"Time has made things new"
Did you know the Melanesian tribesmen in New Guinea practice bizarre forms of homosexuality as a tradition?
This happens to be a controversial topic especially in a conservative society like mine. Fortunately, one can easily put forth a thought for people to either agree or disagree on and that's the beauty of having a choice.
Before we go on, we should remind ourselves that so many things that had been thought of as spiritual, unusual, or psychotic in the past have started becoming a norm, most prevalent one, for instance, is the voice of women which is no longer silenced around the world today. I also hope that married women would be allowed to retain their father's name in the near future too, seriously.
So back to the topic, I grew up in northern Nigeria and as many of us who were kids when there was no internet or smartphones, the word "gay" only meant "happy" (and that's only found in books). I didn't know jack about "cross-dressers" or transgender but interestingly, there were people like that around back then and well, it was more like their lifestyle? I could still remember a Hausa TV shows which I watched and a cross-dresser was a character in it. It meant nothing then, it was just, well, some culture? These people were called "dan dawudu" (And I guess we could interpret that as a male homosexual). What about female homosexuals? Unfortunately, I never came across those but there were stories of women, usually the influential ones who often engaged in lesbianism.
Recently, I came across a confession on a Telegram channel and stories of some people explained how they were naturally inclined toward homosexuality and some stories also explained how they become that way after being abused as kids and this made me want to question - Is sex all that the homosexual is about? I mean you see a gay person and the next that comes into your mind is picturing how he has sex with other men? Gross right? In the story of the dan dawudu, they were also known as restaurant owners and great cooks (as I was told, I never really understood why they wore female clothes to begin with) and like the case of the influential lesbian, influential/rich men are often the ones who copulate with the dan dawudu (of course, that's the hypocrisy). But would the naturally inclined gay be blamed for being that way even if he is a good person in and out? They are just people, some are creative, artistic, industrious, focused, others are lazy, dangerous and the sexual part is just something like for instance, the heterosexuals have different sexual fantasies which also make us even different too.
I respect law-abiding citizens, regardless of their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation... Even a kleptomania that struggles not to steal; maybe in the near future, that would be understood from a human point of view too. For now, let's keep our mind off what people are doing in their privacy of their bedroom (or wherever)... especially if you are uninvited.