But ask a gay man and he’ll say that in fact it’s not unusual-gay or straight. Ask any straight man privately, and he will deny that sex between guys happens. Just how far this camaraderie goes is a matter of ambivalence and opinion. Women have even easier access to one another, as is common in Muslim cultures, where the genders are usually segregated in public. This is a society with a high level of male/male and female/female camaraderie: Turkish men hang out with other men they touch and caress and walk arm in arm.īy the thousands, in cafes, in every city or village, with their chums they hover over dominoes or backgammon, drink tea or coffee, smoke lots of cigarettes and schmooze about local politics, olive crops or the day’s soccer games.
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Or, gay life in modern Istanbul can be relatively comfortable if you are discreetly ‘out’ and select your friends carefully.įor many lesbigays, life can be easy not because of protective laws or liberal attitudes, but because it’s a well-disguised lifestyle interwoven into a culture that allows for easy cover. Gay life in modern urban Turkey can be a hard if you are a transvestite/transsexual it can be be distressing and lonely if you are a closeted bureaucrat or corporate worker and it can be daunting if you are an activist. Mainstream culture is slowly realizing that gay men are not necessarily effeminate outcasts many high positions in society, commerce, politics and media are competently occupied by gays and lesbians without their being overtly identified. But in recent generations, building on Ataturk’s original humanism, there’s been a persistent gay subculture making its voice heard. Being gay here is still a shadow identity. Not that Turkey has become a Holland of the south. Rule of law replaced inconsistently administered moral religious codes–and that has made all the difference for the (slow and gradual) emergence of today’s lesbigay community. By dissolving the fierce authority of Islam, same-sex desire became a cultural and secular consideration, not a religious matter. Indirectly, it also lifted a curse over homosexual truth. In doing so he softened the suffocating religious pale over legal and state affairs. It was Ataturk who was mostly responsible for separating Islam and state in Turkey. Respect for ‘humanism’ and individual differences was prized along with a regard for advanced science and technology.
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Women were given education and the right to vote, the fez hat was outlawed, and the old Arabic alphabet was swept out and replaced with the Latin alphabet (used in most the western languages).
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Within ten years Ataturk had infused his lethargic agrarian homeland with progressive modern ideas, values and standards. He led his troops to victory against the occupying Europeans.
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in photo) declared the country to be an independent country. Modern Turkey is sourced back to a distinct year, 1923, when the charismatic and powerful military leader Mustafa Kemal ‘Ataturk’ (center. (A pleasant ‘east-west connection’ occurred my first day as I strolled past a Moorish-style piano store from which emanated beautiful live excerpts of Rachmaninov’s 2nd piano concerto being performed by the proprietor.) Western humanitarian, economic and political standards have prevailed as well as countless Victorian, art-deco and neo-classical style buildings, along with clutching traffic jams and independent newspapers. Indeed, after the defeat of the 700-year-old Islamic Ottoman Empire in World War I, England and France pretty much split up Turkey between themselves for several years. Modern urban Turkey is an east-west culture that has become infused, for most of the 20th century, with European life.