Reinforcing myths about gays
Some in the media still seem to believe that being homosexual is in itself an act of crime.
People on the news desk, in their eagerness to copy a sensational news item, did not want to think about how racist the report was, says SUDEEP K.S.
A headline that appeared on IBN Live on September 7 says: "Tamil Nadu: Gay teacher rapes student, arrested". I have mixed feelings staring at this headline--that of disgust, anger, and sadness.
Do we ever see a headline that says, "A heterosexual teacher (or policeman/army man/doctor/lawyer.. whoever) rapes so and so"? Most certainly not. Because the violent, brutal, and punishable act of rape, of violating one's intimacy, does not have anything to do with whether the person who is guilty of it is a gay or a heterosexual. The act becomes even more condemnable when it is by a grown-up on a child. Then, why do some people in the media believe that connecting an adjective "Gay" with this criminal would pass off as normal? Why can't they use a term such as "paedophile" to refer to this person, if they cannot do without an adjective?
Probably because they (and probably a section of their readers) still believe that being a gay is a crime in itself, and it drives people to raping others, raping children. The end-result is an absolutely nonsensical piece of news that reinforces the myths about the gay community that are nurtured by a hetero-normative society.
The homophobia of the reporter pours out in the rest of the report as well. It says: "Tirunelveli: A school teacher was arrested in Tirunelveli on Thursday on charges of having unnatural sex with a male student." The term "unnatural sex" appears once again in the report in another sentence.
This usage seems to suggest that it is the "unnatural sex" that makes it "more than a rape". One side-question that arises is, will this so-called "unnatural" sexual act become "natural" if it was between a man and a woman?
The poison spread quickly. Dool News, a Malayalam portal, carried this news within an hour of it appearing it on IBN live, and it did maximum justice to the original. What was published was an almost verbatim translation of the IBN Live report: "Svavargaaniraagiyaaya adhyaapakan vidyaarthiye balaalsamgam cheythu" (Trans: "Gay teacher rapes student").
The "unnatural sex" part (prakruthiviruddha laimgika vezhcha) is also kept intact in the translation. Even the link names are near-exact matches: gay-teacher-rapes-student-arrested and tamil-nadu-gay-teacher-rapes-student-arrested---Malayalam-news. I guess the people on the news desk, in their eagerness to copy a sensational news item, did not want to think about how racist the report was, or they were as biased against the gay community as their English media counterparts were. Or both.
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