In 2012, at a time when Mensur* had no trusted companion except himself, social media provided him with an outlet for self-expression in ways he could hardly have imagined. Living through sexual abuse during his teenage years at the hands of a close relative, along with the fear of his strict mother and overlong episodes of financial instability at home, online communities helped him seek support during a deep depressive spiral.

“Now when I look back, I can’t fathom how I’d have been able to assert myself being who I really am and find a space where I could be heard,” Mensur says. “There are so many individuals I know who’ve been forced into living a life they neither choose nor cherish, only to attain ‘perceived normality’ and please those around them.” 

Today, the 31-year-old content writer from Karachi, who identifies as gay in trusted company, has nearly 7,000 followers on Instagram, whom he calls his “family”. Mensur started his account in 2016 after buying his first smartphone from the money he earned through tutoring students after college, unbeknownst to his family. With a brand-new, internet-friendly phone in his hands, Mensur proved to be a quick learner. He familiarised himself with the deep, densely inhabited terrains of the internet and ventured into queer-friendly spaces he didn’t know existed in the cybersphere.

Before the internet, there was abuse and silence

In 2006, in the guise of interrogation in the locked drawing room for his “crime” of stealing a few hundred bucks that his friends dared him to do in a game, Mensur’s uncle was forcing him through everything ugly his mother often discreetly educated him about as a child. 

He says, “My mother was very strict and unforgiving, especially when it came to studies,” adding, “The financial constraints in our childhood mostly kept her occupied, both physically and emotionally. But that barrier would come down when she told us about the ‘good touch’ and the ‘bad touch’ in private.”

Mensur’s ensuing silence emboldened his uncle, who went on to target him sexually on several occasions. His subsequent refusals to visit his grandmother’s house were largely mistaken by his family as “guilt” and “shame” of stealing, who were completely unaware of the horrifying episodes.

The online space gave [Mensur] a sense of freedom, support and validation he could have never gained otherwise, particularly during a phase when his struggle with his identity roiled his mental health.

For the next few years, Mensur kept to himself, hid all visible signs of depression, but — even to his own surprise — excelled at studies without anyone finding out what he had been going through since that day. Years later, when his uncle’s hideous face was unmasked by similar anecdotes from Mensur’s cousins, their grandmother refused to acknowledge the abuse and apportioned most part of the blame to the survivors. His perpetrator is now married with a son and a daughter, and is seen as a “responsible” and “caring” man in the family. 

A recent study found that 47% of child sexual abuse cases reported between January and June 2024 in Pakistan involved perpetrators known to the victims. In 2023, about 912 such cases were recorded. These figures, however, paint an incomplete picture of the extent to which sexual abuse runs rampant within Pakistani households, with many families choosing silence due to fear of risking their reputation and social stigma. Moreover, a large number of these cases go unreported, for victims and their families often feel powerless, face familial pressures, avoid legal and public scrutiny, and lack resources to fight back and hold the perpetrators accountable. This only emboldens the abusers who, having no fear of repercussions for their actions, continue to thrive in the very households where their victims either face persistent abuse or live under the haunting shadows of past harassment.

The freedom 

Despite having a long friends list on Facebook, Mensur felt isolated and often found himself gripped by the memories of violence. “I’d had enough of the burden of pretence, but at the same time, I wanted to find out if I was the only one who felt different,” he says.

According to Mensur, his life took a turn for the better when he joined Instagram in 2015. He started following unknown accounts who’d follow him back.

“I was aware of the consequences in case I followed the wrong people and then opened up to them later,” he says. “I checked the number of followers on these profiles to ensure they weren’t fake, or carried someone I knew personally, and sometimes I even had to skim through accounts with thousands of public followers just to make sure they wouldn’t get me into trouble.”

It was on Instagram that he properly connected with other gay men. The online space gave him a sense of freedom, support and validation he could have never gained otherwise, particularly during a phase when his struggle with his identity roiled his mental health. Conversations about shared trauma, insecurities, disappointment, anger, and hope with some of his followers immediately made him realise that he had finally found a place where he could be unapologetically himself — and where he could express himself without having to deal with the baggage of his past. Instagram turned out to be a perfect diversion from the abuse that had wrecked Mensur’s confidence and self-esteem for years.

Even under the shelter of strategically curated anonymous social media profiles, gay people are highly prone to abuse and exploitation. Most of these troubled individuals are vacillating between the burning urge to embrace their true selves openly and the terminal burden of traditional marriage forced on them by their families.

Mensur frequented online groups sheltering gay people, created anonymous accounts on Instagram and Facebook to ensure his safety, and even found a flicker of love in some of the relationships that lasted longer than he expected. After several tumultuous months, the bitterness towards his sexuality in the family deliquesced to delicate curiosity and a strained but whole-hearted acceptance, all made possible after he became a part of an online gay community and openly accepted himself.

The quandary

Even under the shelter of strategically curated anonymous social media profiles, gay people are highly prone to abuse and exploitation. Most of these troubled individuals are vacillating between the burning urge to embrace their true selves openly and the terminal burden of traditional marriage forced on them by their families. Often, the incorrigibly dissatisfied and incompatible parents, who somehow come to know about their child’s sexuality, stifle their children’s emotional expression. As a result of the terror instilled by their harsh physical treatment, which is labelled proudly as “responsible parenting”, these vulnerable individuals are forced to live a life they cannot connect with.

In Pakistan, a forced marriage is a gay person’s worst nightmare — propelled by high expectations from within the family that are, by extension, a rancid product of the deeply prevalent social norms that still define the working dynamics of the majority of middle-income households. In most cases, these people, convulsed by the internal conflict with their identity and the unsettling idea of having to spend their lives with a person they will have no form of physical or emotional affection towards, are left with no option than to cave in to the latter. It is often the first approach for families who, in their futile attempt to change something beyond the reach of “remedies” like marriage or therapy, seek to suppress a person’s sexuality and substitute it with binary emotional determinants.

Mensur believes himself “privileged” given his family’s acceptance, which came years later, albeit with heated — and sometimes ugly — confrontations within his family. However, many LGBTQIA+ individuals live under constant rejection of their identities, abuse and violence throughout their lives, where their vulnerability often lets them slip into the clutches of predators. A large number of these individuals, belonging to lower-income families guided by strictly conservative principles, often come to know the truth about their sexuality through the internet. Social media platforms have evolved not only to serve as a modicum of privacy for gay community, they help them connect with the likes of their own, opening them up to a world where their experiences are not exclusive and where lies a strong sense of familiarity and belonging among the members of the closely knit online community.

But with expression comes the undeniable need for confidentiality and caution, as the criminalisation of homosexuality in Pakistan relegates these vulnerable individuals to an even more precarious margin. The need for vigilance turns inevitable in the case of those that do not come from affluent backgrounds. Gay individuals from privileged groups are relatively more open about their sexuality, guarded in their dating experiences, and often sufficiently equipped with influential contacts to get themselves off the hook should an instance of targeted disclosure, blackmail or harassment arise.

The perils

The online groups that marginalised individuals create in pursuit for a sense of community are rarely ever completely safe, and are more often than not infiltrated by those the individuals are running away from. One reported example of this is the use of Grindr by not just law enforcement agencies who catfish gay men into meeting them leading to arrests, but also by homophobic men who geolocate and lure men into meeting which ends up in sexual abuse.

The online groups that marginalised individuals create in pursuit for a sense of community are rarely ever completely safe, and are more often than not infiltrated by those the individuals are running away from.

Asfar*, another queer person from Karachi, has to take up an array of approaches to ensure safety for himself and his family when engaging with individuals in closed gay groups on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. He adopted stringent safety protocols after an acquaintance B* was raped by a man he met on one of the closed groups on Facebook along with multiple unidentified men the latter brought with him, leaving B* bruised and bleeding. “To say hearing that sort of thing shocked and scared me would be an understatement,” Asfar says. “It was this dark side of these closed gay groups on Facebook I’d never had exposure to. It was unsettling. My dating experience was never the same again.”

This is unfortunately not an isolated event. In my conversation with Asfar, he recounts various other instances he has seen or heard of gay people being brutally beaten and abused, and then blackmailed.

With alarming frequency, the online gay community is confronted with fresh accounts of explicit sexual violence every other day. These instances often involve physical torture and hateful distribution of private media within online groups, from where they are picked up and disseminated within wider circles.

A space for all

A broader point that is often overlooked in the conversations around LGBTQIA+ individuals in Pakistan is that identity goes far beyond physicality in a relationship. Reemal*, a queer woman from Lahore, realised at the age of 29 that the idea of settling down with a man was not something she could ever envision for herself. 

“I would think of alternative scenarios where I could live with someone for that long, and the only answer would either be my friends or women,” she says. “The way the internet helped me, particularly in Pakistan, was when I downloaded Bumble and met a woman there.”

Reemal saw that woman for roughly two months and describes the experience as “forgettable”, though it played an important role in reaffirming her exploration of identity. While most of the queer individuals the two women had encountered were primarily focused on their sexuality, for Reemal and the woman she met on Bumble, queerness was much more than that — it was a “lifestyle”. This distinction highlights the different ways in which people navigate their identities, as Reemal’s journey is less about labels and more about how queerness influences the way people want to lead their lives.

Reflecting on her coming-out experience, Reemal shares her surprise at the response from her friends. Rather than questioning or judging her, they were supportive and curious. In fact, they described her revelation as a “breakthrough”.

“They wanted to know more about how the realisation [about my identity] came,” she says. “Even a couple of my friends who I thought were conservative were curious and wanted to know more.”

Reemal’s sister is the only member in her family who knows about her queer identity. “I don’t think I can ever tell my mother about it, who I love so much. Nor do I have any idea how I will keep pushing away the idea of marriage in my family.”

While most of the queer individuals the two women had encountered were primarily focused on their sexuality, for Reemal and the woman she met on Bumble, queerness was much more than that — it was a “lifestyle”.

While the gay community has leveraged abundantly from the convenience and accessibility afforded by the internet, its members cannot drop their guards when interacting with a nameless face that could either be their potential partner or a perpetrator of violence. They have adopted a subtle process of vetting their potential partners through extensive chats via blank profiles. Once the doubts and suspicions are crossed out, uncertainties matured into solid convictions, and a mutual trust is gained through text messages, the relationship proceeds with the exchange of contact numbers and photos, starting with meetings at public spots.

While the newer generations may be more vigilant in their approach, naivety and unfamiliarity with rampant hate crimes against gays in underprivileged households often fetch radical consequences. All the same, in a society that is highly hostile to gay people, transgender individuals, and even women, the internet has been discreetly helping both younger and older generations discover the truth about their sexuality and connect with their communities where they can express themselves unapologetically, explore the diversity in queerness itself, find love, and where they don’t have to suppress their identities to conform to the standards of perceived normality.

*Names have been changed to protect identities.

Cover image by Henry & Co. on Unsplash