US Publication The Atlantic runs a cover story on being gay in Saudi Arabia. I’m sure the appearance of the article will make many Saudis unhappy—the social prohibition about ‘washing dirty laundry in public’ is a strong one. Nevertheless, this is an accurate depiction of the lives of gays in Saudi Arabia, both as a Saudi and a foreigner.

The lengthy article looks at a variety of practices and their social meanings as well as the legal and religious prohibitions that affect them. It notes that a society that strictly prohibits sexual relations between unmarried heterosexuals is somewhat more lax about ‘temporary’ sexual relations between unmarried homosexuals. Even though prohibited by law and technically subject to the death penalty, that is never done, unless there is another crime—such as the rape of a minor—involved. As a result, the country has a well established, though also well closeted gay lifestyle. This fact runs counter to many stereotypes that tend to see Saudi Arabia as ‘Taliban Lite”, but the facts will out.

Unfortunately, the full text of the article is available only to subscribers, so I can only provide an excerpt without violating copyright laws. If you can’t put your hands on the full text, I suspect you could ask someone with access to mail you a copy.

Sodomy is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia, but gay life flourishes there. Why it is “easier to be gay than straight” in a society where everyone, homosexual and otherwise, lives in the closet

The Kingdom in the Closet

by Nadya Labi

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Yasser, a 26-year-old artist, was taking me on an impromptu tour of his hometown of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on a sweltering September afternoon. The air conditioner of his dusty Honda battled the heat, prayer beads dangled from the rearview mirror, and the smell of the cigarette he’d just smoked wafted toward me as he stopped to show me a barbershop that his friends frequent. Officially, men in Saudi Arabia aren’t allowed to wear their hair long or to display jewelry—such vanities are usually deemed to violate an Islamic instruction that the sexes must not be too similar in appearance. But Yasser wears a silver necklace, a silver bracelet, and a sparkly red stud in his left ear, and his hair is shaggy. Yasser is homosexual, or so we would describe him in the West, and the barbershop we visited caters to gay men. Business is brisk.

Leaving the barbershop, we drove onto Tahlia Street, a broad avenue framed by palm trees, then went past a succession of sleek malls and slowed in front of a glass-and-steel shopping center. Men congregated outside and in nearby cafés. Whereas most such establishments have a family section, two of this area’s cafés allow only men; not surprisingly, they are popular among men who prefer one another’s company. Yasser gestured to a parking lot across from the shopping center, explaining that after midnight it would be “full of men picking up men.” These days, he said, “you see gay people everywhere.”
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