| Chapter : | Introduction |
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For example, when we read that “Siham began to reject her femininity” (page 19) or that she enjoyed her mother’s light tickles on her back, we may be reading the narrator’s psychoanalytic recognition of the primacy of the mother in readings of the invert, and as such we should approach the character of Siham with care, not to confuse her as a representative of an entire “race” of Arab lesbians but rather as an inflection of lesbian experiences in a culture and a society that is in deep denial about the existence of such individuals and their rights to exist. It is no coincidence that the first (and, to my knowledge, the only,) documentary of Arab-American gays and lesbians was titled “I Exist.”13 The title is not only a forceful interjection, “Damn it, I Exist!” but is also an affirmation by those who speak it themselves, sounding it out so as to believe it; it’s almost a stunned reminder for oneself.
There is something significant about why this very particular “lesbian friendly” novel has come out of Lebanon and not Egypt or Saudi Arabia, Iran or Syria, or Algeria. Unlike most Arab countries, Lebanon has room for the secular. That is not to say that the majority of the populace is not of the religious ilk, because they are, but that Lebanon has always been open to the influence of the West, and the tensions between Muslims and Christians in the populace has created a kind of secular buffer zone. One need only watch the Lebanese Christian Television station LBC and compare it with a Gulf Television station such as ART to know the difference. On LBC television female talk show hosts are thin, lightly clad, wear plenty of make-up and are in no way shy about casting about their charms. On ART’s music video clips the singers are often male, wailing about the charms of the mysterious gulf woman whose only visible features are her beautiful eyes with which she speaks and seduces, or the songs are video clips to do with the love of one’s nation.