LGB HistoryLGBT "rights" by country. (Calling all fact checkers)

submitted by OPPRESSED_REPTILIANIntersex male | GNC | Don't call me "a gay", "twink" or "queen" from self.LGBDropTheT

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[–]PenseePansyBio-Sex or Bust 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

And thank you for your kind words! :) (As well as advice on not getting banned/deleted; I've never de-lurked anywhere till this year, and am-- in case ya couldn't tell!-- still very much a newbie at the posting-game.) While yeah, I do have some info about KSA, it's all from reading; that yours is based on real-life interactions is in itself valuable. Provides an important dimension that books just cannot.

I understood that the discrimination against Shia is widespread and blatant; this really fleshes it out. No wonder that Sunni dude believed they were some cornucopia of badness-- it's what Saudi schools officially teach; he would have learned it as part of his lessons since tothood. Apparently, when on the hajj, Shia are sometimes prevented from entering Mecca at all by the mutawwa ("religious police"-- though "terrifying vigilante fanatics" sounds like a more accurate description). BTW, did you know that it's actually illegal for non-Muslims to go there? Though maybe we wouldn't wanna anyway, what with the Saudis having deliberately bulldozed pretty much every historically-significant building (like the one where Mohammad himself was born) and replaced 'em with soulless parking structures and strip malls! Why? Cuz nothing's worse than idolatry! So anything that might attract the faithfuls' veneration has gotta go. (This is how KSA's #2 family, the bin Ladens, made their fortune: ostensibly in construction... though maybe DEstruction is more like it!)

Yep, always thought that the place was near-impossible to get into for anyone who's not a business executive, federal government employee, "guest worker", or hajji... and that goes double for women. We've gotta have a sponsor, apparently-- cuz otherwise you're CLEARLY a prostitute, duh! (Travel books would suggest getting your hotel to act as sponsor, but who knows how well THAT ever worked, especially if the place you're staying in is less than five-star.) And there's never been any tourism-- except maybe right after 9/11 (for about 5 minutes), when it was announced as part of the short-lived see-we're-TOTALLY-not-evil-zealots-who'd-fly-planes-into-buildings PR-effort. Probably didn't inspire too many vacation plans. Also, if your passport has an Israeli stamp, KSA is a no-go (and vice-versa).

I'd heard that Middle Easterners are inveterate conspiracy theorists; sounds like the Saudis are no exception. Thanks for tipping me off about "The Arrivals"-- will have to check it (and its bonkers historical revisionism) out!

Yup: seems that most people in the Kingdom are "guest workers" rather than Saudi nationals. And plenty, I gather, aren't Muslim-- notably the typical housemaid, a Roman Catholic Filipina whose religion is of course illegal in KSA.

Your gay would-be Muslimizers are weirdly reminiscent of the Saudi cabbie from "Sandstorms" by Peter Theroux (the book that first got me interested in KSA), who alternated his demands that the author embrace Islam, and condemnations of western decadence, with frantically-horny requests for introductions to loose women and... boys. Guess pushing the Quran on people means you're exempt from actually following it yourself!

BTW, have you picked up any tidbits about the following?

  • the mutawwa
  • how do tribes work???
  • Saudi penchant for conducting unannounced executions in WTF places like parking lots
  • culture of the Najd (region where Riyad is, and Wahhabism/the al-Sauds is/are from), both in itself & vs KSA's other regions, esp. the Hejaz & Asir
  • connections (cultural etc.) between Asir & Yemen
  • Mohammad bin Salman: what do they think of him? And the claim that he's a "reformer" & this somehow offsets his authoritarian murderousness?
  • what Saudis think of the west, esp. the United States
  • any prospects for ever having a semi-secular democracy there? (I live in hope...)

And again: thanks so much for supplementing my book-learnin' with info gained IRL!

[–]our_team_is_winning 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

You know far more than me. I just have personal stories. I no longer work with the Saudis, so my stories have been cut off. Once I drove two guys -- a guy and his uncle, and the uncle was two years older! The one guy was 23 and his mom had just had a new baby! I drove them somewhere and I said "Wait, is this your first time to be in a car with a woman driving?" It was. I had a guy tell me "a driver and a cook are just standard" -- we in the West think only the rich have those. In KSA and other Gulf countries it's the norm. About the Filipina maids -- they are Muslim. Part of the Philippines (the South?) is Muslim. One Kuwaiti told me their Filipina maid was screaming one night -- he ran in and found her giving birth! Her previous employer had gotten her pregnant and somehow she had hidden it. That upset me so much. I knew one KSA Shia whose parents were divorced. I didn't think that happened, but it did. Mostly I used to tell the guys I felt so lucky to get to know them because in their country I would never be allowed to speak freely with them. I'd often be alone with one somewhere and ask if it made them uncomfortable? No. They liked it. In KSA however, we would have been arrested and probably flogged. For a while I was friends with a woman who was married to a man rather high up in their govt and her car had diplomatic plates. (I told her I think this means you can actually kill someone in the US and you won't be charged) -- She dressed Western and told me she had a Saudi female friend here who was very jealous because her husband wouldn't let her take off the face covering. I knew one woman who arrived in the hijab and after a few months it was off and she was showing cleavage! (Her husband and baby were back home -- I think her father or brother had flown over with her and then left, as KSA women aren't allowed to leave the country without a male guardian). Did you follow the story of the girl who escaped via Thailand? Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun. For a while I could not understand why women were named Mohammed -- your middle name is your father's name. I don't know what the mutawwa is; tribes are "qabeela" (no idea how to spell it! kabeela?) and they're huge, and when they have a wedding they invite hundreds of the extended clan and eat camels (!) MBS was new on the scene when my Saudi relations were ending, but I don't think they trust him. They have no movie theaters so they watch pirated things online. I'm sorry I have no info on your other questions. I know the jinn thing kept coming up. They all go out to the desert to camp and they think the jinn (I guess we say genies) play tricks on them out there. Everyone had a jinn story. Oh, and some of the women told me that when they'd go camping in the desert, their dads would let them try driving. And everyone knew a young man who'd been killed in a car crash -- they drive like maniacs, including tipping the car onto one side (who thought that was possible outside of some Hollywood action film?) -- they showed me video -- so they have a lot of speeding fatalities. Most everyone I met was from a family of six or more children, many as high as twelve. A lot of them were eagerly smoking pot here (before it was legal in this state). Alcohol and Western women were also their thing -- I used to ask them "You wouldn't do that at home, so why are you doing it here?" They told me "here is freedom country" (quote!) I knew some who moved in with non-Muslim girls, even though their families had picked out wives for them back home. That seemed really disrespectful to their future wives to me. The married ones I knew were mostly patriarchal as could be, really controlling her life and talking about her like she was his child. I knew maybe three married couples who were kind (at least around me) and seemed to respect each other. They all talk about kabsa constantly. I guess it's just rice with lamb or other dead animal. They seriously obsess over kabsa. One very insightful Shia guy told me he thinks they keep the Sunna-Shia trouble going so that the people fight each other and don't unite against the ruling family.