In the footsteps of a gay man: A journalist’s journey into the Ugandan gay world

[Interesting story of a naive straight journalist's tentative interactions with gay men in Uganda, made more so by it's being published in the Daily Monitor, a media outlet that has often been aggressively homophobic. You'll note that there is no byline.]

via Daily Monitor

Within a period of three weeks, I learnt that gay relationships are almost like straight ones. Those involved charm, seduce, deceive, try to manipulate with money and even plead with whoever they are interested in to give into them and yes, they also get cheated on It was a hot Tuesday morning and I was seated in front of my computer reading an online article about gays in Uganda. The page had a link to a website called icebreakersuganda.org

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I clicked on it out of curiosity. It is probably one of the boldest gay things I have seen in this country. It’s a website that encourages gay people to come out and embrace their sexuality (thus the name icebreaker) and it connects gay people in Uganda. The website has a guestbook link where visitors of the site can update any comments or ideas on their mind about the website.

However, most of the comments posted on the website’s guestbook are announcements of gay people who want to meet other gays for mere company, sex or love. Consequently, this segment of the website has been turned into a “lonely hearts” of sorts for gay people. Some of the posted messages are darkly explicit and complete with e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

One of the posted messages on the website was an announcement for a gay party of sorts. It had a phone number attached to it.

Read the rest.