On the challenges of Ramadan

This is the month I am supposed to get back on track. After a long period of disillusionment and 'coldness' I feel like I am due a resurrection of sorts. A rediscovery of the joie de vivre. And what better way to truly appreciate every drop of wealth and goodness around you than a fast. Peel away your flesh and bones and expose your raw soul by abandoning all that is animalistic within you between dawn and dusk.

As one of two Muslims I know who are fasting this season in London, I often get asked the question: why? Why when you barely have time to make your own food at sunset and consume it alone, when you work ridiculous hours and live in a country where the day lasts from 3am to almost 9pm? Moreover, why when you consume alcohol on a regular basis, sleep with men, and indulge in prosciutto every morning?

The presumption behind all these questions is that I am doing this for someone. Doing it because I have to do it, whilst the reality is no such obligation exists in my mind. I do it because I want to do it. I've always been jealous of monks and nuns, Halaj and Rumi, able to dive into asceticism and shed their body to truly feel their soul. Sadly, I have a fetish for all things luxurious and cocktail brunches that makes such a life improbable for me. But all the same I get a chance every year, on some basic level, to experience what these people revel in all their lives.

But Newtonian physics would have their way with me after my first long day of fasting. The strong blow of spirituality produced and equal and directly opposite reaction. Saturday I could not believe myself when I finally was able to eat. I had gotten up at 5.30am, went shopping at noon and only returned home at 7pm, at which point I showered an headed out for iftar (disguised as a dinner date).

True to my Egyptian blood I over indulged (though at a Spanish restaurant in Soho).

I drank enough water and wine to sink the Titanic. After my dinner date I swung by an ex lover and took him home for some major deflowering. I woke up the next day so tired and hung over I couldn’t possibly survive 3 minutes without water. A liter of Volvic, a shower and several pills later, I was ready for a Sunday at the gay pond in Hampstead Heath. The day was magnificent and I, for the first time ever since I moved here, tanned in London. At the pond I was giving off an unusual energy (what with my aviators in one hand and a glass of rosé champagne in the other), as more and more handsome gentlemen made their way to our spot. Ready for round two, I picked a friend of a friend who was unusually sweet and rather attractive and took him home as well.

Shocked at my own behaviour, I woke up Monday morning wondering what happened. I know now that I probably should have eased myself into the process. The good news is I am now back on track and managing this one day at a time successfully. The challenges in Ramadan are many but if anything the biggest of all is gaining good insight into who you are.

Peace
M

Vile scenes and bitter queens

A kind visitor of my blog commented on my recent post (A Life of Excess) suggesting that perhaps I wasn't very supportive of gay pride parades. Dear visitor, M loves to party and will find almost any excuse to do it. My dislike for gay prides stems not only from the freakish display of flamboyance and gender confusion (no judgment, but I am gay and I don't feel very represented in these parades, but then again a gay Arab lawyers parade would probably bore us to death), it more so stems from my dislike of the values and attitudes that are espoused by the vast majority of the people in these parades.

S is good friend of mine. His relationship ended very recently, in the least flattering of manners. Against my better advice, he was entangled with 19 year old (Teddy) of a deceptively sweet disposition. Like most 19 year olds, including myself at one time, Teddy was a selfish people pleaser. He wanted to have his cake and eat it too, and hid whatever truths necessary to make sure he did. So Teddy slept around while the cat was away, and in all honesty when you're 19 you're both dumb and horny so again no judgment is warranted.

So how did S discover this infidelity? Let's rewind.

A 'friend' of his (let's call him Ugh), just as S started dating Teddy, informed S that he had a thing for Teddy. You know, usual 'friendly' home-wrecker I'm-gonna-steal-your-boyfriend conversations.

I have never met Ugh, but what I can gather from his own words on his insufferable blog is someone with an usually empty life that is need of drama to spice it up. Ugh sought the ultimate scenario for drama (and maybe even material for his blog): he lured Teddy into his trap by fooling around with him behind S's back. Nothing serious, a blow job and some tonsil tickling. He then convinced Teddy never to tell S. Soon after, Ugh tracked S down for a conversation and, overcome with what I am sure was very sincere guilt, he told S everything, including the fact that Teddy has already slept with two other guys in the past month.

I wish I could tell you, dearest reader, that Ugh is an exception to the rule (and I have a feeling he may think he is), but I would be unforgivably lying. This is what it means to be gay and in the scene these days, whether you're in Cairo or Zurich. Cheap, insincere and conniving. We need a radical shift from this culture, but one will not be possible if we keep celebrating our moral bankruptcy.

S, if anything you're a victim of your own choices. Ugh is not a friend. Teddy is not boyfriend material. If you share values with a more appropriate repertoire of people, you will somehow find yourself surround by such people.

Peace

M

Sterility

When you grow up in Cairo, you learn to respect sterility. In a city where noise, smoke, clutter, dust and a multiplying population are the overwhelming norm, clean-cut minimalism has an almost paranormal appeal. For me, the attraction was more of a necessity. At the age of 18, I was diagnosed with a 'mild' linear OCD (after I stormed out of a NMUN meeting at AUC, projectile vomiting because the "chairs weren't in rows") that, thankfully, only manifests itself from time to time.

So here I am, sitting on top of my glass tower in London, not a paper out of place, not an angle betraying 90 degrees. And what do I miss? A little haphazardness, a little unpredictability. Yes, the grass is always greener.

A Life of Excess

Do you get those moments when, as you look around you, you suddenly feel like you've landed on another planet where amazingly humanlike creatures populate the scenery, where the colours are far too bright and where, despite being a visitor of this planet, you feel that you can navigate and camouflage yourself in its humanoid population?

It all started, I suppose, when I was checking my FB messages just days before S and I were to hit Barcelona (and hit it hard) with 25 of our 'closest acquaintances'. There it was, in my inbox, a video clip from Madrid gay pride in early July of 2009. I was about 1 second away from closing the window and moving on to more productive things (like dudesnude! after all I had no interest whatsoever in the freak show and the imposed gay culture of 'pride' parades) when something caught my attention. The video was of a crowd, a large one that clogged up a wide avenue of downtown Madrid. A sea of people. In the middle was a large truck. It was covered in feathers and embroidered cloth of white, cream and pink varieties. I remembered my friends had put together their own float with the theme of Marie Antoinette. I looked closer and the camera zoomed in on the humanoids. Everyone on the truck was Arab. Armani was front centre, with his outfit just so. The boys were all beautiful, jumping around, dancing and dominating the crowds all the same. The colours were all too bright. The heavily decorated faces! Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Israel. It was surreal. People that back home wouldn't so much as hold a guy's hand in public were in silver tights, wigs and Max-Mara (pun intended for those of you who speak Arabic) make-up. The crowd below seemed in awe, and so was I.

In Barcelona, where S established himself as the undisputed Reina Sofia in every party of the 2009 Circuit Festival, the surreal bubble only continued. What I remember most are flashes of the time we spent there. Promenades on the nude beach, the muscle gods of Nova Mar Bella Barceloneta, S skipping through the streets of Eixample hand in hand with Rachel, the endless line of Lebanese and Dubai-based boys outside Casanova at 6.30 AM, Vodka Pink Berrys, sunglasses and the best beach party in the history of Sitges. S dominating the go-go box at The Week International at 8 AM after his first caffeine pill.

At some point in Plata Universitat as we sat around waiting for one thing or another, one of the boys asked why gay men go to such extremes to enjoy themselves. Dark rooms, drugs, 24 hour partying, sex for sex's sake – why are we so weird?

I honestly think it is more rebellion than substance. Gay men aren't weird, they've been told they're weird growing up and now they're kicking it in everyone's face. Drugs? Bring it on. Anonymous sex in dark dungeons? Why the hell not. When you're brought up in the Arab world especially (but by no stretch of the imagination is that only applicable there), you learn from a very early age that your whole existence is...wrong. That's why a lot of us go into gay scenes thinking we have nothing to lose. In a sense it is a lack of maturity, but the blame doesn't lie on us entirely.

Even though we have been marginalised by mainstream society and religion, this doesn't mean we have to live marginal lives of hedonism. We have to be attracted by wholesomeness and stability, and this can only come if we deep down accept who we are. I think the greatest irony is that those of us who swish around in parades celebrating 'pride' are actually usually the ones that have the most to prove to themselves.

Peace all
M

Sarastro

You: Handsome and quirky, floppy haired and dark

Me: Starry-eyed and awkward, smiling back at you from my lunch table with my family

You: Lingering gaze and wide smiles

Me: Lingering smiles and wider gazes

You: Watched me with sad eyes as I left the restaurant

Me: Waited outside till you were done with your friends

You: Practically jogged down the street to where I was standing

Me: Watched the afternoon breeze play with your hair and the sun light up your eyes