Homosexuality in Iraq and Saudi Arabia

The following account is difficult to read. It refers to a culture of brutality and dominance among Arab men and boys, one that has a long pedigree and has proven particularly prevalent in Islamic societies.

Until the late 20th century, open discussion of such matters in the West was prevented by the taboo against overtly sexual topics, especially where they concerned sexual deviance. More recently, after the era of sexual liberation began, a different taboo emerged in the new culture of Politically Correct Multiculturalism. The new rules might be summed up in a single commandment: “Thou shalt not speak ill of any social customs in non-Western cultures.” Thus the prevalence of pederasty in the Arab world was hushed up.

In recent years, due in part to the decade-long involvement of Western troops in Afghanistan, information about the Afghan custom of “dancing boys” — in which adult men take pretty pre-pubescent boys as their catamites — has gradually percolated into Western consciousness. But similar practices in the Arab world have remained more occluded.

Our Russian correspondent Russkiy, who is now fluent in Arabic, has undertaken the arduous task of translating part of sociological treatise on homosexuality in Iraq that was written by a renowned Iraqi scholar in the 1960s. It reveals a male society that resembles the deformed culture found among men in Western prisons.

Nowadays, with an Islamic Reformation well underway throughout the Arab world, entire nations are effectively being converted into giant open-air prisons.

Homosexuality in Iraq and Saudi Arabia
by Russkiy

When one visits websites or watches recorded discussions of proponents of Islamic Sharia, one cannot but notice a strong focus on morality in the Western world, or rather the lack thereof. The discussions normally revolve around women not being covered up appropriately, or the presence of homosexuals in public view, or both issues at the same time.

Recently I visited a Saudi atheist discussion forum found on Paltalk. The participants in the discussion deliberated on the issue of homosexuality in Saudi Arabia. Some surprising numbers were discussed. One person in the forum argued that if Saudi rulers don’t do something quickly to address the problem, 100% of the male population will be homosexuals. The reason given for this was that level of sexual frustration amongst Saudi men had reached unprecedented levels. It was mentioned that in the past the problem didn’t exist for the following reasons:

  • Early marriages for both men and women
  • Availability of slaves

At the beginning of King Feisal’s reign (1964-75) slavery was abolished as a result of Western pressure. Since then, due to social changes in the kingdom, the age of marriage has slowly increased. Pornographic material easily available through the Internet has been a big factor in exciting the young male population of Saudi Arabia without allowing any release.

This discussion reminded me of something I read in a book entitled Studies in the Nature of Iraqi Society written by the celebrated Iraqi professor of history and sociology Ali al-Wardi and first published in 1965. I have translated a section of the book that deals with precisely the issue discussed by the Saudis in the forum. My explanatory notes appear in square brackets.

The following translated excerpt begins on page 322 under the heading “Homosexuality in the Cities”:

The reality is that custom of homosexuality was widespread in the Iraqi cities during the period of Ottoman rule. It is possible to explain this phenomenon by the following:

  • The street upbringing — as we discussed, the kids on the streets considered homosexuality (active as opposed to passive) a symbol of domination and took pride in it. They would refer to it as “breaking of an eye”. The active participant in the act felt that he had subdued the passive participant by “breaking his eye” and shaming him with it continuously. Often as the result of that, the dominated boy would develop a personality disorder, causing him to feel inferior in the eyes of his peers, who would in turn take advantage and pick on him.

    And when the children grew up, that habit remained with many of them. It is not uncommon to see grown men take pride in and brag of such things in a similar manner to what they were used to in their childhood. Because of this, a phenomenon known as “cramp” had spread amongst the common people. It refers to taking revenge on someone by trapping and binding, then raping him. The “cramped” person might have remained his entire life with a “broken eye” [the author implies social infamy and personality disorders which resulted from the act]. As for the perpetrator of the cramping, he takes pride in what he has done. I personally know a person — he now has attained prominence in society — who used to head a gang for perpetrating cramping. It is thought that he still takes pride in the former “glory” of his.
     

  • Prevalence of Hijab [by Hijab, in this case, the author implies gender segregation as currently practiced in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and not just the hair covering] — it has been scientifically proven that the percentage of homosexuals in any society is proportional to the extent of gender segregation in that society. This is of course quite natural, as a human being is instinctively drawn towards contact and enjoyment of the opposite sex. Therefore if for whatever reason it happens that members of the opposite sex was separated from him, he will start trying to substitute for that contact by relations with the same gender. This is what causes some men, in societies where gender segregation is prevalent, to copulate with adolescent boys, due to their resemblance to women, until appearance of a beard, at which point they would be left alone.

  • Janissary Legacy — The members of the Janissary Ottoman Army, which ruled over Iraq for a number of centuries, were taken away from their families in their childhood and placed in Janissary military schools to learn the art of war. It is known that those schools, in the later period, were not sound as far as morality is concerned. It is likely that students in those schools practiced homosexuality among themselves or that teachers sexually abused the students. The Mamluk regime that ruled Iraq for a period of approximately eighty years was very similar to the Janissaries in that regard, that is they were taken from their families in their childhood and brought up in special schools. Whatever the case may be, the homosexuality was practiced widely amongst the rulers of Iraq during the period when Janissaries and Mamluks had the authority in their hands. This had made homosexuality a known and respectable occurrence amongst people. This social phenomenon prevailed in Iraqi cities until the recent times.

Statistics concerning the spread of homosexuality and its extent in Iraqi cities during Ottoman rule are not available; however the estimates suggest that the percentage could not have been less than 40% of all city dwellers [I presume that the author means male city dwellers]. This is a very big number, and perhaps it is greater than in other countries with the exception of the Gulf (Persian) Emirates.

The widespread practice of homosexuality could easily be observed in the tea houses. It was very common in many tea houses to see grown men in company of adolescent boys who rarely left their side. It was common for figures of influence to spend lavishly on such boys, to buy them expensive clothes and gratify their every need and even involve them in their work. Such behaviour wasn’t looked down upon, and was sometimes even taken pride in.

Even to this day, remnants of this behaviour linger.

Researches in the field designate homosexuality as sexual deviation that has both positive and negative forms. It must be noted that homosexuality in both its forms is present in all societies. Researcher Havelock Ellis believed that 2% of all human population is affected by sexual deviation in such a way that it is difficult to remediate. This is a natural phenomenon that occurred while their bodies were formed. Such people can have either a positive or a negative inclination, depending on the circumstance that surrounded them in the beginning of their life. Science has not been able to treat these people, with some exceptions. The people who belong to the latter category differ from other homosexuals in that their sexual nature is atypical. Such a male is attracted towards a male full of masculinity, of strong build, thick of hair, whilst a female-oriented one is attracted to a feminine appearance, coquettishly female. This means that there is a big difference between natural and acquired homosexuality. The first one is a disease that can’t in general be cured; as for the second one — such people are not homosexuals by nature, but rather have acquired such habits from their social surroundings. They adopt this behaviour as means to substitute for what they lack in relationships with the opposite sex. Therefore such behaviour can be changed, and as such the proportion of such people changes depending on the social circumstances that are prevalent.

We can say that the inhabitants of Iraq do not differ from people in other parts of the world with respect to presence of individuals among them who are homosexuals by nature and their number probably does not exceed 2%, as per Havelock’s theory. They are present in approximately equal proportions in the steppe [areas populated by Bedouins], in villages, and in cities. As for the individuals with acquired homosexuality, their numbers are great in cities, small in villages and practically non-existent in the steppe. What is interesting is that homosexuals with negative inclination have always comprised a very small percentage, not exceeding 1%, whilst the percentage of those with positive inclination, as was mentioned, has at some stages been approximately 40%. This enormous difference between the two types should be attributed to the social values prevalent in Iraqi cities.

People in Western countries consider the positive and the negative homosexual inclinations as the same thing. They do not distinguish between the two, considering homosexuality in general a psychological abnormality different from normal. If someone is described as a homosexual, a hearer is not aware of and not concerned with which type. In Iraqi cities on the other hand the situation is completely different. The people deride homosexuals of negative inclination and consider them the lowliest of beings. In contrast, someone of positive inclination doesn’t feel ashamed of his condition and perhaps even brags of it sometimes. He considers himself an aggressor who “breaks someone’s eye” without letting anyone else “break his eye”. This is the reason why the proportion of homosexuals with positive inclination amongst city dwellers is so much higher than those with negative inclination.

The reality is that, in recent times, this view in Iraqi society of homosexuals of positive inclination started to change significantly. The people started to deride homosexuals of all types, be they of positive or negative inclination. We can say that the homosexuality of the positive type is slowly disappearing amongst the new generation. It is likely that unveiling and appearance of women in the society in the recent times had caused this change. We now see that young men prefer to chase after young women, to flirt with them rather than adolescent boys.

For further information, see:

23 thoughts on “Homosexuality in Iraq and Saudi Arabia

  1. Thanks for this. Very interesting. My experiences in arabic countries verify the apparently universal desire of men there to have sex with other men (but the stories I’ve heard from western women travelling there sound like the arabic men are simply over-sexualised, and it doesn’t matter to them if the person they subdue is male or female).

    I know some ugly gay men who have gone to live in Saudi Arabia fully knowing the legal pitfalls, but crowing about their ability to pick and choose from a range of new lovers every day. I’ve also heard from a straight man who lived there who eventually left the country because he couldn’t stand the sight of muslim men rubbing their crotches when they saw him.

    Another thing that would lead to more muslim men being sexually frustrated would be the relative absence of available wives (for every man who has 4 wives, there are going to be 3 men with no wife, unless additional women are brought into the society as slaves).

    When men are deprived of a sexual outlet they will tend to homosexual behaviour (in arabia or in prison, though by no means all men do this). I think the unavailability, segregation & shrouding of women is part of the process of jihad, along with the oversexualisation of arabic men. But throughout the history of jihad, muslim men will have been more prepared to go to war and to value the ability to rape their booty and take slaves, because they were so deprived of female intimacy in their own country. It’s another of those terrifying brilliances of islam (see Citizen Warrior).

    I hadn’t realised that Havelock Ellis had estimated that around 2% of society were homosexual. It looks like time has shown him to be far more accurate than Kinsey. It’s a very long time since we’ve heard gay people making the exagerrated claim: “we are 10% of the population”.

    • Fascinating reading indeed. Not only as yet another evidence that islam makes perverts people, but also as a reminder what were the ideas about homosexuality, among the englitened minds, just half-century ago.

      In particular, it iseems that the Iraqui researcher was more aware on the positive x negative distinction, which now would be called active x passive, or perhaps dominant x submissive, than our society is in present. And he was also aware of innate and acquired “portions” of both the beaviour and its practicioners, something that seems to be tabooised by western GLBT activist. Note, that his “negative” (= effeminate, girlish) role is scorned in islamdom, hence it is “rarer” there, or rather less visible, whereas many naturally heterosexual men brag about having acquired the “positive” (= manly) role. This is very different in current west, where “gayness” has become a fad in some circles, causing high prevalence of “girlish” homosexuals and relative shortage of the manly ones.
      This is not meant as an advocacy for islam, just a reminder that we are not free of taboos, either.

      • Not sure what is being said hete. I’m homosexual with a preference for younger SLIGHTLY effeminate partners. Very girlie or ‘ladyboy’ is not attractive to me. I can find ‘masculine’ men my own age attractive but only rarely. The point being that ‘two types’ of homosexuals is rubbish. There is a kalidiscope of attractions in humans whether gay or straight and people can change during their lives.

  2. While homosexuality may comprise a small proportion of any population, pedophilia is a far more common sin. I heard a lecture by a policeman who said that, the reason that we care about pedophilia is because it is common. If pedophilia were rare, then pedophilia would NOT be a problem. Pedophilia is absolutely rampant in Islam.

    The use of the word homosexuality vis a vis Islam is too sanitized. It is homosexual pedophilia and rape that need to be discussed – using those exact vocabulary terms.

    The employment of the term of ‘positive’ homosexuality is nauseating and misleading in that ‘positive’ homosexuality is simply homosexual pedophilia and rape.

    The rise of Islam is the rise of Sharia-legalized pedophilia – really child rape – which Mohammed openly practiced with both sexes – with Mohammed being the model for all standard (versus normal) Muslim behavior through the ages.

    Where pedophile rapists are able to impose a death sentence on child victims who speak of being raped, pedophiles and pedophile gangs rape boys and girls.

    Muslim girl and women rape victims are often raped in a ‘homosexual’ way via anal sexual rape. The employment of anal or ‘homosexual’ rape is used to justify that the raped girl or woman is ‘still’ a virgin.

    Muslim married couples participate in anal or ‘homosexual’ sex more than Western couples. Whether as a adaption to brutal forced girlhood clitorectomies that cause great pain in normal vaginal or ‘heterosexual’ marital relations, or as a poor man’s attempt at birth control, or as a reaction to childhood anal rape experienced by both girls and boys, anal sex is a deviation from normal vaginal martial relations that indicates the overt homosexualization of Muslim ‘culture’ and morals.

    The idea that homosexual pedophiles abandon their lovers when they grow beards is inaccurate. It has been stated that some homosexual pedophiles simply ‘marry’ their lovers to their daughters and continue their homosexual lifestyle under the cover of their daughter’s marriage. Thus, the older homosexual father beds the father of his own grandchildren.

    Egghead

    • If Muslim men are practicing anal sex with their wives, they are violating an explicit Quranic injunction against it — “Women are your fields; go into your fields as you will” This revelation followed a discussion by Mohammed’s cronies as to whether “turning the wife over” (real vaginal intercourse” was permitted.

      To which Mohammed replied, “Yes, but do not enter through the anus” Both the Quranic verse and Mohammed’s hadith on the matter are quite well known

  3. T. E. Lawrence wrote of the Turkish conscripts in chapter 6 of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom: “Indeed, we found them just kept chopping-blocks of their commanders’ viler passions. . . . Medical examination of some branches of Turkish prisoners found nearly half of them with unnaturally acquired venereal disease.”
    He was coy about exactly what happened to him when he fell briefly into their hands.

  4. In the transit lounge at Riyadh airport I had a passing conversation with an American nurse who was a part of a team that rebuilt damaged backsides.

    She was saying that at the age of about 6, a male child leaves the women’s quarters and lives with the males (and is at their mercy). By the time the boy gets to marriagable age he has to undergo surgery to rebuild his posterior. This is considered normal.

    This means that many Saudi males have been brutalised from a very early age.

    This also appears to be disruptive to later heterosexual married life, and adultery with servants appears to be common to both participants as the husband is not very interested in normal sexual relations with his wife.

    • Sexual abuse in childhood creates extreme rage which does not abate in adulthood. Violent criminal behavior, along with a host of other maladies are common. The need to humiliate others as the victim has been humiliated and shamed is essential, thus explaining the brutality so common in Muslim society. Suicide bombers actually have found the perfect solution to their problem. They get to humiliate and destroy the “other”, they regain status in the society and they get to finally leave their painful and depressing lives. All around, raping kids is seen as a win-win situation in the Arab world.

    • The very fact that an Arab male child one day leaves the bosom of his mother’s company where he is spoiled rotten only to enter a world where he is immediately brutalized and exploited must also leave an indelible mark on the child’s psyche that remains forever.

      I think this is THE fundamental source of the extreme emotional instability so often found in Arabic men. Imagine the shock and horror and deep seated feelings of worthlessness and helplessness this would bring on. In time, this develops into the toxic feelings shame that plagues the lives of Arab males.

      I think this is the reason Arab males can fly into a homicidal rage at an instant if he thinks he is being shamed; it’s also why Arabs will do anything, to include inflicting horrific violence or engaging in deranged denials of reality, to avoid feeling this emotion. They have to avoid reliving the horror of their upbringing at all costs. Until Arabs stop shocking their children in this horrific way, they’ll never fix their society

  5. A colleague when he was enlisted in the air force was based in the middle east for a while and told me the story of how one night he and an male officer went to a nightclub in a hotel where a western woman was singing. A sheik sitting closer to the stage was tossing the equivalent of $100 bills in her direction but when she finished she walked straight past him on her way out ignoring the bills on the floor. At that point the sheik started peeling off more bills from the wad he had in his hand and tossed them in the direction of the officer which caused him severe loss of face in front of his subordinate and he left with much haste.

  6. In his second paragraph, Russkiy wrote: “One person in the forum argued that if Saudi rulers don’t do something quickly to address the problem, 100% of the male population will be homosexuals.”

    That sad occurrence could be a solution to halt the encroaching Islamization of the Western world.

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  8. Very informative article. I mentioned it just last night over a beer with a pal who works in Kabul and he confirmed that homosexual activity is rampant – although as mentioned – more in the poor countryside than the urban centers. In reference to the “positive” and “negative” roles – he said alot of men self-indentify this by ink tattoos on either the inside or outside of their right hands. This shows their “pitcher” or “catcher” preference. For most hetro westerns it makes shaking hands an unpleasant experience.

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  13. I have noticed this amongst Arabs and quite a few muslims, it is really disgusting how some see it as normal behavior. This shows often it is a cultural practice and not that people are born that way. People should not encourage such behavior in countries that do not tolerate it. I find often this kind of behavior comes with the Islamization of countries. In Africa this behavior is an abomination, but it is heard of amongst muslims in countries that the cultural norms forbid it. Whether you are active or the submissive partner you are both homosexuals. I usually do not like to criticize others cultures but saying the active one is not gay is hypocrisy at its highest form. Homosexuality is not sex it is about domination and has no place in a civilized world.

  14. The article is rather slightly confusing and so are some comments below. People are confusing homosexuality with pedophilia or child abuse. They are not the same.

    Homosexuality is the innate sexual, emotional and romantic attraction to people of the same sex. It is the same as heterosexuality, except the attraction is to the same sex instead of the opposite.

    A homosexual guy doesn’t feel attracted to kids, he feels attracted to other guys like him.

    This article seems more to be talking about child abuse. Child abuse is related to power and dominace. Someone who abuses a child only does so because he enjoys having dominance over a kid. That person is not driven by sex exactly, but by dominance. A child abuser can be either heterosexual or homosexual, although it seems to be that most child abusers are heterosexual men.

    So, homosexuality has nothing to do with pedophilia or child abuse.

  15. >>>Another thing that would lead to more muslim men being sexually frustrated would be the relative absence of available wives (for every man who has 4 wives, there are going to be 3 men with no wife, unless additional women are brought into the society as slaves).

    This is true, but to clear, historically polygamy was typically prevalent in societies with high male mortality due to war or other dangerous conditions. The more males are removed as a percentage of the population, the more room there is for the relatively few remaining men to take multiple wives.

    Also, since female prostitutes can gratify multiple men, prostitution is another historically proven way of addressing male sexual frustration due to skewed gender ratios.

  16. I think what we have forgot is the homosexual rulers of the west. These people are promoting every religion except Christianity. Islam seems to be their religion of choice. The modern Islamic jihadis of alquida or ISIS have every attribute loved by the members of the Luciferian elite controlling the west and the world.

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