Gaysia (23 page)

In Japan, there is one TV set for every 1.2 people, making it one of the most dense television-owning populations in the world. Despite the country being at the forefront of technological wizardry and craft, television remains by far the most influential and popular medium. Even on subways and trains, people watch vodcasts of their favourite shows on phones and MP3 players, while some remain resolutely old-school and watch live TV on analogue portables the size of small bricks, antennae stretched and hovering over fellow train passengers like giant praying mantises.

For me, bedridden with whooping cough, it was a beautiful thing to know that at any moment of the day, I could flick through the channels and discover some of the most flamboyantly mincing personalities this fine country had to offer. After the morning news, there was my friend Bourebonne-san, providing his snappy, tongue-in-cheek commentary about the day's events. Prime time took us to Haruna Ai, dancing and chatting and giggling away. On the nights when I was coughing so hard I thought I'd vomit, I'd while away my insomnia by watching the delightfully hammy sprite KABA.Chan, who told
me about the best handbags, vacuum cleaners, portable GPS devices and slimming tights Japan's premier home-shopping program had to offer. From Japan's helmet-haired transgender make-up artist Ikko to gay aerobics instructor Chris Matsumura (think Japan's answer to Richard Simmons), no one ever needed to have a boring straight moment with Japanese television: it was just one big, exploding rainbow poof of colour!

I didn't really have a problem with this. For a start, it was stupidly entertaining, and a lot of gay men out there just
were
that hyper-camp. Still, I worried about the absence of anything else. No lesbians, no transsexual men and no gay men out of drag. No LGBT people taken seriously. All the men were wacky, but never sexual. What happened to people's headspace when they saw gay men only as camp drag queens on TV, or read about them only as aliens and wizards in comic books? And what impact did this have on young queer Japanese teenagers? So much of queerness in Japan seemed to be a performance for straight people. When the televisions were finally turned off, most straight people went about their business assuming that they didn't know any queer people themselves. For the country with the most colourful television in the world, Japan felt like it was only just coming out of the black-and-white era.

MALAYSIA

In which we meet Christian and Muslim fundamentalists who treat homosexuality as an affliction that can be cured. Key quote: ‘Don't tell me, “It's okay for women to be with women, for men to be with men.” It's not okay. It's in the scriptures. It's against nature.' Time spent singing while researching this chapter: forty-five minutes.

I
S IT POSSIBLE TO
stop being a lesbian? Get straightened out? Un-gayed? De-faggoted? I've met people who say it can be done. If you're struggling with unwanted same-sex desires – and the key word is ‘unwanted' – you'll be relieved to know that it's possible to become an ex-homosexual, walking proud and straight down the path of hetero-righteousness. They've seen it happen to others and it's happened to them. All you need, they say, is willpower. Willpower and faith.

They didn't hate gays or lesbians. How could they, when they had been one themselves? And no one was born homo sexual, they told me. People
became
gay. No one knew how, exactly, but there seemed to be a lot of different factors: traumatic childhood experiences like abuse, parental neglect, divorce, teasing, the time you accidentally shat your pants when you were nine, and that other time when you were six and that girl chased you
around the playground and kissed you on the mouth – which was, you now realise, actually a form of sexual molestation. There was no need to worry, though, because just as people became gay, anyone could become ex-gay too.

It's possible, my friends.
Believe
.

At ten o'clock on a Sunday, the canal-lined streets of Melaka were unusually quiet, but the Real Love Ministry had already started its morning service. On the walls of the building's stairwell, glittery craft letters spelled out ‘REAL ♥' and ‘
www.r-l-m.com
', and Hillsong soft-rock melodies wafted through the building. I took off my shoes, opened the doors and was immediately knocked back by the force of song.

‘We wanna see Jesus lifted high,' people sang, ‘a banner that flies across this land!'

There were just twenty people in the room – mostly adults, some kids, a couple of elderly ladies – who all smiled, still singing, as I entered. A small band led the hymns on electric guitars, drums and bass, while a rosy-cheeked Chinese-Malaysian woman named Judith sang into the mic.

We wanna see
[clap-clap-clap]

We wanna see
[clap-clap-clap]

We wanna see Jesus lifted high!

Usually, I was uncomfortable with public singing unless I was drunk, but this song was infuriatingly catchy. Any song that featured prominent handclaps tended to win me over.

RLM's church was the size of a standard classroom.
Ambience-wise, it was more like a corporate call centre than a sacred place of worship. The hospital-grade fluoro lighting made it feel antiseptic, but the smiles and songs warmed the place right up. As I shuffled into one of the back seats, four kids sitting up front turned around to wave to me excitedly. One curly-haired mop of a girl giggled with sugar-rush excitement.

‘Hi!' I mouthed, waving.

She turned to her friend and mimed squealing. This was Pastor Edmund's seven-year-old daughter, Angel. Next to her was her six-year-old brother, Ethan. He waved too, showing off white teeth and squeezable baby gopher cheeks.

It was easy to spot Pastor Edmund and his wife, Amanda. They were standing in the front row, dancing to the music and singing the loudest. I recognised them from a
Malaysian Women's Weekly
profile I'd read online, branded with the headline: ‘TRUE CONFESSION: My Husband Only Liked Men until He Met Me. Is this Malaysia's most controversial marriage?' The story's lead read: ‘Until twelve years ago, Edmund Smith led a homosexual lifestyle. Now he's happily married and a father of two. Here's the story of his remarkable journey.'

And it
was
a remarkable journey. Edmund's mother had wished for a daughter and sometimes dressed Edmund in girls' clothes. Looking back, Edmund told the magazine reporter, this completely messed up his sexual hard-wiring. Things got worse after Edmund was sent to an all-boys school at the age of twelve and found like-minded company.

‘I found ten other boys who were just as girly,' he said. ‘By the time I was thirteen, I was already leading a wild life with sexual escapades on stairways and at the homes of my lovers.'

Later, Edmund told me that until the age of twenty-four, he was what you would call a rampant homosexual, involved in
gay cruising and gay clubs and gay sex and gay orgies and gay prostitution (generally just being super-gay, really), before a bad break-up led him to decide he'd had enough of the whole gay thing. He sought religious therapy through Choices, an ex-gay ministry in Singapore, and soon after married Amanda, who'd been his best friend since they'd taught together at a school for disabled kids.

Edmund hadn't turned back since then. In fact, he'd gone on to build his career around his story of sexual brokenness, travelling throughout Malaysia and preaching his good news of sexual metamorphosis, insisting anyone could change. He had no less than three Facebook pages dedicated to his work. On his personal Facebook page, Edmund used the ‘relationship' feature to list all his friends as his brothers, sisters, cousins, ‘spiritual children' and ‘spiritual grandchildren'. He also listed his favourite shows:
American Idol, Glee, Desperate Housewives
and
Oprah
. In his bio, he wrote:

I am a Child of God. I am a real man. I love Jesus & Jesus loves me … no, more than that. Jesus is crazy about me. I am happily married to the most beautiful woman in MY world. I am blessed with 2 gifted kids. I have a great spiritual family! Highly Favored! Deeply Loved! Greatly Blessed!

Now at his church, the Hillsong hymn was finishing as a lone guitar continued to strum gently. Amanda came on-stage to lead us through a loud, ecstatic prayer. An ethnically Indian woman with thick black curls, Amanda had a maternal beauty, the kind of comforting face you'd want by your bedside if you were a kid with a tummy ache.

‘Thank you, Jesus!' she said, eyes closed, microphone to her mouth. ‘Thank you, Lord! We worship you this morning, O Lord!'

People raised their hands as if testifying. In the front row, Pastor Edmund bowed with both hands held up by his face, mumbling incoherently.

‘
Shak-arajabel-ahshukelasol … ekajabelahshuk-elasshak
.'

It took me a while to realise he was speaking in tongues.

‘He is the peace and light,' Amanda said, looking ecstatic. ‘He speaks to us. Jesus! Jesus!
Jesus!
You know our hurt. You know our disappointment!'

‘
Thank you, Jesus!
' Edmund whispered.

‘You
know
our desperation,' Amanda said.

‘
Your grace, Looooord,
' sang Edmund in falsetto.

‘You know secrets nobody knows! You know, Lord. You
know
.'

The band picked up speed again, reinforcing the lone guitar and growing in volume until they hit a riff that sounded vaguely like Nirvana's ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit'. With horror, I realised the guitar had been only a bridge between songs. The entire morning was a
medley
of hymns.

Dear God
, I thought.

‘WHOO!' someone said.

In the end, we sang for forty-five minutes straight. It was intense. It was a hot day and I supported myself by holding on to the plastic chair in front of me. Edmund showed no signs of slowing down. His energy was relentless, his dance moves hypnotic. During one song, he placed an open palm over his heart and balled his other hand into a fist, pumping violently as if he were angrily milking an uncooperative cow. In the upbeat songs, he thrust his flattened palms in unison to the rhythm, doing swift push-ups against an invisible wall. His face,
sweating madly, swung violently from left to right as though he was being slapped.

‘WHOO!' someone said again.

When the songs finally ended, we stood there panting and exhausted. Smiling blissfully, Amanda told us to sit down.

‘
Shalom!
' she said.

‘
Shalom!
'

‘I'd like to welcome our visitors here,' she said. ‘Firstly, I'd like to welcome Ben from Australia.'

People turned to me and clapped. I smiled back at them and waved.

‘I hope you have a blessed time in Malaysia,' Amanda said, smiling.

‘Thanks!' I said brightly.

Edmund turned around, a big welcoming grin on his face. His features were broad, elegant and vaguely feline. Today he was wearing a purple vest with matching purple trousers, and his white leather belt matched his lightly embroidered white shirt. On one of his immaculately manicured fingers was his wedding ring.

Now it was time for the sermon. On stage, Pastor Edmund spoke with an intense theatrical cadence, moving from soft whispers to intense bark-like yelling without warning, which kept everyone on their toes. His preaching voice lay on the spectrum between the American comedian Gilbert Gottfried – the guy who voiced the parrot in Disney's
Aladdin
– and a Brooklyn drag queen with hearing damage.