Would you watch this?

In a completely unscientific poll of some of my friends and acquaintances in Singapore, I can't find a single straight guy who's willing to watch Brokeback Mountain. The most common reason proffered is a reluctance to watch a gay relationship between men portrayed onscreen.

I'm ... surprised, to say the least. This is a biased sample of my friends and acquaintances, after all.

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The first time I saw gay men kiss onscreen was in the movie Jeffrey, which someone rented at some point in my college years. I don't actually remember anything of the movie now. But without fanfare, hullabaloo or anything remotely resembling an epiphany, it normalised for me the sight of kissing between men.

The first time I read about love and sex between gay men with the same intensity we've grown to accept and even expect in heterosexual couples, was in the Alan Hollinghurst novel The Swimming Pool Library, which I read a few years ago. In my review of books read in 2003, I described Hollinghurst as "a good fiction writer, not just a good gay fiction writer", because that distinction was (and is) important to me. To pigeonhole him as a good gay writer --- or, for that matter, to pigeonhole anyone as a good insert-your-ethnicity-/nationality-/minority-of-choice writer --- would be to imply that what Hollinghurst had to say only mattered to a gay readership or as a portrayal of gay relationships.

But his stories have universal resonance regardless of a reader's sexuality, just as good writing in a language other than English or from a country outside of Asia can have universal resonance for me (as long as it's translated into English, that is). Hollinghurst's descriptions of what gay men can feel for each other were an eye-opener, not because I didn't expect men to have such feelings for each other, but because I didn't expect myself, upon my first encounter with gay fiction, to so easily disregard the characters' genders to read about those feelings.

Is it easier in our culture for me, as a woman, to accept images of homosexuality because it doesn't threaten me? That's what conventional wisdom would have us believe, anyway. Images of women kissing have become fetishized to titillate the male libido, so it doesn't matter whether it's lesbians or women doing it for a lark, à la Madonna-Britney-Christina. Images of men kissing, on the other hand ...

Yet, it's important. Is it acceptable today to declare disgust at seeing people of different races exchange kisses, or people from different classes? How about if one finds abhorrent the image of a woman depicted in a position of power? And at what point does discomfort become so strong that it manifests itself, outwardly or not, in discrimination, prejudice and a complete lack of understanding of the Other?

Of course I'm not insisting that everyone watch Brokeback Mountain because they will then magically get over their discomfort, if any, at watching men kissing. In my ideal world, people have a choice about what they want to watch and are given enough information about what's available, so that they can decide for themselves whether they wish to see a particular programme or film.

On that note, here's my second readers' poll, then: Would you watch Brokeback Mountain?

In responding, please indicate your gender and sexuality. As always, feel free to append additional remarks and witticisms.

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