Last week, a man named Irhamudin and his lover were enjoying each other’s company, when suddenly, in a fit of rage, he violently killed them.
A sad, violent story to be sure, but one that, in its generalities, is not exactly rare in Indonesia. Detik also reported on a young man in Madiun, East Java suspected of killing his girlfriend last week.
But the difference between that story and Irhamudin’s is that Irhamudin was a gay man who killed his male lover. And despite not containing any graphic photos or descriptions of sexual acts beyond kissing, when you click the link to Irhamudin’s story, Detik brings up a page saying “Warning! Adult content!” and forces you to complete a multi-step log in to verify your age.
The story about the young man killing his girlfriend in Madiun? No age verification necessary.
So why does Detik think it’s okay for people of any age to read about a young man murdering his girlfriend, but only adults can read about a gay man killing his lover? Detik is not a niche conservative news site – with over 22 million visits per month, it’s about as mainstream as online news gets in Indonesia.
Which is of course the point. This story simply illustrates how homosexuality is still treated as a form of deviant, abhorrent behavior by the vast majority of Indonesian media, not to mention the authorities.
In the Detik article about Irhamudin, Jauhari, the head of the Crime Investigation Unit at the Bekasi Regency Police, is quoted as saying this:
“We suspect the victim and the suspect had sexual abnormalities, they like people of the same sex aka homosexuals, and love triangles.”
To be fair to Detik, perhaps they put the adult content warning in place because they are afraid of running afoul of the government’s extremely ill-defined anti-pornography laws, the same laws that have caused pro-LGBT sites in Indonesia and abroad to be blocked here or shut down.
But if the media and authorities can’t talk about homosexuality without treating it as a dirty, taboo topic, we wonder if Indonesia will ever be able to gain the kind of widespread tolerance and acceptance for LGBT individuals that other countries have found.
