ABSTRACT
This chapter contributes to existing discussions of homonationalism by lending ethnographic detail to existing critiques of a Western rhetoric, which suggest that Arab faith cultures and Arab same-sex desiring individuals are incompatible. It intervenes in these existing discussions by providing a critical analysis that considers Arab same-sex desire within the context of current Arab cultural traditions.
Through a series of interviews that investigate their digital and physical environments, I foreground the personal narratives of Arab men who have sex with men in the Gulf region of the Middle East. I employ interpretive analysis methods to explore the ways in which religion is tied to my participants’ everyday lives, identities, and practices in online spaces. I argue that through the mundanity of everyday life, religion is embedded in my Arab MSM participants’ online behavior, online interactions, and their understandings of the queer-coded online spaces they occupy. Through such an examination, I contend that the path towards advancing discussions of Arab same-sex desiring people necessitates that we reflect on the everyday narratives surrounding them.
