“Lightly veiled”
(Forgot to post this the other day. The number of entries that I plan and/or begin to write but don't get around to posting probably exceeds the number that I actually post.)
Fascinating LA Times article, courtesy of Mary Anne. It seems that the incidence of sex between men in Afghanistan is quite high:
"Ninety percent of men have the desire to commit this sin," the mullah says. "But most are right with God and exercise control. Only 20 to 50% of those who want to do this actually do it."
Following the mullah's math, this suggests that between 18% and 45% of men here engage in homosexual sex--significantly higher than the 3% to 7% of American men who, according to studies, identify themselves as homosexual.
(This despite the fact that the traditional penalties for homosexuality in Islam are "being burned at the stake, pushed over the edge of a cliff or crushed by a toppled wall." The Taliban killed two men accused of homosexuality in '98 by toppling a wall onto them.)
(K. makes a good point, though: these stats aren't really comparable, because there are a great many men in the US who engage in homosexual sex but don't identify as homosexual.)
One local man interviewed claims that Afghan men who have sex with other men are not actually homosexual; they're just short on options. Then he adds:
"I like boys, but I like girls better. [. . .] It's just that we can't see the women to see if they are beautiful. But we can see the boys, and so we can tell which of them is beautiful."
Nope, no homosexuality here, nosir. Yet another case where introducing the concept of bisexuality and reducing the stigma associated with homosexuality might lead to more honest definitions and self-descriptions. . . .
And then there's the fact that the new governor of Kandahar has recently "issued an order banning boys under 18 from living with troops."
The article, oddly, refers to American homosexuality in terms of "gender identity" -- but I think that was just a misuse of a phrase, rather than a misunderstanding of the concept.