John Dececco - Sexuality and Eroticism Among Males in Moslem Societies

Sexuality and Eroticism Among Males in Moslem Societies

HAWORTH Gay & Lesbian Studies

John P. De Cecco, PhD

Editor-in-Chief

New, Recent, and Forthcoming Titles:

Gay Relationships edited by John De Cecco

Perverts by Official Order: The Campaign Against Homosexuals by the United States Navy by Lawrence R. Murphy

Bad Boys and Tough Tattoos: A Social History of the Tattoo with Gangs, Sailors, and Street-Comer Punks by Samuel M. Steward

Growing Up Gay in the South: Race, Gender, and Joumeys of the Spirit by James T. Sears

Homosexuality and Sexuality: Dialogues of the Saual Revolution, Volume I by Lawrence D. Mass

Homosexuality as Behavior and Identity: Dialogues of the Sexual Revolution, Volume II by Lawrence D. Mass

Understanding the Male Hustler by Samuel M. Steward

Sexuality and Eroticism Among Males in Moslem Societies edited by Arno Schmitt and Jehoeda Sofer

Men Who Beat the Men Who Love Them: Battered Gay Men and Domestic Violence by David Island and Patrick Letellier

Sexuality and Eroticism Among Males in Moslem Societies

Arno Schmitt
Jehoeda Sofer
Editors

First Published by

The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580

This edition published 2011 by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

1992 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, microfilm and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Reprint - 2007

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sexuality and eroticism among males in Moslem societies/Arno Schmitt, Jehoeda Sofer, editors.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-56024-047-4 (alk. paper)ISBN 0-918393-91-4 (pbk.)

1. Homosexuality, MaleIslamic countries. 2. Gay menIslamic countriesSexual behavior. 3. SexReligious aspectsIslam. I. Schmitt, Arno. II. Sofer, Jehoeda, 1944-1990.
H076.2.I74S49 1991b
306.7662091767ldc20

91-2316
CIP

Publishers Note
The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original may be apparent.

DEDICATED TO JEHOEDA SOFER 19441990

This book is dedicated to my co-editor and friend whose life was as rich in diversity and texture as the world in which we live.

Jehoeda Sofer, born into a Jewish family in the Moslem city of Baghdad, Iraq, grew up in a neighborhood of Oriental Jews in an Israel that perceived itself as a part of the West. Jehoeda viewed himself as an Arab Jew. He loved the land of Palestine/Israel and felt the awesome beauty of Jerusalem/Al Quds with never diminishing intensity.

Jehoeda dedicated his life to a deeper understanding of the culture, literature, and heritage of the peoples of the Middle East and to the dissemination of knowledge. He fought for the oppressed regardless of race, religion, sex, economic class, nationality, political beliefs, or sexual orientation.

After moving to Amsterdam, Jehoeda played a vital role in both the Dutch and international movements for gay and lesbian rights. He was an integral member of the International Lesbian and Gay Association, where he was especially involved with Third World concerns. Both in the Netherlands and in the Jewish communities of Europe and Israel, he was an active proponent for peace in the Middle East, striving for the reconciliation of Jews and Arabs.

As an author of numerous articles, Jehoeda greatly contributed to the better understanding of the underlying conflicts and possible solutions to the problems in the Middle East as well as for the oppressed. His many Palestinian friends learned through him that a Jew, a gay Jew at that, could fight for the freedom of Palestinians and Israelis and for peace between the states of Israel and Palestine.

He kept his dignity even into death. He chose to be buried as a Jew. Both the publishers and I regret that he was unable to see this book in print.

To my friend and colleague,

Arno Schmitt
Berlin, November 7, 1990

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Arno Schmitt studies Islamology at the Freie Universitt in Berlin. He has recently compiled a bibliography of nearly 30,000 items on male-male sexuality and eroticism in Moslem society. He lives in Berlin.

Jehoeda Sofer (19441990) worked as a journalist in The Netherlands, where he was undertaking country-by-country research on legislation concerning sexual activities between males. He was a frequent contributor/editor to publications on homosexuality and on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He had been active since 1975 in the Dutch and the international lesbian and gay movement.

CONTENTS

Foreword

Until recently, homosexuality was seen as a minor part of our common history, the preserve of the prurient or the special interest. Today, thanks largely to the efforts of lesbian and gay historians, we can see clearly its centrality: studying same-sex eroticism and relationships throws light on a whole culture, illuminates the complex ways of life within it, and above all informs us about the prevailing power relations around gender and sexuality. This book does just that for the Muslim societies it explores.

There is much that could be said concerning the rich material in this book. I would like to start, however, by looking a little more closely at that word homosexuality which I have put in quotation marks. It is a word we now take for granted as having a universal meaning. It implies a common psychological type, a common set of desires and sexual practices, and common meanings, which would allow lesbians and gay men to recognize one another across time, and across cultures. It suggests a truth about peoples needs and personal characteristics which sets homosexuals apart, the eternally different.

The recent historical, sociological, and anthropological work suggests something different. We now know, for example, that the concept of the homosexual is of very recent origin. The term homosexuality itself was not invented until 1869, and the idea that homosexuals belonged to a common sexual species was largely an invention of sexology, the would-be science of sex, which developed in the West in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

This does not mean, of course, that same-sex erotic activity did not exist before then. On the contrary, there is abundant evidence of it. The crucial point, however, is that it had different implications from the ones we now impute to it. To put it bluntly, homosexuality, like all forms of sexuality, has different meanings in different culturesso much that it becomes difficult to find any common essence which links the different ways it is lived, apart that is, from the pure sexual activity itself.

On a world scale, however, historians have now begun to trace two great patterns by which different cultures have attempted to come to terms with same-sex activity. The pattern that by and large has predominated in the West until recently has associated male homosexuality with effeminancy. To have homosexual desires, to want to have relations with men, was to define yourself as almost a non-man. When the pioneer homosexual rights campaigners of the early part of this century spoke about homosexuals as belonging to the third or intermediate sex, they were trying to give some coherence to the idea that homosexuals were not properly men, nor yet quite women.