22 GILLESPIE / DE BEAUVOIR

 "She looks real bad."
 "What is that she got on?"
 "She with he. Well I had he last week."

 I'm like, "I didn't come here for this. So I don't bother to go with
 them. They don't like me. Because they see me on TV they don't like
 me. Things that I do they cannot do. And they don't understand why.
 CG- So you think that there are a lot of closeted people in Barbados?
 DA- There are some who do it. As you know there is sex tourism. We don't
 want to talk about it because we know what people will do for money.
 The society or the family or you know, that kind of thing. It is very,
 very rampant. And it's not acceptable to talk about it. So looking at
 me is like throwing it in your face. Mind you. I might not get as many
 men or any men. I found a trend in New York. I go on the sites [web
 sites] and I've seen there is a site called BlackMen.com These are
 men that look really, really good. The women would go mad. Some of
 them have women. Some of them don't. Some of them say they want
 guys in the gym. They don't want any fat and I'm like, "what's going
 on here?" Nobody wants me. I'll live a lot longer. [laughs] To work so
 hard. To lose so many lives. To fight Stonewall just to go back into the
 closet. It's like you're regressing. It's very sad because in five years
 time, what are we going to do? It's sad.
 CG- Would you say that there is a gay community here in Barbados?
 DA- Of course. We don't have any gay clubs as such, but there are places
 where gays hang out. At Ragamuffins [the location of the show] we
 get more straights. I don't really go out. I do my job. Go home. That's
 me. We have a large gay community. Very large. Then you have the
 straggle-ons-the bisexuals. Mostly it's at private houses. You go to
 these private parties. It's a cliche thing. You hear about a party and
 you would be surprised who is there-ministers, government officials.
 People go because they want to rub shoulders with somebody. It's big.
 It's big. What else is causing people to be inert in their behavior is
 Jamaican dub-culture, but yet they have a large gay tourism. They
 always sing, from as far back as I could remember, about Mama Mash
 and, what else was there? Shabba Ranks started it Mama Mash and
 Aunty Man, Batty Boy and this new word "chi chi man" so everything
 is related to this [dub] and encouraging young people to hate them.
 And I am saying if you don't like it, why put in such interest and such
 energy towards it? ffI don't like something, I'm not going to sing about
 it. The singing about it is going to be very minimal in my song. So all
 these guys are on the bandwagon to shoot this body. It stirs up violence
 and they want to hurt people. It happens here too. It happens here. I