Thought Archive

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Taliban soldiers

Images of Taliban soldiers as we have never seen them before. Given a strong tradition of homosexualsim in some Middle Eastern lands, especially in Persian-speaking ones like Afghanistan, wher boy-brides are commonplace , it is not surprising to see the images like this, what is surprising is the proliferation of this culture by soldiers of same Taliban, whose extreme misogynists policies are well known. Truly men there enjoyed more rights than women.

In The History of Sexuality, a multivolume work published in the 1970s and ’80s, Michel Foucault proposed his famous thesis that Western academic, medical, and political discourse of the 18th and 19th centuries had produced the idea of the homosexual as a deviant type: In Western society, homosexuality changed from being a behavior (what you do) to an identity (who you are).

In the Middle East, however, homosexual behavior remained just that—an act, not an orientation and thus was not condemned outright. That is not to say that Middle Eastern men who had sex with other men were freely tolerated. But they were not automatically labeled deviant their behaviour is accepted for what it is - a way of life for men unable to exercise their animal urges any other way. The idea of being gay, as opposed to simply acting on sexual urges, may bring with it a sense of shame and will be condemned, however. Thus men engaged in this sort of relationship, do not consider themselves gay and will be highly offended at the notion of being labeled so. So tecnically Akhmadinejad is right, - there are no "gays" in Iran.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is no such thing as "being gay" in the Western sense - it is a "brand" just like Nike or YSL. You cannot say "he IS a homosexual", it does not make sense linguistically - "he engages in homosexuality" is more accurate and this act is a sin. Having a hormonal imbalance or any other disfunctionality is however an illness/defect and might induce to commit this act, in this instance it is not a sin as such but whoever suffers from that needs to seek treatment. All the "science" that is attempting to prove a genetic cause for homosexuality is outright laughable. Considering that supposedly gay people do marry and have kids, it is clear that there is no natural cause for it, it is just a vice. They mixed everything up in the human rights soup which is starting to look like anything any human creature wants to do IS a "right"...What is your stand-point on it?

Hazar Nesimi said...

I may have aversion to unnatural ways of "gays" but no objection whatsoever for people living their private lives they way they do it, for the objection and Judgement is for the Higher Being, not for us to make. Homesexuality is a complex phenomenon, which may explain our uncertain view of it. As my post indicates many if not most, engaged in homosexuality are not "gays" unless they live their lifestyle liberated under the dictum: "Be what you want to be. Majority of people engaging in homosexuality do it just to satisfy their sexual urges sometimes living adual lifestyle with families and kids. It is very wrong to condemn them publicly, but their rights are the same as of us - they should not be glorified, - this perverted situation we have today. They should not mention they exist.

Anonymous said...

No two would disagree that it is a very complex phenomenon, but really, to say that Eastern gays are just doing it to relieve sexual urges is surely said in a cheek-in-tongue kind of way! From the many ways they can relieve these sexual urges (including with females, yes, I know it is boring but there you go females can help you relieve these tensions and if they're your wives then that's even better), I was saying from the multitude of ways to relieve sexual tensions, they choose the gay way - hmm, call it anything you like, but that sounds like denial to me, anybody whose sexual urge can be satisfied by another person from the same sex is gay, end of. The fact that some people can live these dual lives indicates that it is nothing to do with genetics, and if there is a genetic component, it will surely be negligeable compared to other factors.

Hazar Nesimi said...

Therefore do you think that a genuine believer, can really be Muslim if he is "gay" or engages in homosexuality without considering himself gay?