Here is the story of a lady. God, how beautiful she used to be. Wait, what? Why am I using the past tense? Well, dear reader, that is because this is a pretty sad story which involves inequality, hate, and stupidity. Never would I have imagined that such a thing could happen. But let’s start from the beginning, then you will able to have your own opinion.

Not so long time ago, I was in the Southeast country of the continent where giraffes and rhinoceros have breakfast together. I was supposed to make a photo report, but well, the sun was too hot, and let’s just say that the bar makes a better argument than a roasting hot car.

Now that we have a location and a bar as you might expect, what about the character?

She was the waitress at the bar I used to go to. She was so gracious, that I have the impression that the very air would obey her. She had the perfect height for a woman, her black hair would kiss her back and meet it like the lazy dew sometimes comes to caress flowers. Her sweet face was a wise compromise between the joy and straight. An air of comfort seemed to come off of her. I couldn’t fall into her charm. I didn’t want to date her in the least. She was something too pure and too perfect to ask out. So we began to talk each other, she told me she was from one of the townships who fence off the big city. She told me how she had to give up her studies to take care of her brother and sister, and how her life wasn’t very fun. This wasn’t because of her work, or the fact that she had to take care of her family, but because of what she was: a lesbian. I was quite surprised by this, a lesbian? Thanks to you, a million guys are happy on youporn.

But apparently, in her country, «men take youporn for the real life…». I was quite afraid by her thoughts.  Did she mean that people hand job themselves on the streets? A whole country of wanckers. After all why not, the French are not so different. But what was she said to me was way too far away from my worst thoughts:

“Actually, if you are a lesbian here, well you have a lot of chance to be rape. Not because you’re prettier, but because you’re a different. You see, despite of the 2002[1] and 2008[2] law about the homosexual way of living, lots of guys consider being a lesbian to be like a disease. And the cure to this is rape. According to them, girls will ‘experience’ the full joy of ‘boy’s love’ if they experience it, no matter what, and using the force is something  legitimate.”

I have to admit, I was quite shocked by this speech. Not knowing what to say, I simply and naïvely asked: “And what about the cops?” The reaction I saw was a veil of darkness, mixed with sorrow covering her face, but her joy was still there. Not really joyful but a kind of brightness that didn’t leave her face. Then she continued: “But you know, stupidity is something normal in our society. I’m sure that things will change. They have to. After all, our greatest president stayed in jail 27 years. That’s everything I know.”

Her optimism was a human example. Despite of everything she was living through, she could still keep a smile.

On the way back to my hostel, I couldn’t think of anything else besides what she had just told me, such attitudes were too cruel to exist still. I bought some cigarettes and asked the guy at the counter what he thought about lesbians. His face seemed to puke before he spoke:

“I hav’ no time to rape ‘er b’t fortunat’ly someone do!” “But I have a friend who raped. He broke her tooth, hit her, bit her, then left her with garbage, place she deserved, they have to be corrected.”

That’s it, a corrective rape. Unfortunately, I think the name speaks for itself.

I politely smiled and thanked him for my cigarettes, while I was regretting my question. That is a fact, lesbian girls in South Africa are usually raped and nobody cares. They are humiliated and treated like a poor piece of sick meat that should be cured, and nobody says anything.

On the last day of my stay, I went to the bar to say bye to my friend. She wasn’t there.

“Surely sick” was the answer of the bartender. I was quite sad to leave this country without saying good bye to her, and all I could do was just leave her a note.

Two days ago I was in Paris, and in the french newspaper Le Monde, I read an article which was titled  “A young lady hit to death”. The first thing I saw was her name. Teeth, ears, eyes, everything were gone, according to the article. Why? Because she used to love women.

I never was in South Africa. I read an article in Le Monde and I felt so sorry for those involved, that I wanted to write a short fiction story about the events. I hope everything will change really soon.

Here is a video from the website Youtube edited by the newspaper the Guardian:

The article South Africa, No Country For Lesbians appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.