Thursday, September 27, 2007

Don't ask, don't tell, Iranian style


Why did Ahmadinejad claim Iran has no homosexuals?

It has to do with a quilt.

By Sandip Roy, via salon.com

Sept. 26, 2007 | At Columbia University Mahmoud Ahmadinejad established himself as the Great Denier -- of nuclear weapons, the Holocaust and homosexuals. "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country," he told the audience (see video below). "In Iran we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who's told you that we have it."

Perhaps it was the ghosts of Ayaz Marhoni and Mahmoud Asgari.

On July 19, 2005, Marhoni and Asgari, both teenagers, were hanged publicly for homosexual sex in the Iranian city of Mashad. That was the year Ahmadinejad became president. Maybe what he meant to say is that in Iran we have no more homosexuals.

The loud, skeptical laughter from the audience showed that while some might still believe that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons for peaceful purposes, no one bought his homosexual-free zone.

But the problem lay in the question. Ahmadinejad was asked why his country denies women and homosexuals rights. If the questioner had asked the Iranian president about homosexual acts instead of a class of people known as "homosexuals," maybe Ahmadinejad would have conceded the existence of such a "phenomenon."

Iran is not alone in refusing to acknowledge homosexuals. From Uganda to India, many countries, especially ones with colonial histories, try to disown this Western import. (Cricket, Marxism, washing machines, are apparently OK despite their Western roots.)

This thing of darkness, Ahmadinejad seemed to say, I do not accept as mine.

The West always wants to label, classify, order. In the East, to label, classify, order, reveal or name can invite conflict. In 1944, in one of the first obscenity cases in India, famous Urdu writer Ismat Chughtai was hauled before the court for a short story about lesbianism called "The Quilt." It was clear to any reader what was going on under the quilt when a noblewoman and her favorite maid pulled it over themselves at night. "Begam Jan's quilt was once more swaying in the dark like an elephant ... The elephant was making sounds as if it was trying to squat. The sound of someone smacking his lips as if savoring a delicious sauce."

But the court absolved Ismat Chughtai because she never named the act that happened under the quilt. She never took the quilt off. Safely hidden under it, Begum Jan could do whatever she wanted.

Five decades later, Indian-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta pulled the covers off lesbian sex in the film "Fire," where two Delhi housewives are shown not only making love but also wondering what name to call themselves. Theaters were ransacked, screenings disrupted, questions were raised in Parliament. And not just by homophobic religious fundamentalists. "There is a danger that many of those exposed to this controversy will learn to view all such signs of affection through the prism of homosexuality. As a consequence many will feel inhibited in expressing physical fondness for other women for fear of being permanently branded as lesbians," worried Madhu Kishwar, the editor of one of India's most famous feminist magazines, Manushi.

The protection of the quilt was gone. The act of naming is dangerous.

The act of showing is even more so. The soon-to-be-released film version of the bestselling novel "The Kite Runner" is causing a ruckus in Afghanistan for showing the rape of a young boy. The family of the 12-year-old boy actor wants the scene cut. "This is against Afghan culture," the boy's father told the Associated Press.

Yet if there is one country whose culture is imbued with boy-love, it's Afghanistan. Nineteenth-century British explorer Richard Burton wrote in his accounts of travels through the region about "lads almost in women's attire with kohl'd eyes and rouged cheeks." "The cities of Afghanistan and Sindh are thoroughly saturated with Persian vice," wrote Burton, in a blow to both Iran and Afghanistan.

A famous Pathan marching song goes, "There is a boy, across the river with a bottom like a peach. But alas, I can't swim." The Taliban even had an injunction against their fighters taking boys without facial hair into their private quarters.

But when an act is shown on film, it moves from private quarters to the public sphere. It gets a name. It gets an identity. It gets a marker on the Kinsey scale. And you cannot avert your eyes from it. It becomes real.

"The people of Afghanistan do not understand that it's only acting or playing a role in a film," the boy's father told the Associated Press. "They think it has actually happened."

And it has. It has happened thousands of times, hundreds of thousands of times. But now it's been dragged into the light, pinned down like a butterfly on an entomologist's table, available to dissect, label, name and even post on YouTube.

There are men having homosexual sex in Iran. Ahmadinejad knows that. His questioner knows that. The questioner tried to shame the Iranian president. The Iranian president retreated into blind denial. The real failure of the interrogation at Columbia University was in not being able to find a way to talk about that obvious truth without completely stripping off the quilt.

Once we figure out how to do that, we might even be able to discuss nukes.

A version of this story was originally published by New America Media.

See previous LifeLube post on this topic.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

select key words

2007 National HIV Prevention Conference 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit 2011 LGBTI Health Summit 2012 Gay Men's Health Summit 2012 International AIDS Conference ACT Up AIDS AIDS Foundation of Chicago Africa BUTT Bisexual Bisexual Health Summit Brian Mustanski Center on Halsted Charles Stephens Chicago Chicago Black Gay Men's Caucus Chicago Task Force on LGBT Substance Use and Abuse Chris Bartlett Coaching with Jake Congress David Halperin David Munar Dr. James Holsinger Dr. Jesus Ramirez-Valles Dr. Rafael Diaz Dr. Ron Stall ENDA Ed Negron Eric Rofes FTM Feast of Fun Feel the love... Friday is for Faeries Gay Men's Health Summit 2010 HCV HIV HIV care HIV drugs HIV negative HIV positive HIV prevention HIV stigma HIV strategic plan HIV testing HIV/AIDS HPV Howard Brown Health Center IML IRMA Illinois International AIDS Conference Jim Pickett LGBT LGBT adoption LGBT culture LGBT health LGBT rights LGBT seniors LGBT youth LGBTI community LGBTI culture LGBTI health LGBTI rights LGBTI spirituality LGV Leon Liberman LifeLube LifeLube forum LifeLube poll LifeLube subscription Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano Lymphogranuloma Venereum MRSA MSM Monday Morning Perk-Up National AIDS Strategy National Gay Men's Health Summit One Fey's Tale Peter Pointers Pistol Pete PnP PrEP President Barack Obama Presidential Campaign Project CRYSP Radical Faerie STD Senator Barack Obama Sister Glo Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence Susan Kingston Swiss declaration Ted Kerr Test Positive Aware Network The "Work-In" The 2009 Gay Men's Health Agenda Tony Valenzuela Trans Gynecology Access Program Trans and Intersex Association Trevor Hoppe Who's That Queer Woof Wednesday You Tube abstinence only activism advocacy african-american aging issues anal cancer anal carcinoma anal health anal sex andrew's anus athlete ball scene bareback porn barebacking bathhouses bears big bold and beautiful bisexuality black gay men black msm blood ban blood donor body image bottom chubby chaser circumcision civil rights civil union communication community organizing condoms crystal meth dating dating and mating with alan irgang depression disclosure discrimination domestic violence don't ask don't tell douche downlow drag queen emotional health exercise female condom fitness gay culture gay identity gay latino gay male sex gay marriage gay men gay men of color gay men's health gay pride gay rights gay rugby gay sex gay youth gender harm reduction hate crime health care health care reform health insurance hepatitis C hiv vaccine homophobia homosexuality hottie hotties how are you healthy? human rights humor hunk immigration international mr. leather internet intimacy leather community leathersex lifelube survey love lube lubricant masturbation mental health microbicides middle music negotiated safety nutrition oral sex physical health pleasure podcast policy politics poppers porn post-exposure prophylaxis prevention prostate prostate cancer public health public sex venues queer identity racism recovery rectal microbicides relationships religion research safe sex semen sero-adaptation sero-sorting seroguessing sex sexual abuse sexual addiction sexual health sexual orientation smoking social marketing spirituality stigma stonewall riots substance abuse treatment substance use suicide super-bug superinfection syphilis testicle self-examination testicular cancer testing top trans group blog transgender transgender day of remembrance transgendered transmen transphobia transsexual universal health care unsafe sex vaccines video violence viral load writers yoga youtube