And by cowboys, I mean straight people.
When we conceived of Chay Magazine, we did not imagine that we would lack for content about heterosexual life – heterosexual love, heterosexual sexuality, marriage, divorce, dating, harassment. We were expecting all of these things. What’s more, we were really worried about finding enough content by or about anyone who wasn’t straight.
Gosh, we were wrong. People are coming at us left, right and centre writing about queer issues, about gender issues, about non-heteronormative love, sociology, health and spirituality. What Chay Magazine is sorely lacking, despite dogged dogging of writers we think could broaden the scope our publication, is a lot of writing about heterosexual sexuality.
We have some, obviously. But have a look at some of the comments, the links to which appear on the right hand sidebar on the homepage. Half of them are engaging with the queer-centred content. The other half are berating us or our writers, in polite or less-than-polite language, for talking about sex, talking about homosexuality as if it was real and positive, and bringing obscenity to society.
It seems to me that the only people really willing to put aside their shame, shyness and fear around the topic of sex and sexuality are people who are willing to engage non-heteronormative topics. With some notable exceptions, it seems that most people think that there’s nothing to talk about in heteronormative, straight sexuality.
Which is too bad. Because we were hoping that Chay Magazine would be a place to talk about domestic violence, loving relationships, marriage, children, clandestine dating, parental pressures, polygamy – any number of things that have to do with the sexuality of all Pakistanis, straight, gay, trans*, cis, bi, whatever.
So here at Chay, we commend and thank all our contributors who are willing to engage this topic, despite their own personal reservations, fears and the knowledge that they will receive great opposition in public. And we invite all those who are as yet silent to come and talk to us about, really honestly, anything they want.