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Whether one likes it or not homosexuality and other forms of sexual and gender mutations have always existed. In Pakistan it is prevalent also except it is well hidden due to fears. However pedaracy (man "keeping" a boy lover) is actually deemded a prestigious thing in some communities, such as Pashtuns. The madarassas are also said to be breeding grounds for homosexual behavior probably due to the gender-segregated long internships. In the article "Open Secrets" by Miranda Kennedy published in Boston Globe, the author compares it to what happens in prisons.
While such behavior is repulsive to straight people, the secrecy and guilt associated with it is clearly dangerous to all. For example, the gay men who marry women to hide their nature basically destroy that woman!
Homosexuals in Pakistan walk a fine line between harsh legal and cultural prohibition and some form of unspoken social acceptance. "Islamic tradition frowns on but acknowledges male-male sex, and this plays a role in permitting clandestine sex so long as it is not allowed to interfere with family life, which is of paramount importance," the San Francisco-based sociologist Stephen O. Murray writes in "Sociolegal Control of Homosexuality: A Multi-Nation Comparison," a collection of scholarly essays published in 1997. Further complicating matters, the most common form of male homosexuality in Pakistan, according to Murray, is pederasty, where an older man entices or coerces (sometimes forcibly) a younger boy into sex.
Sayed Mudassir Shah, a human rights activist based in Peshawar, believes this goes on in part because of the extreme austerity of the traditional culture. Even after marriage, women are kept separate from men (except at night), and a strict interpretation of Islam discourages sports, music, and TV. Indeed, says Sayed, the practice is deeply embedded in the local culture. "It is so common to take boy lovers, that it is part of our Pashtun folklore," Sayed says. "One story tells of a wife crying to her husband that he has made her jealous, because he is spending so much time in the hujra with his boyfriend. This is folklore, but it is similar in life."
Sex between men is also commonplace in Pakistan's gender-segregated madrassas, or religious schools, where students and mullahs will go for months without setting eyes on a woman. Here, more than anywhere else in Pakistan, the situation resembles that found among prison inmates, where sex is mostly about availability and dominance rather than preference. In many cases, families take their sons to madrassas because they cannot afford to raise them themselves. A researcher with the AIDS Prevention Association of Pakistan (who asked that her name not be used) cited a saying such parents have for the teachers when they bring them their sons: "His flesh is yours, but his bones are ours."
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