Part 5/7 – From Remorse to Revolt

“I did my time… time and again…”

The line from Queen’s “We Are the Champions” is in repeat in my head for about 36 hours by now, and I still haven’t talked with anyone yet it's like they forgot about me in there. Oh yes I did tell the guard “No” when he came asking if someone wanted to use the single phone call we're allowed to. Of course they would be the ones making the call, and I can't trust them talking to my parents on my behalf.

I’m taking on me.

"I’m doing time for all the times I’ve done similar things before. For every time I’ve taken these kinds of risks, even greater ones sometimes. For every time I’ve had sex in the car, for every time I’ve smoked a J in the car. For all those times I crossed fingers at the darak checkpoint, high as a kite."

"I’m doing time for every time I’ve succumbed to each one of these two vices of mine."

The voice in my mind is jumping three languages but it’s saying the same thing over and over:

“I’m a fag and a junkie. Ana Loote w 7eshesh. Je suis un pédé et un drogué”.

I’m about to get punished for both vices, at once. Two in One. I’ve been playing with the devil for too long, as though to force this destiny, and look what’s happened. "You ruined your life. You happy now?”

Still taking on me. The hours seem endless, the mental maturbation is becoming unbearable.

Until finally hours later at the sound of the early morning adaan, the only indication of time since last night, my tears suddenly go dry – And those would be my last tears until I hugged my parents a week later outside the courthouse in Baabda.

For in a moment of clear consciousness, I started to wonder:

“Wait a minute here. Forget the drugs for a second and try to keep it down to the facts. What did I just get arrested for, what the hell was my crime?  The only real facts are: 1) I picked up a guy from the street in a cruising area and 2) I admitted to him that I MAY have sexual intercourse with him because I made it sound LIKELY I’ve had gay sex in the past.

That’s it.

There were NO talks whatsoever about money, which would make me liable under sex-for-money charges. There was NO sexual contact between me and the guy whatsoever, which would make me condemnable for having gay sex in public. There were NO drugs involved at that point.

It’s clear to me today: To put a long story short,

On a random night of 2010 in Beirut, I was ARRESTED FOR BEING GAY.


--by GiL. Photo by GiB#2 from a bookstore in Paris