ABSTRACT
The gay community in Australia, the United Kingdom and many countries in Western Europe led the response to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in the 1980s and 1990s, and it was through the strength and collective identity of these men that a successful campaign was waged. This chapter argues that a gay or Men who have Sex with Men (MSM) community rarely exists beyond the personal. For many of these men, both gay and biseks, there is an overwhelming longing to be normal. They hope that by trying very hard, they will eventually be "normal". The practice of "coming out" and being "open" to everyone is an exceptional thing for any Indonesian gay man. Howard wrote about how the coming-out process for Indonesian gay men is different than the commonly referred to stages in the West. There are few pure gay spaces across Indonesia. With the exception of urban Bali and the options the Internet present, these spaces are not increasing.
