Gay Afghanistan News & Reports 2002-06

       3 Kandahar’s Lightly Veiled Homosexual Habits (Los Angeles Times) 4/02

Society: Restrictions on relations with women lead to greater prevalence of liaisons between men, a professor says.

"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."

Daud, a motorbike repairman who asked that only his two first names and not his family name be used, has a youthful face, a jaunty black mustache and a post-Taliban cleanshaven chin. As he talks, his knee bounces up and down, an involuntary sign of his embarrassment. "These are hard questions you are asking," he says. "We don’t usually talk about such things." Though rarely acknowledged, the prevalence of sex between Afghan men is an open secret, one most observant visitors quickly surmise. Ironically, it is especially true here in Kandahar, which was the heartland of the puritanical Taliban movement.

It might seem odd to a Westerner that such a sexually repressive society is marked by heightened homosexual activity. But Justin Richardson, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University, says such thinking is backward–it is precisely the extreme restrictions on sexual relations with women that lead to greater prevalence of the behavior. "In some Muslim societies where the prohibition against premarital heterosexual intercourse is extremely high–higher than that against sex between men–you will find men having sex with other males not because they find them most attractive of all but because they find them most attractive of the limited options available to them," Richardson says.

In other words, sex between men can be seen as the flip side of the segregation of women. And perhaps because the ethnic Pushtuns who dominate Kandahar are the most religiously conservative of Afghanistan’s major ethnic groups, they have, by most accounts, a higher incidence of homosexual relations. 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. The love by men for younger, beautiful males, who are called halekon, is even enshrined in Pushtun literature. A popular poem by Syed Abdul Khaliq Agha, who died last year, notes Kandahar’s special reputation. "Kandahar has beautiful halekon," the poem goes. "They have black eyes and white cheeks."

But a visitor who comments on such things is likely to be told they are not signs of homosexuality. Hugging doesn’t mean sex, locals insist. Men who use kohl and henna are simply "uneducated." 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." Following the mullah’s math, this suggests that between 18% and 45% of men here engage in homosexual sex–significantly higher than the 3% to 7% of American men who, according to studies, identify themselves as homosexual.

That is a large number to defy the strict version of Islam practiced in these parts, which denounces sex between men as taboo. Muslims seeking council from religious elders on the topic will find them unsympathetic. "Every person has a devil inside him," says Ibrahim. "If a person commits this sin, it is the work of the devil." The Koran mandates "hard punishment" for offenders, the mullah explains. By tradition there are three penalties: being burned at the stake, pushed over the edge of a cliff or crushed by a toppled wall.

During its reign in Kandahar, the Taliban implemented the latter. In February 1998, it used a tank to push a brick wall on top of three men, two accused of sodomy and the third of homosexual rape. The first two died; the third spent a week in the hospital and, under the assumption that God had spared him, was sent to prison. He served six months and fled to Pakistan. Apparently to discourage post-Taliban visitors, the owners of a nearby house have begun rebuilding on the site. "A lot of foreigners came and started interviewing people," says Abdul Baser, a 24-year-old neighbor, who points out the trench where the men were crushed. "Since then they have rebuilt the wall."

But many accuse the Taliban of hypocrisy on the issue of homosexuality. "The Taliban had halekon, but they kept it secret," says one anti-Taliban commander, who is rumored to keep two halekon. "They hid their halekon in their madrasas," or religious schools.

It’s not only religious authorities who describe homosexual sex as common among the Pushtun. Dr. Mohammed Nasem Zafar, a professor at Kandahar Medical College, estimates that about 50% of the city’s male residents have sex with men or boys at some point in their lives. He says the prime age at which boys are attractive to men is from 12 to 16–before their beards grow in. The adolescents sometimes develop medical problems, which he sees in his practice, such as sexually transmitted diseases and sphincter incontinence. So far, the doctor said, AIDS does not seem to be a problem in Afghanistan, probably because the country is so isolated.

"Sometimes when the halekon grow up, the older men actually try to keep them in the family by marrying them off to their daughters," the doctor says. Zafar cites a local mullah whom he caught once using the examination table in the doctor’s one-room clinic for sex with a younger man. "If this is our mullah, what can you say for the rest?" Zafar asks. Richardson, the psychiatry professor, says it would be wrong to call Afghan men homosexual, since their decision to have sex with men is not a reflection of what Westerners call gender identity. Instead, he compares them to prison inmates: They have sex with men primarily because they find themselves in a situation where men are more available as sex partners than are women. "It is something they do," he notes, "not something they are."

Daud, the motorbike repairman, would concur that the segregation of women lies at the heart of the matter. Daud says his first sexual experience with a man occurred when he was 20, about the time he realized that he would have difficulty marrying. In Pushtun culture, the man has to pay for his wedding and for gifts and clothes for the bride and her family. For many men, the bill tops $5,000–such an exorbitant sum in this impoverished country that some men, including Daud, are dissuaded from even trying.

"I would like to get married, but the economic situation in our country makes it hard," Daud says. Daud talked about his sex life only in private and after being assured that no photos would be taken. "I have relations with different boys–some for six months, some for one month. Some are with me for six years," he says. "The problem is also money. If you want to have a relationship with a boy, you have to buy things for him. That’s why it’s not bad for the boy. Some relationships need a lot of money, some not so much. Sometimes I fix a motorbike and give it to him as a present."

It is not easy to conduct homosexual affairs, he admits. Home is out of the question. "If my father were to find me, he’d kick me out of the house," Daud says. "If you want to have sex, you have to find a secret place. Some go to the mountains or the desert."

Opinions differ as to whether homosexual practices in Kandahar are becoming more open or more closed since the Taliban was defeated. For instance, after anti-Taliban forces arrived in the city in early December, some Westerners reported seeing commanders going about town openly with their halekon. But that has changed in recent weeks since Kandahar’s new governor, Gul Agha Shirzai, issued an order banning boys under 18 from living with troops. Officially, the ban is aimed at ending the practice of using children as soldiers.

"It is not that way," says one of the governor’s top aides, Engineer Yusuf Pashtun, objecting to the insinuation that the boys may have been used for sex. The governor’s order said only that "no boys should be recruited in the army before the age of 18," he adds. Still, the anti-Taliban commander, who is close to Shirzai, acknowledged that one goal of the order was to keep halekon out of the barracks. The move simply drove the practice underground, he says. Zafar, the doctor, says that in the community at large the Taliban frightened many men into abstinence. "Under the Taliban, no more than 10% practiced homosexual sex," he says. "But now the government isn’t paying attention, so it may go back up to 50%."

From Tim Reid in Kandahar, The Times of London, January 12, 2002
Our correspondent sees the gay capital of South Asia throw off strictures of the Taleban

Men accused of sodomy faced the punishment of having a wall toppled on to them, usually resulting in death. In February 1998 three men sentenced to death for sodomy in Kandahar were taken to the base of a huge mud and brick wall, which was pushed over by tank. Two of them died, but one managed to survive. "In the days of the Mujahidin, there were men with their ‘ashna’ everywhere, at every corner, in shops, on the streets, in hotels: it was completely open, a part of life," said Torjan, 38, one of the soldiers loyal to Kandahar’s new governor, Gul Agha Sherzai.

"But in the later Mujahidin years, more and more soldiers would take boys by force, and keep them for as long as they wished. But when the Taleban came, they were very strict about the ban. Of course, it still happened – the Taleban could not enter every house – but one could not see it." But for the first time since the Taleban fled, in the past three days, one can see the pairs returning: usually a heavily bearded man, seated next to, or walking with, a clean-shaven, fresh faced youth. There appears to be no shame or furtiveness about them, although when approached, they refuse to talk to a western journalist.

"They are just emerging again," Torjan said. "The fighters too now have the boys in their barracks. This was brought to the attention of Gul Agha, who ordered the boys to be expelled, but it continues. The boys live with the fighters very openly. In a short time, and certainly within a year, it will be like pre-Taleban: they will be everywhere." This Pashtun tradition is even reflected in Pashtun poetry, odes written to the beauty and complexion of an ‘ashna’, but it is usually a terrible fate for the boys concerned. It is practised at all levels of Pashtun society, but for the poorer men, having an ‘ashna’ can raise his status.

"When a man sees a boy he likes – the age they like is 15 or 16 – they will approach him in the street and start talking to him, offering him tea," said Muhammad Shah, a shop owner. "Sometimes they go looking in the football stadium, or in the cinema (which has yet to reopen). He then starts to give him presents, hashish, or a watch, a ring, or even a motorbike. One of the most valued presents is a fighting pigeon, which can be worth up to $400 (£277). These boys are nearly always innocent, but such is the poverty here, they cannot refuse."

Shortly after the 9/11 attack, an article titled “Repressed Homosexuality?” appeared in The Times of London (October 5, 2001) suggesting a link between misogyny and homosexuality within the Taliban. A few months later a piece called “Kandahar Comes out of the Closet,” also in the Times (January 12, 2002), offered anecdotal evidence of the re-emergence of visible homosexual activity in the Kandahar region following the defeat of the Taliban. This story was picked up inThe New York Postunder the title “A Gay Old Afghan Time Again.” Two days later,The New Yorker published a lengthy report by Jon Lee Anderson on post-TalibanKandahar in which he too broached the subject of homosexual activity. At last,The New York Times weighed in with a piece called “Shh, It’s an Open Secret: Warlords and Pedophilia” (Feb. 21, 2002). A spate of articles followed with titles like “Kandahar’s Lightly Veiled Homosexual Habits” (Los Angeles Times, April 3) and “The Royal Marines and a Gay Warlord” (Sun Herald [Sydney], June 9). Even USA Today (June 3) got into the act with a piece that discussed the threat of AIDS in post-Taliban Afghanistan, a nation seen as particularly vulnerable because of “promiscuity and homosexuality without the use of condoms.”

What makes these reports of open homosexual activity in Kandahar surprising is that they seem to contrast so markedly with the repressive policies of the Taliban—and Islamic societies in general. The official Taliban punishment for homosexual activity was to topple a stone wall upon the offender (most died from the experience but the occasional survivor was set free). Although this particular punishment was confined to Afghanistan, the persecution of homosexuals was and remains widespread throughout the Middle East. As Surina Kahn of the International Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Commission (ilghrc) has observed: “Homophobia runs through mainstream, conservative, and fundamentalist elements of Islam.” Moreover, in recent years even some of the more progressive governments in the Middle East have been cracking down on homosexual activity in order to appease increasingly powerful and vocal fundamentalist groups. This was illustrated by the arrest of 52 suspected homosexuals in Egypt in May 2001 at a riverboat disco on the charge of “practicing debauchery with men.”

Against this backdrop the open homosexuality of Pashtun men might seem the height of social tolerance. However, when read within the context of Western views of childhood sexuality, the love of youths (referred to as ashnas or haluks) among the Pashtun of Kandahar became a disturbing example of pedophilia. Several of these reports noted that the rape and kidnapping of youths had increased in the years preceding the Taliban takeover, and that the Taliban persecution of homosexual activity had been greeted by many Afghanis with enthusiasm. The tendency of Western observers to focus on instances of abuse was matched by a tendency to reduce same-sex relations to a Pashtun “obsession with sodomy.” Despite the jocular tone of these exposés, their subtext was clearly aimed at discrediting the Pashtun tradition by equating it with the ultimate American taboo, adult sex with minors.

A Secret in Plain View
Modern Western cultures, particularly Anglo-American ones, construct homosexuality as a secret—as the secret, according to Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in The Epistemology of the Closet (1990); but this is not necessarily the way that other cultures have constructed it. Western journalists relentlessly projected onto Kandahar the two great secrets of contemporary American society: closeted homosexuality and child abuse. Viewing homosexuality as something that’s kept secret, Western journalists found the patterns of silence and disclosure in Afghanistan to be rather baffling. They noted, on the one hand, a reluctance on the part of Kandaharis to discuss their homosexual liaisons. When asked about these relationships by one reporter (a female), a local contact replied: “These are hard questions you are asking. We don’t usually talk about such things,” Tim Reid of The Times of London noted the Kandaharis’ reticence and accused local parents of “lying” when they, “who know in their hearts the nature of the relationship [between their son and an older man], say that their son is working for the man.” Of course, what Reid calls a lie others might see as a tactful way of refusing to discuss a private matter.

But if Kandaharis seem unwilling to speak about their sex lives, as Tim Reid noted, “there appears to be no shame or furtiveness” in the behavior of male-male couples. Michael Griffin, also of the Times, reflecting on the history of these relations, declared that “in Pashtun society, man-woman love was the one that dared not speak its name: boy courtesans conducted their affairs openly.” Reid wrote of pre-1994 Kandahar, where “the streets were filled with teenagers and their sugar daddies, flaunting their relationship.” It’s a bit ironic that Reid’s exposé was titled “Kandahar Comes out of the Closet,” for it promises an act of disclosure that the Pashtuns fail to deliver. At the same time, the Pashtuns’ behavior suggests a lack of shame that’s inconsistent with the Western view of “the closet.” Reid seems to be caught in the paradox of Western sexual discourse, which (as Foucault argued) is organized around the imperative to control sexual behavior by talking about it. In the end, Reid squares Kandahari behavior with Western expectations only by castigating the Pashtun for “lying” to avoid the subject and for “flaunting” their behavior in public.

The other Big Secret is that of pedophilia, the secret within the secret of homosexuality in the popular imagination, the ultimate taboo. Despite statistical evidence demonstrating that pedophilia in the West is more common among heterosexual men, the association of homosexuality and the sexual abuse of children remains prominent in Western anti-gay discourse, propelling “save our children” campaigns to restrict their contact with gay adults. By constructing age-stratified homosexual activity in Kandahar as pedophilia, Western journalists provided themselves a link to the ever-popular issue of child abuse—especially hot, what with the unfolding scandal in the Catholic Church. Needless to say, Western reports on age-stratified homosexuality in Kandahar typically stressed the “innocence” of the minors involved. For example, Reid wrote that Kandaharis preferred “naïve young boys,” while the Post described them as “fresh-faced.”

In their reporting Western journalists insisted on reducing relationships that are often long-term emotional bonds to a crude sexual bargain. The New York Times’ Craig Smith, for example, translated the term haliq, which crudely means “beautiful boy,” as “a boy for sex.” Michael Griffin, while noting the “rich tradition of homosexual passion” celebrated in Pashtun poetry and dance, nonetheless referred to it as “male prostitution.” Reid put forth that boys are “groomed for sex” with an older man, which is “usually a terrible fate for the boys concerned.” Without a shred of evidence, he described the courting of an ashna, which typically involves elaborate and expensive gift-giving. Smith’s contact provided the following description of this courtship: “‘If you want a haliq—‘a boy for sex’—you have to follow the boy for a long time before he will agree,’ said Daud, smiling at Fareed in a hostel in Kandahar. ‘At first he was afraid, so I bought him some chocolate and gave him a lot of money,’ said Daud, laughing. ‘I went step by step, and after about six or seven months, he agreed.’”

The fact is that these relationships may last for many years; and, as one contact noted, “sometimes when the halekon [sic] grow up [and are no longer sexually desirable], the older men actually try to keep them in the family by marrying them off to their daughters” (LA Times, April 3, 2002). While Craig Smith reported that his contact, Mr. Fareed, “does not regret being lured into a relationship by his older friend,” his use of the word “lured” again portrayed the ashna as an unwilling victim.

Tim Reid pronounced solemnly that “once the boy falls into the man’s clutches, he is marked for life,” but added immediately that “the Kandaharis accept these relationships as part of their culture.” But if indeed they’re accepted, why would someone be “marked for life”? This non sequitur reveals that Reid merely assumed that psychic trauma and social stigma could be the only consequence of these relationships. In fact, evidence from Islamic cultures that have a tradition of age-stratified bonding suggests that the matter is forgotten when the minor comes of age. “[N]o one,” writes Stephen O. Murray in Homosexualities (2000), “not even those who remember it from personal experience, will mention in his presence (or, probably, at all) his pre-adult sexual behavior. His male honor depends on his conduct as an adult.”

Another of Reid’s underlying assumptions about homosexuality is revealed in his statement that the TalibanMullah Omar, suppressed homosexual activity “despite the Taliban disdain for women, and the bizarre penchant of many for eyeliner.” The New York Post, which picked up Reid’s story, recapitulated his strange logic: “Despite the regime’s hatred of women and penchant for eyeliner, homosexuality was banned.” Like the association of homosexuality with misogyny, the attempt to equate the Taliban’s use of eyeliner with homosexual activity depends on a rusty Western stereotype that seems to have life in it yet. Jon Lee Anderson’s article in The New Yorker implied a connection between homosexuality and effeminacy by juxtaposing a report on the enduring tradition of pederasty among the Pashtun with a description of local practices that include the use of eyeliner and toe-nail polish and the wearing of colorful, high-heeled sandals a size or two too small—which “means that you mince and wobble as you walk.”

Maura Reynolds of The LA Times noted that “there is a strong streak of dandyism among Pashtun males. Many line their eyes with kohl, stain their fingernails with henna or walk about town in clumsy, high-heeled sandals.” But this equation makes sense only if we accept two Western assumptions: that homosexuality and effeminacy are automatically linked; and that the practices described are in fact “effeminate.” By that logic, turning to the West, what are we to conclude about 18th-century aristocrats in their wigs, face powder, tights, and high heels? Reynolds’ own research should caution against such simplifications. She quotes one local source as saying: “Hugging doesn’t mean sex, locals insist. Men who use kohl and henna are simply ‘uneducated.’” Moreover, her contact Daud, who’s unmarried and has sex only with men and boys, “does not consider himself homosexual, at least not in the Western sense.” And although he has never been physically intimate with a woman, he assures Reynolds: “I like boys, but I like girls better.”

The Making of a Minority
Western views on homosexuality can be neatly divided into two overarching traditions: a Freudian school that sees all sexuality as “polymorphous” and homosexuality as one position on a fluid continuum; and a gay liberationist view that sees homosexuality as a distinct identity analogous to that of an ethnic minority. In Kandahar, there is clearly no sense in which homosexuality constitutes a minority identity—but this did not prevent Western journalists from constantly using the language of the Western gay rights movement to describe it. Thus, for example, faced with estimates from her informants that “between 18% and 45% of men [in Kandahar] engage in homosexual sex,” Maura Reynolds observed dryly that this is “significantly higher than the 3% to 7% of American men who, according to studies, identify themselves as homosexual.”

Journalists repeatedly used Western concepts such as “gay” and “the closet” to characterize the Kandahar situation, thus imposing their notion of homosexuality as a minority identity. The term “gay” is used in the title of the New York Post article—“A Gay Old Afghan Time Again”—as well as in the article itself: “Men accused of being gay were executed by having a wall toppled on them.” The word also appears in the headline of Smucker and Kili’s story, “The Royal Marines and a Gay Warlord,” even though the Afghan doctor quoted by Reynolds cautions that, among the Kandaharis, “homosexuality is what they do, not what they are.” The picture of homosexual behavior that emerges in even the shortest press accounts is complicated and, to the Western eye, contradictory. Smucker and Kili’s article profiles an Afghan warlord, Malim Jan, who has “two wives and ‘several boyfriends,’” and who has now taken a fancy to the Royal Marines visiting his camp.

Another way that journalists like Craig Smith and Maura Reynolds try to reconcile the evidence for polymorphous sexual desire with Western binarism is by interpreting the widespread homosexual activity as an aberration, a product of the extreme segregation of women in traditional Muslim cultures. This segregation presumably places women sexually out of bounds, forcing men to go elsewhere for gratification. And yet, as Tim Reid points out, the men who court adolescent boys are typically married with children, while the “gay warlord” profiled by Smucker and Kili has “two wives and ‘several boyfriends.’”

Michael Luongo: I can’t really say what they actually do in bed, but Afghan men in general picked up very quickly that I was gay, and with such male to male intimacy in this country, it’s not really a problem. Men are allowed to do as they please, and if it means that the possibility of sex between men can occur, than so be it. I was often asked for sex in very public, and even religious and government settings, which was actually shocking to me.

GG: My understanding is that Muslim guys (gay and straight) are so conditioned toward heterosexual marriage that they feel OK about MSM as long they are tops after a certain age (about 17, when they switch from boy bottoms to man tops). Did you discern anything about this aspect? Talking is one thing, actual sex-in-the-dark is another and reveals more than words.

Luongo: I was at a party where clearly the men wanted to fool around with each other and played at that sort of thing, but would still discuss women. In fact, even knowing that I was a gay man, I had more experience with women than any of them, none of whom had ever seen a woman naked. Imagine being 26 and in that same situation in the USA? Still, ultimately sex between men was the point of the party. One man sat close to me caressing and playing very tenderly with my arm and hand; at some points he would say, "I wish you were a girl. So I think yes, in some cases, it is substitution, and yet also, based on our own stereotypes of what a gay man should be, there were some men who would be gay in Western setting. So it is both, but perhaps situational in more cases. (But I also say we should throw out all of our Western notions of gay and assume that sexuality is fluid and people do not need to define oneself. That is the beauty of such a situation, and is perhaps the way homosexuality truly is, rather than a constructed identity which in the West means we pay $10 for beers in gay bars when straight people pay $2 for the same in their bars.)

GG: In Kandahar, as we know from mainstream reports, gang leaders and warlords seduce younger men as their paramours. Did you find this to be true? I assume the younger one takes the feminine sexual role? How long do these big guys keep these little lovers? Until they marry? And then they in turn take younger guys or do these relationships last many years?

Luongo: Western journalist want to state that the evidence on this is clear, and yet I am not so sure after having been there. This tradition/pattern is something hard for an outsider to prove. In the recent past the Taliban ensured that many such people were killed – even if they themselves, also to a degree practiced such a thing. There are an inordinate amount of young beardless ‘soldiers’ in Kandahar in comparison to other parts of the country. But does that mean they are all the lovers of older soldiers? I can not say for sure. I would say, based on what people tell me who live there, anecdotally, yes. There are hospital cases where younger men have been anally traumatized, either by rape, or simply sex that is rough. Still, it is hard to say how many.
There are also adult homosexual relationships, but this too is hard for me to prove.
Mazar is another city known for these practices as well; it is not solely a Kandahar characteristic. What was put to me very poetically by an American woman living there is that in Kandahar, there is a tradition of keeping beautiful things. Anyone who goes to this city will immediately notice the love of ornamentation, and it is the most beautiful city in the country in my opinion. People also keep pets, especially birds, which is not common in other parts of Afghanistan. This perhaps extends to beautiful young men who are kept by older men as trophies to have around, buy things for, to keep, to show to friends and play with, but whether that extends to sex is a case by case arrangement.

GG: In your story you mentione that a construction worker said to you, "You like homosex?" in front of the other guys? Was that a risky moment for you? Is there gay bashing in Afghan culture? What happens if
straight guys there find out that a friend is really gay?

Dressed in an embroidered shalwar khamiz and green velvet jacket, with a great mop of hair falling over an innocent face, Mirwais sings like an angel. In post-Taliban Kabul, a voice like that can earn its owner – and his agent – up to $1,000 (£500) a night.

Of all the extraordinary changes of fortune to affect Afghans in the past three years, few have seen their luck change for the better as much as Kabul’s boy singers. During the rule of the Taliban, they were a despised breed. Boys were often beaten and jailed if caught plying their trade; now they are showered with dollar bills and fêted as the showbiz stars of Asia’s most broken-down city. The two singers’ bazaars in the backstreets of Kabul’s old town are crowded with hundreds of boys – talented aspirants, established singers from famous musical families, and for the really big names, canny agents.

The biggest stars make their main money from the lucrative wedding party appearances that pay up to $1,000 a time, plus tips. And Mirwais is the biggest star of them all. His father, Mazari Najrabi, was a famous singer; Mirwais discovered his gift singing along to tunes his elder brother played on an instrument similar to an accordion. About a year ago, with the Taliban gone, he started attracting attention. Then a Svengali-like figure, Sidiq Darayee, an impresario and theatre owner, began to organise Mirwais’s business affairs. Soon he was singing until 3am at wild wedding parties before going to school the next day.

I met Mirwais and his entourage in Darayee’s theatre in the week he was putting on a comedy. After what they’ve been through in the past 25 years, Afghans like a good laugh. Two cousins accompany the boy everywhere; in lawless Kabul, a 13-year-old with a marketable voice is a valuable commodity, and it is not unheard of for commanders to arrange the kidnapping of boys they take a fancy to. Darayee did most of the talking. Mirwais sat patiently on a worn couch as the agent explained rather bitterly that foreigners were not spending enough in Kabul. Later, eyes shining, the theatre-owner demanded $600 for a private singing appearance by Mirwais. Meanwhile the child star said little. He enjoyed singing. He would like to be famous. Coming to England is one of his ambitions.

He seemed a cheerful lad, if taciturn. And the rewards of his trade were obvious. Round his neck was a gold pennant on a gold chain and, on his finger, a gold ring. Farhad, my translator and one of Afghanistan’s few true peaceful souls, was rather shocked. "What is such a young boy doing wearing gold? If my son did that I would strike him for not showing respect."

But Mirwais and others like him can scarcely be blamed for exploiting their temporary good fortune. The boy singers may be practising an art form with an ancient role in Afghan tradition, but their time at the top is brief, starting, if they are lucky, at the age of 12 or 13. Most of them are finished forever by the time their voice breaks a couple of years later. That doesn’t leave long to rake in the cash, and the wooden huts of Chor bazaar where the boys and their families base themselves, resound with the harsh sound of haggling for fees as much as the sound of young voices showing off their talent.

Nor do the singers occupy a comfortable place in Afghan culture. Pre-pubescent boys with sweet voices are highly prized and highly praised, but they will never manage to shake off the taint of corruption that clings to even the most innocent of them.
In a land where women are unavailable outside marriage, except as prostitutes, sex with young boys has always been socially acceptable in most layers of society and not just in the southern city of Kandahar where it is a famous vice.

Everybody knows that beautiful young beardless boy singers are a source of lust for wealthy commanders, who would be embarrassed to take a female mistress. The pre-pubescent boy draped in gold, wearing the finest clothes and well known as a concubine, is a Kabul cliché, although such liaisons will never be acknowledged by either the boy or the commander. Many are chauffeured around in expensive vehicles and treated with deference by the commander’s men. "You must be careful with some of these boys and their families even though you may despise them and what they represent," said one Kabuli. "If you laid a finger on them or said a bad word against them, the commanders would have you killed."

As the commanders enrich themselves on drugs and corruption, the number of kept boy singers proliferates and the parties become wilder. Whether the boys have personally been corrupted or not, and even if they are stars, they will never be truly free of the low-life reputation which surrounds their calling. But for all the dubious morality of the profession, Afghans love music and are happy to celebrate the return of the boys with beautiful voices. Music-making here nearly perished for good in the war and during the Taliban persecution that followed. Even now, in more relaxed times, it remains at risk of being eclipsed by youthful Kabul’s new obsession with all things foreign and especially anything emanating from Bollywood.

But slowly, the old ways and habits of Kabul are regaining a foothold, and Afghans are rediscovering a part of their heritage.
The district where musician families lived for centuries, Kocha Kharab, used to be famous for its racy nightlife. Afghans would go in search of the sad songs of longing sung in the classical Mahali tradition, with their hypnotic beats on tabla drums and a range of stringed instruments such as the 19-stringed habab, a kind of mandolin, and a traditional accordion. According to mood, men would sit in clouds of hashish smoke chatting with friends and letting the music wash over them, or clapping along with the beat and getting up to dance, hands waving above their heads in wild abandon.

Afterwards, many would discreetly slip into Kocha Kharab’s brothels in search of boys or girls according to taste, or would even put a bid in for the dancing boys or the young singers. Like so much else in the city, Kabul’s unlikely bohemian world came to an abrupt end when the rockets of the fundamentalist leader, Gulbaddin Hekmatyar, flattened it during the war – Kabulis claim the puritan, psychopathic warlord singled out Kocha Kharab for his special brand of violent attention.

The musicians’ families were then scattered across the city. The Taliban destroyed the instruments and threw anyone caught dancing or singing into prison. To an Afghan puritan, Kocha Kharab was Afghanistan’s Sodom and Gomorrah. Notwithstanding the return of the singers, it will probably never return to its heyday. But in a city of overnight millionaires and with the freedom to once again perform in public, the success of boys like Mirwais underlines a mini-revival. During the three month wedding season before Ramadan, he was booked every night, singing songs of impossible love, bloody betrayal, and heroism. As with many Afghans, these are themes that have touched his own family.

Mirwais’s father was killed when he was five, and the family lived on the front line during the fighting between factions that tore the city apart. When the Taliban came, they had to bury their instruments in the garden. After such traumas, he is at the top of the singing hierarchy, for now. According to Darayee, he has rivals but the agent refused to name them. " They laughed at Mirwais when he started singing because he is small," he said. "But they are not laughing now." One rival, reportedly, is Wali Fateh Ali Khan, 14. There are others. But Mirwais proved his worth by winning a singing competition at the Park Cinema last year, blowing the competition away with his stage presence.

His cassettes sell out routinely. Shaky DVDs of his performances at wedding parties outsell Bollywood hits. Posters of him adorn the teashops of Kabul. Protected from press questioning by his entourage, it is difficult to say what effect all this is having on his 13-year-old mind. He insists school is fun and he is treated the same as any other boy. As for the unwanted attentions of older men, Mirwais is lucky; his family are respectable musicians and the protection of his cousins can be relied upon. He is probably safe from the predations of corrupt old men. But other boys do not have such protection, as post-war Kabul becomes ever wilder.

One horrified Afghan even reported that he had seen women dancing at a wedding party thrown by one of the capital’s richest families. They were beautiful girls, he admitted, and demurely dressed, but they were clearly prostitutes, and therefore to see them in public was even more shocking than seeing a kept boy. Boys who had been corrupted by commanders were also there, and the illicit alcohol had been flowing freely.

"Today, girls can meet boys in government offices, in aid agencies, non-governmental organisations, at university," explains Aimal, a 24-year-old dressed in jeans and a western shirt who works for the United Nations in Mazar. Virtually impossible under the ultra-Islamic Taliban, these meetings are a prelude to "love marriages", still an extremely rare phenomenon in Afghanistan but becoming increasingly popular in towns.

"People who make love marriages are educated people, people who have a job, which is still rare in Afghanistan today," adds Aimal.
"Only educated people can meet other young people and have a boyfriend or a girlfriend before getting married," says Hamidullah, a 25-year-old journalist sitting at a table full of men at a restaurant in central Mazar. At Koti Barq, a small residential area built by the Soviets near the city, three young men talk about girls in a pharmacy owned by Sabur, a jovial, goateed 23-year-old who is also dressed in jeans.

"The vast majority of Afghan marriages comply with traditions; so they’re more or less forced marriages," Sabur says. More than three years after the fall of the Taliban, social customs in much of Afghanistan continue to be repressive. Many young people, particularly women, continue to be forced or pressured into marrying spouses who are not of their choice. Those who shun arranged marriages often meet in towns like Mazar, particularly at work or at university.

"Hospitals too," says Ershad, 30, a doctor from the western city of Herat, the only one of the three wearing traditional Afghan dress. "Lots of people come to hospitals only to see girls. And all the doctors I know have a girlfriend." After the initial meeting, young lovers have to make an effort to keep in touch. "But today, it’s easy to contact boys or girls with mobiles," says 26-year-old Jamshit, the third of the young men at Sabur’s pharmacy. "Before that, if you wanted to meet a girl and to send her a message, you had to give it to her little brother, with a candy for him. With one risk, the message being caught by the father. "Now, 80 percent of young people in Mazar have a mobile. It’s like a fashion, and with it you can set up meetings without any problem." All that’s left is to find a spot for a rendezvous.

"In Mazar, there are several places where you can meet girls: hotels, some restaurants, shops, hospitals," says Ershad. "And pharmacies," he adds with a glance at Sabur. The young pharmacist smiles. Quietly, he shows a red curtain behind the counter. "This is a very good place for secret meetings. And there’s no risk: it’s normal for a girl to come here to buy drugs," he says. Those who have no secret place can always go to the gardens at the Hazrat Ali shrine, Afghanistan’s holiest, where Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed is buried. There, in the shadow of the mosaics and turquoise domes, "girls come to the shrine in burqa, call their boyfriend with their mobile and tell him: meet me there, under this tree, at this table’s corner", says Sabur.

To us, it was amazing not only how widespread the BB phenomenon was, but also how widely it was tolerated. It wasn’t really accepted, or talked about that much, but it was just dealt with as a fact of life and nobody paid much attention to who was a BB or not. Students joked about their teachers, and some teachers developed reputations for coming on to their male students, but they weren’t routinely condemned or drummed out of the community, as often happens in the west. It really did seem that as long as an adult male fulfilled his social responsibilities — getting married, having children, and adequately providing for them — he could go off and do whatever he wanted: have boyfriends, have girlfriends, or sometimes both at the same time. I knew a great many young guys who cheerfully admitted to being BBs, and many of them had no intention of giving it up once they got married. Indeed, some were already married and still interested in other guys.

It has often been said that the widespread same-sex activity in Afghanistan was due to the unavailability of women. To me, that cannot be a full explanation. First of all, as I said, a great many BBs were married, and, presumably had access to women. Next, if this causal link were true, every adult man would be a BB, because every one faced the same problem of unavailability of women. I knew several young guys who acknowledged that most Afghan adult men were BBs, but they themselves were 100% attracted to women. Thus we have the curious outcome that the presence of some men who were genuinely, exclusively heterosexual proves that those who have sex with men or boys must be genuinely attracted to them.

Still, it was clear that it is not possible to apply the labels gay, straight, bisexual, etc., to Afghan men. The many discussions I had demonstrated what social scientists are coming to accept: that sexual orientation consists of several dimensions, and one could be physically attracted to men yet emotionally attracted to women, and that their are often divergences between attraction and actual behavior. Remember that almost nobody "identifies" as gay in our sense, although many young Afghan men develop deep emotional attachments to other men (although, again, they would never allow themselves to be "passive" with those men).

We also found that same-sex activity was very prevalent among the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police. A great many of them, when on leave in Kabul, would stay at hostels in the older parts of town where one room would be reserved for the guys to take turns with their "bachas." To have a "bacha" seemed to earn one even greater respect, and guys would compare their bachas (but never fight over the best looking ones, since that would disrupt the camaraderie). Indeed, the most famous BBs would organize parties for their bachas to dance at, and the best dancing by a bacha would confer prestige on his BB.

Many outsiders, such as the one who wrote to you, asked how they could meet Afghan guys in Kabul who were open to having sex with other men. As you’ve probably gathered, these guys are very numerous, but there are no obvious places where they gather, and there is no "scene" per se, because there doesn’t have to be. It is all around. It takes patience, but the best way is for anyone, particularly a Westerner (Afghans seem to have no sexual interest in other "brown" people — that is, Turks, Arabs, Iranians, South Asians) to simply get to know young Afghan guys well as friends first. The Afghans will take it from there. They will ask thousands of questions about how dating and sexuality work in the West, questions that can be answered by introducing topics into the conversation such as same-sex marriage and the gay identity. In dozens of such conversations with Afghans, I only heard one negative view expressed about these lifestyles and practices in the West. They seem to envy us our sexual freedom, rather than resenting us for it, and in many cases these lines of conversation will lead to confessions of same-sex desire on their part. But it takes time, and really, the friendship has to come first before these guys will open up.