1 The Maldives, Gay Men and Love 7/07
2 Sun Island, Maldives – Gay Travellers 09
3 Islamic foundation condemns Minivan News for publishing letter on homosexuality 10/09
4 Seven men arrested for engaging in homosexual activity 12/09
5 Nations pledge movement on LGBT issues at UN 3/11
July 17, 2007 – warmpixels.blogspot.com
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The Maldives, Gay Men and Love
by Warm Pixels
I am sitting in a car parked at an inconspicuous corner in Maafannu. I have a dreadful aching throat infection and am coughing up phlegm every 2 minutes, but it’s worth it. Sitting inside a house while it rains is romantic enough, but I wanted to go out and see the world a little. I’m sure it didn’t miss me much, but I sure did. Sitting inside an air conditioned car while it rains is much more romantic, by the way. There is the “travel” factor, you know. It has been about 45 minutes since my brother went to a shop. I thought I’d stay behind as I’m feeling a little weak. I have seen about 4 gay couples so far in the light drizzle. Very romantic, but a bit overdone perhaps. By the looks of it, all were probably going to get lucky later tonight.
Maldivians who try to hide secrets might as well shout and wave banners. I sat there, wondering just how many gay Maldivians know what it is like to fall in love. All the way home I remembered the years of pain and sadness that I associate with Love as opposed to the fleeting moments of happiness. It is the same, for all Maldivians. Is that what makes people wanton?
Yes and no. All of my friends, I mean, all of my friends who are gay are sort of, slutty. (Some of my straight friends are too, but let’s not go into messy little details shall we?) But when I listen to them recount their “first love” stories I do feel the intense pain they would have felt. Either their object of love wasn’t gay, or they faced utter rejection, or their family found out and forced them to into an unhappy marriage or they fell in love and discovered that they really didn’t have the chemistry, even if they had the physics.
So, they decide that they will never fall in Love again because “it just hurts too much” and spend the rest of their lives having random sex with every other person they know. And there are people like me, quelling our sexual urges, fighting back our insecurities, daring to Love people and waiting to see if they love us back the way we want them to… waiting for Mr. Right to come by into our lives, so that we could Love each other, nurture each other and live together. It is a matter of the so-called inner strength. Just the same as how people would react to Traumatic circumstances and either move on or go psycho.
But there’s this question now. What is Love? Or specifically, what is gay love, without the dreadful precedent set by the Maldivian gay culture?
Gay Love is a very deeply emotional relationship, much more satisfying than an ordinary heterosexual relationship. This is because it is one of the most independent forms of expressing the needs and emotions inside of men. Gay Love is Love that is normally expressed by normal hetero couples, except that it is between two men. Gay Love isn’t as sexual or depraved as people think it is. Usually it is up to men to be emotionally strong and be a dependable person for the rest of the family. The Alpha Male, so as to speak. What about his own feelings and emotions? Well those are bottled up and stored away to ferment and leak out slowly when he descends into senility. Why do you think men in foreign countries chug down so much beer and watch idiotic sports like Football where men hug and kiss each other after scoring a baseless goal?
If alcohol wasn’t banned by the religion, the men in our country would be swimming in beer and heterosexual men would be hugging and kissing each other and saying I love you. Hmm… repressed homosexuality. The rampant sexual behavior exhibited by the so called, “I don’t want to love, I am only one-touch-good-bye” gay Maldivians give the normal gay men a real headache. As a commenter had mentioned, in such a small community it is very easy for AIDs or other venereal diseases to spread like wildfire. Plus, there’s the fact that that kind of exposure can lead to very unpleasant secrets coming out, like for instance finding out half my colleagues are gay and had been spying on me.
Honestly, what a bunch of gossips. The Maldivian gay guys are worse than gossipy old women. The last time I felt I was falling in Love with someone and he me, we both decided to go and have blood tests done before we touched each other. We didn’t have sex for about a couple of months prior to that so we were confident that the window period of Incubation for HIV viruses would have passed. Even then, I was more nervous the day I went to get my reports from ADK than the day they announced the ‘A’ Level results four years ago. Of course it was negative, meaning I passed. Wish I could say the same for my ‘A’ Levels hehe.
2009 – sunislandmaldives.co.uk
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Sun Island, Maldives – Gay Travellers
I travelled to the Maldives with my boyfriend, knowing full well it’s a pure Islamic country and does not share the same European tolerance of same sex relationships. Sharing a similar penal code to India, homosexuality is illegal in the Maldives, punishable by upto life imprisonment. We made no attempt to hide the fact we were infact two boys sharing a Water Bungalow. We did not find any single hint of any homophobia from the staff at all. All of the staff were friendly and made us feel very welcome.
Initially a few barmen and waiters innocently asked if we were brothers, but a firm "no" and a smile soon got the message across. Like any other couple we found our king size bed decorated with petals and banana leaves on our last night – a really nice touch. If you are gay and travelling the Maldives, you should have no problems at all if you keep yourself to yourself. There is no scene, no gay bars, no clubs, just beaches, sand and fish. The Maldives makes no attempt to market to a gay audience, so you wont find many "friends of martha" mincing along the sand.
If that’s your idea of a holiday then you will love it here. If you want to party, find an active scene and pull on the beach, then the Maldives is not for you. Its also pretty much 100% drug free ( you can go down for life for smuggling one joint past customs…) so you will need to leave your champagne charlie lifestyle in the UK for a few weeks until you return! Customs are vigilant, and the fact you are a UK resident will not stop them making an example out of you if you are caught with anything on you that you shouldn’t have.
October 20th, 2009 – MIADHU
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Islamic foundation condemns Minivan News for publishing letter on homosexuality
Islamic Foundation of the Maldives has condemned Minivan News for publishing a letter- to – the – editor that supported gay rights in Maldives. The said letter was written by an anonymous person on the 26 September 2009.
The foundation, in a press release issued yesterday, stated that homosexuality was against human nature and that it was forbidden in Islamic Shariah as well as a criminal offence under the Maldivian constitution. This foundation also called upon Maldives Police Service to investigate and find out the people involved in encouraging homosexuality.
Responding to the press release issued by Islamic Foundation, Minivan News made a statement in the website saying that all letters to the editor were submitted by readers and were published by the website as long as they were not defamatory. The statement stressed that the views and content of the letters do not represent the views of Minivan News.
December 8, 2009 – Haveeru
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Seven men arrested for engaging in homosexual activity
Seven men suspected of engaging in homosexual activity were arrested from North Ari atoll Maalhos last Thursday, the Maldives Police Service has said. Police said that they had been arrested based on information the Police had received. Each person was arrested separately and all are between the ages of 20 and 50, Police said.
A resident of the island said on Monday that the seven people belonged to the “same network” and that the two oldest among them were Imams of the two district mosques in the island. He further said that one of them was no longer a practicing Imam and that they were conducting their activities inside a house belonging to one of those who had been arrested.
“There have been rumours about their activities for a long, long time now,” the resident of the island, who wished to remain anonymous, said. “However, it finally came out into the open when a video of their activities was leaked.” He further said that one of those that had been arrested was a grandparent and that another among them had been charged with sexually molesting a young girl from the island.
Another resident of island said that there have been reports that there were other people involved in the “network” still in the island. Police said that the investigation was ongoing.
March 29, 2011 – Bay Windows
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Nations pledge movement on LGBT issues at UN Human Rights Council
by Rex Wockner – Bay Windows Contributor
As the United Nations Human Rights Council continued its periodic review sessions on various nations, several developments took place this month. Mongolia’s representatives accepted recommendations that the nation address issues of violence against LGBT people. Panama accepted a recommendation to synchronize its national laws with the norms of "The Yogyakarta Principles on the Application of International Human Rights Law in Relation to Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity," which were drawn up at a 2006 meeting in Indonesia by human-rights experts from around the world. Honduras agreed to review its national laws to ensure that LGBT human rights are not abridged. And Jamaica agreed to provide enforcement officials with sensitivity training on matters of sexual orientation, gender identity, and HIV.
At the same time, representatives of four nations — Lebanon, Malawi, Maldives, and Mauritania — rejected recommendations that they decriminalize gay sex. In January at the Human Rights Council, São Tomé and Príncipe said it will legalize gay sex by June, and Nauru said it also plans to decriminalize homosexuality. The Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review officially analyzes the human-rights record of each of the 192 U.N. member nations on a rotating basis once every four years, and urges reviewed nations to protect all human rights and fundamental freedoms.
