Gays Among the Royals

Contents:

• GAY SDI PRCE PICTURED HAPPILY WH THE MANSERVANT HE BEAT TO ATH
• GAYS AMONG THE ROYALS
• BRISH ROYAL FAY'S FIRST GAY WEDDG: LORD MOUNTBATTEN TO MARRY JAM COYLE

GAY SDI PRCE PICTURED HAPPILY WH THE MANSERVANT HE BEAT TO ATH

In 2010, Prce Sd b Abdulaziz b Nasir al Sd was arrted for beatg his manservant and gay lover, Bandar Abdulaziz, to ath an expensive London hotel room. The prce spent most of his trial tryg to prove he was not gay, as homosexualy is punishable by executn Sdi Arabia.

However, one expert on Sdi Arabia noted that most executns for homosexualy the kgdom were lked to rape charg, and as a member of the royal fay, the prce was unlikely to suffer pal punishment. Why is “easier to be gay than straight” a society where everyone, homosexual and otherwise, liv the closetYasser, a 26-year-old artist, was takg me on an impromptu tour of his hometown of Jeddah, Sdi Arabia, on a swelterg September afternoon. Yasser is homosexual, or so we would scribe him the Wt, and the barbershop we vised ters to gay men.

He wasn’t worried about the gay-themed nature of his tour—he didn’t want to be ught alone wh a woman. As long as gays and lbians mata a public ont of obeisance to Wahhabist norms, they are left to do what they want private.

GAYS AMONG THE ROYALS

“You n be cised anywhere Sdi Arabia, any time of the day, ” said Radwan, a 42-year-old gay Sdi Amerin who grew up var Wtern ci and now liv Jeddah. But what seems more startlg, at least om a Wtern perspective, is that some of the men havg sex wh other men don’t nsir themselv gay. But as a more Wternized notn of gayns—a notn that strs orientatn over acts—tak hold the untry, will this lite balance survive?

There’s an overwhelmg number of people who turn to lbianism, ” Yasm said, addg that the number of men the kgdom who turn to gay sex is even greater. Francis, a 34-year-old bety queen om the Philipp ( 2003 he won a gay bety pageant held a private hoe Jeddah by a group of Filipos), reported that he’s had sex wh Sdi men whose wiv were pregnant or menstatg; when those circumstanc changed, most of the men stopped llg. ” John Bradley, the thor of Sdi Arabia Exposed: Insi a Kgdom Crisis (2005), says that most male Wtern expatriat here, gay or not, have been proposned by Sdi men drivg by “at any time of the day or night, que openly and ually very, very persistently.

BRISH ROYAL FAY'S FIRST GAY WEDDG: LORD MOUNTBATTEN TO MARRY JAM COYLE

Jason, a South Ain tor who has lived Jeddah sce 2002, not that although South Ai allows gay marriage, “’s as though there are more gays here.

JED-TO-HEART: I lie my work JED-TO-HEART: wh my fay JED-TO-HEART: but I’m gay JED-TO-HEART: I n’t say I’m gay jedbut: is that hard?

“I’m worried the mutawwa' might e, ” Anajedtop said, and shed off to tch the eveng The History of Sexualy, a multivolume work published the 1970s and ’80s, Michel Fouult proposed his famo this that Wtern amic, medil, and polil disurse of the 18th and 19th centuri had produced the ia of the homosexual as a viant type: In Wtern society, homosexualy changed om beg a behavr (what you do) to an inty (who you are). “‘Sexualy’ is distguished not between ‘homosexual’ and ‘heterosexual’ but between takg pleasure and submtg to someone (beg ed for pleasure), ” the soclogist Stephen O. The Sdis jt look at this as, ‘He don’t like football, ’” Dave, a gay Amerin teacher who first moved to Sdi Arabia 1978, told me.