The Velvet Mafia
on gay blackmailing & real life stories
By MJ Rahahleh
Some of us are out, and some are not. For those who’re out, it’s easier to stroll along the roads and flaunt this identity in pride. It comes at the cost of self and family acceptance, and creating a comfort zone of tolerance in the surrounding atmosphere of friends and colleagues. But some people choose to stay inside the closet for one reason or another, perhaps fear of rejection of their families, or living in a very homophobic/hetero-normative atmosphere that doesn’t accept homosexuality at all. While those people strive hard to stay under cover and their true identity remains concealed, an individual (homosexual or heterosexual) might want to harm them for personal vengeance or other reasons launches a campaign of terror to remove this veil and show this hidden identity, but in the process, they try to gain a bit of it: through blackmail.
This way of ‘blackmail’ is still new, we only heard about blackmail in Italian mafia movies and cheesy soap operas. Non has ever had this notion before, that one day they will receive a text message or a phone call or an email, saying ‘do as I do or their will be one rainbow with no pot o’ gold in the end!’. The gain of this vile act is in most cases money, or on the most cases, someone getting revenge over some personal issue.
This blackmail is divided into two types, the blackmailer might steer the information towards the family of the target to make them afraid of being outed, and rejected, or in worse cases being a victim of a homophobic hate crime (sort of), making the target live in constant fear and complying with whatever demands the blackmailer might ask for, and it seems as if the world has ended and there is no light in the end of that tunnel at all. The target might be a teenager or a single person, like our own Khalid. When My.Kali magazine just started, he got blackmailed in order to get it closed, but then he told his parents about it and prepared them, and the juggler became the one who’s being juggled! Or the target might be a married person, who was forced to get married by his ignorant-of-his-sexuality parents and got stuck in a marriage he doesn’t really appreciate (and that’s a big problem in our society, closeted husbands), and he’s having a little bit too spicy extra-marital affair, his blackmailer might mail his wife with such info that is meant to destroy this little so called golden cage, and harm any kids that exist out of that excuse of a marriage.
The other type of gay blackmailing is the one directed to authorities, but it’s more of a backstabbing-name calling kind of blackmailing where there’s money-related on the line. In Lebanon, rival gay-clubs owners’ report each other to the police in order to get the competition closed based on the Lebanese penal code that criminalizes homosexuality, hoping to get more profits since less gay clubs means more customers! "I thought I was going to have a fabulous night in one of my favorite clubs in town: Acid Night Club. Boy, was I mistaken!" popular Lebanese blogger, Beirut Boy in guymeetsworld.worldpress.com, the question is, was it because it was Eid time? Or was it because something else... the eyes are on the neighbors! In the US, many LGBT military personnel got blackmailed for being closeted homosexuals, being threatened to choose from either 2 options: to pay or to be reported to the authorities, thus being prosecuted and fired from their current position.
Moreover, recently, a story shock the media community in the US about Israel blackmailing closeted homosexual politicians in the US and how easily it was done with these men and Israel almost literally was holding them by the short hairs.
But eventually, blackmail remains a thing or two for demeanor state of mind, lowlifes is the word on your mind, and such a demeaning act that only ends up in a disaster. One of the possible scenarios is that the blackmailer ending up asking for more and more money, until it gets out of hand and he eventually spits out the news and gets away with it, and lives are destroyed. Tip: NEVER give in for a blackmailer no matter what. Especially if he’s blackmailing you with information you’re holding back from your family, whether it’s sexual orientation or anything else, maybe denying is easier! I’m sure your parents and siblings would love and forgive you more, and probably receive the news much lighter if they hear it from you, their son/daughter, rather than some money-seeking stranger. And remember: a gay person can only be blackmailed so long as he or she is in the closet (off course we're not telling you to come out). You can't blackmail an openly gay person over his sexuality. And since our society has embarked its own D.A.D.T. policy allowing gays and lesbians to live along a normal live so long as they remained successfully closeted, and this outrageous D.A.D.T. turned all closeted LGBT members of the society, regardless of age, position or job – all of them being closeted only by social norms, so called ‘traditions’ and prevailing homophobia - into ripe targets for blackmail. File it under lack of social intelligence? You tell me!
Read About Us
Mohammad, 28; Dr. Rainbow:
"I remember the day my dad had to come from Saudi Arabia to confront me about my sexuality," Mohammad told us on the phone, "the tension that was in the house, it was not the outing I expected" You may have wondered what happened to that popular Jordanian Arabic blog; GayJordan.blogspot.com where Mohammad blogged as Dr. Rainbow, when it vanished out of the blue from the net-web! "My ex friend in Irbid has been caught by his mother, he was suddenly outed, and he had blamed the whole patch on me. The mother had found about the blog and she sent my father, who lived in Saudi Arabia at the time, an email telling him about my life as a gay person and a gay blogger, claiming she's a 'good doer' doing a good deed'. My father didn't confront me the first time, but she copy pasted the email and she sent it about 5 times. By the 5th my father had told my mother and sent her back to Jordan to investigate in the matter and make sure it wasn't true. I didn't deny it to my mom. By that time my father had read everything in the blog, from my posts to my radio interview (with 'Radio Al-Balad'). Didn't take him long to get a ticket back to Jordan. My father had confronted me, and I didn't deny it either. What I am angry about is, that i wanted to come out to them anyways, but in my own way, in my own time. I wanted to be on my own first, I wanted to be independent, financially and emotionally, but I guess that's what I got. My father demanded that I remove my blog from the net, which I did, and then he made a deal upon it, a written contract to be specific, which I kept in my wallet for a while out of disbelief. The contract had demand to cut out all my contacts with homosexual (LGBTQ) people, to change my phone number, my email, to remove my blog, to forget about traveling or studying abroad... etc". My.Kali had met up with Mohamed recently, we chatted about his life now. Mohammad did what his father requested of him to do for a long time, until Mohammad graduated and moved to another city in Jordan and he visits home every other week. Hitched with his Boyfriend of one year and soon celebrating their 1 year anniversary. "I feel more myself these days, I'm financially independent, happy with my BF, my relationship with my folks are stable and other activities are on going..." Do you think GayJordan.blogspot.com and the identity of Dr. Rainbow will ever be back? It will in the future, not at the mean time... when it's time comes it'll come" Dr. Rainbow said.
Madian,
"I get these messages and emails all the time, threats and so many 'how dare yous" more than you can count... one time I got this message that said how shameful I should be for having such a cafe' (book@cafe) and how it's not appropriate in my own age to do so... What do they assume really? This community is oppressed, they have some sort of fear and paranoia... anger! They cage their fears, and hold on to resentments. Why do they hate each other? Why do they take it on each other? I mean, what's a hate message? We're in the market to prove that we're decent, but our community has became so sexual it's not funny anymore!" Madian told My.Kali
Rafic, 21 & Ala'a, 22
"I used to get threat-messages on my dating profile, I mean how funny is that, you'd think a cute guy with a bow tie is hitting your Inbox, when it's a guy with bad intentions toward you. They'd tell me to 'be careful', that they're going to call my mom or my brother and tell them 'where I go and who I hang out with'" Ala'a told us. "I remember once, my brother got a phone call from an anonymous person and told him that I have a profile on a gay-dating site. Another time they'd call him and tell him that I'm partying in gay club RGB (when it was open), and he'd confront me in each time, and I'd deny it." Ala'a said.
"I used to get similar messages and threats. I once got a message that said 'we know who you are, where you live and what your family's phone numbers are...' and I'd reply back telling them that I'm already out!" Rafic said.
Omar, 19:
"I remember this incident that happened to me when I first entered the community. I had a group of friends that I hung out with almost everyday. One day, my friend invited us all to her house, pictures were taken and posted on Facebook the very next day. Apparently my friends went to school with this girl who knows about their sexuality, who her mom was my mom's best friend. one day my mom called me sounding like she was running in a marathon! She kept asking about my friends, and their sexuality, telling me not to hang out with them. I kept defending them and denying knowing anything about their sexual orientation. My mom's best friend's daughter had told her mom that I hang out with a bunch of homos, and hinted I was the same, which was practically outing me out. I told my friends the story, they didn't believe me, accusing of lying. They stopped talking to me! Some days I get these antonymous calls from people I don't know, saying that they know about my sexuality, where I hang out and with whom and that they're going to tell my parents, but never proceeded, but the fear I lived in... This once, some guy had called my mom telling her how much he fancied my guy friend, that was just weird!" Omar told us.
Ahmad 20,
"When I used to live in Emirates (UAE), there was this older guy who went to my school and lived in my neighbor hood. With time, he befriended me, telling me that he wants to sleep with me and in exchange of it he'll protect me. I feared him, cause he bullied me for a while when I 'turned down' his offer. He followed me around, sat next to me in the bus and kept on hinting... so I decided to avoid him and disappear from his sight... one day, during mid-term exams, after school, he caught me and grabbed from my hand and dragged me to this empty farm next to school, where he touched me inappropriately, and tried to rape me in front of his friends... after he finished he took me back home. I kept showering and showering, crying out of dirt. That guy had told everyone in my neighbor hood that he slept with me, so I was afraid to see him or go down to the neighbor hood. One day at school, I was sitting with some friends in the class room during lunch break, he came in with an outrage of his friends, he stood in front of me, pointed at me and said, 'this is the boy I slept with'. After that remark, everybody in my school, including my old friends made passes at me. I remember when I confided in one of my friends from my neighborhood on what's been going on, he told his mom and his mom called mine! Eventually my parents knew and my mom flipped out, my parents had contacted the guy's parents and told them what's been going on. It was the scandal on everybody's tongue! The guy got the woops from his father. He kept for himself for a while, then he started doing the same to other younger boys. I also remember this guy in my school who followed me all around, and one day he came up to me and told me that if I don't have sex with him he will tell the police that I was a homosexual!" Ahmad told us on the phone.
Some of us are out, and some are not. For those who’re out, it’s easier to stroll along the roads and flaunt this identity in pride. It comes at the cost of self and family acceptance, and creating a comfort zone of tolerance in the surrounding atmosphere of friends and colleagues. But some people choose to stay inside the closet for one reason or another, perhaps fear of rejection of their families, or living in a very homophobic/hetero-normative atmosphere that doesn’t accept homosexuality at all. While those people strive hard to stay under cover and their true identity remains concealed, an individual (homosexual or heterosexual) might want to harm them for personal vengeance or other reasons launches a campaign of terror to remove this veil and show this hidden identity, but in the process, they try to gain a bit of it: through blackmail.
This way of ‘blackmail’ is still new, we only heard about blackmail in Italian mafia movies and cheesy soap operas. Non has ever had this notion before, that one day they will receive a text message or a phone call or an email, saying ‘do as I do or their will be one rainbow with no pot o’ gold in the end!’. The gain of this vile act is in most cases money, or on the most cases, someone getting revenge over some personal issue.
This blackmail is divided into two types, the blackmailer might steer the information towards the family of the target to make them afraid of being outed, and rejected, or in worse cases being a victim of a homophobic hate crime (sort of), making the target live in constant fear and complying with whatever demands the blackmailer might ask for, and it seems as if the world has ended and there is no light in the end of that tunnel at all. The target might be a teenager or a single person, like our own Khalid. When My.Kali magazine just started, he got blackmailed in order to get it closed, but then he told his parents about it and prepared them, and the juggler became the one who’s being juggled! Or the target might be a married person, who was forced to get married by his ignorant-of-his-sexuality parents and got stuck in a marriage he doesn’t really appreciate (and that’s a big problem in our society, closeted husbands), and he’s having a little bit too spicy extra-marital affair, his blackmailer might mail his wife with such info that is meant to destroy this little so called golden cage, and harm any kids that exist out of that excuse of a marriage.
The other type of gay blackmailing is the one directed to authorities, but it’s more of a backstabbing-name calling kind of blackmailing where there’s money-related on the line. In Lebanon, rival gay-clubs owners’ report each other to the police in order to get the competition closed based on the Lebanese penal code that criminalizes homosexuality, hoping to get more profits since less gay clubs means more customers! "I thought I was going to have a fabulous night in one of my favorite clubs in town: Acid Night Club. Boy, was I mistaken!" popular Lebanese blogger, Beirut Boy in guymeetsworld.worldpress.com, the question is, was it because it was Eid time? Or was it because something else... the eyes are on the neighbors! In the US, many LGBT military personnel got blackmailed for being closeted homosexuals, being threatened to choose from either 2 options: to pay or to be reported to the authorities, thus being prosecuted and fired from their current position.
Moreover, recently, a story shock the media community in the US about Israel blackmailing closeted homosexual politicians in the US and how easily it was done with these men and Israel almost literally was holding them by the short hairs.
But eventually, blackmail remains a thing or two for demeanor state of mind, lowlifes is the word on your mind, and such a demeaning act that only ends up in a disaster. One of the possible scenarios is that the blackmailer ending up asking for more and more money, until it gets out of hand and he eventually spits out the news and gets away with it, and lives are destroyed. Tip: NEVER give in for a blackmailer no matter what. Especially if he’s blackmailing you with information you’re holding back from your family, whether it’s sexual orientation or anything else, maybe denying is easier! I’m sure your parents and siblings would love and forgive you more, and probably receive the news much lighter if they hear it from you, their son/daughter, rather than some money-seeking stranger. And remember: a gay person can only be blackmailed so long as he or she is in the closet (off course we're not telling you to come out). You can't blackmail an openly gay person over his sexuality. And since our society has embarked its own D.A.D.T. policy allowing gays and lesbians to live along a normal live so long as they remained successfully closeted, and this outrageous D.A.D.T. turned all closeted LGBT members of the society, regardless of age, position or job – all of them being closeted only by social norms, so called ‘traditions’ and prevailing homophobia - into ripe targets for blackmail. File it under lack of social intelligence? You tell me!
Read About Us
Mohammad, 28; Dr. Rainbow:
"I remember the day my dad had to come from Saudi Arabia to confront me about my sexuality," Mohammad told us on the phone, "the tension that was in the house, it was not the outing I expected" You may have wondered what happened to that popular Jordanian Arabic blog; GayJordan.blogspot.com where Mohammad blogged as Dr. Rainbow, when it vanished out of the blue from the net-web! "My ex friend in Irbid has been caught by his mother, he was suddenly outed, and he had blamed the whole patch on me. The mother had found about the blog and she sent my father, who lived in Saudi Arabia at the time, an email telling him about my life as a gay person and a gay blogger, claiming she's a 'good doer' doing a good deed'. My father didn't confront me the first time, but she copy pasted the email and she sent it about 5 times. By the 5th my father had told my mother and sent her back to Jordan to investigate in the matter and make sure it wasn't true. I didn't deny it to my mom. By that time my father had read everything in the blog, from my posts to my radio interview (with 'Radio Al-Balad'). Didn't take him long to get a ticket back to Jordan. My father had confronted me, and I didn't deny it either. What I am angry about is, that i wanted to come out to them anyways, but in my own way, in my own time. I wanted to be on my own first, I wanted to be independent, financially and emotionally, but I guess that's what I got. My father demanded that I remove my blog from the net, which I did, and then he made a deal upon it, a written contract to be specific, which I kept in my wallet for a while out of disbelief. The contract had demand to cut out all my contacts with homosexual (LGBTQ) people, to change my phone number, my email, to remove my blog, to forget about traveling or studying abroad... etc". My.Kali had met up with Mohamed recently, we chatted about his life now. Mohammad did what his father requested of him to do for a long time, until Mohammad graduated and moved to another city in Jordan and he visits home every other week. Hitched with his Boyfriend of one year and soon celebrating their 1 year anniversary. "I feel more myself these days, I'm financially independent, happy with my BF, my relationship with my folks are stable and other activities are on going..." Do you think GayJordan.blogspot.com and the identity of Dr. Rainbow will ever be back? It will in the future, not at the mean time... when it's time comes it'll come" Dr. Rainbow said.
Madian,
"I get these messages and emails all the time, threats and so many 'how dare yous" more than you can count... one time I got this message that said how shameful I should be for having such a cafe' (book@cafe) and how it's not appropriate in my own age to do so... What do they assume really? This community is oppressed, they have some sort of fear and paranoia... anger! They cage their fears, and hold on to resentments. Why do they hate each other? Why do they take it on each other? I mean, what's a hate message? We're in the market to prove that we're decent, but our community has became so sexual it's not funny anymore!" Madian told My.Kali
Rafic, 21 & Ala'a, 22
"I used to get threat-messages on my dating profile, I mean how funny is that, you'd think a cute guy with a bow tie is hitting your Inbox, when it's a guy with bad intentions toward you. They'd tell me to 'be careful', that they're going to call my mom or my brother and tell them 'where I go and who I hang out with'" Ala'a told us. "I remember once, my brother got a phone call from an anonymous person and told him that I have a profile on a gay-dating site. Another time they'd call him and tell him that I'm partying in gay club RGB (when it was open), and he'd confront me in each time, and I'd deny it." Ala'a said.
"I used to get similar messages and threats. I once got a message that said 'we know who you are, where you live and what your family's phone numbers are...' and I'd reply back telling them that I'm already out!" Rafic said.
Omar, 19:
"I remember this incident that happened to me when I first entered the community. I had a group of friends that I hung out with almost everyday. One day, my friend invited us all to her house, pictures were taken and posted on Facebook the very next day. Apparently my friends went to school with this girl who knows about their sexuality, who her mom was my mom's best friend. one day my mom called me sounding like she was running in a marathon! She kept asking about my friends, and their sexuality, telling me not to hang out with them. I kept defending them and denying knowing anything about their sexual orientation. My mom's best friend's daughter had told her mom that I hang out with a bunch of homos, and hinted I was the same, which was practically outing me out. I told my friends the story, they didn't believe me, accusing of lying. They stopped talking to me! Some days I get these antonymous calls from people I don't know, saying that they know about my sexuality, where I hang out and with whom and that they're going to tell my parents, but never proceeded, but the fear I lived in... This once, some guy had called my mom telling her how much he fancied my guy friend, that was just weird!" Omar told us.
Ahmad 20,
"When I used to live in Emirates (UAE), there was this older guy who went to my school and lived in my neighbor hood. With time, he befriended me, telling me that he wants to sleep with me and in exchange of it he'll protect me. I feared him, cause he bullied me for a while when I 'turned down' his offer. He followed me around, sat next to me in the bus and kept on hinting... so I decided to avoid him and disappear from his sight... one day, during mid-term exams, after school, he caught me and grabbed from my hand and dragged me to this empty farm next to school, where he touched me inappropriately, and tried to rape me in front of his friends... after he finished he took me back home. I kept showering and showering, crying out of dirt. That guy had told everyone in my neighbor hood that he slept with me, so I was afraid to see him or go down to the neighbor hood. One day at school, I was sitting with some friends in the class room during lunch break, he came in with an outrage of his friends, he stood in front of me, pointed at me and said, 'this is the boy I slept with'. After that remark, everybody in my school, including my old friends made passes at me. I remember when I confided in one of my friends from my neighborhood on what's been going on, he told his mom and his mom called mine! Eventually my parents knew and my mom flipped out, my parents had contacted the guy's parents and told them what's been going on. It was the scandal on everybody's tongue! The guy got the woops from his father. He kept for himself for a while, then he started doing the same to other younger boys. I also remember this guy in my school who followed me all around, and one day he came up to me and told me that if I don't have sex with him he will tell the police that I was a homosexual!" Ahmad told us on the phone.