ROCKING THE THRONE OF ALLAH |
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Khaled, a gay Saudi living with HIV, tells Marcel Wiel about Aids and sexual oppression at the heart of the Arab world.
I found out I was positive in 1990 when I was 25. I’d been sexually active since I was 15, even though in Saudi Arabia this is illegal and severely punished. If you were caught, you may be let off with the police outing you to your family who’d shame you into submission. But you also risked jail or deportation. This depended largely on your nationality and the circumstances of your arrest. There was also the danger of being blackmailed and losing your job.
At the same time, sex was very easy to get. All you had to do was look available. People could smell the sexual desire on you. But it was always so fraught. As soon as someone you’d cruised had cum, they’d be off. You’d need to go through several partners to be satisfied. Saudi Arabia is the kingdom of the quickie.
When I was 15, I decided I was going to be English. I didn’t want to be Saudi, because I was gay and knew how harsh things were for gay people in Saudi Arabia. So I started speaking English and only hung out with Britons and Americans. I led two lives, one involved school and family, the other was with older gay expatriots.
By the time I started university at 18, I mostly socialised with 30- and 40-year-old gay men, having completely adopted a Western look. This was rare in those days for someone who didn’t come from a very wealthy family, but I felt totally out of place with my own culture and society. I wanted to belong somewhere where gay sex wasn’t a dirty deed or something that was done in the dark and never spoken of. Many people lived a dual life.
Saudis are taught from early on that the throne on which Allah sits rocks every time two men have penetrative sex. Given how much of it goes on, it must be like a bloody disco up there.
My first brush with HIV came in 1986. My Scottish boyfriend’s flatmate came back from a trip in the US and was very ill, ending up in hospital with severe breathing problems. He was the first person I knew who died of Aids.
At the time, I had a summer job in the hospital where he was being cared for and often visited. Everyone who visited him was called in for a test. My boss told me that if I didn’t have a test, I’d receive a summons from the Ministry of Health.
So I went for the test which was negative (I was so happy) and life sort went back to normal. Various theories circulated, such as withdrawing before orgasm was safe and being passive was risky. Gay Saudis in particular thought they were safe if they were always active.
By 1990, I’d had quite a lot of unprotected sex and had travelled abroad a lot because of my work. At the time, my sister was pregnant and was about to have a Caesarean. She needed a blood transfusion from a near relative and she asked me. I agreed but told her I’d need to have some blood tests to make sure I was all clear.
That time I tested positive. The doctor at the clinic who broke the news to me said: ‘You are carrying the Aids virus.’
Ten days later, I got a call from the Ministry of Health telling me of an appointment I had to keep with another doctor. He told me I was completely asymptomatic, but that I must never marry nor disclose my status to anyone for their own safety.
Later I found out that the official line was “we are Muslims, we don’t shag around and there is no Aids in Saudi Arabia,” so all cases had to be kept secret.
Because I was very depressed by my test result, I ended up seeing a psychiatrist. All he said was that I should read the Koran, even though there was always the threat that when I died, Allah wouldn't love me because I was gay.
I didn't feel there was space for me anymore. I didn’t feel there was space for me anymore. My life was getting smaller and smaller and was strangling me. I felt I was being watched all the time and was worried about being found out.
My sister persuaded me to get regular check-ups, and after many phone calls and lots of research, we eventually found a doctor who worked in a hospital quite far outside Jeddah, where my family lived.
The place was an old shabby building with two offices for doctors and an intensive care ward for terminal patients. My first appointment was with a doctor who told me to return every month and not to tell anyone I was going to this hospital. If pushed, I was told to lie.
I gave some blood and was given some vitamins but never any details about my situation, such as my CD4 count. After my fifth visit, I pressed the doctor to give me this information but he said he wasn’t allowed.
Eventually this, and the fact that I was made to wait in a ward with people dying from contagious diseases, made me flip. The doctors and nurses had masks, which gave them protection, but I was given no mask, as if I was dead already.
I threatened the doctor I would go public about the whole situation, naming him as my physician. This did the trick. I received my latest set of blood tests and was told I was doing very well. I asked him why he couldn’t have given me this information when I’d asked for it. He replied he was just following orders, so I said I’d never come back.
At that point, I decided to turn my back on my religion and my country and leave Saudi Arabia.
In 1996 on a business trip in the UK, I fell in love with someone and decided to live here. But all those years of keeping my status secret had really affected me. I didn’t tell my partner about being positive even though we had unprotected sex with each other and other people. I know it was really dirty and horrible for me not to tell him and I have to take responsibility for that.
When in 2000 he found out he was positive, I managed to disclose my status to him. Even though we had a huge falling out and he threw me out of his home where I was living, I really believe it was the best thing I could have done.
Now I understand that being secretive about my status was a pattern created from fear. I’d lived with this for so long that even years later my HIV was like a book I didn’t want to open. Only after my ex was diagnosed, did I manage to bring myself to register with a clinic in the UK.
Fourteen years on from my diagnosis, I still haven’t needed to start treatment and only go for six-monthly check-ups.
When I go back to Saudi Arabia, I see things have changed a lot. Thanks to satellite TV and the Web, people are much more exposed to information. Saudi society is changing. There are now millions of kids who look and sound as I did, and it’s become normal to see gay people and public health ads on TV.
There’s a lot of pressure for Saudi Arabia to reform. I believe all countries in the Middle East - not only Saudi Arabia - need a good kick up the butt. Saudi liberals and intellectuals are pressing for change and, for the first time in my life, I’m beginning to see an increasing number of divisions in Saudi society. I don’t think this is a bad thing; I think it’s healthy.
HIV and sex are still taboo, even though sex is the one thing that makes us who we are. But this idea is terrifying for Saudis.
On the positive side, compared to Western culture where sex often involves power, in the Middle East even though sex is taboo (and everyone wants it), it’s not taken that seriously. Having lived in the UK for many years now, I’ve become more benevolent towards my country. It’s not all bad and there are some things I love, like the weather. Also life is easier: everything’s 24 hours and there’s no body fascism.
Today, I’ve made peace with my religion and have developed my own version of Islam that I’m comfortable with. I want people to know this and that my real name is Khaled.
On 19 March 2004, Gaymiddleeast.com, a site for LGBTs in the Middle East, reported it had been blocked (again) by Saudi authorities. Three months earlier, Agence France Press reported that Saudi Arabia had 6,787 HIV/Aids cases, a five fold increase on the August 2002 figure of 1,285. The head of Saudi Arabia’s Epidemic and Parasitic Diseases Authority is reported to have said 95 per cent of the kingdom’s Aids cases were spread by ‘forbidden sexual relations". |
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NAZ - UK based HIV support group for people from Middle East, Latin America, North Africa and the Horn of Africa
