"can we call them 'gay'?"
(Beats me! I didn't write the narrative!)

Over the weekend, M. Simon emailed me a link to a news item Glenn Reynolds had linked about the Pashtuns. Or should I say the "gay Pahstuns"?

As if U.S. troops and diplomats didn't have enough to worry about in trying to understand Afghan culture, a new report suggests an entire region in the country is coping with a sexual identity crisis. An unclassified study from a military research unit in southern Afghanistan details how homosexual behavior is unusually common among men in the large ethnic group known as Pashtuns -- though they seem to be in complete denial about it.
According to the report, the behavior of some Afghan men has left Western forces "frequently confused."

The story also contains some gems about love, and denial:

....Pashtun men interpret the Islamic prohibition on homosexuality to mean they cannot "love" another man -- but that doesn't mean they can't use men for "sexual gratification."

The group of interpreters who had contracted gonorrhea joked in the camp that they actually got the disease by "mixing green and black tea." But since they refused to heed the medics' warnings, many of them re-contracted the disease after receiving treatment.

The U.S. army medic also told members of the research unit that she and her colleagues had to explain to a local man how to get his wife pregnant.

The report said: "When it was explained to him what was necessary, he reacted with disgust and asked, 'How could one feel desire to be with a woman, who God has made unclean, when one could be with a man, who is clean? Surely this must be wrong.'"

(Emphasis added.)

As I remarked to Simon, "Sounds like a line from gay underground theater in SF!" Except that one man's satire can be another man's truth.

However, there's a real split among gays between those who go in for longterm relationships, and those who only want sex without any emotional reciprocation (pure lust). The latter constitute one of the stereotypes the anti-gay conservatives like to complain about, yet ironically, that's the Pashtun way. The main difference is that the American gays do admit they are gay, and the Pashtuns would kill one of their own who did admit that. (After raping him, of course...)

I'd say that the British had a word for people like that -- "SAVAGES" -- except I'd be inviting trouble from the people who piled on Sarah Hoyt, and then they'd conspire to ensure that I would never get ahead in life. (Like I care at this point.)

But parenthetically, I'd like to say that is what I admire so much about Sarah. She is standing up to the insecure and mediocre conformists of this world who enjoy ruin the lives of non-conforming others -- and she dares to do so despite the possibility of damaging career consequences. I was also reminded of her earlier post when I read about figure skater Johnny Weir's capitulation to animal rights activists:

Weir will replace the fox on his costume with faux fur after receiving "hate mail and death threats" from animal rights activists, agent Tara Modlin said Thursday.

"He's changing it because he needs to focus on skating," she said.

Friends of Animals posted an open letter to Weir after he added white fox fur to the left shoulder of his free skate costume for the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. On Tuesday, the animal advocacy group called his costume designer, Stephanie Handler, and faxed a press release about its open letter to her business.

Since then, Weir has heard from other anti-fur activists, Modlin said. Although People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals made its case in a professional manner, Modlin said others did not -- to the point she and Weir were concerned someone might disrupt his performances at the Vancouver Olympics.

Weir qualified for his second Olympic team by finishing third at nationals.

"I do not want something as silly as my costume disrupting my second Olympic experience and my chance at a medal, a dream I have had since I was a kid," Weir said in a statement, first published by icenetwork.com.

Priscilla Feral, president of Friends of Animals, said no one from the group had threatened Weir. She applauded Weir's decision.

While I understand that his career comes first, it's a shame he didn't stand up to the activists. It's classic illustration in one of my oldest complaints in the blog -- why activists win. Non-activist people don't want the hassle, especially if they are in sensitive positions.

Naturally, Ms. Feral (?) and her group had no connection whatsoever to those who threatened him.

(As Willie Cicci once said, the Corleone Family "had a lot of buffers." So do the people who would never officially threaten you for calling men-who-kill-men-for-having-sex-with-men-even-though-they-have-sex-with-men savages. That's because civilized people are not allowed to call uncivilized behavior uncivilized.)

Whether men who have sex with men are necessarily gay is an old issue in this blog.

Suffice it to say that Westerners are incapable of understanding the sexuality of the Pashtuns -- probably more incapable than we are of understanding the sexuality of the ancients.

Via Glenn Reynolds, Gay Patriot looks at Pashtun sexuality, and asks a good question:

....can we call them "gay"?
Yes we can!

And I am sure that "we" will. Anyone can call anyone anything. But if they are gay, then so are Charles Manson, John Dillinger, and countless prison rapists. If being gay means any man who has sex with another man (as gay activists and anti-gay religious conservatives insist), then all of these people and more are gay. Would anyone ask them to their faces? This would also mean that many of ancients were gay -- even though they did not think in modern terms at all. They didn't think in terms of heterosexual or homosexual categories. Zeus and Ganymede were lovers, but not gay, because there was no such homosexual "otherness" concept of sexuality. My opinion is that the category was created by a competing view of same sex sexual practices as "sin".

However, it would be a serious mistake IMO, to place the Pashtuns (or many of the men in the Mideast) in the same category as the ancients, for the simple reason that they do have a religiously assigned category for sexual relations with men, and consider it to be a sin. A death penalty sin. Which means that while they screw each other in the butt, they cannot admit it, and would kill anyone who did. (Probably after raping him.)

Is that clear now?

posted by Eric on 02.01.10 at 12:03 PM





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Comments

Eric,

You need to brush up on your Koran.

viz your comment about savages "piling on Sarah Hoyt", what are you talking about? Greg and Francis shared with us that they did not much care for her writing style or premise and were roundly and repeatedly condemned by 30 or 40 posters who were outraged that anyone would dare to malign Hoyt's skills as a writer or crafter of a believable storyline/plot. What I find laughable about that whole thread was that it transpired under the guise of those same losers coming together in order to "Let's Talk About Political Correctness!" You guys sure showed a rare appreciation for what constitutes political correctness and how it works in larger society.

Curtis   ·  February 1, 2010 07:43 PM

It's probably worth pointing out that words are being put in my mouth.

I didn't refer to the Koran, even implicitly. I was speaking about attitudes towards homosexuality. But let's suppose the Taliban cited the Koran as authority for imposing the death penalty to punish homosexuality, and I pointed that out. How would that mean that I should brush up on "my" Koran? It isn't my Koran to interpret; it's theirs.

Nor did I ever call any commenters at this blog "savages." I wasn't referring to any of the comments Sarah got; only what she said in her post.

Eric Scheie   ·  February 2, 2010 12:22 PM

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