NP - Kandahar's Queens

[David Morris]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-000023881apr03.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dworld

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- In his 29 years, Mohammed Daud has seen the faces 
of perhaps 200 women. A few dozen were family members. The rest were 
glimpses stolen when he should not have been looking and the women were 
caught without their face-shrouding burkas.

"How can you fall in love with a girl if you can't see her face?" he asks.

Daud is unmarried and has sex only with men and boys. But he does not 
consider himself homosexual, at least not in the Western sense. "I like 
boys, but I like girls better," he says. "It's just that we can't see the 
women to see if they are beautiful. But we can see the boys, and so we can 
tell which of them is beautiful."

[...]

Visitors might think they see the signs. For one thing, Afghan men tend to 
be more intimate with other men in public than is common in the West. They 
will kiss, hold hands and drape their arms around each other while drinking 
tea or talking.

Moreover, there is a strong streak of dandyism among Pushtun males. Many 
line their eyes with kohl, stain their fingernails with henna or walk about 
town in clumsy, high-heeled sandals.

[...]

Regardless, when asked directly, few deny that a significant percentage of 
men in this region have sex with men and boys. Just ask Mullah Mohammed 
Ibrahim, a local cleric.

"Ninety percent of men have the desire to commit this sin," the mullah says. 
"But most are right with God and exercise control. Only 20 to 50% of those 
who want to do this actually do it."





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