AsiaLIFE

May marks Gay Pride Week in Cambodia, so Julie Masis explores the changing face of the gay and lesbian community in Cambodia.

Savy Yun, an independent Khmer woman has a short haircut, sports tomboy outfits, works in a Phnom Penh modelling agency and likes to show-off photos of her ex-girlfriends in the pages of glossy Khmer magazines. She estimates she’s had four serious girlfriends and about 20 casual relationships with women, some of whom, she is proud to say, were actresses or models. Savy has even acted in a Russian film, where she played a cigarette-smoking lesbian who tries to woo a woman.

When she goes to a wedding or a business meeting, Savy changes into a skirt or a dress. She says, when time comes for her to marry, she will do so because that is what her family expects.

“If I meet a guy and he is good to me and to my family, it’s okay, I’ll get married,” she says. “I’ll get married and have children.”

Savy estimates about 60 percent of Khmer lesbians are in the closet and cannot kiss or touch their girlfriends in public.

The same is true for Khmer gay men.

Marcus Burrows, who runs the gay night at Pontoon on Thursdays, says that none of the Khmer men he has been with have come out. Among those partners is a boyfriend of four years who is about to get married – to a woman.

Marcus is one of the event organisers for the Cambodian Gay Pride Week (May 10 – 17).

During Pride hundreds of gays and lesbians will be bused to Phnom Penh from the provinces to attend workshops on self-empowerment and not being ashamed of their identity. Marcus says they will not all arrive together in a giant pink bus, but simply have their bus and hotel costs reimbursed.

“They do exist and they are going to make themselves known,” he says about Cambodia’s homosexual community.

The fifth gay pride celebration in Cambodia will feature art exhibits by gay artists, film screenings at The Flicks and Meta House and a performance by a group of transvestites.

Cambodia’s lesbians are perhaps in an even more difficult position than gay men, who at least have bars like Blue Chili. But a lesbian woman who ventures inside is likely to feel as out-of-place there as in a men’s toilet.

To do something about the lack of a hang-out for local lesbians, two Phnom Penh friends started a monthly women-only pool party in March, called “Naughty Girls – Nice Girls.”

The party takes place at Fly Lounge on Street 148 on the last Saturday of each month and has an all-female staff – including female bartenders and DJs. Only the security guards are male, says Chariya Preap one of the co-organisers. The guards’ main job is to prevent men from joining the party – a task that is not always easy.

“It’s not that we’re man-haters,” Chariya explains. “This is just one night in the month when we don’t want men there.”

The party is not only for lesbians, but for any woman who wants to relax, have a drink, dance in a short skirt or swim in a bikini without unwanted male attention, says Teia Rogers, another of the organisers.

Sokha Khem, one of the owners of Blue Chilli, says that awareness of homosexuality is increasing in Cambodia, thanks to tourism and television. When he first opened his nightclub three and a half years ago, Sokha said he had very few Khmer customers. Now he sees more openly-gay Cambodian men.

But for Cambodian lesbians it is still very hard, says Sokha, especially for those who live in the countryside, where arranged marriages are the norm. If a family finds out that their daughter is a lesbian, they might tell her ‘stop doing that’ to avoid embarrassing the family, he says.

“Being lesbian is harder than being gay in Cambodia,” he says. “Gay men can go out to look for another man, but women cannot.”

The monthly women’s party along with the many workshops and open forums planned for Gay Pride week aim to fill that gap. Who knows, ultimately lesbians like Savy will not feel obliged to getting married in order to please the family.