back Over Gay Criticism

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The Bahati Bill Will NOT Become Law in Uganda

I am now ready to predict:

The Bahati Anti-Gay Bill will NOT become law in Uganda. There is going to be no statute in Uganda that empowers anyone to sentence homosexuals to death, forces parents and teachers to snitch on gay people or hounds people out of their beds on suspicion that they are gay. Bahati should of course enjoy his 15 minutes of fame but his bill is going to collide head on with the realities of politics and will go down like a lead balloon.

If it ever gets out of Parliament Museveni will never sign it into law.

Why do I say this?

Uganda is heading to the precipice with this bill and savvy politicians like Museveni know it. Bahati is a two-bit MP from a nondescript constituency who can afford to be as parochial as he wishes. Not so Museveni with a bird's eye political view, and who loves the limelight that he gets on the international stage, and the accolades that are showered on him all over the world for his efforts against this and that. He is all too well aware that this bill will put Uganda on par with Somalia, Zimbabwe and Myanmar (Burma) as far as human rights are concerned, turning him into an embarrassment on the international stage.

After 23 years in office, President Museveni is at that point where being feted at home and abroad is really what being president is all about. He now wants power, not for what he can do with it for the betterment of anyone, but for its own sake. That is the reason why he waxes lyrical about the East African Federation, and you can cut his smugness with a knife when commentators laud him for pulling Uganda back from the brink, and for being instrumental in shaping the political discourse and direction in the Great Lakes region. Museveni feels big, important, valued on the world stage and listened to by world leaders. He is not going to jeopardize his international standing by signing a vindictive bill designed purposely to single out and attack a defenceless segment of the population.

There is another reason this bill is dead in the water.

In an election year, Museveni needs a lot of money to buy off voters. That money is usually channeled into his coffers by foreign donors in the form of aid or grants etc. He knows that he will not get it (donors have already been reached as GayUganda's excellent tracking shows) if this bill is still at the forefront of debate and so you are going to see all sorts of convulsions in Parliament and maneuvering that will delay this bill, relegate it to the back burner at least until after the upcoming national elections. By then, who knows, Bahati might even be voted out of office and poor Martin Ssempa will be back to square one, looking for new allies in the next Parliament.

These are the options available:

1. The bill will be kept in its current form, but will languish in Parliament like a bad penny, just as the Domestic Relations Bill has done for the last five years due to pressure from the Muslim lobby.

2. Parliamentary debate of the bill will keep on being postponed. The current timetable brings it up in January 2010, but that should slip further. And the closer Uganda gets to elections, the less likely that this bill will get air time in Parliament.

3. The bill will be watered down so much so that it is rendered meaningless by the time it gets to the floor of Parliament. If it makes it out of Parliament in the garbled state it currently is in, Museveni will use that as the excuse not to sign it.

4. The bill is debated, passed in its present form and sent to the president for signature.

Ironically, despite Museveni's protestations against the so called homosexuality recruitment, the president must hope that the bill fizzles out in Parliament. Museveni doesn't want anything to do with this bill because of the reasons already highlighted and because he knows that it is funadamentally unfair as his recent admission that homosexuality is not new in Uganda revealed. So, he will not want it to make it to his desk. If it ever makes it to his office, be ready to see the Attorney General being asked to scrutinize it for crossed tees and dotted eyes. Of course we already know that it will not pass the simplest test of a legal challenge and the Attorney General will advise accordingly or will be prevailed upon to advise accordingly. And Museveni will get his excuse not to sign the bill.

My money is on the bill not reaching the floor of the house. It will do its rounds in committee and the Speaker of the House will keep on finding reasons to postpone it until time runs out on it in the current Parliament.

It will be a bumpy ride, but mark my words ... the Bahati Bill will not be signed into law by the current president of Uganda.

Related Reading:

1. Uganda's Anti-Gay Bill Causes Commonwealth Uproar

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I Caught [Him] With A Man in Our Bed

Mukasa, who found his fiancee in his bed with another man

The story that has pricked my interest is in a Ugandan local paper and the person in question (Mukasa, above) is talking about finding his fiancee with another man in their bed.

The rather sexy looks of the man aside (isn't he rather dishy?), I have always wondered what is the lesser of the two evils; cheating on your man or cheating on him in the bed you share.

For if it is cheating that is the problem, why does it matter where you cheat? Cheating is cheating is cheating, right? Obviously there are ego issues involved (feelings of betrayal, violation, inadequacy etc.) when you come home and find your man in bed with another man but, ego aside (and let's face it, we can all get over our egos if we love someone enough), since we know that most men cheat at some point in their lives, does it really matter that much where the cheating happened if you want to forgive and move on?

Of course, if you get so cut up about the cheating that you throw out your man in the street butt naked and then his clothes after him, then you might as well have caught him at a roadside 'lodge' as in your bed. If the hurt is that it happened in your bed, what is it about that bed that makes it so much more profound? It seems to me that if you are prepared to work on the relationship, where your man cheated on you from is irrelevant ... unless one is arguing that the sex that happens when the cheating is in the 'marital' bed is different from that at a sleazy 'guest house.'

I am thus inclined to think that if one's man cheats and one is prepared to forgive and move on, where the cheating happened is immaterial. In fact, there is everything to be said for the cheating to happen in your bed because, for one, it makes it easier for the sordid details to be kept secret and give the whole thing some semblance of dignity. Surely it beats sex in a guest house flea-bug with prying eyes, eavesdropping ears and the very real possibility of the whole mess ending up in the tabloid papers, doesn't it?
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