On Sep 28, 2007, at 10:50 AM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
> On the contrary, Massad's book criticizes not only Orientalism of the
> "Gay International" but also secular Arab nationalist and Islamist
> discourses that seek to make pre-modern sexual discourses obsolete,
> pursuing the ideology of "progress" and adopting "a Victorian sexual
> ethic." The Financial Times reviewer -- either because he is smarter
> than Whitaker, Proyect, and Henwood or because, unlike them, he has no
> chip on his shoulder -- understands that.
That's not what Whitaker's review was about, was it? It was mostly about Massad's beef with the "Gay International," which he accuses of cultural imperialism, while apparently offering little evidence for his claim.
That aside, time has a way of making pre-modern discourses obsolete, whether you'd like to preserve them or not. A lot of gay Arabs and Iranians are trying to figure out their world and their desires with the help of the Internet, and organizing themselves to the extent to which their government allows, which usually isn't much. Ah, but the Internet is ultimately a product of the Pentagon, so maybe it is an imperialist plot after all.
Doug