Openly gay, Natayada na Songkhla is a rare figure in Thailand’s media landscape. The former Tatler editor, who holds a doctorate in anthropology, is an author, actor and freelance columnist for The Nation; Nat is also executive director of Mana Bhan Co. Ltd., an asset management company, and a certified personal trainer.

Writing is not something I enjoy doing, to be honest. But it’s definitely a compulsion. I think a lot of it comes from my desire to let people know what I think.

In my first book, I tried to be historical. I got buried in the details. It bored people.

The book I’m working on now comes from my background as a social journalist in Thailand and throughout Asia.

I’m tired of the books that depict Thailand as a place where everyone is a prostitute or drug dealer. It’s an inaccurate description of what Bangkok is like. We have shops where people can rent a designer bag, because they want to carry that piece of luxury for a week. It’s scary but depticts accurately what is going on here.

In Bangkok Post and The Nation, everything is so nice, as if there were no crime here. But then you open newspapers like Khao Sod and you see things like dismemberment and children boiled alive. Maybe Englishlanguage newspapers don’t want to scare foreigners and give a bad image of Thailand.

I’m a very lucky journalist. The freedom of the press is in grave danger now, but for the most part, I can write about almost anything I want. If you say things with humor, you can get away with a lot.

My greatest wish is to be able to live the life I want.

I can’t get married. If I lived a lifetime with my partner and we shared a house, and that house was in my name, when I died, my family would get the house, not my partner. That’s not right.

I’m open about my sexual orientation. I don’t go around saying, “Hello, I’m gay,” because nobody says, “Hello, I’m straight.” But if it comes to people asking me “Are you married?” I will say I’m not married and the reason is that it’s illegal for me to be married.

I don’t believe in outing people. It’s a personal decision.

Being out makes it easier to be happy and well adjusted.

I have a very close relationship with my parents because they allow me to be who I am.

I’ve seen Pamela Anderson and all sorts of nude women in my life; that doesn’t make me straight. I’ve seen great macho role models out there; that doesn’t make me want to be somebody I’m not.

No matter how much positive exposure gay people get, it won’t make people turn into something they are not. It will only help those who are gay feel better about it.

People don’t really ask me why I’m gay; their real question is “Whose fault is it?” If they asked me why, I would say I was born this way. My karma made me gay. There’s nobody out there who influenced me one way or another.

As a society we need to protect people. But I don’t think homosexuality is something someone needs a protection from.

In Thailand, the depiction of gays is usually as a drag queen. A gay man like me is something people aren’t used to and don’t see that often in Thai media. Most of my gay friends, males and females, are business people. I’d like to see gays depicted as fairly conservative and average.

I have people talk about me behind my back. As a journalist, I can write bitchy nasty things, so I have to accept that others can say whatever they want about me.

At the end of the day, what people say about you is just what people say about you. But what you do, what you accomplish is what matters.