Considering that gay sex is illegal in Pakistan, it’s not hugely surprising that the country recently polled as one of the least tolerant nations in the world when it comes to homosexuality.
A Pew Research Center public survey found that only two percent of Pakistanis surveyed believe society should accept homosexuality.
So why is Pakistan the leading country for Google searches of the terms “shemale sex,” “teen anal sex,” and “man fucking man”?
Mother Jones recently investigated this issue, and the details they found are both sad and alarming.
How about we take this to the next level?
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Reporter Alex Park learned that the highest number of hits are coming from Peshawar, a city known for being extremely conservative, and where only a few days ago the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for an attack on NATO supply trucks that killed four people.
As part of his investigation, Park interviewed Farahnaz Ispahani, an expert in Pakistani minorities at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a former member of Pakistan’s parliament. She told him that many Muslim men engage in physical relationships with one another; however, religious extremism is making it more difficult for them. It’s gotten to a point where merely speaking about homosexuality in public is practically forbidden.
“Religious extremism is at a height today,” Ispahani told Park. “Hindus are being forced to convert, Christians are being burned alive — there’s very little personal safety for those seen as ‘the other.’ So what do [gay Pakistanis] do? They turn to pornography because they can’t live their lives openly.”
Makes a certain weird sense, although open gays seem to like their porn, too!
Photo Credit: Charles Roffey
Gigi Gee
It’s the Red States in the U.S. that have the highest rate of online porn consumption so this story seems about right.
LadyL
@Gigi Gee: LOL, you beat me to the punch Gigi!
avesraggiana
The article is lovely, but the picture is misleading. There are plenty of countries in the world, even the most homo-phobic, where men holding each other is not only acceptable, but perfectly normal. Platonic, heterosexual guy-friends in India and Africa and Oceania, to name just a few general places, walk down the street holding hands all the time. The only ones who take notice are the foreign Anglo-European or American visitors, for whom this kind of behaviour is totally off limits.
Dionte
@avesraggiana: then how do they know who to arrest for being gay?
Milk
@Dionte:
I presume with their clothes off.
avesraggiana
@Dionte:
I don’t know but I could guess – being caught in the act of anal or oral sex, to someone searching through your copmuter, to merely being accused of being gay are possible ways of getting arrested. My point was that in those parts of the world, men holding hands or keeping their arms around each other’s shoulders do not register as behaviour that would be considered “gay”.
Korben
The biggest kept secret among men in the Islamic world are their berdaches.
Stache1
Reminds me of when i lived with a very devout Christian roommate. He would make his regular adult bookstore stop and buy these nice glossy porn magazines. Get home jack off to them and immediately throw them away out of guilt. I got in the habit of checking the garbage for the weekly throw away. I took advantage of his Christian guilt i guess.
avesraggiana
@Stache1:
Good for you. All his wasted money, all your fun. I know it’s deeply internalized in our society, but it’s more pronounced amongst deeply religious Christians – where on earth did we/they get the idea that God and Jesus disapproved of something as enjoyable as sex?