In Search of Sex and Languages in South Africa

Durban, South Africa, July 2006

One of my passions is meeting -- and preferably hooking up with -- men who speak unusual languages (unusual in the United States; they may have millions of speakers).  When I visited South Africa in 2000, I met speakers of Zulu and Khoisan.  In 2006, my friend Doc and I returned for a conference, eager for more sex and languages.  The conference lasted for three days, but we decided to stay for eight, to give us a chance to look for speakers of:  Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans, Tswana, and Sotho.

Tuesday: Jet-lagged.

Wednesday: Zulu

Spoken by 1.1 million people near Durban.

Your baseball bat is big: bat yakho baseball kuyinto enkulu

Ok, I've been with a Zulu guy before, but Doc hadn't.  A night at the Lounge, Durban's biggest gay bar, yielded a meeting with Zulu-speaker Joseph, a biology teacher in his twenties. 

Thursday: Xhosa, a "click" language spoken by 8.2 million people in the Eastern Cape province.

I want to go home with you: ndifuna ukuya ekhaya kunye nawe

There are a lot of Xhosa speakers in Durban.  After we told Joseph about our quest, he introduced us to an ex-boyfriend, Wushi, a Xhosa speaker worked in a garage:  a gym rat in his 30s, rather hefty, with a little belly.









Friday: Afrikaans


Spoken by 7.1 million people, mostly descendants of Dutch Boer settlers.  Unfortunately, they are mostly on the west side of the country, a day's drive from Durban.

I like to eat sausages: Ek hou daarvan om wors te eet

We rented a car and drove to Johannesburg, six hours north of Durban, to the Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, that offers courses in both Afrikaans and English.

We walked on the campus.  Nothing.

We went to the Department of Afrikaans and talked to the only professor who was there during the winter break.  He was, surprisingly, black, or what they call "Colored" in South Africa.

He told us that Afrikaans was very much a "mother tongue," spoken at home but not on the streets.

In the evening, we went to the Melville, Johannesburg's gay neighborhood, hoping to meet an Afrikaans speaker in the Factory or the REC Room.

At the REC Room, I picked out a likely looking candidate: white, shorter than me, solidly built, a little chunky.  Light brown hair, round face, nice smile.

"Ik heet Boomer," I said in what I thought was Afrikaans.  "Ik kom uit..."

"Are you from Amsterdam?"  he exclaimed.  "I would love to go there!  Is it as hot as they say?"

We didn't meet anyone who spoke Afrikaans

Saturday: Tswana

We visited Constitution Hill and the Lion Park before driving about an hour north to Pretoria in search of Tswana, spoken by 4.4 million people in Botswana and nearby.

What is your name? Leina le gago ke mang?

This time we were smart.  We logged onto a chatroom in advance and arranged a meeting with  Tswana-spaker Thabo, who worked in information technology.  He took us to dinner at an Indian restaurant.

Sunday: Break

We visited the Vortrekker Monument, Church Square, and the Transvaal Museum, then had Chinese food and stayed in our hotel room for the night, watching Malcolm in the Middle, The Simpsons, and Family Guy.

"We're doing something wrong," Doc said.  "We're meeting lots of completely Western guys, the same that you would meet in Vienna or Amsterdam.  I want to meet tribal Africans."

"What do you mean?"  I asked.  "Grass huts and talking drums went out in the 1930s."

"Not that, but some of the old culture.  Same-sex relations that were age and gender-stratified, before the Western gay culture took over."

"So...street cruising?"



Monday: Sotho.

Spoken by 5.6 million people.

Which way is the toilet? Batekamore e kae?

We selected a likely village, Zwelisha, in the heart of the Drakenburg Mountains near the border of Lesotho.  Not much there but tin-roofed houses, a clinic, and a high school, a low yellow building.

Even though it was a cool winter day, we ran across a group of high school boys walking along the side of the road, naked except for loincloths, their bodies covered with white clay.  They made flexing body-building gestures to us.

We stopped in at the clinic to ask what was going on.




The young doctor on call -- actually a medical student from Johannesburg -- told us that it was a manhood ritual.  "They spend a week in a lodge, bragging and bonding.  They used to fight with spears, but now it's usually wrestling.  Same thing. Hoe meer dinge verander, hoe meer het hulle dieselfde, we say."

Wait -- was this guy Afrikaans?

He was.

Tuesday: Back to Durban

Four out of five languages isn't bad.

The Boy Named Angel

When I was in grade school, I had a regular boyfriend, but I liked lots of  other boys: Craig, who sat next to me in class; Joel, who also liked looking at boys with muscles; Robbie, a hookup at the bookmobile one summer: and David Angel.

Not the David Angell who produced Cheers and Frasier.  A slim, shy boy, puppy-dog cute, with dark hair and dark blue eyes and nice hands.  We played occasionally, but never became friends, I think because there were so many bigger, bolder guys around.  It was one of those relationships that might have gone somewhere, but didn't.

I have three good memories of David:

1. One day at recess we all decided to take nicknames.  David wanted "Muscles."
"But you don't have any muscles!" I protested.
"Sure I do. I'm real strong!  Feel."
He flexed a small, hard bicep.  I cupped it with my hand.
"You're right.  It's really big."  Flushed with an warmth that I didn't understand, I moved quickly away.

2. In the spring of sixth grade, shortly after we went to "A Little Bit O'Heaven," Joel invited some of us over for a sleepover.  His small twin bed was only big enough for two; everyone else had to make do with sleeping bags.  We spent the evening wondering who would be the Fifth Boy, the boy invited to share Joel's bed.

At bedtime, Joel said "Everybody else here has been in my bed before, so it's David's turn."

My heart sank.  I wanted to be the one!

"That's ok -- I like the floor," David said.  "Why don't you let Boomer?"

Joel glared at him, and my boyfriend Bill glared at me, but neither of them could say anything as I took my place beside Joel.

3. In junior high, we had gym class together, and I got one of my first sausage sightings of David in the shower.

And three bad memories:

1. We were playing once when a middle-aged woman, presumably his mother, appeared.  "Your father won't let me back in the house," she told David.  "There's food cooking -- I need you to turn the stove off, so it won't burn."  Weird and creepy.

2. David never invited anyone over to his house to play or watch cartoons.  We were intimately familiar with every other house in the neighborhood, but not his. So one day Bill and I knocked on the door, ostensibly to invite him to go to Schneider's and look at comic books, but really to get a glimpse inside.

He came to the door, pale and nervous.  "Are you nuts?" he whispered.  "You can't be here!  My Dad sleeps during the day!"

"We were just..."

"Get out!" he whispered.  "Get lost!"

3. One day in junior high gym class, David was stripping down, and I saw a large red-and-purple bruise on his chest.

"Wow, how did you get that?" I asked.

"What, this?"  He quickly covered it up.  "That's nothing.  We were just playing around.  It happens to everybody."

"Who was playing around?"

"Um...my cousin and me.  Just playing around, no big deal."

I couldn't imagine what kind of playing around might cause a bruise like that.

Ok, I get it now: these are obvious signs of domestic and child abuse.  But what kid in the 1970s would think of that?

And one mixed memory:

During our senior year in high school, Bill told me that  David went crazy.  All of a sudden he forgot to how speak English, and he only knew a few words of Spanish, so he started yelling "Te amo!  Te amo!  Te amo!"

We went to visit him at the East Moline State Mental Hospital.  We were directed to a big, airy room where patients in bathrobes were playing pingpong and foosball.  At the far end, several sat on chairs watching One Life to Live.  

David was sitting on a white couch, in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms, laughing over a paperback edition of Tom Sawyer.  I hadn't seen him, except in passing, since junior high gym class -- my first thought was "He's gotten really muscular!"  He had a hard, smooth chest and thick biceps. He still had a shy, wounded puppy-dog expression.

But he didn't act shy or wounded!

"Hi, guys!"  he exclaimed.  "Rapley let you out early, huh?"

Bill and I glanced at each other.  Mrs. Rapley was our fifth grade teacher.

David laughed.  "I'm just joking with you.  I know what year it is.  Let's have a hug."

He stood and gave us each a bear hug, and sat us down on either side of him.

"So, what's new with you guys?  You still an item?"

"An item?" Bill repeated.  "What...what do you mean?"

"An item -- you know, like giving each other flowers and chocolates and carving your names into trees with little hearts!"

My face burned.  "David, you know that we're both boys, right?"

"Come on, Boomer, you know the soul doesn't have a gender.  We're infinite beings trapped in one-dimensional bodies, so what does it matter if you have the same plumbing?  Get married already, march down that aisle.  God knows you were meant for each other!"

"What are you talking about?" Bill asked in a curt, angry tone.

"David is confused," I told him.  "He doesn't mean to imply anything."

"Hey, just because I'm crazy doesn't mean I can't see what's right in front of my eyes!  Now you gonna kiss, or what?"

"Um..actually, we broke up awhile ago."  I figured that was the only way to end the uncomfortable conversation.

"Yeah.  We're still friends, of course, but we're dating other...um...guys now."

"That's too bad.  You make such a cute couple! Maybe you'll find each other again later on, in your next life."

We chatted for awhile longer, about other things, and then left.  In the parking lot, Bill said "Wow, David is worse than I thought!"

"Completely delusional!  Where'd he ever get the idea that we were...you know?"

"Next he'll be claiming that we're little green men from Mars!"

Two months later, I finally discovered what David had known all along.

The adults are lying -- only real is real.
We stop the fight right now -- we got to be what we feel.

I recently tracked down David again, thanks to Facebook.  He moved to Missouri to stay with his aunt and uncle, graduated from high school a year late, studied biology in college, and worked in a zoo.  Later he moved to Denver and became a dog trainer.  He still suffers from anxiety and depression, but he is taking medication.  He is heterosexual but has never married.  

No post mentions an abusive parent.

Cruising at the Bookmobile

Other kids spent the summer waiting anxiously for the ice cream truck.  I spent the summer waiting anxiously for the bookmobile.

Back in the days before the internet, there were hundreds of bookmobiles, vans carrying an assortment of books for those underprivileged readers who couldn't get to the public library.  Such as kids.

 You could check out up to 3 books at a time, and keep them for two weeks. If you read 10 during the summer, you got a prize.

I don't remember any of the prizes, but I remember the books.  Some of my top childhood favorites came from the bookmobile, like  My Village Books of Sonia and Tim Gidal,  The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, Tom Sawyer, and the boys' adventure books of Robert Louis Stevenson.

The bookmobile pulled into the parking lot of Denkmann Elementary School every Tuesday morning at about 10:00 am. Other neighborhood bookworms had to wait on the blacktop.  I could hear it coming from inside the house, and then run over.

But soon I discovered a reason to wait with the others: the bookmobile was a good place for cruising.

I met a lot of cute guys while cruising at the bookmobile. Like Greg, the Boy Vampire who gave me my first kiss.  Joel, the curly-haired soccer player who came with me to A Little Bit O'Heaven.

And Robbie, a dark-haired boy wearing a red muscle shirt.

I was only about 10 years old, but I already knew the rules of gay cruising:

1. Select a venue with mostly guys.  Check.  The early birds were usually boys; girls came later.

2. Cruise early. Check. The bookmobile came in the morning.

3. Cruise with a buddy.  No, I went by myself.


4. Do not drink while cruising.  Check. I hadn't had any soda or candy all day, in case a cute boy invited me to Dewey's Candy Store.

5. Gather information. Check.  Robbie was waiting to check out a book on caves, because he was going to Mammoth Caves in Kentucky with his parents later that summer.  He was a Cute Young Thing, a year younger than me.  He liked Star Trek, and his favorite subject was math.

6. Don't discuss sizes or acts.  Nope.  I definitely asked about his size: "You have really big muscles.  How strong are you?"

7. Word the invitation carefully.  If you invite him to do something specific in the future, it's a romance. Something vague in the future, it's a friendship.  Something vague right now, it's a hookup.

After we checked out our books, I asked, "Wanna play?"

Hookup.


8. Invite him to your place.  Check.

9. Take your own cars.  Well, we were walking.

10. Make sure someone knows where you are. Check. My Mom was upstairs.

11. Clean your house in advance.  Mom always had the house clean.

12. Hide your valuables.  I was a kid.  I didn't have any valuables.

13. Bring condoms.  Um...I was a kid.  We sat on my bed to look at our books, then we played space explorers in the back yard. I did get to feel his biceps.

14. Don't kick him out afterwards.  Check. Robbie stayed for lunch.  Mom made us hot dogs and potato chips.

15. Don't pretend you want a relationship.  Check. I didn't give him my phone number.

I saw him at the bookmobile a few times after that.  We talked politely, but I didn't ask him over again.

Not a friendship.  Not a relationship.  Just play.