While visiting Karachi University a few months back for a fieldwork assignment, I had a rather peculiar run-in with a group of clinical psychologists. All of them were involved in clinical and rehabilitative projects and had recently banded together to start a small forum to teach people aspiring to enter mental health and also to disseminate specialised information among professionals. They felt that such knowledge was largely disaggregated in Pakistan. 

This meeting was atypical for me since it was one of my first encounters with a group of well educated and professionally active psychologists who wanted to inject some vigour into the largely lethargic domain of mental health in the country.

One of the psychologists I talked to was working on a project in which he was the chief counselor for a group of HIV positive men – mainly sex workers. I found the topic quite novel and decided to question him further. Obviously when discussing the sex trade, it is pertinent to ask which genders are involved. When I asked him, he told me that he was working with MSM (men who have sex with men). When I asked him if he meant gay men, he brushed me off with a severe ‘no’.

Call me a skeptic, but I assumed that at least some men out of the several ‘MSM sex workers’ in Karachi must be gay. Here I define gay as being attracted to and engaging in sexual activity with the same gender out of natural inclination or choice.

See the original news story on blogs.tribune.com.pk.