I'm 25, gay with 33 sex partners

I have been a homosexual for over 10 years, Francis Yabe Chisambisha revealed The Post last week.

Francis, 25, in a walk-in interview, said he has had homosexual relationships with 33 men and coming out in the open about his homosexual sex orientation may prove costly.

"I know this will cost me friends and relatives but I have been longing to come out in the open for a long time," he said.

Asked when he became gay. Francis replied: "I first realised that I was gay when I was 12 years."

Rolling his eyes, he continues: 'I was in bed with my cousin, Eric, and I had these feelings. The feelings were built up and I asked him to do me a favour by caressing me. Eventually I somehow started kissing him and I also started caressing him, I then told birn to turn around and I started making love to him. We continued caressing and kissing, eventually I ejaculated. But afterwards I felt that what we had done was wrong. I, however, soothed myself with the deception that this was one of those things. I thought we were just young and not realising what we were doing."

But a week later they were at it again and, in short order, it became a daily occurence. "One day I did it with a girl. We were doing uku buta (playing a couple). But during the night, l felt so bad. I didn't enjoy what I did to the young lady compared to what I was doing with my cousin," he said. "I felt bitter". I realised that I only did it out of curiosity because my friends were also doing it."

Francis said when he was 15 years old a friend, Isaac, told him about how disappointed he was with his girlfriend for turning down his amorous advances during a date. "He complained that he didn't know how to break the tone of feelings be had," he remembered, "Jokingly, I told him I could help relieve the feeling. But he said how can you when you are a man? I lied to him that I read in a book how men can relieve each other. He agreed and l started caressing and kissing him. I undressed him and started playing with his manhood. I told him to turn around and started making love to him. After I ejaculated, he also asked me to turn around and he made love to me."

The act took on heightened proportions when he went to Chiwala Secondary School, a boarding school for boys in Ndola rural.

"This problem - I don't know if I can call it a problem - became serious when I was at Chiwala Secondary School," he said. "It seems the way I used to behave used to attract some of the boys. They used to tell me that I behaved like a girl. I didn't know there were people like me. They started inviting me to their dormitories and told me stories aimed at arousing my feelings."

According to Francis, the first boy he had intercourse with at Chiwala Secondary School invited him to masturbate with him. "He volunteered to be the first to play with my manhood. But the way he did it was so painful so I decided to show him how to do it properly," Francis said. "After this encounter, he introduced me to his fellow gay friends."

Thus from 1985 up to 1994, when Francis completed School, he never made love to a member of the opposite sex.

"We're 11 in our group and we used to make love every night," he said. But because of peer pessure he was forced to have a relationship with a girl.

Her name was Cecilia. She is now doing a secretarial course at Kabwe Trades Training School," Francis said rather coyly "I had a steady relationship with her for two yeats. I never told her that I also went out with men. I was scared that she was going to feel dismayed and destroy my character and I was also trying to protect her."

After Cecilia, he went out with Jennifer. "She is now happily married. I also went out with another girl called Chibuye. She is now doing her last grade. Then there was Brenda. She is training as a nurse at the Livingstone Genera Hospital and the last girl I went out with is Kabwe," he disclosed." "She is not doing anything. She com-pleted schoul last year."

Francis has also gone out with six other girls but, according to him, it was put of peer pressure. "I met them in discos. It was a case of your friend hooking a girl and you also hook one," he said. "Sex with a lady or a man is just the same. What matters is the ejaculation point... that sensation which is characterised with the feeling. The only bad thing when I am with a girl is that I dominate most of the activities during sexual intercourse. You find she is tired and is asking you not to continue and you feel you still want to go strong. It makes me feel bad unlike when I am with a man. You want to compete and see who is the real man".

Asked whether he feels any regret being a homosexual, Francis took a deep breath then said: "Partially I would say I regret being a homosexual because I may not withstand the criticism I may receive from the general public forgoing public. I know that people will be pointing fingers and saying that one is gay because they don't understand what it means to be gay."

He said he has been reading a lot of literature on homosexuality to try and establish why he is the way he is but so far his efforts have yielded nothing. "I really want to know why I am like this biologically," he said. "Science doesn't say whether it's hereditary or the way I was brought up." Francis then went on to explain that he was born out of wedlock. His mother told him that's father never accepted him as his child and, allegedly, went into hiding. His mother was later married and had two daughters but in 1976 she became mentaliy ill and he had to be brought up by uncles.

"I still don't have a permanent place and I can't say this uncle is fully responsible for my life," he said, adding that life has not been rosy. "The way the African culture is, most women will not keep a child who is not their own. She will try to pick some faults so that she can get rid of you... I have suffered a lot,and it has disturbed my life." But he swore that is not the root cause of his homosexuality.

"I have heard of people who have got a lot of wealth but are in the act," he said. "Only when I know why I am like this, that is when maybe I will regret because I will know what I have been deprived of. But I think it's human nature to be a homosexual."

He also ruled out going for a sex change.

"I wouldn't say I am a woman trapped in a man's body for me to think of going for a sex change," he said. "I just don't know why I have found myself in this group of people."

He complained that most of his friends spurn him once they discover he is gay.

"When I try to seduce a friend and he is not into it, he resents me. I feel very bad. I feel that my dignity has been attacked. That is the part I don't like," he said rather remorsefully. "I know this will cost me friends and relatives but I have been longing to come out in the open for a long time."

He emphasized that he is not doing it for money or to gain publicity.

"This is a personal decision. I just want to break the news that I am gay," he said. "To have this courage is not because I want to be rich. I have never exchanged my sexual intercourse with somebody for money. We just do it because that is how we get satisfied. I have also never gone out or been approached by anyone for money... I have never gone out with anyone I never knew."

He explained that is decision to go public is two-fold. "Firstly, what I want to tell society that this gay thing has been there even before our generation. I want society to be ware that it is happening in Zambia and there are people who want to be respected for their choice. It's just that in our African culture, it's believed to be taboo and hence people do it in hiding," he said. "But the fact that I am doing it, shows that this practice is there and will continue to be there as long as man is there. Our friends in South Africa and Zimbabwe have spoken out that they want their feelings to be respected and be allowed to enjoy their sexual preferences. That is what I want to do here in Zambia. It makes me feel bad to be criticized that what you are doing is wrong when I am not causing harm to the person I am doing it with."

Secondly, Francis said he wants to form an association so that Zambian gays can fight for their right.

"I have got a list of friends who are willing to form an association. These are people I have been doing it with. The youngest is about 21 and the oldest is about 28. Some are in college, others are working and others are engaged in small businesses," he said.

According to Francis, although there are such things as a "bull" (male) and "drag" (female) in homosexual relationships, in most of his relationships no one takes the male role.

"We all pretend to be men," he said. "But most times, I take the part of the decision maker. When my partner says today I want make love and I don't feel like making, I always say no." Francis says his ideal partners are light skinned men with hairy bodies.

"It's not all people that I have feelings for. It's not easy to give in to a stranger whom I don't know. I have to develop feeling for him. But I am down with me who are light skinned. I also get attracted to people who have hairy bodies. He should have medium height, not too fat and not too slim," he said. "He must also be handsome and clean. I also look at how he behaves and what groups be hangs around. I have never done it with people who are not in school or someone I don't know. I have also never had wite man or somebody older than me. Maybe because I have never been approached. But I wouldn't want to go out with somebody with an age difference of over 15 years"

Francis has, however, kept his sexual preference secret from his family. "I know that the time is not yet ripe for them to know. But I have had a few cousins who have remarked jokingly that I could be a homosexual because they have never seen me with a girl," he said. "I just pretend to them that I want to lead a straight life."

He is aware that the HIV/AIDS pandemic is blamed on homosexuals but he argues that this is not true.

"AIDS is for all regardless of their sexual preferences," he said, "but that doesn't mean I am not scared of AIDS. I know it's a killer disease and I have been very careful. From the moment I was awme that there is AIDS, I have been using condoms."

Of the 33 men that Francis has gone out with, two have died -- and he says none of them from AIDS.

"Michael was involved in a road traffic accident when he was going to Livingstone and the other guy, Boniface, died of malaria combined with asthma," he said.

Asked whether he knows that homosexuality is an offence under the Zambian laws, he replied: "I would say partly I am aware and partly not. I am aware because I just hear about it on the radio and read it in newspapers. I have also heard politicians condemn it that it has no place in the African culture but I have never seen or heard any one who has been arrested and charged because of being homosexual. But I feel it's very unfair. We have fundamental human rights which one can exercise although, I admit, there should be limits. But African governments should just put their pride and shame aside and not pretend that it doesn't happen in Africa. In Europee and America, governments have come to understand gay people and they let them lead their lives."

Presently, he is dating one man whom he, however, declines to name.

"He works for someone who has a small shop and runs a private taxi," he said proudly. "I would like to get married to him one day because that is the only way I am going to be happy. I want to be with someone of my kind and share our lives together."

But his only worry is that he is not sure if there is any Church in Zambia which will agree to bless their "marriage".

"But it's really been my wish," he said. "We may have to mary secretly or go to a country where it can be accommodated."

Asked if he would kiss and hold hands with his lover in public, be quickly answered: "I have never shown affection for my partner in public but when I get married, I would do it. If we have to share the shame, be it."

Asked about having children of his own one day, he said: "Having a child is not my wish but this doesn't mean that I don't have regard for children. If I can be given a chance to adopt one, I will give him or her the best attention they will require because having gone through the experiences that I have gone through, I know what children long for."