Gay Saudi Arabia [Archive] - Sawatdee Gay Thailand the oldest and most popular gay forum on Thailand and South East Asia

Art

June 4th, 2009, 06:09

Earlier discussion about this (http://gayboythailand.com/bangkok-thailand/gay-in-saudi-arabia/) article: fascinating-article-on-saudi-arabia-t15709.html (http://www.sawatdee-gay-thailand.com/forum/fascinating-article-on-saudi-arabia-t15709.html)
http://www.guidemag.com/magcontent/invo ... A2B960F3B4 (http://www.guidemag.com/magcontent/invokemagcontent.cfm?ID=97754AE4-4B16-4DCB-A90EA5A2B960F3B4)

In the "Terminal Essay" of The Arabian Nights, published in 1885, Burton announced his theory of a "Sotadic Zone" where homosexuality allegedly flourished. Burton averred that homosexuality was "geographical and climatic, not racial." The Sotadic Zone encompassed most of the Mediterranean countries, the Middle East, China, Japan, and the islands of the South Seas. This theory was not widely adopted, but it may have confirmed the opinion of many British readers that homosexuality was essentially a foreign vice.

Richard Francis Burton evolved his theory of the Sotadic zone, an area bounded roughly by N. Lat. 43┬░ N. Lat. 30┬░, stretching from the western shores of the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean.[70] Likewise, Wilhelm Kroll, writing in the Pauly-Wissowa encyclopaedia in 1906, asserted that "The roots of pederasty are found first of all in the existence of a contrary sexual feeling that is probably more frequent in southern regions than in countries with moderate climates."
http://www.answers.com/topic/the-arabian-nights-story-7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton

From our local correspondent:

The nepalese are lovely people.... should blend in nicely. But very few gay ones.
Look on the world map 20 degrees west to 100 degrees east and 20 degrees north to 40 degrees north

This is what we expats in the middle east call the bugger belt. Most, if not all men in the countries of this region practice buggery. They do not consider themselves gay.In fact far from it. They all have sex with men go on to get married and still continue to have sex with men because they prefer it. The Nepalese are no different. Dont spoil your chances by confronting them with being gay. Just do it enjoy it and say nothing. Even a sort of relationship is possible or special friend as they call it as long as you follow the rule and dont use the G word.
Men simply like male-male sex! The Greek admiration of handsome beardless males is still alive, toned down by self-colonisation and religious zealotry. Just remember all the hints in articles about Afghansistan!

Art

June 5th, 2009, 02:24

Only one book is required to understand the complexity of male-male sex in Muslim countries. Modernization and westernization began in the 19th century, so there is no need to cover it in the book. Highly recommended:

Khaled El-Rouayheb: Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800. University of Chicago Press, 2005. 210 pages. Paperback edition, 2009.

textbooksrus.com: (http://www.textbooksrus.com/search/bookdetail/?isbn=9780226729893)
Khaled El-Rouayheb is assistant professor of Islamic intellectual history in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University.

Attitudes toward male homosexuality in the premodern Arab-Islamic world are commonly depicted as inconsistent. On the one hand, Arabic love poetry, biographical works, and bawdy satires suggest that homosexuality was a visible and tolerated part of Arab-Islamic elite culture before the nineteenth century. On the other hand, Islam supposedly considers homosexuality an abomination and prescribes severe punishment for it. In Before Homosexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800,Khaled El-Rouayheb shows that this apparent paradox is based on the anachronistic assumption that homosexuality is a timeless, self-evident fact to which a particular culture reacts with some degree of tolerance or intolerance. Drawing on poetry, belles lettres, biographical literature, medicine, physiognomy, dream interpretation, and Islamic legal, mystical, and homiletic texts, he shows that the culture of the period lacked the concept of homosexuality. Instead, paramount importance was given to distinctions that are not captured by that term between active and passive sexual roles, between passionate infatuation and lust, and between penetrative and nonpenetrative intercourse. The first book-length treatment on the perceptions and evaluations of male homoeroticism in premodern Arab-Islamic culture, this book will become a welcome and frequently referred to addition to the bookshelves of readers interested in the history of sexuality, Islamic history, Arabic literature, gay and lesbian studies, and the history of ideas. -Flap Copy

"Khaled El-Rouayheb's book is a very useful corrective to those views that have misinterpreted and misrepresented premodern Islamic attitudes toward homoeroticism, or that have ignored them altogether. In addition, it is a welcome contribution to the study of a period in the history of Arabic literature that is still very much under researched. Not for the prudish, it is a provocative, serious, and eminently readable study."-Geert Jan van Gelder, Laudian Professor of Arabic, Oxford University

"Meticulously researched, lucidly written, nuanced, and brilliantly conceived, [the book] forthrightly takes on complex issues surrounding the culture of same-sex eroticism that existed in the Arabic-speaking lands of the early modern Ottoman Empire. . . . Although the book will be obligatory reading for students of Ottoman and Arab literature, culture, sociology, intellectual history, the history of sex, and related fields, it most certainly belongs on the bookshelves of those with any interest in the history and theology of Islam or, more generally, in religious approaches to sexuality. ... An important book by an excellent scholar."-Walter Andrews, Journal of Religion

"[The book] rectifies many . . . prejudices and misinterpretations in a masterly fashion. . . . [The author''s] careful distinction between the different categories of feelings, expressions, behaviour, terms and actors of same-sex love shows . . . that many of the evaluations of modern scholarship on Islamic societies and Arabic literature, and on the comparative history of homosexuality need to be revised."-Sabine Schmidtke, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies

"This is the best contribution to the history of homosexuality I have read in some time. For centuries, Arabic-Islamic cultures have been notorious for their occasional celebration and practice of male homosexuality. Western travelers have talked about it and, in some cases, Western novels and scholarship have portrayed or alluded to it. Yet, there has never been a reliable or systematic treatment of the topic-that is, until now. Working from an impressive range of primary sources that include poetic, theological, Koranic, historical, legal, and literary texts, Khaled El-Rouayheb, with this book, fills an important gap in our knowledge about the nature of attitudes toward male eroticism in the early modern Arab-Islamic world."-David M. Halperin, author of How to Do the History of Homosexuality

Afdhere Jama: Illegal citizens (http://www.amazon.com/Illegal-Citizens-Queer-Lives-Muslim/dp/0980013887/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244129023&sr=1-1). Queer Lives in the Muslim World. Salaam Press, n. p. 2008. 163 pages.

Wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afdhere_Jama) ┬╗Afdhere Jama (Somali: Afdheere Jaamac) (born 1978) is a Somali-American writer and filmmaker based in San Francisco. He is the author of "Illegal Citizens: Queer Lives in the Muslim World." His writing has appeared in publications all over the world. He is the founder and editor of Huriyah (http://www.huriyahmag.com/), a queer Muslim magazine. Born and raised in Somalia, Jama moved to America when he was a teeanger.┬л

┬╗These are powerful stories. Of hurt, death and passion. But most importantly of forbidden love. In Illegal Citizens: Queer Lives in the Muslim World, Afdhere Jama records the lives of queer people in the Muslim world. And what makes the work stand out is the subjects themselves and the matter-of-factness with which the author tells their stories [...]┬л
You can read the rest at: http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/stor ... SMY=&type= (http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?title=Of%20love%20and%20defiance&artid=RyGWW7bySMY=&type=)

Thirty-three stories about life in twenty-two countries; regrettably many stories are very short and have less than three pages.

I can not recommend this dull hotchpotch: Luongo, Michael (Editor): Gay Travels in the Muslim World. Haworth Press, New York 2007. 200 pages.

Brian Whitaker: Unspeakable Love. Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East. Saqui Books, 2006. 264 pages. Arabic, French, Spanish, Italian and Swedish translations (http://www.al-bab.com/unspeakablelove/default.htm).

┬╗Brian Whitaker has done a variety of jobs at the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/global/2008/apr/22/brian.whitaker) including, most recently, seven years as Middle East editor. He is currently an editor on Comment is Free. He is the author of Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East (Saqi, 2006) and What's Really Wrong with the Middle East (to be published in 2009). He also has his own website devoted to Arab culture and politics: al-bab.com┬л

amazon.com: (http://www.amazon.com/Unspeakable-Love-Lesbian-Life-Middle/dp/0520250176/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244130484&sr=1-1)
While the mainstream media cover Middle Eastern cultural tensions over the interpretation of Islamic law and the position of women, little attention has been paid to the complicated place of same-sex affection and relationships in these countries. Whitaker, Middle East editor for the Guardian, delivers a modest but informative primer on the complex historical, religious, social and legal status of same-sex acts and identities in the Middle East. Aware of the complexity of this undertaking, he points out that words such as "homosexual," "lesbian," "gay" and "queer" are Western constructs and can be misleading or dangerously inaccurate when applied to non-Western cultures. Whitaker is best when describing the lives of the dozens of women and men, some of whom he interviewed, such as a young Syrian man whose therapist outed him to his family and two Saudi men who killed a third man they feared would report their relationship to authorities. He also offers a larger view of the religious and political implications of homosexuality: there's no uniform Islamic position about the legality of homosexual acts; the Iranian government will frequently use the charge of homosexuality to further stigmatize its Arab Ahwazi minority population. While Whitaker's findings aren't conclusive, this is an illuminating book on an important topic. From Publishers Weekly

The distressing, archaic treatment of Middle Eastern homosexuals is addressed in straightforward, documentary fashion. The persecution of homosexuals, described in Lebanese as "shawaadh" ("perverts"), continues to thrive. Interviews with a variety of gay Arabs, Syrians and Egyptians finds many depressed and lonely, with support and understanding as rare as rainbow flags in Lebanon. Conflicted by an intense sense of family loyalty and an awareness of the devastating, family-wide consequences of exposure, gay and lesbian Arabs often find suicide to be their only salvation. Some manage to outsmart the system and emigrate while others become ingeniously resourceful in manufacturing an outward appearance (marriage to a gay partner of the opposite sex) that will appeal to conventional domestic expectations yet enable them to cultivate covert homosexual affiliations. Coming out to family is often fruitless and considered a "high-risk strategy," though often, Whitaker asserts, it is parents who will question their children's sexuality, suggesting that it has become "time for marriage" and children: an inevitable, obligatory stipulation in Arab households. But all is not lost as the author deftly underscores cultural changes at play in places like Beirut, where members of gay-rights organization Helem hand-stitched a multi-colored flag for a ten-person marching contingent against the war in Iraq; where the gay dance club Acid flourishes; and where Dunkin' Donuts remains a well-known (albeit controversial) gay hangout. Though Saudi Arabia is thought to be the most militant against open sexuality, the author proffers quotes from Saudi gay youth to the contrary. Many declare stories of gay persecution as being greatly exaggerated and point to the Internet as the ultimate resource for same-sex liaisons (and entrapment). Most interestingly, Whitaker takes into account the varied contradictions and evolutionary growth of Arab media, literature, cinema, etc., juxtaposing harsh current-day restrictions with notions of emerging freedoms. While directing readers toward the pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel, Whitaker clearly demarcates tradition and family honor as two powerhouses eternally keeping Middle Eastern alternative lifestyles in the dark. Strong, condensed, world-weary portrait infused with hope. (Kirkus Reviews)
Recommended.

Arriving in Tunis, Gide notes: ┬╗I had of course expected to see camels, but I had never succeeded in imagining them so queer.┬л

San Francisco being N. lat 37┬░ 47' is right smack dab in the middle of the "bugger belt"! :cheers:
And the public schools in Britain and the Catholic boarding schools elsewhere as well.