TV station asks if watching too much porn ‘turns people gay’
A television station has featured a segment on the reasons people “turn gay”, suggesting that watching too much porn might be the reason why.
Satellite channel TV9 Telegu featured a segment on gay people with the title ‘Gay culture on the rise in Telugu states.’
“The gay culture in western countries, is now increasing in the Telugu states. A large number of youngsters are now turning homosexual,” says the news anchor at the start of the segment.
“What is the reason for the increase of this gay culture? What are doctors saying?” she goes on to ask.
Going on the story says it wants to “find out” the “real” reasons for why people are gay.
A reporter then asks: “Are mental health problems the reason behind people turning gay?”
She then describes “shocking” statistics that there are groups of people online looking for gay sex in Guntur city.
The segment then goes on to feature two doctors who are not named.
The first doctor advocates for safe sex in order to protect the LGBT community against sexually transmitted infections.
But the second suggests that people are “trapped” and “lured” into thinking that being gay is okay.
He then suggests pornography as a reason for why people “turn” gay.
The segment ends with a line suggesting that people need to “refrain” from turning gay or bisexual and that people should be “cautious”.
“There is a need for youth to refrain from getting attracted to same sex, and they should be extremely cautious about the changes in the society or else the gay culture will further thrive,” it says.
But not before featuring images of a couple who got married in California back in 2015, images of who were used without their permission.
The network was attacked by LGBT rights activists over the segment, posted on 25 December.
“The general public learns from the media. They assume that the media is telling them the right things, and will agree with TV9 when it pushes homophobic content like this,” said Abhishek of Queer Campus Hyderabad.
“It is the responsibility of media persons to research and understand the issue that they are talking about before broadcasting such content,” Abhishek continues.
