By SH Lim

‘Body2Body’, a new anthology dedicated to a marginalised community, has attracted several big literary names locally. SH Lim talks to the guys behind it.

Pang Khee Teik tells an interesting story. Soon after the telecast of the Academy Awards this year, he flooded cyberspace with his protest that in the local broadcast of the ceremony, certain words were bleeped out in Dustin Lance Black’s and Sean Penn’s acceptance speeches for winning Best Original Screenplay and The Best Actor award respectively for ‘Milk’. Pang wrote then in his protest-letter that, ‘This act of censorship defeated the very victory won by these two men. The moments of silence rang out like the gun shots that killed Harvey Milk.’

What transpired in the aftermath of the protest, you’ll have to get Pang to tell you. The story is partly funny and partly sad. But the bleeping begs the question, ‘Why?’ Although there’s another implicit one, ‘Who sanctioned it?’ And the answer to that goes beyond the obvious.

Perhaps just from the above incident, a publication like ‘Body2Body’ finds its justification. It doesn’t even have to be well-written, although that helps; it just has to be written. It just has to give voice to the silenced. The muting and the muzzling – implied or expressed – gives those who control and shape public discourse, those who censor certain words deemed ‘unacceptable’ for broadcast, the weapons to characterize and define the silenced group, even to ‘abnormalize’ and demonize it. Or as one contributor to the collection, Ray Langenbach, writes, ‘[To] eliminate unbelievers or what may be called ‘aberrants’.’

There was an earlier attempt in 2003 to pull such a publication together. ‘Body2Body’ editors – Jerome Kugan and Pang – write in the ‘Introduction’ that ‘[t]he quantity and the quality of submissions we received [then] through ‘Gendergenres’ were underwhelming, in spite of three deadline extensions.’ More interestingly, folks could write using a pseudonym, as if the first steps to speak up is to speak from the closet. Disembodied voices asserting existence. But there was nothing unusual about this concession for a group that was often ridiculed and derided; often labeled as a social ill; often forced into dark corners and back lanes.

But between then and 2008, some light: Seksualiti Merdeka at Central Market Annexe, the explosion of blogs, many of which were and are maintained by young ‘queer’ folks who found pertinent information, community and openness in the worldwide web.

This time around, the call-for-submissions attracted more contributors. Sixty-one to be exact. This time, contributors’ names appear, including a short biography at the back of the book. Amir Muhammad, the man behind Matahari Books suggests that having a recognised publisher put out the call-for-submission gave the project more credibility and so the larger pool of submissions. This collection of 23 pieces of fiction and non-fiction includes works by established writers like Ann Lee, Shanon Shah, Shih-Li Kow (who is shortlisted for the Frank O’Connor Award), Brian Gomez (author of ‘Devil’s Place’ which was reviewed in Time Out KL Feb 2009) and Singaporean O Thiam Chin.

The need for such an anthology, Jerome argues, arises from having a public discourse defined solely by ‘the heteronormativity of the larger culture’. For instance, the sexualisation of the male body as an object of desire has been co-opted under heterosexual’s ‘metrosexuality’ into something supposedly safer and without sexual tensions. As if hard bodies are only to hang natty suits or even Armani briefs. As if Clarins cleansed faces are only for looking at. As if washboard abs are aesthetically pleasing and nothing more.

All three – Amir, Jerome and Pang – concur that the varied writings in ‘Body2Body’ reflect the diversity among PLU folks in this country. The writers here explore identities at different stages: from discovering ‘the love that dares not speak its name’, to negotiating spaces for the possibility of realizing its existence, to an acceptance of an identity which doesn’t require justification, explanation or saying, ‘I’m sorry’. Other writers look to see how language can be used to force a re-examination of assumptions, as the act of reading the story itself – the looking at words and what they are supposed to mean – equates with our interpreting of signs to determine if someone is straight or gay, in-between or whatever. And the implications of that naming. The surprise ending, which negates expectations, confronts the initial ‘misreading’ and underscores that meaning is not fixed. Meaning changes with different pieces of information. Our perception of queerness can change with new insights. If we listened more to the oft-muted voices.

Some stories in the anthology which deal with loving from afar, loving from the closet are somewhat cloying and sentimental. Perhaps the powerlessness of these characters run contrary to the urgency of giving voice, and their impotence and dribbling cries offer nothing satisfactory to swallow. But overall, this is a good collection of Malaysian queer writing with enough to entertain, enough to make you angry, enough to give intellectual food for serious mastication. Enough to give hope. They all give voice. Now to see how far it travels.

By the way, according to entertainment website indieWire, when Black was informed that his and Penn’s acceptance speeches were censored, he replied, ‘I think whenever something like that happens, it’s indicative of where a significant problem lies.’

Body2Body: A Malaysian Queer Anthology, Edited by Jerome Kugan and Pang Khee Teik, is published by Matahari. RM34