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| We're guessing the frigid stare of these two Pakistani men typifies the reaction most randomly-selected gents would offer if asked why gay porn searches are unusually popular in their country. Photo: losttravel, flickr |
Farahnaz Ispahani, an expert in Pakistani minorities at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former member of Pakistan's parliament, says "... even highly observant Muslim males often have physical relationships with men without considering themselves gay, she says.
"The real love they can have that most of us find with a partner, they find with men," Ispahani says.
"They mostly see their wives as the mother of their children."
At the same time, she says, persecution of minorities, including gays, has reached an all-time high in Pakistan, and discussing homosexuality openly in public is virtually forbidden. "Religious extremism is at a height today," she says. "Hindus are being forced to convert, Christians are being burned alive—there's very little personal safety for those seen as 'the other.' So what do [gay Pakistanis] do? They turn to pornography because they can't live their lives openly."
Shereen El Feki, author of the recent book Sex and the Citadel: Intimate Life in a Changing Arab World, says "...the Middle East and India had a literary tradition which celebrated gay love, but in recent years, that openness has been forgotten.
"You find in most civilizations in the Global South a much more open approach to homosexuality—irrespective of its status in religious and theological doctrine—than you find today," she says. "So very often, any attempt to open a dialogue in the Arab region is branded as some 'Western conspiracy' to undermine traditional Arab and Muslim values. The reality is that long before the West was talking openly about homosexuality, Arabs in particular were writing about this very frankly. Our history has come to be rewritten by Islamic conservatives."
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