Closet Kingdom

In case Mahmoud Ahmadenijad's recent odd commentary about gays in Iran has sparked your interest about the broader question of queer life under repressive Islamic theocracies, it's lucky for you that the May 2007 Atlantic had this great piece from Nadya Labi about gay life in Saudi Arabia. This section even includes a hint as to what Ahmadenijad may have been talking about if you want to give his words a generous construction:

This is surprising enough. But what seems more startling, at least from a Western perspective, is that some of the men having sex with other men don’t consider themselves gay. For many Saudis, the fact that a man has sex with another man has little to do with “gayness.” The act may fulfill a desire or a need, but it doesn’t constitute an identity. Nor does it strip a man of his masculinity, as long as he is in the “top,” or active, role. This attitude gives Saudi men who engage in homosexual behavior a degree of freedom. But as a more Westernized notion of gayness—a notion that stresses orientation over acts—takes hold in the country, will this delicate balance survive?

This is, I think, a not uncommon pattern around the world and throughout history -- with participation in same-sex acts much more divorced from concepts of "gayness" as an identity than it is in the contemporary west.

Comments

Although I posted this link on another thread, it appears to be more appropriate on this one. Apparently, accusations of homosexuality are flying think and fast between the Fatah and Hamas factions in the Palestinian territories. This is in addition to the claims by Yasir Arafats' doctor that he was HIV positive and probably died of complications due to AIDS.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1189411500215&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Posted by SLC | September 28, 2007 10:24 AM

I spent some time in the Middle East and noticed this. The practice of Arab men having sex with other younger (effeminate) men is quite common. The 'active role' guy is not considered gay. Most of these guys have wives etc. and technically don't seem gay. However the recipient guys are usually stigmatized. Don't know what's going on? It seems weird. However and as MY observes this was common to the ancient Greeks, Romans etc. as well. How do you classify the active role guys – bisexual?

Posted by 2cynicalbyhalf | September 28, 2007 10:29 AM

Whatever I knew of the details of Michel Foucault's biography now escapes me, but I wonder whether encounters with Iranian men played any role in his thinking on the Western invention of "homosexuality" as identity?

Leaving aside that Ahmadinejad's sportscoat-and-open-collar look always reminds me of Wittgenstein ...

Posted by Anderson | September 28, 2007 10:35 AM

George Chauncey's _Gay New York_ details how this conception of homosexuality was also common in the U.S. (or at least NYC) prior to World War II, especially in urban immigrant neighborhoods with highly imbalanced sex ratios. However I got the sense from Labi's article when I read it that for the religiously devout, same-sex encounters were immoral no matter if your conception of gayness revolved around orientation or sexual role. So I assume that the devout Ahmadenijad is just in denial.

Posted by Chris | September 28, 2007 10:35 AM

However and as MY observes this was common to the ancient Greeks, Romans etc. as well. - 2cynicalbyhalf

Some would argue that these sorts of behavior (i.e. a "straight" guy getting off with another guy), not what we Westerners today consider homosexuality as an set of sexual behaviors based on a particular orientation is what the Bible condemns as a "toevah".

Part of the issue is, of course (especially when you have a double standard where the receiver is denigrated and the top is considered a-ok and manly), the power imbalance that can lead to some really abusive situations.

Posted by DAS | September 28, 2007 10:44 AM

"This is, I think, a not uncommon pattern around the world and throughout history -- with participation in same-sex acts much more divorced from concepts of "gayness" as an identity than it is in the contemporary west."

This is getting the order of chronology wrong. It's not so much that "participation in same-sex acts" is "divorced" from "gayness." Rather, the whole concept of gayness only exists in the modern west, and only very recently. That's the whole point of Foucault's history of sexuality (and many books by followers of Foucault, like George Chauncey): that homosexuality was invented in Western Europe in the late 19th century, with gay identity being an even more recent invention (say from the Stonewall era onward). Prior to that or in areas outside the metropolitian west, you don't have homosexuals or gays: you have simply the act of sodomy. So actions aren't "divorced" from gayness. Rather, gayness doesn't exist.

Having said all that, Ahmadinejad is simply wrong on a factual level; there are men and women in Iran (and throughout the Muslim world) who are in contact with international gay and lesbian culture, who think of themselves as gays and lesbians (however much they may have to hide their identity for their safety). But this is a relatively new development, a new front in sexual clash of civilizations.

Posted by Jeet Heer | September 28, 2007 10:45 AM

This is, I think, a not uncommon pattern around the world and throughout history -- with participation in same-sex acts much more divorced from concepts of "gayness" as an identity than it is in the contemporary west.

This is an utterly common pattern, and it's no secret, except in the 'contemporary' west, esp. the US. Speaking of Greeks and Romans, it was clearly a major innovation of Judeo/Islamic/Christian-ism to make this sort of stuff taboo, for both good reasons and bad: it might prohibit having sex with slaves or children, which is a good thing; it also served to regulate and politicize desire, which I'd say is a very very bad thing.

Posted by jonnybutter | September 28, 2007 10:47 AM

I would second Chris's recommendation of the Chauncey book on this subject. I found it a real eye-opener when I read it a few years ago -- that American men (at least in a particular place in a particular era and class milieu) could take part in same-sex sex and have that not be considered the same thing as being 'gay' (or whatever the common equivalent term was then -- it's in the book but I forget).

Posted by Ryan | September 28, 2007 10:49 AM

Such relationships were common in medeval japan (and China) as well- lots of stories to be found of samuri warriors hopelessly in love w/ the young boy "yet without hair on his chin" and the like. See, for example, the collection, _The Great Mirror of Male Love_. As others have noted, the idea of a sexual "orientation" is a fairly recent and western idea.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | September 28, 2007 10:52 AM

That's what Larry Craig said too.

Posted by John DE | September 28, 2007 10:56 AM

Yes, it's pretty constant around the world and throughout history. You do what you do, and you either embrace or reject the name according to what's possible in the context of your surroundings...societal, familial, whatever. This is the context for Larry Craig. On the left, factory workers in Brazil in the 1970s called it "solidarity sex," at least that's what I read somewhere. On one level it's denial and the closet, but in wider terms it's how everyone makes sense of reality when they do something that's not acceptable according to society or some subset that's important to them.

Posted by Rich | September 28, 2007 11:08 AM

RE "For many Saudis, the fact that a man has sex with another man has little to do with “gayness."
------------

You mean, like George Bush holding hands with
Prince Abdullah as they strolled through the Texas bluebonnets?
http://slate.com/id/2117517/

Nah, that wasn't "gay". That was sex for oil.

Or maybe Bush wasn't trying to seduce Prince Abdullah -- maybe he was trying to seduce billionaire David Geffen away from the Clintons.

An additional signal in case Geffen didn't pick up on the cowboy hat, boots and tight jeans.

Or the ridiculous lapdog: http://www.lies.com/blog/archives/bush_barney.jpg

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 11:09 AM

I am glad Larry Craig is fighting to stay in the Senate. Probably Craig enjoyed being in the "active" roll so was techincally correct, in his own mind, when he said he wasn't gay at his news conference.

Don Williams, in Saudi Arabia, men holding hands is sign of friendship.

At least the Saudis don't verbalize - on a regular bases - the desire to wipe Israel off the map. And they aren't pursuing nukes .... yet.

Posted by Peter K. | September 28, 2007 11:34 AM

I've read Gay New York and a bit about Foucault and Iran, but the fact that a gay identity does not always accompany same-sex relationships is interesting but irrelevant. Isn't the issue whether a man can get into trouble with the law/his family having sex with another man, whether one is calling it gay (Western), man-man (region-neutral), or something else? Is it really only a problem to be gay in Iran if you call it gay?

Posted by Phoebe | September 28, 2007 11:39 AM

"Don Williams, in Saudi Arabia, men holding hands is sign of friendship."

Peter K. - read John Bradley's book. It means a lot more than that too.

Posted by An Outhouse | September 28, 2007 12:02 PM

In ancient Rome, it was de rigueur for the top Roman military commanders to take on teenage boys as lovers as a part of preparing them for high command in the legions. I seem to recall that Julius Caesar was in such a relationship with the Roman general Sulla. According to historian Robin Lane, Alexander the Great and his Companions engaged in homosexual activity amongst themselves as a method of unit cohesion (remember General Schwartzkopf testifying before Congress in 1993 that such activity was detrimental to unit cohesion).

Posted by SLC | September 28, 2007 12:27 PM

Re Peter K's comment "Don Williams, in Saudi Arabia, men holding hands is sign of friendship."
---------
Same goes for convicted felons in prison.

Although the felons keep clear precisely who is the bitch in the relationship.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 12:29 PM

Re "Nor does it strip a man of his masculinity, as long as he is in the “top,” or active, role. "
----------
Again, same goes for felons in US prisons.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 12:31 PM

I'm think this attitude is common in prison. I remember reading a few years ago on a prison guard's blog about common attitudes towards homosexual behavior and orientation to that effect.

Posted by Shane | September 28, 2007 12:34 PM

Re Peter K's comment "I am glad Larry Craig is fighting to stay in the Senate "
-----------
I think it's a good idea also and I think the Democratic majority should help him--by blocking any moves by the Ethics Committees.

Because Larry has been really ..er..buggered by his longtime (25+ years) Republican colleaques and I suspect he's just dying to get even. I mean, REALLY get even.

Especially if Barney Frank whispers a few suggestions in Larry's ear pointing out various creative ways to do so.

Larry, for example, would be the perfect standup guy for a filibuster on, say, spending $200 Billion next year to help Big Oil keep its Iraqi franchise.

Larry Craig no longer has anything to lose --whereas Bush, Cheney and the Republicans do.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 12:41 PM

Worked as a projectionist and bouncer in a straight porn shop for five years. We also had coin operated movie booths. One of my jobs was to stop hustling from booth to booth. Usually gay boys servicing straight men. As long as the boys were feminized (barely) it was not a gay act. This in fact was the explination I got from both the john and boy.

Posted by judson | September 28, 2007 1:05 PM

Re "Nor does it strip a man of his masculinity, as long as he is in the “top,” or active, role"
-----------
Maybe the Democrats could point out to Larry Craig that sodomizing the Republicans in Congress wouldn't be "a gay act" since Larry would be the one on top. That this is how Larry could get back his political manhood.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 1:20 PM

A major element of the Republican Party's grassroots base is the National Rifle Association.
The millions that NRA leaders give to Republicans come from their 4 million members. Want to see that money dry up?

Have Larry Craig start running reelection ads showing him receiving the NRA's high honor last year -- the Harlon B. Carter Legislative Achievement Award -- from a freshed-faced young man who tells the NRA convention "You wouldn't believe what Larry has done for us". See
bottom of list of "Latest Ads and Videos" at http://www.nraila.org/News/ .

Ha ha ha.
I'm telling you -- Larry Craig is a gift from the gods. He could be the Joe Lieberman of the Republicans. Only the Democratic strategists are too fucking stupid to see it.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 1:33 PM

Don Williams:
--------------------
"same goes for convicted felons in prison.

Although the felons keep clear precisely who is the bitch in the relationship."

I bet that's what happened to Osama bin Laden ... he was made the "bitch" one too many times by a domineering "nongay" Saudi Prince and the repeated humiliation caused him to turn to radical Islam and foreign jihad for solace. He is sorta feminine, as was Egypt's Mohammad Atta.

Sorry, I forgot Bush is the only bad guy that matters... my bad.

Posted by Peter K. | September 28, 2007 1:48 PM

For what it's worth, there are gay clubs in Beirut and Dubai, but even then the Arab men that go to those places still hold the top=manly, bottom=gay dichotomy. Ironically, they're also full of female prostitutes that the owners pay to dance in the club so that the authorities think it's not a gay club. There's a lot of denial to go around.

Posted by Reality Man | September 28, 2007 1:51 PM

Re Peter K's comment "He [Osama Bin Laden] is sorta feminine, as was Egypt's Mohammad Atta "
---------
Maybe in a Lorena Bobbit sorta of way:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_Bobbit

Larry Craig has got the same potential. That could be Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's penis flying out the car's window.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 1:57 PM

"...some of the men having sex with other men don’t consider themselves gay."
---
Well, in this case it took almost 9 years, but once again, life imitates The Onion:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33540

Not at all work- or family-friendly. Just hilarious.

Posted by Arr-squared | September 28, 2007 2:22 PM

The top/bottom thing goes in Mexico, too. The one on bottom is gay, the one on top can choose. I guess the idea is the guy on top is just doing what men do, but he was so damn horny and there were no willing women around. He just wants to fuck, that doesn't make him gay. And yes, Don Williams, I guess the same goes for felons in US prisons.

Posted by Kiril | September 28, 2007 3:01 PM

Having been in Federal prison, I can say that I've heard inmates who were Aryan Brotherhood members basically say the same thing: they aren't gay - but they did have a blowjob now and again from another inmate.

Basically most humans are bisexual - they simply are socially conditioned not to accept it. This is just another description of a way of dealing with it socially. Bisexuality is accepted more by females than males, but just like many of our primate ancestors, humans are bisexual.

Bisexuality, BTW, does not mean equal preference for both sexes. Almost all bisexuals statistically speaking have a preference for one sex or the other. They're simply also open to sex with either sex.

"At least the Saudis don't verbalize - on a regular bases - the desire to wipe Israel off the map. And they aren't pursuing nukes .... yet."

Neither of which Iran has done either, nitwit.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 28, 2007 3:56 PM

The Pashtuns of Afghanistan are famously into underage boys. That's what precipitated the rise of the Taliban to power in the 1990s -- two warlords got into a civil war over the affections of a particularly pretty boy. This opened the door for the Taliban, promising better morality, to waltz in and take over the country with pretty widespread approval of the public.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 28, 2007 5:53 PM

Re Richard's comment "Having been in Federal prison..."
-----------
So, Richard, any tips for how one survives in prison? Any dos and don'ts?

I'm asking seriously. Hopefully, i'll never need the advice but --as Washington shows from time to time -- the gods like to shit on everyone from time to time. Sometimes even on the chief aide to the Vice President. Sometimes even on guys named Cunningham and Abramhoff and Skilling.

Are guys with life sentences mixed in with white collar guys? It seems to me that the guys with life have nothing to lose so if they come at you then you either have to make peace some way or hit them really, really hard.

What about joining a gang? Mandatory , good idea or optional? Also, do the rules vary from place to place?

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 5:54 PM

It's fairly clear that in the ancient world, homosexual behavior wasn't much at all like modern Castro Street homosexuality. To a very large extent, it was an indulgence practiced by the powerful on the weak: what we think of as child molestation, prison rape, and sexual harassment. (Modern homosexuals often fail to realize that they would have been scorned in Athens as womanish for wanting to please another man.) Even at it's least abusive, ancient homosexuality reflected youthful male-male infatuations that only flourished when women were sequestered or despised. The triumph of Jerusalem over Athens came both by negative sanctions on vice but also by the increased status of women under Christianity, which made companionate marriage the ideal

My best guess is that due to the success of Christianity at stigmatizing homosexual vice, we are left then, largely, with men who are innately homosexual. But that also explains why Christians and orthodox Jews have a hard time agreeing that homosexual behavior stems from innate homosexual orientations -- in their historical experience, most homosexual behavior was not an innate orientation, but was controllable by social sanctions.

Posted by Steve Sailer | September 28, 2007 5:59 PM

Best way to survive in prison - and I did fairly well, in that I was never punched out by anybody - is to shut up, utter no opinions on anything, and try to get along with everybody.

Generally, if you act like you're harmless, you'll be treated that way - except for some bozos who might try to take advantage of that. In that situation, your best bet is to have good relations with those who think that sort of behavior is beneath them and who will take your side just so they can push the bozos around.

In Federal prison, you have a fairly wide variety of people, because there are a lot of Federal crimes. However, you don't get a lot of serial killers or rapists because those aren't Federal crimes. Mostly you have drug dealers - which means the majority of inmates are blacks or Latinos, whites come next, plus a smattering of Asians and Indians (since reservation crimes are Federal.) But you also get people on random weapons charges, crooked lawyers, Mob guys, and savings and loan executives.

Don't mess with Indians is one good piece of advice. They don't like whites, they all carry knives, and they don't hesitate to use them.

Don't hobnob with blacks, or the whites will shiv you. Don't hobnob with Latinos much, either. Avoid hobnobbing outside your "class". If you're middle class, hobnob with crooked lawyers or savings and loan executives. If you're rural lower class, hobnob with the "good ol' boys" from wherever. If you're an urban punk, hobnob with them.

Do NOT join a gang - not that most of them would have you - if you weren't in that milieu outside.

A couple of wannabe skinheads found that out at Leavenworth. They bragged about "killing some niggers", so the REAL skinheads told them to either put up or get shanked themselves. So they tried to hit some black guy, but screwed it up royally. So the black guy and his partner retaliated against a couple of old inmates who never offended anybody. The whole thing proved so embarrassing to both sides that they squashed the whole thing - temporarily at least.

At Leavenworth, I hung out somewhat with some Irish guys from Boston - mostly because I was from Connecticut, the next state over, and because one of my cellies was from that milieu.

Don't associate with gays - that's a no-no. Especially a white-black couple. One of my cellies forgot that when selling his homemade wine, and had to check into protective custody when some people decided to kick his butt for doing so.

The thing about the Federal system is that it's pretty much the same everywhere since they have the same nationwide rules. Beyond that, it depends on the local prison administration. Southern prisons tend to have more local black employees - so that means white inmates get the shaft more there than in other places. I've been told that Atlanta is a bad place to be for white inmates. The reverse is probably true in those other places.

I got through over eight years without getting my lights punched out (other than being roughed up a bit by a Correctional Officer) or being sexually assaulted. However, I did not have an easy time of it dealing with the prison bureacracy. I ended up doing almost half my time in "The Hole" because of conflicts with the utterly asshole prison staff.

Do not trust anything the prison staff tell you. They lie like George Bush. Most of them will do nothing for you - they aren't paid for that. Their "counselors" are just as much assholes as the correctional officers themselves.

Keep in mind that prison guards are just like concentration camp guards - some of them just do their job, some try to do things rationally, and most of them try to be assholes. They're the bottom of the barrel of law enforcement - wannabe cops who couldn't get in because of low education and downsized military types who had no future EVEN in the military.

The civilian prison staff are the same - local losers who can't get a real job in the real corporate world.

Expect nothing from them, because that's what you'll get.

The prison chaplains and the prison psychiatrists are the same - bottom of the barrel who are only interested in CYA in the bureaucracy and who will do nothing for you.

Oh - and everybody - I mean EVERYBODY - is a snitch. No exceptions.

That's a bit of a joke. Four inmates are in a cell talking. One leaves. The others start saying, "Hey, you know Joe is a snitch!" Another one leaves. "Hey, you know Bill is a snitch!" Another one leaves. The last one says, "Well, time to snitch!"

But never accuse anybody of being a snitch - even though that is a prison inmate's favorite pastime - unless you can prove it. Otherwise you'll get shanked.

Also, make sure nobody can ever accuse you of being a snitch - which means don't ever talk to correctional staff without another inmate - who isn't your enemy - within hearing distance.

If something happens near you - somebody gets shanked, a riot starts - you'll be called in for questioning. The bottom line: you never saw anything. You don't know anything. And if the guard asks you, "If you did know, would you tell me? - you say, "No. You know the rules."

People will try to snitch on you or accuse of snitching to try to get your cell space, to dodge a gambling debt, or whatever.

Oh, another rule - people get shanked over five things: sex, gambling, the television in the rec room, race, and drugs. Stay away from all that and your odds of getting shanked go down considerably.

It's okay to watch TV in the rec room - just don't change the channel without complete agreement of everybody present.

Seriously.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 28, 2007 6:35 PM

Thanks.

Posted by Don Williams | September 28, 2007 7:44 PM

Nice 5:59PM post by Steven Sailor, seriously...

He described how gay men or past buggered boys turned to that prediliction by pederasty prey on less powerful young males - and how Christianity broke that so we only have innate homos and chicken hawks out looking for smooth young boys.

Whereas,
the child molestation or "the love that does not dare speak it's name" is common in other cultures, even by Victorian Oscar Wilde, who gays desperately try rehabilitating but who was molesting boys as young as age 8...

When women are sequestered or despised. as Sailor notes - boys and goats in those Muslim & other 3rd world cultures tend to get stretched assholes. THe other problem is in polygamist cultures where much of the female accessibility is reserved for the rich and powerful, leaving men shut out by poverty and/or inferior social status - to their own devices, hands, sheep, or hairless young boys..And, from China to ancient Greece or Prussia to Soledad Prison - will not characterize their predation as "gay" since they are the "top" to the "bottom"....and young boys will prove they are not gay despite being "bottom" to some Arab landowner if they later "top" some other weakling..

That leaves innate homosexuality. Which appears to be a birth defect more common in certain ethnicities than others. Jews and other Semites have higher rates of inherent homosexuality than Aryan peoples. Niolitic blacks a higher percecentage than Congolese blacks....

Posted by Chris Ford | September 28, 2007 9:16 PM

The thing about Steve Sailor's "provocative" style is that it mainly appeals to people like Chris Ford (9:16 PM comment).

Posted by Lee B | September 28, 2007 10:00 PM

This isn't as foreign an attitude as its being made to seem. Remember this?

It's always been effeminacy that's the real sin (for men), not exhibiting your masculine virtue by displaying power over another. That's still true today, even in America.

Posted by Greg | September 28, 2007 10:37 PM

Re Richard Steven Hack

I kind of figured that Mr. Hack had been in the joint. He writes like a jailhouse lawyer. I wonder what he was in for. Some of my former colleagues, including two of my former supervisors spent some time in the joint for participating in a bribery scheme (another former colleague who worked for one of our crooked contractors is currently a fugitive with a federal warrant against him and is hiding out in his native Syria). However they served their time in minimum security federal prisons reserved for white collar crooks, much like John Dean and the other Watergate felons. Mr. Hacks' offenses must have been rather more serious as Leavenworth is a maximum security slammer.

Posted by SLC | September 28, 2007 11:15 PM

You didn't have to "figure" anything - I've repeatedly mentioned it here and elsewhere.

Actually my offense was armed bank robbery. This, however, only gets you into a medium security facility, like Florence Federal Correctional Institution (FCI), where I started out.

To get into Leavenworth Penitentiary, a maximum security facility (although not THE maximum facility - that would be the "SuperMax" also located at Florence, Colorado), all you have to do is be located somewhere less when the B.O.P. decides to re-classify all the inmates in the system so they can cram them into the few penitentiaries there are. Then they can go to Congress, proclaim themselves "over-crowded" and demand budget increases to build more penitentiaries.

This enhances their career paths as they can now work their way up to running a maximum security joint instead of just a camp or an FCI.

In other words, it was about budgets, money and careers - i.e., ripping off the taxpayer.

For the most part, you see the same guys in the maximum security joints as you do in the lower security joints. The only difference is how much time they have left to do. As you get nearer to release, you tend to be moved downward in security levels - unless you tend to get in fights or whatever, then you don't. So eventually even the serious guys end up in a camp - if they're getting out at all. Unless, as I say, they STAY serious and get in fights, smuggle drugs into the joint, and the like.

I didn't cooperate very well with the bureacracy, so I ended up doing my last four years in Leavenworth, when I should have been doing it in a less than medium security facility, if not a camp.

Not only that, I was actually denied being released to a "halfway house" because I didn't cooperate. Guys with considerably longer records and more serious offenses than mine got into a halfway house - despite the fact that they were virtually guaranteed recidivists. Not me - despite the fact that I was virtually guaranteed not to return. It was purely extra "punishment" for having had the ability to endure my last two years spent entirely in "The Hole", refusing to cooperate.

THEN they assigned me to a "high risk" Federal Parole Officer. Of course, that was pointless as there was nothing "high risk" about me. Six years later, I'm not planning on robbing any banks (although I might be persuaded to hack one some day.)

That doesn't mean I'm not an extremely dangerous person. I'm just not dangerous in the conventional criminal sense of being a dumb thug who gets in fights, deals drugs, and sticks up liquor stores and hangs out with other morons like himself.

I'm not a nigger, a spic, a rural redneck, or an urban punk.

I'm simply not one of you.

And that makes me more dangerous than the rest of you in the eyes of the Establishment.

As you will one day discover.

Have a nice day!

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | September 29, 2007 2:32 AM

While I accept that the "concept" of homosexuality did not exist as we understand it today until very recently (in historical terms), I do object to the notion that it was "invented" by "the west", which connotes the idea that it was somehow pulled out of thin air and is now (as an act of cultural imperialism) "imposed" on non-western cultures.

Yes of course, a man occasionally having sex with other men did not mean that he was "gay" (i.e. not a "real man) in many ancient cultures such as the Greek. But it's worth to note that this isn't the case today, either. I'm pretty sure that if "homosexual acts" were not scorned as putting one's hetero, masculine identity in question, many more straight men would do it.

That being said, this is not to say that a homosexual identity is totally a cultural construct trying to compartmentalise people with varying grades of same-sex attraction into a nice, seperated group. That I, as a self-indetifying gay man, am, sexually and emotionally, almost exclusively attracted to men and have, in this regard, neglible interest in women is not something that is "imposed" on me by our society.

I think it is hard to deny that throughout the centuries, there wore hundrets of thousands of men having the same feelings as I do. Some of them had sex with other men, some did not. But whatever tolerance towards same-sex sexual behaviour there was, it was simply unimaginable that a man like me could do what I can today: Forming emotional and social relationships with other men that more or less equal relationships between a man and a women.

But I am pretty sure that men in all times of history would have done this if they had the chance. Because the desire to do this is not something the West has "invented" in the last 50 or so years. It's just that repression imposed by society on men like me worked so perfectly well.

Whoever thinks that the West should not "impose" our concept of homosexuality on non-western cultures such like Iran's (and there are many queer activists on the far left who think that way, as reactions to Ahmadenejad's visit at Columbia showed once again) has to ask him/herself how this idea does not make our struggle here in the west pointless or even hypocritical. Because the same "cultural sensitiveness" these people demand now in respect to Iran et al would have been perfectly applicalbe in the West just 50 years ago.

What I would like is that, yes, if someone who occasionally has sex with other men because he likes it would not automatically have to self-identify as "gay". But at the same time, I would like that nobody would feel compelled to self-identify as straight, marry women, have children with them and tell themselves "I'm not gay, I just like to have sex with another dude from time to time" when in reality, they have no interest in women other than as friends and just let society talk them into thinking that they do (may they live in Iran or Idaho).

Having sex with a member of the same sex does not have to mean that you are gay. But "homosexuality" is, in fact, more than just, sexual acts. And that's what 's been true in all ages.

Posted by Patrick | September 29, 2007 6:56 AM

Thank you, Patrick.

"Modern homosexuals often fail to realize that they would have been scorned in Athens as womanish for wanting to please another man.)"

Modern eugenicists often fail to realize that they will will be scorned in blog comments as "textbook" closet-cases for wanting to "pleasure" their fellow rascists.

Posted by Rihilism | September 29, 2007 10:13 AM