G8: I'm a 21-year-old lesbian woman who is currently in a long-term relationship with another woman. I am very comfortable about my sexuality and am "out" to all except my family. I'm tall, attractive, neither "butch" nor "femme". I live in Philadelphia. I do wish to have children but am unsure as to the extent I wish to involve this potential partner in raising children…I have very loving parents who are simply unable to accept my sexuality. They have found out in the past and have forbidden it completely on penalty of severing our relationship completely. I feel a commitment to my parents to ensure their happiness. I genuinely feel that there will be no reconciliation if I come out to my parents. Therefore, I don't see the purpose of hurting them. I want to make it very clear that I am not doing this out of fear. This would be a decision based on extensive long-term commitment to the contract of a marriage of convenience.

I am looking for a "spouse", a gay male, very out and comfortable about his sexuality. I would want this individual to be respectful of my girlfriend and I. I would want an individual who has similar motives for entering into such a contract. I would only want this to be a working marriage. This means a marriage that appears to be "working" whenever my parents or family inquire into our lives. While I would hope that we can become good friends, there should be no expectations of "romantic or domestic bliss". I would not expect or allow for physical intimacy of any kind from my "spouse". Depending on the responses I get, I could be seeking a marriage of convenience in the next 1-4 years.

Welcome to AMALG India, the dating service with a difference. 'Are you a Man who has Sex with Men (MSM) or a Woman who has Sex with Women (WSW)?', reads the introductory passage on the site's homepage. 'Under pressure to get married? Look up an understanding MSM / WSW person faced with a similar situation and explore the possibility of a marriage of convenience with him / her.'

Indian gays and lesbians have always had it tough. Most are forced into doomed marriages and few have the courage to admit their sexuality to even their spouses. The principle that AMALG India works on is clear: if you cannot come out, get into a marriage of convenience.

AMALG India actually operates like a matrimonial for lesbians and gays. It follows a strict privacy policy and has a disclaimer that reads: 'AMALG does not take any responsibility of any event arising from the meeting of two people through this website… It respects individual privacy.'

This leads to the obvious questions: Are such sites ethical or even safe for lesbians and gays? The AMALG India site declares that it 'still maintains that coming out to your family is a better option in the long run. But it upholds an individual's right to choose what is best for him / her'.

Geeta Kumana, who runs Aanchal, a help line and counselling centre for lesbian and bisexual women in Mumbai, discourages lesbians or bisexuals to go in for marriages of convenience. "I have heard horrendous stories of how men mistreat the women they have married, especially when they are abroad and the women follow them there," she says.

Geeta believes that marriages of convenience on such sites only trap these women who find it difficult to suppress their sexuality and conform to society's expectations of a marriage. "After marriage, the in-laws would pressurise her into having a baby and if both of them are gay how would they fight the parents and not have a child? If the man goes off at night to his boyfriend, nobody will suspect, as men unfortunately have that liberty to leave the house and come back whenever they please. But what about the woman? How would she be able to live with her girlfriend if she has in-laws to answer to? And if out of pressure they do have a baby, don't you feel the woman has had sex with the man against her will?"

But others like Bhavesh feel differently. Bhavesh, who runs gaybombay.com, says there is no option for homosexuals in India who are forced to live in a society that cannot accept their sexual preferences. "On one level, it's appalling to have to go through such an arrangement for the sake of the family or society. That in this day and age we still have to pretend to be something we are not," he says. "To endorse this arrangement of marriage of convenience is saying, 'It's okay', which it obviously is not. But then we don't really have many other choices and sometimes even if we have choices the price that we have to pay to make those choices makes the whole effort seem futile. Given an ideal world, no one would like to get into a marriage of convenience, but we are not living in an ideal world, are we?"

Like anywhere else in the world, homosexuality has an ancient history in India too. Texts like the Rig Veda depict sexual acts between women. Homosexual acts are described in the Kama Sutra. And there are evidences of sodomy in Tantric rituals too. But in 1860, the British, who ruled India then, passed a statute called Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, making the sexual act of sodomy a criminal offence. This has been unchanged since and reads: 'Of Unnatural Offences: Who ever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal shall be punished with imprisonment for life or imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to 10 years and shall also be liable to fine."

Despite the revolutionary change in attitudes towards homosexuality across the world, India is stuck with its 1860 piece of law. And homosexuality is still viewed as an illness, a form of abnormality that does not conform with society's expectations of a 'hum do hamare do' family.

Legally, a person cannot be prosecuted for being a homosexual but the sexual act of sodomy is considered a criminal offence. So, what is the law on sites like AMALG?

Simple: AMALG and other gay and lesbian sites do not come under the purview of Section 377. But there is a roundabout way in which they can be prosecuted. "If you're encouraging people to violate Section 377, it can be viewed as abetment of crime, which is a crime in itself. So such Web sites might be charged with abetment of crime and (the site owners) can get up to two years imprisonment," explains Mihir Desai, an advocate involved with the Human Rights Law Network in Mumbai.

Bhavesh's gaybombay.com provides a non-sex based social space for gays and lesbians, helping them come to terms with their sexuality. He says, "Being gay in India is not illegal but having 'sex against the order of nature' is. So technically, gaybombay.com is not an illegal Web site. But if the judiciary wants, it can hold gaybombay.com guilty of abetting an illegal act, which, if read with other sections, is illegal. Having said that, our servers are not based in India and neither am I."

But the law has not deterred the mushrooming of Indian gay and lesbian sites. The last few years have seen the coming of Humsafar Trust, Indian Gay Club, Gay Delhi, Stree Sangam and Bombay Dost. However, most of these sites tend to host on servers in the United States.

The Internet has surely done its bit to change the way Indian gays and lesbians are gradually starting to see themselves and their sexuality: not as a curse but as an alternative way of life. A sense of pride is now replacing guilt and shame. As a declaration on the Indian Gay Club site reads: