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TIME Magazine (Asia Edition)
August 18-25, 2003 / Vol. 162 No. 6
Travel
Singapore: It's In to Be Out
Got pink dollars to spend?
Then head for the Lion City
BY DAVID CLIVE PRICE
Homosexual activity between consenting adults is still
illegal in Singapore. Colonial sodomy laws are not exactly
a proud inheritance (some say they were meant to keep
British troops in line), so it is odd that, amid much
tradition that is proudly preserved, these antiquated
laws remain on the statute books. Until recently, the
government justified the criminal status of homosexual
activity by citing so-called Asian values of Singaporean
society. Imagine the fizz, then, in the republic's media
and especially the gay community, when Prime Minister
Goh Chok Tong told TIME last month that the government
has been quietly tolerating gays in the civil service
for a while now.
It wasn't exactly a celebration of diversity as envisioned
in the government-sponsored Remaking Singapore report
that followed Goh's interview. Nor was it quite the
stuff of the open society that the government is seeking
to foster. But it did reflect realities that visitors
have been slowly uncovering: Singapore is actually becoming
a hell of place to party with people of every race and
sexuality, and despite images to the contrary, it does
not need much more loosening up to remain high on, if
not top of, the Asian league of fun cities.
In the wake of last weekend's bigger-than-ever Nation
party, organized by Singapore's leading gay and lesbian
website, Fridae.com, another truth is evident: the gay
scene—indisputably one of the drivers of the city's
cosmopolitan nightlife—has finally arrived, with or
without the laws. It had been evolving in the past few
years alongside— and often in combination with—Singapore's
alternative youth culture (with which it shares DJs,
venues, fashion and a lot else besides). When Goh proclaimed
that "in time, the population will understand that some
people are born that way … but they are like you and
me," he seemed to these groups to be talking from some
kind of social space capsule, viewing Earth at a fantastic
distance—because Singapore has been changing quicker,
in terms of social attitudes, than anyone presumed.
Despite the laws or perceived familial disapproval,
the republic's gay life is more open than that of most
other cities in Asia, even Hong Kong.
On a walk down Tanjong Pagar in Chinatown on Friday
or Saturday night, the gay (or straight) visitor will
be impressed by the vivacity of the area: a clutch of
discos, bars and restaurants, with guys and gals in
their hundreds wandering from one rowdy place to another,
often arm in arm (although kissing in public seems to
still be taboo, even in gay venues). Gay life is not
confined to a pink ghetto, though. There's a lively
disco at Centro, opposite the venerable Fullerton hotel,
that stages a gay event on Sunday nights just a short
walk from the High Court. On the same night, the nearby
Embassy Club, part of the new Esplanade concert hall
complex, hosts another.
Goh, of course, is aware that the government's core
support comes from the grass roots: families in government
housing estates who would view radical changes in family
and marriage patterns as alarming, and where a gay child
could expect to be tolerated at best or disinherited
at worst. For these reasons, the government wants to
move slowly.
Yet a quick visit to Centro one Sunday reveals very
few outcasts. Instead, there's a rather sweet, high
school dance atmosphere, with gays at one end of the
floor and other alternatives at the opposite, and some
mixture of them in between. In Singapore, years of discreetly
living with anti-gay laws have created a mix of attitudes
that might confuse the gay tourist used to firmer lines
being drawn between gay and straight nightlife. Beautiful
young girls in short dresses are dancing to techno with
their boyfriends at the Water Bar disco in Chinatown
on a Saturday night, right next to a group of funky
gay Asians, while a more mature Caucasian in black is
doing Mick Jagger imitations with a tall, brush-cut
young Chinese in baggy jeans. But wander over to Taboo,
the must-go, packed-out gay disco on Tanjong Pagar,
and you will find a bevy of gay teenagers from every
race bopping on a podium in the corner and half the
room full of guys with their T shirts off. It's not
really a cruising joint. It's just part of the gay scene's
confidence in the face of the criminal code.
Singapore is not an entirely liberated city—yet. The
city's gays—mostly diligent, discreet workers and students—were
relieved by Goh's recent announcement and by the generally
supportive readers' letters published in the Straits
Times (even if there were some hardened homosexuality-is-a-sin
exceptions). But the token coming-out story that the
newspaper also printed revealed just how many gays were
still in closets, even if they do risk a visit to the
clubs on weekends. It is also notable that the new gay
theater piece, Existence, to be presented next month
by the Fun Stage, portrays the love of two young Singaporean
men for each other as doomed. Its author Benny Lim,
a 23-year-old local undergraduate, says, "Being accepted
by mainstream society doesn't mean that all the problems
faced by homosexuals will go away." A general homophobic
backlash from elements of the Christian community is
also in progress.
One thing, however, is sure: attitudes toward gays
are changing fast. Goh's assurance that the republic
will not be hosting gay parades was calculated p.r.,
designed to appease conservatives worried about an influx
of gay tourists. But it was also a disingenuous statement
if the Nation party was anything to go by. That party
may not have been a Sydney Mardi Gras with a Gay Men's
Chorus and dykes on bikes—and it may not have been officially
backed—but it was a three-day fest of international
proportions, held on Sentosa island. Its cheeky centerpiece
was a riotous party at the island's Musical Fountain,
timed for Aug. 9, Singapore's National Day.
Gays are just as proud of Singapore as its other citizens,
and National Day saw them and their foreign guests delightedly
celebrating the diversity that is now apparent in the
republic. So far, so good. But remember: until the less
progressive elements in Singapore get used to it, you'd
best stay mum. In fact, you'd better not tell Mum at
all.
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