Customer Reviews

Unspeakable Love: Gay and Lesbian Life in the Middle East

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Arab is supposed to be an extremely difficult language to learn. It's incredibly difficult for writers to generalize about the Arab world when it encompasses so many countries and so much history, and historical change. Finally, in homophobic societies, it is hard to get people to speak about sexuality generally and homosexuality specifically. For all these reasons, I thank the author for producing this text and give him much credit.

However, this book may frustrate some. I think the author was trying to write for everyday readers and the academic, highly-versed. His journalism background shows in the chattiness of some chapters, but when he speaks of fields of Islamic law and constructionism versus essentialism in gay studies debates, it may get too complicated for some readers.

The best chapters were the ones in which he quotes actual Arab gay men and lesbians (and yes, the book does try to be lesbian-inclusive) and details homophobic controversies in that region. A large chunk of the book is about describing and critiquing homophobia from Muslim clerics and leaders. Given how religion is used to promote homophobia in many places, this addition was necessary, but it got dull after awhile. In the United States, religious homophobes play a key role in the battle of gay rights, but if someone wrote a book that focused more on Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson than on the Stonewall Riots, Ruby Mae Brown, or Rock Hudson, then it would be a rocky, unbalanced read.

Given the intense tensions between the Christian and Muslim worlds, I loved how this writer tried to keep Western readers humble. He says Arab countries have homophobic laws, but so did Britain less than 40 years ago. Mosques may be gay-unfriendly, but he writes that most churches and synagogues are too, except for a few, new, progressive institutions. Modern Arab literature may be homophobic, but much of English and American literature is the same way. Again, I applaud the author's promotion of keeping one's own community in check or humble.

I wasn't glued to this book, but I found it insightful and important. Readers may benefit from reading this alongside seeing the documentary "Living Dangerously."

Brian Whitaker's 'Unspeakable Love' is a great summary of the life of current trends and treatment of homosexuality within contemporary Arab culture. This book should not be read expecting a history of homosexuality within this culture as this is not its intent. The book provides a detailed portayal, especially, of a paradigm shift from the 90's to current day. There are some issues with the book being a bit choppy in its presentation but that does not interefere with the information. Whitaker also provides detailed notation of where to obtain additional resources via the web. In addition, many wonderful Arabic texts are discussed in this book.

brian whitaker tackled a subject that is very touchy-- how the gay and lesbian arabs live in their countries. in a straightforward, journalistic kind of a way, he relates the lives of queer arabs who are encountering old traditions and the power of family honor. in lebanon, egypt and saudi arabia, whitaker documents the challenges of everday gay and lesbian arabs face in encoutering their own identity. it is an eye opening experience about a group of people in a very complicated part of the world. and whitaker does it in a way that neither offends arabs nor spits in their face. a well balanced act, indeed.

Well this was my first book in Middle East LGBT and it really opened me up to the field of study I want to do. I was disappointed with the sources, but I understood that he was writing about something that there are only a handful of academic sources on and a few other stories by independent authors, so I gave him credit. I wish it could have had more reliable sources. Some of the internet ones no longer work. But it is a field in which you have to slide into under the cover of something else.. I know this since LGBT Middle East is my master's degree.. Besides the sources.. this is a real informative book, full of information. I learned some things I had never even thought about, dealing with the Middle East culture. I recommend it for all in the ME area and LGBTQ/Gender studies.

This book is must reading for those like me who want a world free of sexual orientation oppression. Gays in the Middle East today have a much tougher life than gays in the USA. The family pressures for them to be straight or else are intense. For example, in some instances forced electric shock treatments are being used by families to attempt to obtain a "cure". But now a growing number of middle eastern brothers and sisters are uniting to support and accept each other. The rest of the world needs to support them in their struggle for equality. The book is somewhat optimistic about the eventual outcome of their struggle.

The author references a website www.al-bab.com that is a good source for additional information and links to other sites.