Homophobic and anti-gay people tend not see this kind of behavior as homosexual. Even if they saw it as criminal, they would see it as manly, because it was violent and our guys were in charge and not the ones being degraded.
Patai explains this dynamic best:
"The Arab attitude coincides with that of the Turks, among whom the performance of the active homosexual act is considered as an assertion of one's aggressive masculine superiority, while the acceptance of the role of the passive homosexual is considered extremely degrading and shameful because it casts the man or youth into a submissive, feminine role."
An egregious example of this occurred last week in the Bronx. A gang of Hispanic machos lured a well-liked and openly gay man (he was called "she" by many in the neighborhood) to an abandoned house where they stripped him, tied him up with tape and anally raped him for hours with a small baseball bat. They did it because they found his feminine gayness obnoxious.
One of the military's fears about allowing gays to be open about who they are could be fear of this kind of hateful, violent backlash and a reluctance to crack down hard on it.
Eros and Thanatos
It must be said that there is absolutely no connection between the horrendous, sadistic activities at Abu Ghraib Prison and the issue of soldiers who may be gay serving in the United States military. It's the difference between what war correspondent Chris Hedges sketches out as the cultural and psychological forces of Thanatos, the death instinct , and Eros, the life instinct.
Hedges, a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School, believes that our militaristic culture is disastrously lost in the realm of Thanatos and tragically wedded to the use of violence as a tool of influence and as the ultimate arbiter of value.
I have a friend who was a Navy corpsman who spent a year in combat in Vietnam patching up wounded and dying Marines. He was gay then, and he's gay now. He lives with his partner of 20 years. Those he saved in Vietnam didn't care if he was gay. These days, he dedicates himself to clearing the world of landmines and cluster bombs, since he has seen very close up what they do to a human body.
When I think of my friend Mike and his service in the US military and the ridiculous and dishonest dance now going on in Washington to keep reality at bay just a little longer, the absurdity of it all gets more and more incredible.
So who better to call up in this argument than the great American democratic bard of Eros , Walt Whitman. Here's a paean to the bisexual nature Freud recognized in all humans part of the passionate yin and yang of life.
A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing is lacking,
Yet all were lacking if sex were lacking, or of the moisture of the right man were lacking.
Sex contains all, bodies, souls,
Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
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