The Kgdom the Closet - The Atlantic</tle><meta name="scriptn" ntent="Sodomy is punishable by ath Sdi Arabia, but gay life flourish there. Why is &#8220;easier to be gay than straight&#8221; a society where everyone, homosexual and otherwise, liv the closet"/><meta property="kx:tle" ntent="The Kgdom the Closet - The Atlantic"/><meta property="kx:scriptn" ntent="Sodomy is punishable by ath Sdi Arabia, but gay life flourish there. Why is &#8220;easier to be gay than straight&#8221; a society where everyone, homosexual and otherwise, liv the closet"/><lk rel="nonil" href="><lk rel="image_src" href="><meta name="thor" ntent="Nadya Labi"/><lk rel="ia:markup_url" href="><meta property="article:publisher" ntent="><meta property="article:opn" ntent="false"/><meta property="article:ntent_tier" ntent="metered"/><meta property="article:tag" ntent="ternatnal"/><meta property="article:sectn" ntent="Global"/><meta property="article:published_time" ntent="2007-05-01T16:00:00Z"/><meta property="article:modified_time" ntent="2007-05-01T16:00:00Z"/><meta name="robots" ntent="x, follow, max-image-preview:large"/><meta property="og:tle" ntent="The Kgdom the Closet"/><meta property="og:scriptn" ntent="Sodomy is punishable by ath Sdi Arabia, but gay life flourish there. Why is &#8220;easier to be gay than straight&#8221; a society where everyone, homosexual and otherwise, liv the closet"/><meta property="og:url" ntent="><meta property="og:type" ntent="article"/><meta property="og:image"/><meta property="twter:rd" ntent="summary_large_image"/><lk rel="alternate" type="applitn/rss+xml" tle="The Atlantic" href="/feed/all/"/><lk rel="alternate" type="applitn/rss+xml" tle="Bt of The Atlantic" href="/feed/bt-of/"/><meta name="referrer" ntent="unsafe-url"/><meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-pable" ntent="y"/><meta name="apple-mobile-web-stat-bar-style" ntent="black"/><meta name="apple-mobile-web-app-tle" ntent="The Atlantic"/><meta name="keywords" ntent="Sdi Arabia, men, gay men, Sdi men, Jeddah, homosexual behavr, gay Sdi Amerin, Gulf Arab Love, people, gay people" emID="#keywords"/><meta name="news_keywords" ntent="Sdi Arabia, men, gay men, Sdi men, Jeddah, homosexual behavr, gay Sdi Amerin, Gulf Arab Love, people, gay people"/><meta name="" ntent="ternatnal"/><meta name="" ntent="2007-05-01T16:00:00Z"/><lk rel="preload" as="font" type="font/woff2" href=" crossorig=""/><lk rel="preload" as="font" type="font/woff2" href=" crossorig=""/><lk rel="preload" as="font" type="font/woff2" href=" crossorig=""/><lk rel="preload" as="font" type="font/woff2" href=" crossorig=""/><lk rel="preload" as="font" type="font/woff2" href=" crossorig=""/><script type="applitn/ld+json">{"@ntext":","@type":"NewsArticle","headle":"The Kgdom the Closet","alternativeHeadle":"The Kgdom the Closet","scriptn":"Sodomy is punishable by ath Sdi Arabia, but gay life flourish there. Why is &#8220;easier to be gay than straight&#8221; a society where everyone, homosexual and otherwise, liv the closet","url":","datePublished":"2007-05-01T16:00:00Z","dateModified":"2007-05-01T16:00:00Z","isAccsibleForFree":false,"hasPart":{"@type":"WebPageElement","isAccsibleForFree":false,"cssSelector":".article-ntent-body"},"publisher":{"@id":"},"maEntyOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"},"thor":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Nadya Labi","sameAs":"}],"articleSectn":"Global"}</script><meta name="next-head-unt" ntent="59"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="style"/><lk rel="stylheet" href=" data-n-g=""/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="style"/><lk rel="stylheet" href=" data-n-p=""/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="style"/><lk rel="stylheet" href=" data-n-p=""/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="style"/><lk rel="stylheet" href=" data-n-p=""/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="style"/><lk rel="stylheet" href=" data-n-p=""/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="style"/><lk rel="stylheet" href="><lk rel="preload" href=" as="style"/><lk rel="stylheet" href="><noscript data-n-css=""></noscript><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/><lk rel="preload" href=" as="script"/></head><body><div id="__next"><div data-tegory="story page"><div></div><nav class="Nav_root___6bX9" aria-labelledby="se-navigatn" data-tegory="Se Nav" data-event-module="se nav" id="ma-navigatn"><div class="Nav_maNav__yofcm"><a href="#ma-ntent" class="Nav_skipLk__Evjjd">Skip to ntent</a><h2 id="se-navigatn" class="Nav_visuallyHi__AbSDF">Se Navigatn</h2><div class="Nav_flexContaer__Q3LKQ"><ul class="Nav_leftContaer__cPQgJ"><li class="Nav_navListItem__cEyWT Nav_visuallyHiOnMobile__hxCGG"><a href=" class="Nav_navLk__5SUAA"><svg xmlns=" viewBox="0 0 87.83 134" class="Nav_bigA__XvGGC"><tle>The Atlantic

saudi arabia gay

The official fictn, Brian Whaker explas, is that gay people don’t exist the Middle East. They do – and for many of them, attus of fay and society are a bigger problem than fear of beg persecuted

Contents:

SDI GAY SCENE: 'FORBIDN, BUT I N'T HELP IT'

Sodomy is punishable by ath Sdi Arabia, but gay life flourish there. Why is &#8220;easier to be gay than straight&#8221; a society where everyone, homosexual and otherwise, liv the closet * saudi arabia gay *

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. 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.

5 SAFT PLAC FOR GAY TRAVELERS IN 2019 (AND THE MOST DANGERO)

A Sdi prce has been jailed for life for murrg his manservant, who was found a bed at a plh London hotel where he had been beaten to ath. The fendant spent most of the trial tryg to prove he was not gay. Why? * saudi arabia gay *

“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). ” This view of sexual behavr, batn wh the strict segregatn of the sex, serv to foster homosexual acts, shiftg the stigma onto bottoms and allowg olr men to exce their younger behavr—their time as bottoms—as mere youthful Islamic Homosexuali, the anthropologist Will Rose shows that this “stat-differentiated pattern”— whereby ’s OK to be a top but not a bottom—has s roots Gre-Roman culture, and he emphasiz that the top-bottom power dynamic is monly exprsed relatns between olr men and younger boys.

’”Yet a paradox exists at the heart of Sdi nceptns of gay sex and sexual inty: Dpe their seemgly flexible view of sexualy, most of the Sdis I terviewed, cludg those men who intify themselv as gay, nsir sodomy a grave s.

” Zahar, a 41-year-old Sdi who has traveled wily throughout the world, urged me not to wre about Islam and homosexualy; to do so, he said, is to cut off bate, bee “’s always the relign that holds people back. At the turn of the century, Islamic society began to exprs revulsn at the ncept of homosexualy, even if was nfed only to ltful thoughts, and this distaste beme more pronounced wh the flux of Wtern media.

GAY JEDDAH, SDI ARABIA | THE ESSENTIAL LGBT TRAVEL GUI!

Samir, like many gay men the Arab world, guards his sexual orientatn wh a paranoid secrecy. To feel ee he tak long vatns to Thailand, where he has a boyiend, and spends weekends Lebanon, which he regards as havg a more gay-tolerant society. But at home Sdi Arabia, he is vigilant. Samir's parents don't know of his liftyle. He says his mom would kill herself if she found out. They nstantly set him up wh women they nsir potential wiv. At work, Samir watch his words, reful not to aroe the spicn of lleagu. * saudi arabia gay *

”Even Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab—the 18th- century relig scholar who found Wahhabism—seems to draw a distctn between homosexual sir and homosexual acts, acrdg to Natana DeLong-Bas, the thor of Wahhabi Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad (2004).

Court rerds Sdi Arabia are generally closed, but anecdotal evince suggts that the mutawwa' are most likely to punish men who are overtly effemate— those whose public behavr advertis a gayns that others keep private. Jamie cut his hair—not out of fear, he says, but bee he didn’t want to bother his boss a send lghed as he told me of his attempts at dissimulatn; though the stak n be high, efforts to stamp out homosexualy here often do seem farcil. ) Most of the partygoers were reportedly released whout havg to do jail time, but the arrts rattled the gay muny; at the time of my vis, party anizers were stickg to more-timate gathergs and monorg gut lists be gay Sdi Arabia is to live a ntradictn—to have license whout rights, and to enjoy broad tolerance whout the most mimal acceptance.

SDI ARABIA CELEBRAT PRI MONTH BY HANGG GAYS WH RABOW NOOSE

Gay Jeddah Beach bars, clubs, parti, hotels, snas, massag and more. Queer-centric rmatn. Your plete directory to LGBT life Jeddah, Mexi! * saudi arabia gay *

Amjad, a gay Paltian I met Riyadh, holds out hope that he’ll be “cured” of homosexualy, that when his wife receiv her papers to jo him Sdi Arabia, he’ll be able to break off his relatnship wh his boyiend. ” For Amjad to accept a fixed inty as a gay man would be to fo the possibily of ever gog as the Wtern nceptn of sexual inty has filtered to the kgdom via televisn and the Inter, has begun to blur the Sdi view of sexual behavr as distct om sexual inty. Yasser says that if his mother ever found out he’s gay, she would treat him as if he were sick and take him to psychologists to try to fd a, at 41, has managed the unual feat of stavg off marriage whout revealg himself to be gay.

EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI

Dave, the gay Amerin I met, relled his surprise when his boyiend of five years got married, and then asked him to go to the newlyweds’ apartment to “make the bed up the way you make up, ” for the benef of the bri. Before his trial began at the Old Bailey, Prce Sd b Abdulaziz b Nasir al Sd ma strenuo efforts to keep the qutn of his homosexualy 34-year-old prce admted he had asslted his manservant, Bandar Abdulaziz, but nied barrister, John Kelsey-Fry QC, argued the qutn of sexualy was irrelevant to the se and poted out homosexual acts were a "mortal s" unr Islamic sharia Kelsey-Fry said if the prce was outed as a homosexual he uld face executn his native Sdi Arabia. Image ptn, Bandar Abdulaziz was an orphanChristoph Wilcke, a Sdi Arabia expert wh Human Rights Watch, said homosexuals had the past been executed but was ually for rape and he said a prce would be immune om urt the trial began, Mr Kelsey-Fry went to great lengths to strs his client nied he was a strg of wns suggted otherwise.

"Two male rts, Pablo Silva and Louis Szikora, also gave evince they had performed sex acts on the photosAlthough the prce never gave evince, durg police terviews he sisted he was heterosexual and had a girliend Sdi Mr Laidlaw said this was a lie: "The fendant's keepg back of his homosexualy might other circumstanc, bee of the cultural background perhaps, be explaed away by embarrassment, or ed, fear.

*BEAR-MAGAZINE.COM* SAUDI ARABIA GAY

Gay Jeddah, Sdi Arabia | The Essential LGBT Travel Gui! .

TOP