Gay Travels in the Muslim World

By Michael T. Luongo

Book Overview

Travel beyond the fear and paranoia of 9-11 to experience Muslim culture

Gay Travels in the Muslim World journeys where other gay travel books fear to treadMuslim countries. This thought-provoking book tells both Muslim and non-Muslim gay men's stories of traveling in the Middle East during these difficult political times. The true, very personal tales reveal how gay men celebrate their lives and meetings with local men, including a gay soldier's story of his tour of duty in Iraq. Insightful and at times sexy, this intelligent book goes beyond 9-11 and the present political and cultural divides to illustrate the real experiences of gay men in trouble zonesin an effort to seek peace for all.

After the collapse of the Twin Towers, fears about terrorism and Muslim culture went hand in hand. Gay Travels in the Muslim World enters the current war zones to bring real and very personal stories of gay men who live and travel in these dangerous areas. This book challenges readers' preconceptions and assumptions about both homosexuality and being Muslim, while showing the wide range of experiencesgood and badabout the regions as well as the differences in attitudes and beliefs.

Excerpts from Gay Travels in the Muslim World:

From I Want Your Eyes by David Stevens
Men by themselves are rare. I pass a handsome Omani man sitting on the Corniche wall with a cigarette between his long brown fingers. He wears his colourful cuma cap at a jaunty angle and his mustard-coloured dishdasha has risen up to reveal tantalizingly hairy calves. I note the carefully made holes in his earsnot in his ear lobes but deep inside the cartilagesa pre-Islamic custom still practiced on some male babies to ward off evil spirits. I decide it suits him.

From It All Began with Mamadou by Jay Davidson
Drawing definitive conclusions about a society after living here for a little more than a year is not a wise, safe, or responsible action on my part. If a society's culture is a mosaic of thousands of little tiles, then I like to think that what I have been able to piece together has been a tableau in which certain aspects have become discernable, some are a little less clear, and others remain in a way that I will never see as whole and comprehensible.

From A Market and a Mosque by Martin Foreman
Sylhet, Bangladesh: It's eight o'clock in the evening and Tarique and Paritosh are taking me out to look at the cruising spots. Until I flew in here this afternoon, all I knew of the provincial city and the surrounding area was that it was where most of the Bangladeshis in the UK come fromand since most of the Bangladeshis in the UK live in my home borough of Tower Hamlets, I feel a kind of affinity with the place. Whether or not Sylhet feels an affinity with me is a different matter.

From Work In Progress: Notes From A Continuing Journey of Manufacturing Dissent by Parvez Sharma
In the construction of the image and life of the queer Muslim is also the awareness of the not so well known fact that a sexual revolution of immense proportions came to the earliest Muslims, some 1,300 years before the West had even thought about it. This promise of equal gender rights and, unlike in the Bible, the stress on sex as not just reproduction but also enjoyment within the confines of marriage has all but been lost in the rhetoric spewing from loudspeakers perched on Masjid'sor mosquesin Riyadh, Marrakech and Islamabad. The same Islam that has for centuries not only tolerated but also openly celebrated homosexuality is, today, used to justify a state-sanctioned pogrom against gay men in EgyptAmerica's enlightened friend in the Middle East.

Gay Travels in the Muslim World is a refreshing, well written look a

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1560233400
• ISBN13: 9781560233404
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Routledge
• Length: 228 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

I want to get going again!

Apart from the 'foreword', preface and acknowledgements, I found this book to be compelling. I guess I would have to class myself as a closet gay traveller so I found the stories exciting and sometimes a little unbelievable. I really liked the stories about encounters that occurred in places to which I have been, but alas, none of the excitement happened to me. Perhaps I should return? I've walked along the corniche in Cairo at night, along the corniche in Muscat at night etc but never noticed anything that remotely looked like men / boys looking to be picked up. For me, there is something almost mystical about the Arab world and many of the stories have made me think about going to those places. Some of the writers are very adept at telling their stories which made them a pleasure to read. This is the first gay book that I have ever bought and it inspired me to order another. There were just a couple of chapters that did nothing for me, but other than them, I thoroughly recommend the book.

Useful Reading

This is a selection of 18 articles, varying considerably in length, quality, and richness of information. While one should expect accounts of real travels, events, and people, some of the articles are pure fiction. This is unfortunately the case of the only article on Israel, involving two teenagers: an Israeli soldier and an Arab boy (written by an American, carrying BA and MA degrees). The title leads to think that a balanced "sample" of the Muslim world would be given. However, most of the artciles deal with the Middle East, with the lion's share going to Morroco with 4 articles. The most surprising and informative is the article on Afghanistan (by the Editor), the funniest is the one on Oman, the most erotic is the one on Iraq (fiction??), and the most romantic is the on on Turkey. The book is certainly informative, entertaining, and at times erotic. All in all, it gives a good and useful background information, focussing in many articles on the importance of the cultural differences beween Western and Muslim societies. This, I think is a very helpful point for those who intend to travel to a Muslim country.

A colorful, thoughtful collection

As a contributor to many different publications, including Horror 101: The A-List of Horror Films and Monster Movies, I am happy to add Gay Travels in the Modern World to my list of credits. The diversity of styles, backgrounds, and ideas of the contributors to this book is a perfect reflection of the diversity in the experiences in both the gay and Muslim worlds. It's impossible not to read this collection without reflecting on how these worlds sometimes collide, sometimes overlap. Don Bapst, author of danger@liaisons.com

Broader prospective than the Middle East

The book description mentions "traveling in the Middle East." Readers should understand that the Muslim world far exceeds this limited geographic region and that many of the stories in this book were written by people whose travels were in other areas. I write this as the author of one of the stories in the book. My experiences were in Africa.

Thoughtful Reading of The Muslim World

"Gay Travels in the Muslim World" is quick interesting reading. Luongo's perface to the book is most note worthy. He presents the issue of homosexuality in a framework of identity versus practices which is thoughtful. I would recommend this book for students of sociology and African American studies who are focused on learning more about ascribed and achieved life roles within society. John Barfield Evanston, IL