It took me a few moments to parse out what Jones was saying, but essentially it's that Western journalists who express admiration for the heroism of Afghan warriors are queer for them, but because the warriors are "the very pinnacle of macho masculinity," there's no danger of sex ever taking place.

So -- at the core of her statement is that old, oppressive, and (hetero)sexist assumption:

REAL MEN DON'T HAVE SEX WITH OTHER MEN.

What?

A feminist guilty of (hetero)sexism -- which is just another form of sexism?

Yes.

Now -- some of you may remember a letter from one of our warriors in New Zealand which I quoted from in the message thread titled from longhouse to hidey-hole, in which he talks of this episode during WW I:

Incidentally have you come across Lawrence's book "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" about the WW1 Arabian Revolt against the Turks? At one point there is a story of an inseparable pair of Lawrences' Arab irregulars, Faraj and Daoud. .. beautiful. . Daoud is killed and Faraj, eventually, unable to cope, attacks in a frenzy and single handedly an impregnable Turkish position. . . in order to die.

In point of fact, Western observers have, from at least the 19th century forward, written of the "homoerotic bonds" between Muslim warriors.

And Byron, who died fighting the Turks in Greece, was also aware of that tradition. (Byron himself had a tremendous crush on a Greek youth, of whom he wrote "it be my lot to strongly, wrongly, vainly love thee still.")

So why does Ms Jones have a bee up her butt about this?

Clearly because her concept of homosexuality is based upon feminized males.

And the idea that fighters who are "Fierce, implacable, ruthless, bold, savage, [and] brutal" could form same-sex bonds is utterly beyond the pale to her.

She wants her homosexuals to be effeminized, vaginized, analized.

She doesn't want them out there making war, she doesn't want them to be "tough [and] fierce" -- or anything else which is suggestive of masculine aggressive energy.

Because to her, men and masculinity are the source of all evil.

Yet, she also "suggests that Western women working in Kabul dream of having an affair with their handsome Afghan drivers."

So apparently it's okay for her and other women to have erotic fantasies about manly masculine macho Afghan men -- who not only come from the same warrior traditions but have no doubt served as Mujahideen fighters;

but if MALE journalists dare to admire those same qualities in a MAN -- then they're attacked as being guilty of a "homoerotic glorification of manliness" to which a REAL MAN would never respond.

Guys, that's intensely bigoted.

That passage is, and I'm not kidding, one of the most bigoted I've ever read.

Here it is again:

The reportage of male journalists who admired the Mujahideen in the 1980s, she writes,

sometimes read like fan mail, tinged with a kind of homoerotic glorification of manliness, yet safely homoerotic because these tough, fierce, idealized bearded warriors seemed the very pinnacle of macho masculinity.

To equal that passage in sheer bigotry, you'd have to go to the religious right -- to someone like Pat Robertson or Fred Phelps.

And that's what I've often argued:

That we have on the one hand the feminist / analist left, which attacks any masculine manifestation of same-sex love;

and on the other the religious right, which attacks any masculine manifestation of same-sex love.

Notice that the reviewer himself was aware of her bias, characterizing her as "indulging in a long diatribe against Afghan society" which was dripping with "feminist anger."

And who is the reviewer?

According to his bio on the NY Review of Books site,

Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist and writer. He is the author of the best-selling Taliban and, most recently, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. He is a BBC contributor and writes for several newspapers, including the Daily Telegraph and the International Herald Tribune. (June 2006)

So he's a Pakistani man who has reported on the Mujahideen -- and, one would think, he's well aware of the complexities of warrior society.

Because clearly Ms. Jones' feminist biases did not sit well with him; and he didn't hesitate to say so in the New York Review of Books, which is about as Eastern establishment as you get.

Nevertheless, what this passage makes clear is the sort of bias feminists like Jones bring to any expression of love between MEN.

To repeat:

On one side there's the feminist / analist left, which attacks any masculine manifestation of same-sex love;

and on the other the religious right, which attacks any masculine manifestation of same-sex love.

Which means that the only people who will defend masculine manifestations of same-sex love -- are YOU.

Feminists won't.

The "religious" won't.

Only YOU can defend your life.

Because only YOU believe in your life.

© All material copyright 2006 by Bill Weintraub. All rights reserved.