Culture Shock 3.0 – On Being Gay in London

Whenever one moves to a new place, there’s a period that’s spent learning how the people do things and trying to integrate into the community. It’s very different from being a tourist in that place and London is no different. The learning curve was no joke. Knowing how important the things that are not said were just as important as understanding what was being said (in clipped, polite tones of course). I had to learn how to make friends all over again. A friend recently told me that she’s been in London for 15 years and she still doesn’t know how to make friends here (she’s from Paris). Aside from weathering the culture shock of a new environment, us gay people have to learn what’s acceptable in any gay society and how to fit in. It hasn’t been easy but it has definitely been fun and illuminating. Some of these may be slightly NSFW. Either that or I’m more prudish that I think:

 

Sometimes Hell on Earth Costs Less Than A Box of Condoms

photo credit: Zanele Muholi

Free Gender, an LGBT rights group in Cape Town, South Africa organised a march this past weekend demanding justice for lesbian soccer-player Millicent Gaika who was brutally raped and tortured during a horrifying five-hour period of extreme agony and pain – this, in one of the only countries in Africa in which being gay is legal.