An extensive list of deeply personal questions about the sex life of gay asylum seekers in Australia was published by Buzzfeed News, and revealed that the couple was asked by immigration officials if they ‘swallowed cum’. The men were asked the questions separately at the then-Department of Immigration and Citizenship’s Sydney headquarters.

The men were seeking protection in Australia after fleeing persecution in Bangladesh.

In the first interview, one of the men was asked if he had sex with the other man the night before, and if not when was the last time he had sex with him. He was then asked which room they had sex in, what time of the day they had sex and how long it lasted.

“Was it all over within minutes? O for a longer period? 30 minutes to one hour?” the officer asked.

The interviewer then asked the man, “So you gave him oral sex. Did he ejaculate? Ejaculate… Did he reach a climax? Did he come? And then oral sex was given to you. Did you come?”

The officer then asked the asylum seeker a series of violating questions about their sexual activity when it was revealed that the two men visited a sexual health clinic:

“Why was drinking his cum a problem?

“When you were having oral sex, did you use a condom?”

The other man was then interviewed by officials later on in the day and was asked a series of similar intrusive questions.

When interviewing the second man, the officer claimed that they were asking these questions to establish that the man was in a relationship with the other man.

The officer asked questions like “Did you receive oral sex first?” and “Did he perform oral sex on you?”

The couple’s protection visa applications were then rejected by Australian authorities, but the Refugee Review Tribunal overturned the ruling in 2014, branding the questioning “very intimate”.

Buzzfeed News spoke to a Department of Home Affairs spokesperson who said parts of the interview were “inappropriate and insensitive”.

Meanwhile, CEO of LGBT+ rights group Equality Australia Anna Brown told Buzzfeed, “There are numerous examples of inappropriate sexually explicit and stereotypical lines of questioning in Australian tribunals and courts.”