ABSTRACT
Lebanon is a marriage-and-family centered nation. Individuals are understood as extensions of their families, and marriage is at once a social duty and a condition of self fulfillment. Intimate norms are especially rigid for women, requiring exclusive heterosexuality, sexual modesty, virginal marriage, and a procreative imperative. A double standard gives men more latitude in intimate matters. This intimate code produces an abundance of stigmatized, outsider sexualities – the unmarried, loose, promiscuous women, barren men and women, cohabiting men and women, childless marriages, but, above all, nonheterosexuality. So unequivocally is heterosexuality understood to be the basis and the elementary fact of intimate behavior that this norm hardly needs to be spoken, much less defended or explained; it is simply the only way to claim a normal sexuality and gender. In this chapter, I consider how nonheterosexuals in Beirut negotiate an urban world that leaves no legitimate option beyond heterosexuality. How is compulsory heterosexuality resisted?
