Everythg you need to know about beg gay Mlim untri | LGBTQ+ rights | The Guardian

Contents:

• SDI GAY SCENE: 'FORBIDN, BUT I N'T HELP IT'
• 5 SAFT PLAC FOR GAY TRAVELERS IN 2019 (AND THE MOST DANGERO)
• GAY JEDDAH, SDI ARABIA | THE ESSENTIAL LGBT TRAVEL GUI!
• SDI ARABIA CELEBRAT PRI MONTH BY HANGG GAYS WH RABOW NOOSE
• EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI

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

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.

“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. ”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).

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

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. 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.

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

” 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.

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. But, for young Sdi men, ntact wh the oppose sex is extremely difficult so there might be a temptatn to experiment before marriage, " said Prof Gse, om the Universy of said about 5, 000 Sdi prc get a yearly stipend of about $200, 000 (£126, 000), but some were "fabuloly wealthy" assltAn sight to the prce's bashfulns about his homosexualy was given by one of the rts, Mr Szikora, who scribed visg the prce for a two-hour "erotic" ssn three days before the said: "The man I met ultimately did want sexual massage but is like mixg Nigel Havers wh Omar Sharif.

SDI ARABIA CELEBRAT PRI MONTH BY HANGG GAYS WH RABOW NOOSE

In le wh sex-segregated social norms, gay lovers n often spend timate time together whout arog gays and lbians Sdi Arabia still need to acmodate the prsur of public life, some s pairg off to acmodate a eer liftyle. Usg proxy servers men n get around the bans to the blocked s, nnectg wh potential dat and buildg a knowledge base for gay life the Arab blog om Syria, largely nsired a reprsed society, tails a tourist's gui to gay hangouts Damasc and Aleppo.

" Human Rights Watch documented dozens of Web-based entrapments -- men arrted by Egyptian police then tormented wh beatgs, electrocutn and anal vice squad's practice of vertly huntg gay men chat rooms oled once the teemg gay Inter scene Egypt slowed down. ") Social and thorarian attus toward homosexualy began to change after the Egyptian Revolutn 1952, and grew steadily harsher through the 1990s as the secular state gave way to a growg Islamic puranism.

Government Has Been Quiet About Gay Crackdown IraqWhat ensued om the Queen Boat arrts was a show trial -- forced nfsns, some extracted unr torture and a media circ signed to amplify public fear and maximize the ernment's polil ga om the arrt.

EVERYTHG YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT BEG GAY MLIM UNTRI

Though Egypt claims to have no law agast homosexualy, routely crimaliz and prosecut gay men unr a law prohibg "juhur, " or bchery, a charge origally levied for the heat of the se, one article the state-owned Al-Gomhoureya newspaper gave full nam and intifyg tails of the acced, pictg the arrted homosexuals as part of an unrground relig cult. As the se of Egyptian arrts, spected homosexuals were taed, tortured, and forced to give nam of other gay men for thori to Space for Gay PriLong recently traveled to Iraq to document the attacks and advote for gay Iraqis unr attack.

A siar para Jesalem, a more socially nservative environment, took place wh police protectn along the para the ast Lebanon, a relatively liberal Arab society plays host to the first gay rights group the Arab world. In a untry that mov back and forth between secularism and relig polics, the group and s gay muny center are creatg a space for their other parts of the Arab world gay life has to f to whatever space is provid, and the borrs are nstantly movg.

Adam* said was dangero to e out as gay his home untry and feared beg forced to an arranged marriage wh a said he was "so lucky" to wed his soulmate, Ray, Manchter and wish everyone uld marry who they love. 'Authentilly myself'Ray said he had also stggled growg up gay the 1970s and 80s England, which was "tough" said his relig school "dmmed to you, 'you are gog to hell'" Adam returned home to Sdi Arabia, spe beg more than 3, 000 apart and later rtricted by the Covid-19 panmic, they kept touch daily and the romance years ago, Ray proposed on a vio ll and after succsfully applyg for a UK fiancé visa, Adam moved to Manchter December 2022.