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Contents:

• GAY LIFE TUNIS? - TUNIS FOM
• THE 'NIGHTMARE' OF BEG GAY TUNISIA
• TUNISIA JT INDIRECTLY REGNIZED A GAY MARRIAGE
• IS THERE ANY GAY BARS OR CLUBS HAMMAMET TUNISIA - HAMMAMET FOM
• GAY AND GAY-IENDLY HOTELS TUNIS
• A QUEER FILM FTIVAL TUNISIA — WHERE BEG GAY IS ILLEGAL
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS' KEV MAXEN IS FIRST AMERIN MALE PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY
• JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY

GAY LIFE TUNIS? - TUNIS FOM

Tunisia ultimate erary: thgs to do and see wh 10 days gay TunisiaStori > Iterari > Tunisia ultimate erary: thgs to do and see wh 10 days gay TunisiaSomethg of a sand-buried secret North Ai is the natn of Tunisia, beneftg om both Mederranean beach and Saharan dun that enclose much the way of unique natnal culture.

Photo: Herbert BierLGBTQ suatn TunisiaIs Tunisia safe for gay travellers? In realy, homosexualy is a crimal offence Tunisia (punishable by up to 3 years imprisonment), meang that beg open is not advisable while travellg the untry.

Dpe this, creased lol LGBTQ+ activism and acceptance has risen up sce the 2011 revolutn, makg Tunisia one of the better plac the Arab world to be gay.The Tunisia gay scene is not easy to fe but, thanks to the ter, ’s bee ever easier to tap to s varyg levels.

THE 'NIGHTMARE' OF BEG GAY TUNISIA

From ‘straight’ unhappy hbands to ‘same-sex-not-gay’ liaisons between iends, the gay work certaly exists, allowg for discreet (yet cisy) nnectns at any time.

The lack of anisatn and outward stutns however means ’s hard to form a legimate gay muny, but ongog work om anisatns like ‘Associatn Shams’ and ‘Mawjoud’ helps prent a proud face for gay Tunisia.

Homosexualy might be strictly illegal but Tunisia is the most liberal of the islamic untri regardg gay sex. In the tourist areas is que mon to see gay tourists and Tunisians relatively easy gog on the subject. There has been a very long tradn of gay travellers visg North Ai and certaly Tunisia.

TUNISIA JT INDIRECTLY REGNIZED A GAY MARRIAGE

Ined I have this week returned om Sose and if not for the gay tourists my hotel would have been almost serted. The ma fe Tunis where a few gays and admirg 'rent boys' hang out is Cafe Paris Avenue Bourguiba.

No offence as i am liberal md, but i dt unrstand this gay life stuff. If i me on here sayg i am lookg for a straight bar, i would be lled homophobic etc. As beg gay is sexual preference, when i see posts seekg out other gays you n only draw one ncln.

What I almost never saw om my seat at my favore hnt—the Café Paris, chosen bee, not attached to a hotel, always attracted more Tunisians than tourists—were any signs of a visible, easily intifiable gay or lbian culture. While the gay visor particular might be thrown ially by the ways which two men or two women openly display their physil affectn—whenever we would cross the avenue together, for example, my iend Hs would grab my hand to make sure that I would not be n down by one of Tunis’s notorly reckls b drivers—and while the sight of a man walkg down the street wh a jasme blossom tucked behd his ear might (wrongly) suggt otherwise, open signs of Wtern-style gay inty are owned upon if not absolutely taboo. I found nearly impossible to spot any Tunisian I uld intify as gay.

IS THERE ANY GAY BARS OR CLUBS HAMMAMET TUNISIA - HAMMAMET FOM

Neverthels, same-sex sire, if not a gay inty, is certaly prent Tunisia.

In some s, this adolcent homosexual behavr is nsired a stage of life that will soon be left behd, so men who ntue the practice to adulthood—or, worse, who still prefer the passive role—are open to cricism, or worse. In more recent tim, however, as a rult of global media broadsts via satelle televisn and the Inter, Tunisians are regularly exposed to Wtern notns of gay inty. Though sometim clumsily censored, Wtern shows wh gay characters—like The OC or the Spanish Un Dos Tr, a Fame-style show about a performg arts school—are easily available via satelle dish, as are gay phone sex ads that ma me blh.

We also sometim fet the ways which, even the Wt, gay style is munited through the media and “assumed” by as we figure out how to reprent ourselv to each other and to a larger heterosexual public. As Tunisians who feel same-sex sire see more Wtern reprentatns of gay life, they’re likely to imate the ways of beg and actg, however nstraed by the nf of an Islamic social system.

GAY AND GAY-IENDLY HOTELS TUNIS

Bee a visible gay inty is often seen the Islamic world as a product of the Wt, is difficult to untangle a rejectn of gay inty om a rejectn of the Wt wh s profoundly different standards of public behavr and private moraly. Somethg to nsir, then, is the possibily that the tenncy of our media to portray Islam a negative light is makg harr for those Tunisians who wish to “e out” as pennt women, as gay, or as otherwise nontradnal. The fact that gay inty is built precisely upon a public acknowledgment of beg gay plit thgs a society where, for example, men are so most that they shower their unrwear at the gym, or where, until recently, heterosexual upl uld not so much as hold hands public.

Not surprisgly, whatever gay life that exists tak place vertly, while the life s more public forms is virtually nonexistent.

In Tunisia, the issue of gay inty is plited by the untry’s long history of European tourism, cludg sexual tourism. Many of the men might be lled, a Wtern exprsn, “gay for pay. I equented the tablishment bee was one of the only plac Tunisia where I uld experience some semblance of a gay culture, but I had to learn to pe wh the daily proposns.

A QUEER FILM FTIVAL TUNISIA — WHERE BEG GAY IS ILLEGAL

(Aaid of where the nversatn might lead, I never disclosed to him my gay inty. In addn, I also had two Tunisian iends who self-intified as gay. His homosexualy, along wh his antipathy for relign of any kd and his awarens of the many ironi of his role as a universy profsor a police state, had left him, if not exactly jad, at least world-weary om a lifetime of knowg, but never beg able to say out loud, that the emperor has no cloth.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS' KEV MAXEN IS FIRST AMERIN MALE PRO SPORTS ACH TO E OUT AS GAY

At this fé, where Jacqu met his rent boy, I saw what I would intify as the only visible signs of a gay inty that I saw: some young men nductg surveys about safer sex practic. She wanted to tell me that she found my say movg and that my beg gay was not an issue for her.

JACKSONVILLE JAGUARS ASSISTANT STRENGTH ACH KEV MAXEN OUT PUBLICLY AS GAY

But she warned, “I also wanted to tell you to be reful to raise gay issu Arab untri. We do have gays and lbians jt like any other society, but ’s a very closed circle of people and they do everythg to hi and keep secret. She was particularly ncerned that when I return for a vis I not bee a victim of vlence, as foreign gays n be targeted.

Belhadj, who was 38 years old at the time, was charged wh homosexual activy and taed the civil prison of Mornaguia, southwt of the Tunisian pal.

Belhadj's story is all-too faiar Tunisia, where the crimalizatn of homosexualy ntradicts the right to privacy and nondiscrimatn that is supposedly enshred Tunisia's 2014 nstutn. "Yet homosexualy is crimalized unr Article 230 of the Tunisian penal , which dat back to the French lonial era. His oral shows what is like livg as an LGBTQ person a untry where homosexualy is nmned and illegal, and the social stigma of beg exposed n have dire nsequenc on people's a recent terview wh Democracy Exile, Belhadj said that his se was overwhelmgly publicized whout his knowledge while he was prison.