The Nassau Liberal

As a Bahamian, one of the many things that confuse me, socially, is the way Bahamian choose to relegate classes and labels when, at the core of the matter, little is done to fully understand the person or group that is classed and labeled.

This topic could go many different ways and can hold weight for a lot of things but for the first half I’d like to touch on the contradictory stance the Bahamian public has towards homosexuality, as a culture, and the details that go along with it.

Recently I was lightly ridiculed for wearing a ring on my right index finger. This drew some flags in a conversation and I was told that it’s a marker for men that are actively gay. Coincidently I used to wear said ring on my right ring finger and was told the same thing. :/. How it is that gays have proprietary rights on such things as ring placement, earring placement and rainbows is beyond me but what boggles me more is that for a society so poised against homosexuality and its nature Bahamians sure know a lot of the details and hidden meanings that attribute to its lifestyle.

It’s also no secret that Bahamians are, seemingly, fascinated by the lifestyle- whether it’s an anchor for gossip a convenient label for someone who keeps their life and lifestyle private or as fodder for humour in stageplays and the like. Just about any general conversation about it will garner some level of disgust toward it but, socially, Bahamians can’t get enough of it.

One theory I have goes hand-in-hand with exo-wedlock sexuality and the way we approach it, traditionally. We normally mask sex and homosexuality with a taboo of sorts that make it seem like something we don’t socially condone but underhandedly it spreads like wildfire. But that’s just a theory, The Forbidden Fruit Theory to be exact.

What bothers me about the whole situation is the way it imposes mimicry and an almost Nazi point-of-view. If you don’t dress, talk, drink, eat, walk, fornicate, drive, listen to the same music or have some wayward discipleship for a sports team you can automatically be labeled as gay. That’s not a healthy way to accept differences at all. The sad thing about that too is the way it has a gravitational lure for those with no real self-structure. This is why we have so much fodder for social satire like the “Stop Likin’ Man” videos that JoeyBahamas wrote on. In any society you will have a clear distinction about who leads and who follows but here there is no real outlet or allowance for anyone to find their own way without making themselves vulnerable to grand ridicule or chiding until they either adapt to the mimicry or excise themselves from the social aspect of things.

The amount of racism and classism that makes up the social threads of this society is enough to drive one to sheer anarchy. Alas, it is a cycle that never stops though- when one group classes another that class then becomes bigger and, inevitably, classes another group of people. Basic respect and allowance for individuality can remedy a lot of these social ills but with so many other taxing issues that influence our country, these complaints are a cry in the dark.