THE INTERCOURSE OF TROUBLED THOUGHTS

SECTION NINE
Chapter One

Being powerful is like being a lady, if you have to tell people you are, you aren't! -

Baroness MARGARET THATCHER
NEW YORK

Tessy's eyes grew wide with surprise, but Gina was unstoppable. “Don't give me that wild look girlfriend for you know what I am talking about! Even in your own relationship; you are the 'girl,' the 'babe' while your lesbian partner is the 'man,' the 'guy.' They are certified, but hidden cases of 'wife' battering in lesbian relationships. Gay divorce is no longer news! And girlfriend, you are looking at a lesbian divorcee!” Tessy became so confused that she covered her mouth with her hands, but it didn't kill her cry of anguish. “I am not blaming you girlfriend,” consoled Gina. “I just want to get this hypocrisy out of my chest. I am suffocating with the weight of this dubious duplicity! Like I said, lacking our own god, our community still assumes the traditional roles of husband and wife that Christians say God programmed into the different sexes at creation. We know we can't escape it, so we hide and lie in trying to re-configure it! In our relationships, someone still wears the pant! Those of us who act as 'men' in'gaydom' do so because of one or more of the following reasons: education, high income, physical strength, emotional capacity, previous rejection in normal relationships, family history i.e. some girls are 'tom-boys,' envying the natural ability of men to protect and give leadership which is the traditional male stereotype. I have secretly examined the Christian Scriptures and it is clearly stated in several books and verses that homosexuality is sinful to the God of the Bible.God is against homosexuality big time! And you can see that in Deuteronomy 23:17. In all the translations that I read and I took the pains to check out five, the Old and New Testaments unambiguously condemned with the strongest words homosexuality as mortal sin! I have no problems with gays who dismiss the Bible as a pack of lies. What I resent is the attempt by the gay community to infer that in no place did the Bible condemn homosexuality. It is gay hocus-pocus! Period!” Girlfriend, homosexuality to my mind, is only different because we like to be seen to be so. Our difference is not in content; it lacks originality, but it is only in perverted consonance with the structures and idiosyncrasies of normal sexual orientation created by the God of the Bible.” Tessy began to cry silently. “Christ Jesus, what will I do now? O God, what have I gotten myself into?” Gina stroked her head as tears filled her own eyes. She shook back the bunch of elegant white hair that concealed her face but, left the tears flowing. “What we live in is a make believe Utopia because persecution'sexes up' our community. For now, we are the 'sex department' of an amalgam of politicians seeking electoral votes, media empires out to increase circulation and revenue figures, sundry NGOs dismally desperate on fund raising and relevance drive, psychologists/behavioural scientists looking for the next big thing after the Origin of the Species and churches/pastors competing for increased membership. Watch it girlfriend, the day we attain true 'mainstream' status with not just the rights, but with the responsibilities attached to it, we will lose the 'sexy, inventive cutting-edge' and irrelevance beckons. That will be the day some of us will stop to live this cul de sac of deception. To tell you the truth girlfriend, Gina is secretly anxious to see that day!” Tessy tears exploded into greater volume. “Do you think that they are dating agencies for lesbians?” Three full minutes had claimed her in tears. Gina was incredulous. “Do you want one?” Tessy shook her head. “I just want to take one last look at lesbianism before I make up my mind and I think it will be a good place to look.” Gina was sceptical. “There must be! I am sure of that but I won't encourage you. Try the straight world. Your emotions are on fire. You need a new start. Any agency that incorporates personalised selection into sexual sensitivity will offer you the ideal dating solution. I will suggest that you try out Its Just Lunch! Something tells me that you will get your heart eaten there!

My father is an economist” continued Gina matter-of-factly. “He thinks that English classical economist Thomas Malthus' famous theory of overpopulation will never come to pass because gays protect the world from such danger! To my father, that's the only usefulness of gaydom. Please let me read to you this excerpt from Damian Times of Australia.” She picked a copy of the paper from a side drawer. “Listen to this: 'the government of Australia is offering gays in backward Councils cash incentives to quit their lifestyle as part of a new initiative next year. Therapy specialists in the special novelty programme have it that Euros22million has been earmarked for a quarter of the country's gay population of 68,000. Beneficiaries of this landmark idea will over four years receive Euro100 weekly. Participants must not spend it on gay partners, gay paraphernalia, gay outings, gay music, gay arts, gay literature and gay sports. Beneficiaries must willingly submit themselves for gene replacement procedures at selected hospitals and be subjected to bi-monthly examination to prove that they have not engaged in anal sex behind closed doors.' “I will tell you in all seriousness that if I were from Down Under and in its backward council, I would have taken up this offer! An English proverb says 'get on, get honest, get more honest.' The gay community is getting on, but we are not getting honest and we are far from getting more honest! I accept the challenges of being gay, but I am tired of the challenges ahead. Homosexuality is largely repugnant and outrageous to the moral conscience and good sense of most decent human beings, especially Christians and Africans. Time there was when western media and intelligence agencies darkly hinted that African elites were largely gays and HIV/AIDS sufferers. Today, it is western politicians who vie for gay votes and today darkly hints that a gay hostile Africa is primitive, barbaric and animist! I greatly find that double standard unfair and embarrassing.” Tessy collapsed on the sofa. Her grief multiplied. She looked at her soft hands as if seeing them for the first time and folded them into her laps. Gina continued as if in soliloquy. “So far, gays are twice lucky in the West! To many of its gullible people, an air of heady romanticism appeal tinges homosexuals. Just as cigarette smoking is dangerous to health and cigarette labels warn smokers that they are liable to die young, many fools still think that Marlborough County is cool! Gaydom is now regarded as the Cool Economy, the New Chic! We can now be reached on [email protected]! We go to unimaginable extents to parley distasteful sexual behaviour into complex statistical modelling with a supposed creative end effect! And we then trade it for PR profit, even if our souls cry out, 'it's a fraud, you don't mean it!'

What is the state of Marxism today? Is it the all-absorbent magnet it was from the 1940s to the 1970s? Is it still 'sexy' to be a Marxist intellectual today? Is Cuba a haven, North Korea a paradise? Is China not a transsexual capitalist economically? Will it still be 'chic' to be gay fifty years from now? What other western pokiness will be the latest fad? Beware of romanticizing brave failures my friend! Stay away from heroic errors.” A long pause bothered Tessy. “Gina, are you calling our movement a brave failure and heroic error?” Gina decided to bare it all to her friend. “All I hear is rhetoric and rhetoric is not emancipation based on truth! Yes, but it's the road to emancipation. Yes, just like the doubts, the worries and the regrets that we are engulfed in now by our own mistakes! But the unfairness against gays is still bad though I admit my doubts about my continuing as a lesbian. One recurring charge against us is that we destroy the family, its values and everything that God intended the family to be. We are held as the wrong people to bring up children. We reject the narrow definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman just as we reject the notion that a mother must always be a woman. All we ask is that we be allowed to be parents by adoption without being victimized by parents who exercise their natural reproductive capacities. As a matter of utmost urgency, we must propagate the concept of Tran.sub.stan.ti.gay.tion.” Gina was taken aback. “In the name of Jesus, what is that weird concept about Tessy?” Her friend took in fresh breath before replying. “Transubstantigaytion is the belief of my former partner that a gay or a lesbian and their partners become ipso facto husband and wife immediately after their 'marriage' even though they remain men or women respectively in appearance! She resolutely opposed the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman only. To her, that is the lying wickedness of the General Staff of Big Religion. She favoured a church that will change these wrong concepts. Have you heard of the Maradonian church Gina?” Gina returned to reality in blankness. “No Tessy I haven't. Is it an arm of the Roman Catholic Church? I know that Mary is referred as Madonna in Latin circles.” Tessy laughed mockingly. “Jesus, you have got a lot to learn. In the 21st century of twenty four hour, 100-channel satellite television, you are still in the Dark Ages. Please accept my sympathies!” Gina laughed heartily. “I apologise for not being up-to-date. Please administer my punishment later but, tell me about the Maradonian church.” Tessy was generous in understanding. “This is the worship of Argentine demi-god, the soccer legend Diego Amanda Maradonna.” Gina sounded relieved. “I get your drift. You mean that they beautified him or is it canonization?” Again, Tessy lectured her friend on new developments in Christendom. “It is neither of them my dear friend. Beautification and canonization are rituals of the Catholic faith only.” Gina confusion only deepened with Tessy's explanations. “Are these worshippers of Maradona lapsed Catholics?” Tessy frowned a bit, reflecting a narrowing of her knowledge. “It is possible that some members of the Maradonian church were once Catholics, Latin America is predominantly a Catholic sphere. But the veneration of Maradonna seems to eclipse that of the Madonna. In an act that combined the spirits of beautification, canonization, priesthood, kingship and divinity, die-hard fans of Argentine soccer legend Diego Amanda Maradonna decided that their idol was beyond the ranks of mortals and began to worship him. Naturally, a church in his name became the vehicle for this process to be completed. The soccer dynamo, not the Virgin Mary, is the presiding deity in the Maradonian church.” Gina stood up in horror. “Jesus Christ, I can't believe that crap! Diego Maradonna with all his faults now a god! That's too much weight to place on him! No wonder he's bogged down with much weight problems!” Tessy had a hearty laugh that brought tears to her eyes. “Come off it Gina and give the obese fallen star a break please. The Maradonian Church is reality.” Gina's stomach rebelled almost into a vomit. “That's a laugh! That's Hollywood at its worst!” Tessy smiled. “You may laugh all you want and even somersault from Russia to Rwanda, you can chuckle from Adelaide to Abuja, you may suffocate hooting from the Arctic to the Antarctica and split your pretty face in the process, but Maradonna is now a worshipful god! The challenge for lesbians is to model their own goddess from prominent lesbians based on the Maradona variety.” A long silence separated them. “As part of our grand campaign to make homosexuality attractive, we need our own church and gods! A very prominent lesbian dead or alive will be lifted up to worship status.” Gina was in deep contemplation. “Tessy, you surprise me a lot. I never imagined you to be the Suslov of Gaydom. I wish you brain can be put to better use.” But Gina was nonplussed. “Look who is talking, as if your own brains are productively engaged. However, who is Suslov?” Gina softened in contrition. “The demon was for many years the chief ideologue of the Communist Party of the defunct Soviet Union.” Tessy sighed. “At least, he was a man of importance. I am nobody.” And Gina got slightly angry. “Because you are in the wrong engagement, go and find your God-given vocation and you will shine like the stars of heaven.” Tessy looked at her sharply, but allowed it to pass. “I will give it a thought but let's finish what we started. Who can we venerate enough to be elevated to divine worship? I have no idea girlfriend; you are now the brain box of lesbianism. It's your job.” A rich laugh that seemed to sip of out of the ground arrested them. The girls gazed at the emerging little guy and the giant gaunt figure behind him with equal dismal and fascination. The dwarf came just short of disappearing into Tessy and kissed her hand in a royal courtesy. Tessy immediately came, to the secret knowledge of Gina. Tessy looked at her with an I-told-you kind of gaze. “Enjoy your luck girlfriend,” Gina winked conspiratorially. “Pardon me baby cakes, but my ears have a bad habit of travelling at the speed of sound hence I couldn't help overhearing your wonderment. May I present my friend and boss, Frederick Himka? He's gay, a journalist and calls Corpus Christi, Texas home. My friends call me Leo the Leopard and please feel free to do the same. New York is my home, but I am a citizen of the world.” The blue whale behind him grunted and whizzed. “I like to make a point of correction! Leo's a friend of royals and monarchs, but his specialty is seducing their consorts. Women almost always fall into his long arms and I am short of ideas why this is so. Be warned girls that it's lethal to be emotionally unguarded before this man. Formally, he's now known and addressed as Lord Leo of Women-Upon-Thigh! That's his courtesy title!” Leo laughed and winked at Gina who felt elated. “Fred, I must bore some eyes into you. Can't you see that these girls are lesbians? Can't you identify members of your own community?” The girls laughed. “Gentlemen, welcome to our boring company. I think that's a funny title Leo the …sorry Lord Leo.” The well rounded supine beauty with long hair felt a warm glow as she shook hands with the little guy. She glowed in a floral jacquard polyester satin with sweet heart neckline and narrow straps. “I am Tessy Cunningham, from Auckland, New Zealand. I left that awkward place and my police job with my lover for the City of Lights but things went awry there. She returned home and I came to New York to recover.” Leo clapped his hands like a child at a bazaar.“My luck to meet you, I am in luck to meet a gorgeous angel in human form in you.” Fred sighed. “There goes the grandmaster! The gay world is in danger of extinction and it's because of the only wrong move Konrad ever made unknowingly.” Leo winked knowingly, but unrepentantly.“Don't worry Fred; I am sure Tessy is not complaining!” The two girls laughed, too delighted in their little secret. “I am Gina Raffarelli. I left Italy at five to go to Brussels with my mother who worked for the then European Economic Community, EEC. I have not stayed in Italy up to nine months in all since then because my father, a professor of chemical engineering relocated to the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. I am a partner in a law practice in London and am just looking up the sights and sounds of New York City.” Leo decided that the Mediterranean nymphet shaking his hands is no sissy despite her soft features and laughing eyes. “My day is now made Gina! Ladies, I was thinking of a good excuse to throw off Fred and thank heavens for you girls. Okay Fred, I guess I will be seeing you later.”

Historian, freelance journalist and writer, Pastor JOSEPH EMEKA ANUMBOR is the author of THE INTERCOURSE OF TROUBLED THOUGHTS, a critically acclaimed discourse on homosexuality published by Author House Inc., Indiana, USA.