Gaysia (17 page)

‘When people call,
they
pay a lot,' Xiaopei said. ‘Lots of people will call for two hours.'

Because of the volume of calls, Xiaopei arranged a face-to-face meeting just for
tongqi
, the first of its kind in China. Some heard about it through the hotline; others found out about it through friends or the internet. They travelled by train and bus to get there, mainly solo, except for one married couple: a gay man who'd tried to commit suicide, and his wife. In total, there were ten people. It was going to be a full-day session, and when everyone arrived that morning, they were nervous. Some of them left their sunglasses on, trying to shield their identities.

In the first few minutes of the meeting, nothing much happened. Someone started weeping, then it became contagious, with everyone in the room breaking down. One woman in her mid fifties couldn't even speak, she was crying so much. She spent the first couple of hours releasing intense, heaving sobs, as though someone were tugging a deeply anchored rope out of her. Like any good lesbian organiser, Xiaopei eventually focused on workshopping everyone's feelings. What emotions were
being expressed? What were people's needs? How did people feel? Everyone gathered around and brainstormed, writing on a large sheet of butcher's paper. The main thing these women needed, Xiaopei discovered, was someone to talk to.

All of them said the same thing: that after they discovered their husbands were having sex with other men, they couldn't talk to their parents or friends about it. Xiaopei was curious.

‘What's the difference?' she asked the women. ‘Lots of husbands have affairs with
women
, so what's the difference if your husband has an affair with a man?'

‘If your husband has an affair with a woman,' one woman said, ‘you could talk to your friends and family. If your husband has an affair with a man, you can't talk to anybody.'

The group kept exchanging personal stories. When they got to the sole man – the one who'd brought his wife along – he talked endlessly. Sitting next to him, his wife remained resolutely silent. Patiently, listening to the man dissect the difficulties of being a gay man married to a woman, Xiaopei gently interrupted.

‘We've only heard from you so far,' Xiaopei said to the man. ‘Can we hear from her now?'

‘She can't talk,' the husband said. ‘She has nothing to say.'

‘Maybe if you're quiet,' Xiaopei said, ‘and really don't interrupt, she'll talk. We want to hear from her.'

The wife looked around at the other women, opened her mouth, then meekly started talking. After a stumbling start, she ended up talking non-stop too, barely taking a breath, like someone who had developed circular breathing. It was a monumental outpouring, an avalanche of bitterness, accusations, anger and hatred towards this husband of hers, rambling on and on until, finally – as though the idea had only just occurred to her – she
turned on her husband, pointed an accusatory finger in his face and demanded a divorce. Xiaopei looked on, quietly thrilled.

She couldn't help but laugh when recounting the story now. But in China, she explained, divorce was rarely the best option for such women. If you were a married woman, you had the support of both your husband and your family. If you were divorced, the stigma meant your own family often wouldn't associate with you. And then there was the financial shock of divorce, especially if you were a non-working woman, and especially if you had a kid. A lot of
tongqi
weighed things up and stayed in the marriage.

Tongqi
weren't unique to China. All over the world, closeted gay men married women to fit in, repress their sexual desires, or because they didn't have a choice. It was why Western people referred to these women as
beards
: they were something to hide behind. But in China, everything was compounded by an irrefutable expectation of marriage, a government-enforced one-child policy that placed pressure on young people to reproduce, and a lack of public knowledge.

‘Do you feel this is unique to China?' I asked Xiaopei.

‘In a way,' she said. ‘In China, homosexuals don't have any kind of publicity, apart from on websites. In newspapers, television and books, homosexuals can't appear. So when you say “homosexuals”, it's like a ghost. Something that doesn't even exist.'

David was twenty-six years old but looked younger. He was short and lanky, and wore a combination of board shorts, screenprinted t-shirt and Converse sneakers, like a teenager in a boyswear catalogue. Around the eyes, though, David looked far
older. He had a haunted look about him, and there was always a slight delay when he smiled. Afterwards, I concluded that this was probably what happened when psychologists tried to reverse your homosexuality with self-harming aversion therapies and an over-prescription of Prozac.

David grew up in a small rural village called Shi Qiao in the north of Hubei province. Between his home and school was a large creek where local farmers bred freshwater fish. As a young teenager, David would pass the creek four times every day: to get to school, come home for lunch, head back to school, then finally come back home. David couldn't swim himself, but in the summer boys his age would strip off and swim there naked. David would find himself hiding behind bushes, unable to take his eyes off their bodies. It was the first time he suspected he was different somehow.

When David eventually went to university in Shenyang, he didn't find any information about homosexuality in the library. Some of his classmates had shown him how to use the internet, but only students studying courses in technology and design were allowed access to university computers. For everyone else, there were public ‘computer bars', or internet cafés.

‘I'll be frank,' David told me. ‘When I began to use the internet, the first thing I looked for wasn't information about homosexuality or whether homosexuality was abnormal. It was to look at pictures of males. A lot of websites had very hot pictures, and it was all about that.' Every time he visited the internet café, he would sit in the same strategically placed seat: pushed up against the corner with a wall directly behind his back for privacy.

Horny and confused but unable to jerk off there, David would rush back to his college dorm. But, as in most Chinese universities, it was difficult to find any personal space. Communal
shower blocks were entirely without walls and only open for set hours every day. Dorms housed triple-decker bunk beds against every available wall without any personal study areas. On rare occasions, though, David got back to find that all his roommates were out. Because it wasn't possible to lock the room, he had to seize the opportunity to come quickly and furtively in his hand.

Every time he went to the internet café, though, David felt more and more guilty, sensing he was doing something wrong. He didn't talk to anyone about his feelings and suspected no one else was like him. In 2004, he started looking for help on the internet. In the Chinese search engine
Baidu,
he typed in the word for ‘homosexuality' in Chinese (
tong zhi lian
) as well as ‘treatment'(
yiliao
).

David found two sources of information. One of them was a website named
Aibai
, an online gay education resource with a question and answer service. He also found an advertisement for a university's psychology department that said they were able to assist with disorders like depression. It seemed legitimate.

But by the time David got there, he was so nervous that he couldn't speak. The psychologist had to guess his problem for him.

‘Okay,' the psychologist said. ‘You're a man, so I think I know your question! A lot of people your age come to me for help. Your question or problem is about …
love
! Have you separated from your girlfriend recently? Maybe you don't feel good? I'm here to help. I see many such examples, you know.'

‘No,' David said shakily. ‘My problem isn't about this.'

‘Then speak to me,' the doctor said. ‘What is your problem?'

David started to stammer, but he was frozen with nerves.
For him, homosexuality was almost impossible to talk about. It was a condition so embarrassing, so unheard of, he may as well have had another head growing out of his neck. Bemused, the doctor told David to come back after the holidays, before referring him on to another specialist.

This next guy set David at ease. He was an elderly psychologist who reminded David of an affable grandfather. He was good at making small talk and asked David questions about his studies and his hometown, getting him to speak. As soon as he asked David what was wrong, it all came spilling out of him.

‘I have this problem, I like boys, I don't like girls, what's happening to me – what's
wrong
with me?'

The psychologist smiled and tried to calm David down.

‘Other people like you come here for this kind of problem,' he said. ‘It's
very
common and is something that can be changed. If you want to change, it can be changed.'

To prove his point, the psychologist told David about a couple of lesbians who had come to him for help some months before. They were romantically involved, but couldn't stand feeling abnormal and guilty any longer. For David's sake, the psychologist cut out the details of the treatment and skipped straight to the happy ending. After he treated them, he said, both women found boyfriends and lived very happily with their new partners.

David was pepped up by the idea, so he was given some homework. First, he would have to buy some sexy posters of women, stick them up on his dorm wall and think about them whenever he masturbated.

‘Look at the posters and learn to appreciate the beauty of females,' the psychologist said.

And even though China's medical standards weren't as high
as those in the United States – they didn't have those fancy electric-shock machines for this kind of treatment just yet, the doctor explained – David could just as easily invest in some thick rubber bands to place on his wrists and thighs. Every time he thought of boys in a sexual way, he simply had to snap them. Hard. This would train and reshape his brain, the psychologist explained.

Finally, the psychologist wrote out a prescription.

‘Take this medicine,' he said, tearing it off for David. ‘It will help you relax.'

It was for a drug called Prozac. David didn't ask what its purpose was, and the psychologist didn't really explain.

‘I just thought,
I believe in this old specialist so much, I will follow everything he tells me
,' David said now. ‘I had no doubt about the medicine at all and spent the money.'

It wasn't cheap. Four sheets of Prozac cost more than several hundred yuan, and David had to take money from his college scholarship to buy enough.

When his roommates were out of the dorm, David tried masturbating to the beautiful girls in the pin-ups to see whether he could make himself aroused. Pleasingly, he found he could do it. It was working! After a couple of weeks, David was buoyant. Things seemed to be getting better, just as the psychologist had said they would. Every two weeks he'd see the same shrink, and every time the psychologist told David he was doing well.

‘If you persist in this,' he said, ‘you will be successful in changing yourself some day!'

After a few more weeks, though, David wasn't sure. He still thought about guys all the time. His wrists were badly bruised from the rubber bands and seemed permanently purply-green. Every time he snapped the bands, they hurt more and more,
because there was no time for the bruises to heal before the next round of self-flagellation.

For David's next appointment, his friendly grandfather-like psychologist was missing, having gone to a conference. A younger male doctor was in his place. This shrink had read David's files and discussed David's case with the older doctor. He had a different perspective.

‘David,' he said, ‘if I told you sexual orientation was something that
cannot
be changed, what would you do?'

David hadn't considered this before. He took the question very seriously.

‘If I couldn't change myself,' he said matter-of-factly, ‘I would kill myself.'

The doctor nodded slowly. He was careful with his words.

‘Maybe you can think about this from another perspective,' he said. ‘Say sexual orientation is part of you? You could try to accept it.'