(no subject)
Spending brief moments in a place I cannot begin to comprehend, with its endless intricacy. All Persian stories, like the one about the young lovers who were interrupted by a nosy ex, setting off a flock of storks, can easily be translated into Gay by changing a few names and gender pronouns.
I am staying at a five star resort while outside the gates people, dogs and wild boars are picking through garbage strewn on empty lots. Inside the resort, the air is perfumed with roses, rose petals are tossed on pillows and towels, there are beautiful modern chandeliers that feel like Aria or Encore in Vegas. But it is better than Vegas because it is so real. A luxury that stands side by side in defiance to the squalor that surrounds it.
In Peshawar, Pakistan, as I am sure is the case in Afghanistan and perhaps Saudi Arabia as well, behind closed doors of palaces and villas gay orgies are unfolding where HIV pre-tested young studs stage elaborate orgies with their masters and each other. That is how the Middle East works, people. It has nothing to do with gay or straight, religion, Quran, fear of terrorists and divine retribution. In order to understand the Middle East, you have to experience it on the ground with its formal hospitality, brotherhood, love, pleasure, spaces to be civilized and uncivilized.