My wife doesn’t know that I’m gay – Bona Men
Words: Motlatsi Radebe. Article from July 2015 issue of Bona Magazine.
The trend of ‘After 9s’ seems to be getting more attention now. *Sizo Nkosi (not real name) opens up to Motlatsi Radebe about cheating with another man.
The kind of work that I do introduced me to evening entertainment, which has left me with a severe identity crisis. As a backup singer and composer, I’ve travelled around the world and hung out with wealthy men who are beyond competing with how many pretty girls they can lure in one night, or how much they can splurge on alcohol.
I grew up in a Durban township, in a family of four boys. Our mother may have taught us to cook, bake and clean but there was never any question mark around our masculinity. In fact, our sexuality was a non-negotiable. Often when drug users are asked how they got into the habit, it’s usually because they were in the company of someone who was doing drugs and thought it wouldn’t kill them to try.
Eight years ago, during a Cape Town performance, the organiser of the event invited us to an exclusive party at a high-end hotel. When I arrived at the venue, I was inspired and excited by being in the company of influential men.
There was one gentleman in particular, who looked like he was in his late 50s and shouldn’t have been at a night party. He greeted me with a very overzealous smile the minute I walked in, but I made nothing of his kind gesture. We got to talk like amajita; he sounded like someone who was interested in mentoring me to become an entertainment entrepreneur.
We exchanged numbers and started hanging out at least three times a month. He’d buy me expensive clothes and say that his circle of friends were so snobbish, they wouldn’t even bother speaking to me if they saw me in my cheap outfits.
Back home, with my working-class friends, my obvious change in wardrobe raised eyebrows because I was always that friend who didn’t know when his next gig would come. My girlfriend even asked jokingly if I’d landed a sugar daddy who was sponsoring my new outfits. I can’t even remember what lie I told her to get out of explaining where the clothes came from.
So when ‘my provider’ started making sexual advances, I felt obliged to give in because he took care of me and eased my financial stress. I feel like I’m in safe hands because he’s been married for 30 years and has no intentions of leaving his happy home for a full-time relationship with another man. He lives out of town, which is perfect for me because I only see him once every second week and it gives me time to concentrate on being a family man. When I got married two years ago, he got me a designer suit as a wedding gift and told me to always take care of my home first.
At this stage, I have no intentions of starting a new sexual relationship with another man, but I do find myself comfortable when hanging out with gay men. And as a result, when most people meet me for the first time, they always assume that I’m gay until I happen to mention in passing that I have a wife and son.
Someone once said to me that I post way too many pictures of my family on social media – perhaps it’s my way of hiding the other person that I become after nine o’clock. At the moment, I’m enjoying having the best of both worlds. I do love the stability of having a wife and someone to go to every night, but I also enjoy fornicating with another man, maybe even slightly more than I should.
On the question of whether I’m gay, bisexual or straight, this is a battle I have with myself almost daily. Quite honestly, I’d rather not confuse myself by placing myself in one sexuality box!
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