To hell and back

WHAT should’ve been one of the proudest, happiest days in his life turned out to be one of the worst for Michael El Bacha.

It was in 1994, and Michael, then 19, was flown to Lebanon to meet and marry a 16-year-old girl.

The girl was his cousin —  marriages between cousins are widely accepted in Arab culture — and the marriage was arranged by their respective families.

But deep in Michael’s mind, there was a battle raging as he struggled to come to terms with his attraction to men.

“I had no idea what I was doing most of the time,” said Michael (pictured above), now 39.

“The whole wedding was planned around us. And when we did get married, at the church, my soul was not there. I didn’t understand what was going on. I didn’t even look at her, not once.”

The Sydney resident said he was swept up in his parents’ cultural expectations at the time, and that when he thought of men he’d sometimes knock his head with his hands to get the thoughts out.

So the pressure he felt on the night of his wedding was something he didn’t anticipate, but he said he felt like he needed “to be a man”.

“Mind you, I was a virgin and I had no idea whether I was attracted to her in any way, let alone a girl,” Michael told the Star Observer.

At the end of the night, they didn’t consummate the marriage. However, their parents were not going to let that happen.

“The next morning we heard banging on our doors at 9am by my father and her mother and we copped it,” Michael recalled.

“We were then given an hour to do the deed. She was crying, she said ‘hurry up and do it’.”

He said he felt incredible pressure, feeling like he had disgraced his family.

“I was already struggling mentally, trying to get hard on her, when all I could think of was men all the time, and now this girl was not doing it for me,” he said.

“I was thinking of men to get aroused, really.”

The parents even came back afterwards to inspect the sheets to make sure it was done, but it wasn’t until 1996 that he became a father.

Fast forward to 2014, and Michael has published Oh, My God! Am I Alright?, a book about his life so far, beginning as a young confused man growing up in the Sydney’s western suburbs to conservative Lebanese Christian parents.

By the time he was 21, he and his wife had given birth to a boy.

However, hiding his sexuality became too much and he suddenly left his family and went straight to Oxford St, and in particular, the gay men’s sauna Headquarters.

“In order to find myself, I had to lose myself,” Michael said.

Indeed, he became a high-class sex worker for gay men for a year or so, barely seeing his family.

He eventually separated from his wife, after coming out to her while seeing her off on a flight to Lebanon.

“I told her I was a ‘poofter’, as that was the only way she could understand,” he said.

“I told her to go [to Lebanon], to meet somebody and then come back with him because I can’t be with you.

“I couldn’t keep living that lie, I couldn’t do that to my son, I couldn’t do that to me.”

Michael said he soon fell in love with a man and had a four-year relationship, until his boyfriend cheated.

He became depressed and even decided to commit suicide — but a random text from his son saved him.

“The worst day of my life became the best day,” he said.

“My son had sent me a text message saying he loved me. He saved my life.”

Michael said the worst chapters in his life were over now, and while he is happy that his family has come to accept him, he admitted that he never “officially” came out to his parents.

Despite this, he hoped his book would also increase LGBTI visibility among the Arab-Australian community, where homosexuality is still often regarded as a “taboo” subject.

He also said that because the book, which was published independently, had helped him with his mental health he hoped it could help others that are going through a similar situation.

Oh My God! Am I Alright? is available in select bookstores, including The Darlinghurst Book Shop in Sydney, Hares and Hyenas in Melbourne, Avid Reader Bookshop and Cafe in Brisbane, and Pauline Books and Media in Adelaide. 

**This article was first published in the November edition of the Star Observer. Click here to find out where you can grab your free copy in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide, Canberra and select regional areas.