“Do you know the word for someone who is a homosexual and yet marries a member of the opposite sex”, a journalist friend of mine called me up and inquired.

“There is a term for it, like one word?”, I asked surprised.

“You did not know?”, it was her turn to be surprised.

I absolutely had no clue!

“You know like the term trophy wife, there is term for this too, when a man who is attracted to other men marries a woman, I cannot remember the word”

I told her I would look up online for the word and get back to her if I found the word.

In less than a minute, I had the word – BEARD!

“Beard is someone who dates a member of the opposite sex to conceal one’s sexual orientation”

                     I drew this after I decided to blog about the term “beard”

And while hunting for the word I also came across several interesting articles that debated if homosexuals should marry someone from the opposite sex to avoid social stigma.

The most interesting article was about a show called “My Husband is not gay” which deals with the theme of men marrying women despite being sexually attracted to men. There was a lot of uproar in January this year over the show. Over a 100,000 people have signed a petition to get the show cancelled because of the so called “negative impact” the show might have on impressionable young minds.

I tried watching a teaser of the show, but could not, it seemed really boring and did not seem worth my time. On reading further you come to know the show is not really espousing the skewed belief that homosexuals should marry someone from the opposite sex to “cure themselves” or something as ridiculous. It’s about men who feel attracted to other men but choose to ignore those impulses completely because their “religion” and the benefits of straight marriage is more important to them. These men may as well be bisexuals.

And then I come across an article titled “When a gay man marries a straight woman”. While it does not reveal anything startling, what did slightly surprise me was the fact that a lot of people are aware of their partner’s homosexuality and yet continue with the marriage, setting terms like – when one can have sex with others or asking the gay partner to not have homosexual sex.

While certain agreements might seem bearable to the couple, the situation does not look like a bright picture at all. It still is terrible that homosexuals have to marry heterosexuals because of societal norms. It has been happening for centuries together and sadly will continue to happen for a lot many years.