I lived and worked openly gay in Saudi Arabia and the UAE for 25 years.

[MADem]

197. This is probably a bit TL/DR, but I hope you'll try to wade through it and I hope I am expressing

myself with at least a bit of clarity.

I hate to repeat it, but it's because they didn't have respect for you as a person that they "tolerate" you as "gay." (The quotes are deliberate, as there's a difference, discussed downthread, between having sex with someone of the same gender, and being gay.) As an infidel, you lacked humanity, you lacked a soul. I'm not saying this to be rude, I am trying to explain a mindset. If you "self-identify" as "gay," that's a problematic label for someone who follows Islam.

People from the west often think that because a society of people are polite, even friendly, that they actually like them and respect them. In actual fact, the culture demands politeness, hospitality, courtesies towards guests (to do otherwise in a harsh environment could mean death otherwise). Over in Iran, at the edge of the "middle eastern" region, they even have a name for it--taarof. It's fake. It's plastered on, it's thin as paper. It's horribly insincere, but it is interwoven into the society. Only very recently are the young people striving to dispense with some of that shit, but even they can get sucked in because it is so traditional.

People who live there know this--they may use/even abuse the notion of taarof to "find shit out" about people, or get a bit of gossip, but if they do it too much people who are victims of it will hear the doorbell and refuse to answer it if they know who is on the other side of the door. I can't tell you how many times I've done that, and been in homes of close friends where we laugh like hell (quietly) while we have waited for Nosy Parker to go away. The minute they're in the door, though, you've got to be courteous. No exceptions. It's a "rule" that most people in the west don't get.

The Japanese do the same thing when it comes to being gracious--they can be charming to your face, and talk about you in unflattering terms in front of you when they think you don't understand (which, if you let on, can lead to some interesting scenes of self-humiliation in a formal setting). But that's tangential, I only include it to point out that the western paradigms don't apply in a variety of settings, not just Islamic ones.


I think, what you might be trying to express (but--and I don't mean this in a mean way, you're failing miserably to do...your OP sounds like an endorsement, even if that isn't what you meant) can be found in this ATLANTIC (no fan of them, particularly, but this article hits the notes) article:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-kingdom-in-the-closet/305774/

It's long, but please click/read--I do think this is sort of what you are trying to say.

Of course, this piece is seven years old, and the "fundy 'tude" waxes and wanes there--it has been so doing for the past two decades, at least.

Perhaps the clearest and most concise way to explain it all is as follows--there's a real and IMPORTANT difference in that region between "engaging in sex with a person of the same gender" and "being gay." The former is tolerated if a person is young and single or the wife is indisposed, so long as you're transmitting as opposed to receiving, but the latter is BAAAAAAAAAD and against Islam and PUNISHABLE!!!! That in a nutshell, IS the attitude--and it's explained in some detail in the article I've offered, above.

The fact that "gay rights" have hit the news in the past decade or two has finally started to put pressure on KSA with regard to this issue--the "same gender sex" is starting to be called "gay sex" over there, and people are being asked to fish or cut bait. It's creating a tension that hithertofore hasn't really been perceived over there. Things were so much simpler for KSA when no one wanted to "Say it loud" about being "Gay and Proud." Now that being gay has been normalized throughout the world, there is a conflict between religious norms and the rest of the globe, and it's not so easy for "heterosexuals" or "bisexuals" to engage in same gender sex without being expected to wear a LABEL--and that's where the societal tension is fostered.