Mr Gay SA: 12 Heroes, 1 Dream

VANESSA SMEETS

This time next week, the new Mr Gay South Africa will be crowned at Emperor’s Palace in Johannesburg. In a country that still struggles with sexual identity and where homophobia is still quite prevalent (we read about ‘gay beatings, murders’  and corrective rape on a weekly basis), I asked one of the finalists to share his aspirations, thoughts and comments on the whole experience.

Craig Maggs (25) and I met five years ago, after the whole “Stellenbosch Kissing Saga.” When I met him the first time, he was using another name and afraid to come out. All I could see was a survivor. He has not only survived homophobia, but also a crocodile attack that crushed his dream of becoming a surgeon (Craig lost an index finger in the attack). Today, he stands as an icon of solidarity; hopeful and watchful of a new South Africa that aims to not only accept every race, but also every sexual preference. From chef to personal trainer to writer, who knows where this talented young man will go…

IRON MAN: Body of steel, heart of gold. Craig hopes to change the gay community by creating a platform where socials can include fitness and fighting for similar causes. PIC: supplied

QUICK FACTS:

Height: 1.87m
Weight: 90kg
Favourite food: Mum’s lasagna or Portuguese chicken
Favourite quote: “With a single blow of a hammer, you have transferred plans into action.”
Biggest accomplishment: Surviving a crocodile attack at Lake Kariba and learning to accept myself as I am.
Greatest dream/ desires: My greatest desire is to live a life that will be remembered.
Strengths: Compassionate. Resilient. Dependable.
Weaknesses: Terrible liar, I over think things, I don’t trust easily.
Occupation: I work two jobs: I work for an NGO that deals with AIDS and Ebola research during the day and at night I am a waiter at Beefcakes in Illovo (who got me involved in this competition).
Hobbies: Playing sport, keeping fit, gardening, hiking, baking and sleeping.

Craig, you have trained hard to be in the Top 12. The last time I saw you, you were on a broccoli and asparagus diet, trying to reach your target weight and body.
But, tell us, what do wish to accomplish in terms of the competition?
My faith has challenged me to make a stand in order to make a difference to those that are hurting out there, especially those who I can relate to. The lonely, the oppressed, the bullied, the raped and those who have lost their ability to dream. I want to walk alongside them in their journey as a role model and friend. I want to be the reason someone never gave up on life or themselves.

BEHIND BLUE EYES: Behind his charming smile, lies a BSc degree in Sports Science from Stellenbosch University. Pic: supplied

So, how did you prepare for Mr Gay SA?
Besides going to the gym and a horrible diet (of mostly green veggies), I wanted to broaden my mind. I approached different people and discussed their views on matters. It was incredible to see how differently we see things. I also did a lot of research into the history of gay rights, focusing on icons and how they altered history.

The Top 12 are incredibly diverse, from all over the country. How would you describe the other contestants?
The 12 contestants are incredibly inspiring people. All from different walks of life (from medical to political backgrounds), making us a dynamic team with different approaches and focus points. We have nicknamed ourselves the super 12 with the goal of changing the world around us.

Hmmm… How does Mr Gay SA stand apart from other “beauty” competitions?
Not only do we represent minority groups, we also focus on creating 12 role models, not just one. All twelve people will have a role to play throughout the year not just the winner.

What is your advice to those who wish to compete?
Approach this competition with an open mind and an open heart. It will challenge you and make you grow in ways you never thought possible. But, also be aware that this competition will open your eyes to a very broken world, that may cause you to become depressed if you have the wrong motives. Do it to make this world a better place not for selfish goals. Challenge the norms and be courageous role models to society.

What has been the biggest challenge in this competition?
For me personally the biggest challenge has been the emotional load of seeing so much hurt and need, especially because I can’t do enough to change it.

…And the greatest joy?
The greatest joy would be the message I received from a Zimbabwean friend living in Australia. She told me how she was so impressed on the impact I was making and that I should keep going, no matter how difficult it was.

How has your family and friends reacted to you being part of it?
My family were very concerned, if not disappointed, but have been amazing considering their background. As for my friends, they have been incredibly supportive and have really motivated and carried me all the way!

TOP 12: The finalists had fun and were also trained and mentored by Mr Gay World 2013, Christopher Olwage (far right). PIC: Facebook

What is your response to the negative feedback on Mamba Online page about you guys?
At first I was shocked and horrified at what people wrote, but now I see it as a challenge. A challenge to prove that this group of 12 heroes is there to be role models for all groups, not just racial or homosexual. We are a team and not individuals.

Now for the competition-type questions…

What is your view on being religious and homosexual? So many people battle and how do they overcome it?
Personally I am a Christian. Jesus said in the Bible: “WHOEVER believes in me shall have eternal life.” (John 5: 24) It doesn’t say “only some people” or “only straight people.” That is what I hold onto.

It is not an easy journey, as often the people of the church are the ones who cause the most hurt for gay people. They tend to ostracize you, judge you or try to change you. But don’t give up faith.

GAY PRIDE: The Top 12 inspired thousands in Cape Town to walk the streets with them, for a better South Africa. PIC: Facebook

What do you think SA can do more in terms of LGBTI rights?
South Africa is fortunate to have one of the best constitutions for LGBTI rights in the world. However, it could do a lot more in protecting the people from the homophobia experienced by people in the community. Also, I believe South Africa could also stand up for LGBT rights throughout Africa, like in Uganda and Zimbabwe.

How can we do more in terms of these African neighbours and homophobia?
This is a very delicate issue, because this could make conditions worse for the affected people in those countries. However, we do need to do something! There are too many human rights violations happening to do nothing. Usually, the best way to change situations like this is to change the minds of the young, while they are still open and accepting. Make them question the norms and they will create the positive change. It will take a few brave individuals risking a lot, but a worthwhile cause cannot be left alone.

How can we educate the community more on:

• corrective rape
• homophobia
• LGBTI NGOs
• “gay media”

I think a good place to start is to build relationships between the LGBTI community and the mainstream media. Yes, often people complain about the involvement of “pink news” but in our day and age, it is becoming more prevalent. This could be highly beneficial to both integration of the LGBTI community, as well as people being able to share their stories that are big issues in society today. For example, corrective rape and homophobia. The first step to solving a problem, is admitting that it exists and raising awareness of it.

This will take concerted effort from the LGBTI community, which needs to work as a team and not individuals.

WALK THE WALK: Craig and the other contestants showed off their ideas and bodies at Gay Pride in Cape Town last month. PIC: supplied

How do plan on using the title if you win?
I have two ideas I would like to develop:
Firstly, the buddy system. Let young LGBTI people interact with people who can serve as role models. Have a small group forum, where they can learn through other peoples experiences.

Secondly, I would like to reintroduce the gay sports’ night where people can interact across age and racial barriers, in a relaxed fun environment. My focus would be raising young leaders and again having the young learn from people with experience.

Anything you’d like to add?
I really think that it’s time the LGBTI community starts to work together towards a common goal, rather than defeat its own purposes.

 

Dirty, Pretty Things

VANESSA SMEETS

BIG BUSINESS: The sex worker industry is estimated to make over $100 billion per year. PIC: online

Sitting at a table in Long Street, Cape Town, I’m not quite sure who I’m looking for. Her voice was sweet on the phone, yet I found her in one of those ‘call-girl lines’ hidden away in the classifieds.

Cindy (27) finds me straight away.
“I thought that funky colour would match your voice,” she tells me excitedly.
She’s been a sex worker for nine years, but hates the word.
“I’m a call-girl in the week and a real-girl on the weekend.”

Her skin is a beautiful mocha colour and her black wavy hair reaches just over her breasts. It’s hard not to notice them; her red blouse is buttoned much too low, matching the pretty red lace bra underneath.
“Why do you do it?” I ask. Better not waste any time, she seems a little nervous.
“I caught you noticing my broken blouse. Sorry about that… wild client.”
Only then do I notice her blouse is torn and isn’t intentionally buttoned so low. Strange she used the word “broken.”

“Why do I do it?” she continues:

“I ask myself that every birthday, every Easter, every Christmas, every day. I guess it’s fun, you know. I turn guys on by making their wildest fantasies come alive over the phone. It gave me a kick to know I was so powerful. A horny guy is very vulnerable… His heart’s racing. His crotch is throbbing.”

I look down. She notices.
“Does that word make you uncomfortable?”
“No, not at all. I’m surprised you didn’t use something cruder.”
“Oh yeah? I may talk dirty, but here it’s a proper interview, you know.”

She lights up a cigarette. Her hands are well manicured, painted in bright coral.
“When did it become more than just a voice?”
“That high of turning them on soon fell away. I needed to touch them, experience it for myself.”
Her voice quickens:

“I had my first sexual experience at 13. I was swimming in a public pool, minding my own business when I caught a boy about my age staring at me. It didn’t mean much, you know. We kissed and touched under the water. I never asked his name but he was allowed to touch me like no one else had. That’s when the fantasy of reality begins. Nothing beats it.”

SILK STALKINGS: Prostitution is considered to be the most dangerous female occupation, with a homicide rate of 204 per 100 000. PIC: online

“So, you enjoy having sex with strangers?”
She plays with the ash-tray, avoiding eye-contact.
“It pays my bills, you know. During the World Cup, I made enough to pay off my mortgage and buy a cute car.”
“Don’t you consider itself ‘dirty money’?”

“Listen here, I work hard for what I got! I aim to please!” she says, glaring into my eyes. Her voice then softens again.
“During the World Cup, I experienced businessmen from Germany, family guys from France and sex fanatics from Holland. We played safe.”
“Yeah, but a condom isn’t full-proof,” I tell her quickly.
“I know. I’ve had my scares: six torn condoms and three mistakes.”
“Mistakes?”
“You tell a guy he can tie you up and have fun, but he’ll go bananas and forget to wrap his tool.”
“What then?”

“The guy will always apologise, but he’ll never ask you to call him back and get tested together or offer to pay for the abortion.”

Cindy’s child is three years old.
“Tommy* is the one I didn’t get rid of. I was so close though. It was a bad month. I had taken three morning after-pills in a four-week interval. Stupid. And had an abortion two months before. The gynae told me if I killed it… him… I could never conceive again.”
“Do you know who the father is?”
“No. But, I’m pretty sure it’s one of my regulars. They have the same eyes.”
“A regular?”
“He visits me once a month, when his wife is at her parents. If he wasn’t married, we’d be together.”
“How do you know?”
“We share a bond more than just sex. He’ll talk to me about his job, his in-laws, his stress and then show me a pic of his little boys playing in the garden. I want to show him Tommy, how much they all look alike, but then I freeze. He still asks me about those months I was missing. Those months of freedom to have my child were bliss. I felt real, you know. I was an independent woman, a caring mother, a role-model.”

“Why go back?”

PRIVATE PRACTICE: Although prostitution is illegal in countries like South Africa, it is still common practice. Sex workers like Cindy who practise privately are, therefore, not protected by the law. PIC: online.

“Waitressing doesn’t cut it and I hate sitting behind a desk.”
“What about exotic dancing?”
“Teazers? Haha… had a blast there for a while, but my son needs me in the evenings.”

I refuse to ask how much she makes, but she insists in telling me.
“You’re not exploiting me by wanting to know. Business is business. I charge R500 for a blowjob and between R2000 to R3000 for the full deal. Blowjobs are more popular, but my least favourite. There’s something so much more intimate about it… No kissing on the mouth, ever. Regulars give me extras: jewellery, weekends away or a pretty dress. Never lingerie. They don’t want to picture me with someone else while wearing it.”

She lights up another cigarette.
“That turns men off: to know how many, how often and how… I may objectify sex, but I’m never just the object. I don’t want to be seen as a piece of meat. Cindy is my playful name and that’s how it is. When I’m home, I’m Mommy.”
“How much longer? What about your son?”
“I haven’t really figured that out. On Parents’ Day, I’ll be absent. At his Matric Dance, I’ll be absent. At his wedding, I’ll be absent.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve put him up for adoption. I’m HIV positive. The bastard who gave it to me raped me. No condom. No name. No payment. Just a lifetime of guilt. My little boy is young enough to forget me still. I don’t want him to see Mommy dying.”

She starts to cry and fidgets with the napkin:

“These are dirty, pretty things: my body, my memories and my mistakes. Yet, my little boy was the first man to give me real love. I can’t imagine not seeing him grow up, but I have no choice. And now I’m sick, so I’ve stopped the real stuff and gone back to being a call-girl.”

“That’s how we found each other…”
She smiles and lights up one last cigarette.
“’Don’t fall in love’ was the biggest lie I was told. I’m going to die with no one by my side, because I was too afraid to experience it. Sex, any time. Love, never. Those are two of the dirtiest, prettiest things…”

FAST FACTS:

• Prostitution has been illegal in South Africa since the 1957 Sexual Offences Act (SOA). The purchase of sex was added as an offence in a 2007 amendment. 
• Fears of increased prostitution during the 2010 FIFA World Cup led to calls for it to be legalised and regulated; in order to help control AIDS and STIs and for the protection of the sex workers. This, however, did not fall through, although businesses like Teazers were highly popular.
• Prostitution is illegal in most African countries, except for Ivory Coast, Ethiopia and Senegal.
• “Prostitute” comes from the Latin prostituere; which means to set forth in public and to expose, dishonour or use for unworthy use.
• Prostitution is regulated as a profession in countries like the Netherlands and parts of Germany.
• Human trafficking is primarily used for prostituting women and children and is now described as “the largest slave trade in history” and is set to out-do drug trafficking.
• The homicide rate for female prostitutes was estimated to be 204 per 100 000, higher than any other female occupation.

EXTRA SOURCES:
– police documents
– various newspaper articles
– Wikipedia.org

Stalked by HIV: The Human Indifference Virus

ABUSE: At the Gay Pride Parade in March, the gay community recognised the strong link between domestic violence at home because of oppressive parents. PIC: Vanessa Smeets

VANESSA SMEETS

Maybe it’s his red shoes or blond curls that make Andy stand out. When he sits down, I realize it’s rather the subtle scar slashed across his ice-blue eyes.

“Anything but gay?” he says with a smile.

His voice is soothing and pleasant to the ear. It can’t be described as feminine or masculine, but rather as something in between. He peers across my notes.

“I haven’t said anything yet and you’re writing away!” he says with an attractive grin that has one hooked immediately.

Family tides

The awkward silence between us is short-lived. He takes out his phone and proudly shows his photos. He continues to chat as though we’ve been life-long friends.

“That’s my mom, Dawn. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? She’s so proud of me. I’ve never pretended to be someone else. That’s my dad – he disowned me for a while. Called me a faggot, moffie, man-whore – you name it. He doesn’t treat me in the same way as my two brothers. Probably blames himself; he wasn’t around when I grew up.”

He’s silent while looking for a few moments at the blurred photo of a man in kaki attire, rifle in hand. He’s a hunter, perhaps. He quickly moves on to the next one.

“That’s my ouma, she’s the only one who doesn’t know I prefer guys. It’ll kill her.”

I ask him about the scar but he’d rather speak of something else – like joining Tuks’ (the University of Pretoria) first gay society. Surprisingly, they don’t get hate mail or threatening smses. Instead, they get messages like “Jesus loves you. You’ll burn in hell if you don’t change. Give Jesus a chance.”

 

PINK REVOLUTION: The University of Pretoria went through some extreme changes in 2006, when its first gay society was born. PIC: Vanessa Smeets

Varsity blues

The only people who hassled them were a couple of guys in the SRC (Student Representative Council), which caused some controversy in 2006. They declared the society ‘non-existent’ even after more than 100 members joined. They painted twice over the freedom of speech wall, trying to stop what Andy calls the ‘Pink Revolution’ from going anywhere. But they didn’t succeed – the society keeps on growing, embracing gays, lesbians, bisexuals and straight people with their funky ideas and late-night parties.

After three hours of coffee, muffins and laughing, Andy decides to tell about his scar.

“My brothers did it to me when I was thirteen. They caught me cutting up pictures of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt and pinning them against my wall. They forced me to tear them down. I didn’t. I couldn’t. It felt right.”

He pauses for a few moments then continues, his hands shaking, “The night of my Standard 5 Valediction, they spotted the pictures under my bed and threw me against the wall. My parents were waiting in the car. After that, I blacked out. I woke up in hospital bruised, in pain and alone.

The nurse said my family would come by later. They didn’t. My mom came by two days later. I pretended to be asleep. She kissed my cheek and sobbed her eyes out. When I looked up at her, I saw her sunglasses hiding a horrible blue eye. Dad had beaten her up for protecting me. We moved away together; the rest of them couldn’t accept my sexuality. I didn’t want to hurt her anymore, so I brought girlfriends home. She knew I was faking. Now, we laugh together – ‘he’s cute and him.’ It’s liberating.”

What makes people “gay”?

Andy found out he was different when he enjoyed playing excessively with his cousin’s Barbie dolls and fell in love with his tennis coach in Standard 3. Today, the mystery into what makes people gay is still being researched. Swidey (2006: 40) explains that some scientists believe it to be half the amount of neurons found in the anterior hypothalamus of homosexuals compared to heterosexuals. After Dean Hamer’s discovery in 1993, some believe it could be a ‘gay gene’: the X chromosome, Xq28, is more frequent in gay men. Some still believe it to be biological causes, such as the increase of hormones in certain foods.  In 2005, Swedish researchers claimed the cause could be the different pheromones that gay men are attracted to. Like straight women, they are found to be attracted to male sweat rather than female urine. Whatever the case, Andy explains he never chose his sexual orientation.

Apart from the red shoes and strange voice, he looks like an ordinary guy. With a cigarette dangling from his manicured hands, he explains how he’s been labelled with stereotypes all his life.

“Yeah, so pink isn’t my favourite colour and I don’t wear two litres of after-shave. I’ve had my share of heart-breaks, just like any other guy. I’ve been sent for therapy. I’ve experimented with drugs and alcohol. I’ve been tested for AIDS, I’m negative. Basically, I’m just like any other student. People have stopped looking at me as that not-so-gay-guy.”

Andy removes his jersey. More scars are visible now – tiny red marks swim around on the inside of his wrist. I cannot help but stare.

GREAT DIVIDE: In South Africa, there is still a strong divide between the gay community and Christians, as the Pride Parade demonstrated. PIC: Vanessa Smeets

“People are too busy to notice,” he says, “It’s not for attention though, it’s for myself. To remind me what I’ve been through. Each scar marks a closure of some sort. That’s the day my dad told me to go to hell. That’s the day my so-called friends from school locked me in a closet and yelled ‘stay there, you freak!’ This one’s the deepest – it was the last one – the night I decided to die. I woke up, luckily. I realized then I was born for something incredible. This gay society (UP and Out) has given me a purpose. It’s not HIV but the Human Indifference Virus that almost killed me.”

After shaking my hand firmly, he smiles and begins to walk away. A ray of light laps up his blond curls while he finishes speaking.

He reaches for a gold chain in his pocket and says:

“God has taught me to love myself beyond what this world thinks. They may say I’ll burn in hell for being gay, but I’ll burn forever in this hell by trying to be someone else.”

*based on a true person, some facts have been edited to suit the article’s purpose

Sources:

Swidey, N. 2006. What makes people gay? In Fairlady, March 2006, Issue 830. Cape Town: Media 24.