HOW TO MAKE GAY FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE Nishit Saran November 28 1999. 759 words. Gone are the days when Indian gay people were invisible to the rest of society. Today, many gay men and women are proudly coming out – to family and friends, and to the world as large. It is almost a given now that you will spot a few gay people whenever you venture to peek out of your blinkers, and it is quite possible – if you’re lucky enough – that you might make a gay friend or two. So here’s a rough-and-ready survival guide to a world turning increasingly pink. A few basic rules that should at least keep your straight foot out of your mouth. Be warned: gay people are fierce and fabulous, and one little faux-pas will have you revealed to the rest of the world as a pathetically uncool bigot! Get the words right. “Homosexual” and “homo” are generally offensive because they sound clinical and pathologizing, so stick to “gay.” I usually take the cue from the person I am talking to, since people sometimes don’t even like the word “gay” and a lot of Indian men-who-sleep-with-men prefer to be called just that - men who sleep with men - or its abbreviation, MSM (both of which, in my opinion, sound quite ugly). Also, “gay” and “bisexual” are adjectives, not nouns. It is incorrect - and a little rude - to say things like “he is a gay” or “she is a bisexual.” The correct ways would be “he is a gay man” or “she is bisexual.” This might sound obvious to many, but I am surprised at how many people - journalists included - have made such mistakes. “Lesbian” on the other hand is both a noun and an adjective. In fact, “she is a lesbian” is more correct and common than “she is lesbian.” Don’t flatter yourself. The worst assumption you can make is that just because someone is gay means that they are necessarily interested in getting into your pants (if you are of the same sex). Gay people have the same range of likes and dislikes, attractions and repulsions, tastes and distastes, as straight people. Maybe there was a time when it was difficult to find people of the same sex to sleep with, but this is no longer the case in our brave new world of model wannabes and media-connected gay people, so don’t flatter yourself. Let’s NOT talk about sex. A close second worst assumption is that, just because someone is gay, they like talking about their sex lives. It is just as rude to ask a gay man (whom you are not very familiar with) questions about what they do in bed as it would be to ask such questions of, say, a woman. Most of the time, of course, these questions are harmless - they come from curiosity more than anything else. Nonetheless, they are rude. Individual gay men and women are not necessarily representatives or spokespersons for their entire community and should not be treated that way - unless they indicate that they would like to be. That awful P word: “promiscuous.” Gay people have a whole range of sexual behaviours and practices: I know as many gay men who have slept with just a couple of partners their entire lives as I know gay men who have been quite promiscuous. Similarly, I know of gay relationships that have lasted years without, say, any anal sex: many men just do not like it. The only thing you can safely generalize about gay sex is that it involves two (or more) people of the same gender. So who is the man in the relationship? Another common misconception is that roles are quite fixed in gay sex: that someone is either always passive or always active. This is quite untrue: a lot of gay men are neither "tops" nor "bottoms" - and a lot of lesbians are neither "butch" nor "femme" - often, the term gay people use to describe themselves in this case is "versatile." In many gay relationships, partners more often than not switch roles. Paying attention to these first few rules of thumb should save you from severe embarrassment, not to mention the heapfuls of scorn and verbal whiplash that will accompany it should you mess up. It is no longer cool – and it is scary that it ever was cool – to be homophobic. So wake up, smell the coffee, and be a little more fabulous from today!