Arab-Muslim Masculinity on Trial: Gay Muslim Writers Broaching Homosexuality

Abstract

This paper will initially examine the importance of masculinity in Arab-Muslim societies before analysing the qualities that these societies deem imperative of masculinity. Ultimately, the paper will attempt to theorise the manner in which homosexuality destabilises these preconceptions about Arab-Muslim masculinity and male sexuality. Drawing on the hermeneutic readings of Lawrence R. Schehr in his book The Shock of Men: Homosexual Hermeneutics in French Writing, this paper sets out to reveal that masculinity in Arab- Muslim societies of the Maghreb “can be seen through other eyes, interpreted through other figured, or opened up to different possibilities if the mechanics of sexual reproduction are not given transcendental cultural meaning” (Schehr viii). Homosexuality will be viewed as an important locus of exerting “pressure on simplistic notions of identity and [disturbing] the value systems that underlie designations of normal and abnormal identity” (Day xi).