Gay men tell of the joy and pain of marriage

By Yogita Tahil Ramani

JAKARTA (JP): Still nights had a way of nursing an old, aching hunger in Ruly. It forced the lithe 21-year-old dance teacher and nightclub entertainer to rack his brains for lies that allowed him to leave home, like, "I've been called to fill in for someone who didn't show up at the nightclub".

His pretty 19-year-old wife would understand. She knew what kind of life her husband had led before their marriage and she would refrain from discussing the matter with him.

Ruly would then hop on a bus from his small, rented room in West Jakarta and get off at the Senen terminal in Central Jakarta.

"That feeling pushed me. I don't know how or when it will come. It makes me walk to these places," said the young high school graduate.

The feeling pushed him to walk one night, a year ago, to the Atrium Senen plaza area. There lies a dark world of homosexual love, where hard-bodied male figures strut their stuff, trying to make eye contact.

Ruly walked into this world with the ease of their kind, and someone finally walked up to him.

"He was an older man. A very good person, very nice. We ended up renting a hotel room, and made love. I expected a relationship with him, but he left Rp 350,000 on the hotel room table," Ruly said.

Ruly's wish came true. The older man ended up paging Ruly one fine day, and since then, they have had a very strong relationship, and meet twice or three times a week. The man also pays for Ruly's monthly room rent.

Six months later, while doing his drag queen act at the shabby M-L discotheque on Jl. Hayam Wuruk, West Jakarta, Ruly announced to his gay friends that his wife was expecting her first child.

"They were shocked... not because my wife was pregnant, but because I had never told them before that I was married. They felt betrayed."

Ruly is just one example of a few thousand males in the capital who are gay and married. Some men, referred to by pseudonyms in this article, cite different reasons for getting married, ranging from wanting children to family pressure.

Santoso, founder of the Fraternal Association of People of the Same Heart, a gay organization set up here seven years ago, estimated that about 25 percent of gay men in the capital are married.

"Some marry for children, or due to family pressure. Gays like me marry because, somewhere in the course of our lives, we have come across women who are unbelievably exceptional," Santoso said.

The youngest of five children, Santoso lost his parents at the age of 7. His father died at 39 and his mother died later in grief.

"All five then lived with relatives. My brother and I ended up with my mother's sister. She was firm. When we walked, our sandals were not allowed to make a sound. When we ate, the spoon and fork were to remain quiet," said Santoso, who was born in Semarang.

"I grew up protected by all my guy friends at school, until I met my future wife at a salon I worked at. She worked there as a cashier. From then on, she protected me."

Santoso said that even as they carried on a friendship since they met in 1974, he still had a relationship with a gay lover.

"I told her that she should think a thousand times before even thinking of marrying me."

She married Santoso in 1979. Later, she even agreed that the three -- Santoso, his gay lover and wife -- could stay in the same house.

"There were two master bedrooms in the house. One was where I slept with my wife. The other, for me and my gay lover. My wife had one request -- no sexual activity should be done on the wedding bed with my boyfriend," said the 46-year-old widower, with rabbit-like, sincere eyes.

"She carried on famously with my boyfriend. We used to talk into the night together for hours. When I was busy, he would take my wife around and run errands for her... When I went grocery shopping with her, she would demand to carry the grocery bags because they looked heavy. She never allowed me to be burdened with anything.

"There was only one wish that was left unfulfilled. No children."

Santoso's wife had three miscarriages. The fourth birth caused her death, and a day later, the baby's too.

"She had a heart problem... I told her that we could adopt. She said that when I was not impotent and she was fine, we should keep on trying: Why take someone else's child?" he said sadly.

"That stubbornness cost her life. She passed away on Feb. 1, 1991. I say, she was the one woman God made especially for me."

Santoso now runs his own salon in West Jakarta. A year after his wife's death, he took on a new lover to "keep him stable", but appears still shaken up by his wife's death.

The same love for his wife is felt by Ruly, who met his future wife at the M-L discotheque.

"I was doing my drag queen act one night... it's a profession. I changed and was dancing on the floor with my guy friends, when we met. She seemed to be drawn to me," Ruly said.

"Shortly, after we married, I told her I was gay and she was furious. To torture me, she took a man home one fine day and carried out lewd, sexual acts with that man in front of me. I left home that day."

Ruly came back. There is now an understanding between husband and wife that whenever Ruly has the "urge", he must use a condom.

"Now, she even helps me out, dresses me up for my drag acts at M-L. While I perform, she watches from backstage."

The same fate was not shared by Juno, a hairdresser at a Johnny Andrean salon in one of the city's shopping malls here, who married five months ago.

"My brother helped me marry this village girl. She's 19. She lives in our house in Bogor, West Java. I visit her once a week. After all, I'm working here," Juno said.

The sixth of seven children in the family, Juno grew up to "love and idolize" his mother, who died at the age of 72, a month after he married.

"My mother was waiting for me to marry. In these five months, I have grown to respect my wife. Just like my mother, my wife takes care of my clothes, my food, everything.

"She's very understanding. When I return to Bogor and she sees I'm tired, she does not fret and nag me for sex, like most Jakartans do. She understands. But, if I'm fit and she's fit, I do my very best to satisfy her."

When asked if his wife knew he was gay, Juno said he'd rather keep the secret from her. Unlike Santoso, both Ruly's and Juno's families do not know anything about their children's personal lives.

"If a lie will save a family, I don't see anything wrong in telling it. That lie is no burden to me. I mean to lie about this till I die," Juno said.

Juno, who has been in a relationship with his gay lover for the past five years, and says he "loves" him, also said that he hopes his life will go in the "right direction" in the years to come.

Boy, who comes from a strict family, said that following the recent marriage of his older brothers, his family had been on his back to marry.

"I finally conceded to marry, three months ago," lamented the 29-year-old businessman.

"It's the worst decision I have ever made in my life. I am not the least bit attracted to, what other's call, 'my beautiful wife'. I need a divorce."

When asked if he had explained the true predicament to his wife, he said that "it was not possible", as she might tell his parents about the matter.

"If my parents know, someone somewhere in our community will point at them and say, 'look, those are the parents of that gay boy'. They would die of shame."

Santoso said that this was the exact fear that led gays to commit a lot of "stupid mistakes" in life, including lying to their own wives.

"All men, including gays, are creations and children of God. Gays are not sinners. It is when a person commits lewd acts, including straight guys, in their passion, that makes people sinners."