Puar and Qureshi

Emram Qureshi’s article in The Boston Globe works well as a companion piece to Jasbir Puar’s chapter, Abu Ghraib and U.S. Sexual Execptionalism. By using Raphael Patai’s 1973 book, The Arab Mind, Qureshi’s article further shows how Orientalist tropes are manufactured by making sweeping generalizations that are extrapolated from dubious antidotal references; In the case of Arabs, that being nomadic Bedouin culture. The Arab Mind also acts as a contemporary and powerful example of how Orientalist discourses specifically on sexuality of Muslims have perpetuated into the 21^st century but more importantly how the acceptance of these fallacious tropes ultimately informs US foreign policy and concomitantly how U.S. sexual exceptionalism is created (83).

Orientalist’s notions of sexuality are reanimated through the “transnational production” of the Muslim terrorist as a torture object and the production of this identity is performativity constituted by  “the very evidence that is said to be its results” (88). The Muslim body informs the torture at the same time that torture forms the Muslim body. Torture acts as a confirmation of what is already suspected of the Muslim body. A body, where underneath the veils of repression sizzle the indecency waiting to be unleashed (87). This highlights the very themes that are found within Patai’s book which describes Arabs as only being able to understand force and that the biggest weakness of Arabs is shame and weaknesses (1). The Orient is now no longer seen as a space for unfettered sin but is rather transformed to symbolize a space of repression and perversion, and this notion of freedom once attributed to the Orient now resides in western identity (94). In doing so the US is able foster its own exceptionalism by putting of the US subject in dialectic with the Muslim victim. “The violence of the United States as an exceptional event” (113) creates a US subject that is morally and culturally exceptional through the very production of the victim as repressed, barbaric, and even homophobic. These claims are further grounded by the normativization of the United States own homosexual subjects (113). 

week 14

This weeks reading Puar discusses the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Because of the photographs that Puar mentions in the reading, Abu Ghraib was seen as a representation of mistreatment of prisoners by the US troops.  Puar argues that the torture of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib is exceptional because of how it has been constructed by American political leaders and media. In the reading Puar draws on photographs that were taken at Abu Ghraib, including a picture of a pyramid of nude men, which is a very infamous picture today ’’ Iraqi prisoners are arranged naked in human pyramids, simulating both the feminized prone position, anus in the air, necessary to receive anal sex, and the ‘activo’ mounting stance of anal sex’’.

President Bush claimed that the prison guards ’‘Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people’’, but Puar argues that American exceptionalism has been used to seperate the prison guards actions. Puar argues that the sexual torture against the Iraqi priosoners was a method of punishment, to attack the priosoners cultural morals. Towards the end of the reading Puar asks us to consider’’ whether these acts of turture really reveal anything instrinc or particular to American Culture’’?

  Both readings mention Patai’s The Arab Mind, which is a book where he writes about the perceptions of muslims and he takes on arab ideas of shame and honor. He also shows that Arabs are not more repressed than Westerners.

In this week's readings, Puar elaborates on concepts introduced in her previous chapter concerning homonationalism and biopolitics, connecting it to the Abu Ghraib case where Iraqi prisoners were tortured at length by US soldiers, sparking international debate and outrage. By expounding upon the notion of US exceptionalism, Puar explains how the Abu Ghraib case and its reception is a highly emotionally charged platform through which the US displays its tendency to discourses of state of exception.
        Mentioned in both of the readings is Patai's The Arab Mind, a text that formed the basis for these cultural assumptions, in turn leading into the formation of the Muslim subject perceived to be sexually repressed and prideful, which in turn helped develop the torture methods used by the soldiers in Abu Ghraib. The kind of violence targeted in this case, sexual violation, and the transparency of the crime help to project US culture and viewpoint on the Muslim subject. By declaring that this act was particularly atrocious due to the humiliation suffered by a "homosexual act", the US not only creates an all-encompassing structure of Muslim culture, but also positions itself as a nation that is more open-minded, more tolerant, and more "progressive" than its ethnic other. Similar to the case of the two men charged with rape of another boy when underage, the incident at Abu Ghraib is also being used as a vehicle for further propulsion on the subject of homosexuality in the US through its focus on the sexual crime. As various members of the LBGT community lament the negative light cast by this incident, Puar argues that the main atrocity, the corporeal torture of the prisoners, stays in the shadows.For this case to even receive media attention, it had to fit a certain criteria in line with the news' agenda. The US as occupying nation manages to turn a particularly heinous crime into a representation of itself as a "free" nation, diverting attention away from the normalization of corporeal torture. By condemning these acts as sexual violation, the US has secured itself as the moral upholder, home to those that are "truly free."

Week 12 - Puar & Long

Jasbir Puar - Homonationalism and Biopolitics

In this piece, Puar explains 'homonationalism' in relation to American exceptionalism and how it homonationalism is defined by race and class and is different from homonormativity. The term homonationalism is coined by Puar to note the sexual exception America has made towards it's citizens' sexuality as long as the homosexual citizens “complicit to heterosexual nationalism” (p.4). This complicity involves following a moral superiority discourse as well as “bio-political valorization of life and death” (11). Puar argues that the American exceptinalism to sexuality is specifically related to class since based on America's realization that homosexuality can still foster a consumer culture with aims to emulate the nuclear family. Puar supports her claims that American exceptionalism is also judged by race and gender by looking at the demographic that reflects “Dont Ask, Dont Tell” military policy that shows more men and women of women being closeted through this policy. (this is also supported in Scott Long's article). American homonormativity appears to be reserved for white middle class men. Homonationalism then becomes supportive of white secular norms that perpetuate the islamophobic ideas that tranform into “islam vs homosexuality”(p.19).

Puar looks at OutRage!, a European gay activist group, to show how muslim/gay binaries are produced. The convictions of these activists becomes saving or women and queers from islamic laws. Puar comments, “displays of solidarity with queers, often well-intentioned gestures of inclusion and acknowledgment of multicultual diversity, that may unwittingly replicate the very neocolonial assumptions OutRage! seeks to dislodge.” (p.19) Puar argues that it is the process of pointing the finger to islamic rule and reinstating that 'one is outside of them' that violence is perpetuated. (p24).

Scott Long also looks at a case OutRage! takes on as part of it's crusade to save homosexuals from islam. The case is the hanging of Makwan Mouloudzadeh for rape. OutRage! was lost in translation and saw sodomy as part of the headline assuming Makwan was being hanged for homosexuality. OutRage! and other gay activists ran with it and refused to acknowledge 'by force' in 'sodomy by force' that Makwan could have been a rapist to support then condemnation of religious homophobia. The Makwan story goes through a series of misinterpretations making Makwan a martyr for gay love. OutRage! Finally admits that there might have been a mistranslation but that the real problem is still muslim regime. Long criticizes techniques to gather information form radical gay activists because they make they silence and make invisible the real people in islamic culture. Long uncovers many problems with in these activist groups and explains how a victim begins to victimize, using their gayness to find solidarity with in other gays across cultures and 'veneer prejudice with respectability”.

This article was eyeopening, I was shocked to see how some gay activists work it's sad (and just shady). I like how Scoot Long summed it up:

“Their images continued being exploited when their wills were gone. What if they were ‘gay?’ What if it is true, what if all the frenetic speculation astonishingly corresponds to fact? Then they died for it, terribly and unjustly. But should that fragile connection then be turned into a vehicle for others’ ends, for promoting fear or engendering division or intimidating immigrants or selling the idea of a war?” (131)

- Hector

Week 11

In both of these articles by Najmabadi and El-Rouayheb all discuss the premodern views of “homosexuality” in Arab-Muslim society. But they take different point of views to show the effects of homosexuality in these societies such as premodern European society. They also talk about how sexuality in pre-nineteenth century had no specified gender in the Ottoman and Qajar Persia but also on the contrary of how there was a fix of homosexual orientation in these Islamic world.

 Najmabadi expresses the difference between Ghilman and hur and how commonly they were defined through the Qur’an verses and how it described pleasure and the understanding the beauty of male and female beauties. For instance, when it came to the males a beard was seen as the mark of manhood which was a transition from an object of desire to a desiring subject.  She elaborates on how there was still a need of how some man would shave off their beards to where they still would be desired by adult men.  She uses many definitions of homosexuality to translate Islamic/Muslim society’s pre European invasion on “homosexuality” and it was defined by “females segregated controlled, young/ and or effeminate males available for sexual penetration are tacitly accepted and very carefully ignored in Muslim societies in past and present.” So with Najmabadi focuses more on gender and with El-Rouayheb goes more on a historiographical point of view on “homosexual” and how there was more of an influence on the society through an imposed lens of a premodern Western society. By this it shows how Islamic religious scholars of this period were committed to show how sodimy was the most offensive sins man could commit. She continues to show how “homosexuality” and “heterosexuality” was developed in the nineteenth century and how it overlaps with the concepts of “sodomite.”

Both of these authors give a great insight as to how homosexuality has transformed over the years and how the influence of modern Western societies have had an influential lens on the difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality in addition  they avoid to critique the normality of Muslim frenzied sexuality. It was great to read these articles because it also gave great insight as to how Western societies can have a great influence of how one might change the roles of gender in society base on their Orientalist views. As El-Rouayheb states “distinctions not captured by the concept of “homosexuality” were all-important from the perspective of the culture of the period.”  Which I find to be very true but I see sexuality is a topic a lot of people do not want to speak about.

Week 11: Is Sexuality a Modern Day Notion?

This week’s readings call into question what ‘modern’ day notions of sexuality really are; both readings analyze the effects of imperialism on sexuality in the Arab/Muslim world from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century. Afsaneh Najmabadi’s piece Early Qajar focused on how pre-imperialist Ottoman Empire saw sexual desire as acceptable and celebrated beauty in all forms, without using gendered adjectives. Neither beauty nor sexual attraction were gendered and strongly regulated until the 19^th century. Khaled El-Rouayheb’s work Before Homosexulaity in the Arab-Islamic World agrees with Najmabadi, and further explicated why homosexuality is not a modern day concept formed in late 19^th century Europe, but rather homosexuality has been an acceptable party of everyday life before imperialism and colonialism. 

            The readings both caused me to, once again, reevaluate modernity. What it is? When did it begin? And what concepts are we trying to claim as inherently modern even with evidence suggesting otherwise? Only in the past few decades has there been a push to give equal rights to people identifying as homosexual. This increased pressure on countries to give rights to homosexuals has led to corporations and nations alike to using gay rights as a way of marking their modernity. The assumption has become that a modern, well-developed country would openly provide rights to the homosexual individuals of the population. These readings show that the world before imperialism was not homophobic, only after colonialism did most of these nations begin to think of homosexuality as a sin.

            I came across a quote online that reaffirmed, Islam has been relatively open about sexual behavior and sexuality. http://tmihijabi.tumblr.com/post/80755960338 this post only prove to me that many of the ideas we consider to be so ‘modern’ are nothing more than the lasting effects of imperialism and only 200 years later are people coming forward with the truth. Sexuality is nothing new, as long as people have been around there has been sex in all its forms. It is ignorant to assume that sexuality is somehow a modern day notion.

Week 11 : Najmabadi and El-Rouayheb

In Najmabadis article ’‘Early Qajar’’ Najmabadi provides an understanding of gender-undifferentiated notions of beauty and desire, she also explains the modes of maleness(amrad) in Qajar. At the time adolescent men with first trace of mustache, were the ideals of male beauty.
The amrad was represented as the male object of desire. In Sufi practices, ’‘the figure of young adolescent men as object of desire was linked with the practice of gazing’’(17). The desire of adolescent men was not considered a sin because sin belonged to the real of deeds(18). Although the practice was punished it didn’t prosper.  Iranian images of beauty changed as the 19th century came to a close. When the images of beauty changed a normative concept of heterosexual love emerged.


In Khaled El-Rouayheb’s article ’’ Before Homosexexuality in the Arab-Islamic World, 1500-1800’’ he explains that the term ’‘homosexuality’’ was not used in the same way as it is today because before the 1900’s it didn’t even exist. ''Sodomy was according to the modern koran one of the worst sins you could make, ’’ However many of them clearly did not believe that falling in love with a boy or expressing this love in verse was therefor also illicit’’. For example there was a difference between ’’ falling ardently in love with a boy and expresing his love in verse and, on the other hand, committing sodomy with a boy’’(5). It was not possible to describe the forms of men loving each other because the term ’‘homosexuality’’ didn’t exist. El-Rouayheb mentioned three distinctions in in order to explain man-love.  There was a distinction between ’‘active’’ and ’‘passive’’ partners , a disctinction between passionate infatuation and sexual lust, and a distinction between anal intercourse and non-anal intercourse. All these distinctions showed what man-love means. Depending on the culture people responded differently to each distincition.

Week 11 - Najmabadi and El-Rouayheb

The selected chapters by Najmabadi and El-Rouayheb both problematize the use of "homosexual" in History by focusing on conceptions of sexuality and gender in pre-19th century Arabic speaking Ottoman territories and Qajar Persia. Both argue that conceptions of innate, fixed homosexual orientation and binary gender have distinctly European origins and, prior to European influence throughout the Middle East, did not match elite male notions of sexuality throughout the Islamic world.

El-Rouayheb articulates a very direct historiographic critique of the use of "homosexual", noting that both on cultural and legal levels, distinctions between passive and active roles, infatuation and lust, as well as specific acts committed were important. The translation of many Arabic terms as "homosexual" ignores these distinctions and anachronistically imposes modern, Western conceptions of sexuality and gender non-Western historical subjects. Najmabadi offers a similarly alternative understanding, focusing more on gender. Her exploration of the role of amrad in Qajar art and literature reveals a distinct gender category that exceeds boundaries of man-woman binaries common in History. Najmabadi demonstrates how concepts of beauty applied universally to beloveds in Qajar Persia differ with modern interpretations of gender and sexuality, an important distinction for any further historical study of  sexuality and gender. Furthermore, she distinguishes the distaste for sexual relations between adult men with the man-amrad love that was generally more accepted, deepening the understanding of amrad as a distinct gender category.

Both authors also carefully avoid and critique older Orientalist discourses on Muslim hyper-sexuality. El-Rouayheb notes how historians have attempted to explain prevalence of male homoerotic desire by both "oversatiated heterosexual appetites among the upper classes" (invoking understandings of harem culture) and, contrarily, frustrations caused by gender segregation. By mentioning this contradiction, El-Rouayheb demonstrates the insufficiency of previous historical understandings and distances himself from outdated discourses. Najmabadi also does this, mentioning that man-amrad relations were governed by its own set of values. She cites prohibitions against forcing adolescents into sexual relations as well as norms surrounding what class of persons (servant vs. ruler) could participate in sexual acts with whom. In doing this, she contests any notion that amrad culture was derived from racialized sexual deviance or moral deficiencies.