Introduction

Notes Introduction 1. Those films were Gambit starring Shirley MacLaine and Michael Caine, directed by Ronald Neame, and What Did You Do In the War, Daddy? starring James Coburn and Dick Shawn, directed by Blake Edwards. 2. Actor Edmund Shaff, who toured in the 1950s withThe World of Suzie Wong, said that in Los Vegas, chorus girls were routinely elided with prostitutes, and were offered huge sums to make that assumption come true, and that few could resist. His wife, who had been a chorus dancer, had a similar experience and said that part of the expectations of the job was to have drinks with the customers after the show (Personal interview: August 17, 2012). The term “chorus girl” or “showgirl” can still serve as a euphemism for a prostitute. In the 1990 documentary filmParis Is Burning about transgendered and transvestite individuals in New York who appeared in the film [A Woman Informant, when asked how these people made their living she said with a knowing smile, repeating it several times, “Oh, they’re showgirls. You know [with a knowing smile and wink], chorus girls.” 3. On February 3–4, 2012, I participated in a conference entitled “The Medi- terranean and Beyond,” in which papers addressed the interconnectedness of this geographic region, highlighting the need to break down some of the artificial scholarly and historical barriers established by an ever- increasing specialization in academia, because these borders have reality only in academia. 4. This gender change was not specific to New York. I observed it in Los Ange- les and San Francisco as well. 5. As David Halperin notes: “To say that homosexuality and heterosexuality are culturally constructed, however, is not to say that they are unreal, that they are mere figments of the imagination of certain sexual actors. (Con- structionists sometimes sound as if they are saying something like that, but that is not—or, at least, it ought not to be—the constructionist claim)” (1990, 43; emphasis in original). 238 NOTES 6. For example, I asserted in a study on Iranian dance, that because dance came to stand for everything un-Islamic and shameful, one of the first acts of the Islamic Republic of Iran was to ban dance activities. I argue that people in Iran, since the ban, frequently dance as an act of resistance, which means that a once disgraceful act has become an act of daring and brav- ery, and that these attitudes are socially constructed and malleable (Shay 2008c). 7. Popescu-Judetz, like many other scholars, has mistaken the appearance of the köçek dancers, as “female.” There was never an attempt on the part of these dancers to appear as women because they were attractive to their audi- ences as young males; rather, they wore colorful rich costumes that were deliberately ambiguous, but they always appeared with some male elements in their dancing costumes, hair arrangements, or headpieces. Metin And notes that these dancing boys were such sex objects that Ottoman poets wrote love poetry to them (ibid). Indeed, the love object in most poetry in the medieval Islamic world was an idealized beautiful young male (Shay 2000, 110–111). Chapter 1 1. Anthropologist Karin van Nieuwkerk 1995 made a study of attitudes toward belly dancers in Egypt, and found much more sympathy among lower-class individuals toward them than upper-class people, who despised them as prostitutes. 2. In much of the Middle East, ambivalent and negative attitudes toward dancing, which I have termed “choreophobia” (1999), even in private social events, remains strong. A friend, Hedieh Farhadi, who enjoys dancing, said that her uncle advised her that “if she wanted a husband, she had better dance less” (personal communication. February 10, 2013). 3. This does not refer to folk dancing, but rather to urban dancing, especially of a sensual nature. In general, regional folk dancing is regarded in a more positive light by most urban dwellers, as a healthful, innocent pastime. 4. In 1996, the Persian language airways were filled with news that the Pahlavi pretender to the Iranian throne danced at his cousin’s private wedding cel- ebration, an act that scandalized many listeners (Shay 1999, 132). 5. Ethnomusicologist Hormoz Farhat claims that “At the Sassanian [sic] court, musicians had an exalted status” (1965, 3). Iranian dance writer Medjid Rezvani states boldly that “In antiquity, dancers were very honored in Iran” (1962, 148). Historian Mary Boyce offers a corrective to temper Farhat’s and Rezvani’s observations. She notes that the gosan (Parthian and Sasanian era minstrel) is “sometimes an object of emulation, sometimes a despised fre- quenter of taverns and bawdy houses” (1957, 18). NOTES 239 Chapter 2 1. For pederasty, see Davidson 2007; Garrison 2000; Halperin 1990, 2002a; Lear and Cantarella 2008; Percy 1996; Winkler 1990a, 1990b. For prostitu- tion, see Davidson 2006; Faraone and McClure 2006. See Smith (2010) for a wide range of pottery and vase paintings. 2. One encounters the alternate spellings hetaera and hetaera in different sources. The plural hetaerai/hetairai also exist. 3. It is curious that in the contemporary Balkans, especially in Bulgaria, Macedonia, and Greece, and the Middle Eastern countries of Turkey and Iran, the zurna, a double-reed instrument, often played by two players, one holding a drone note, must have had a similar sound to the aulos, which is described as piercing. The players are frequently Roma (Gypsies), which places them as outsiders and with low social status vis-à-vis the local popu- lation of peasants and tribesmen who hire them. Chapter 3 1. Baltic history scholar William Urban notes that paganism was still wide- spread into the sixteenth century (1987). 2. A similar situation existed in Tehran in the 1950s. To my knowledge, there did not exist bars and cafés that catered to an exclusively homosexual cli- entele, which was common in European and US cities at the time, but certain locations such as cinemas and bus lines served as locations where men who were interested could meet other men in anonymity and arrange sexual assignations. 3. Peter Green anachronistically characterizes Bathyllus as “a well-known pantomimus, or ballet dancer” (Juvenal 2004, 58 n.13). 4. My friend Ardavan Mofid, who played the black-face clown in the Iranian siyah-bazi/ru-howzi theatre, told me: “If the government raised the price of bread ten cents on the day of our performance, than we did bread” (personal interview, April 4, 1994). Chapter 4 1. There are several volumes for the reader who wishes for a more in-depth study of early and classical age Islamic civilizations. Some, written some years ago, still carry considerable authority in the field. For general sur- veys, Marshall G. S. Hodgsons’ Venture of Islam (1974 in three volumes) and The Cambridge History of Islam (M. Holt et al., editors, 1970 in two volumes), and The Cambridge History of Iran (various dates) will provide excellent scholarly overviews. Richard Bulliet’s Islam: The View from the 240 NOTES Edge (1994) provides a unique perspective of the conversion process in Persia and Central Asia. Morony (2005) provides a detailed historical study of Iraq, a core area of early Islam in the crucial years before and after the Islamic conquest. 2. The Qur’an states that “believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty [foruj = literally ‘vulvas’]; . that they should draw their veils over their bosoms and not display their beauty except to their husbands” and other named male relatives and servants (Qur’an 24:31, p. 363). In other words, there is no requirement for women to veil in the sense of covering their faces. Islamic scholar Cyril Glassé adds that “While modesty is a religious prescription, the wearing of a veil is not a religious requirement of Islam” (1995, 468). 3. Many individuals (Rezvani 1960; Shiloah 1995) claim that “a well- defined form of sophisticated dance did exist. The latter probably referred to the glorious pre-Islamic Iranian dance with its codified rules and aesthetics” (Shiloah 1995, 137). This a claim for which absolutely no evidence exists. 4. If the public invective of the sort that was passed by the slave singing girl, ‘Inan, and Abu Nuwas, or of the later wonderfully witty and obscene poetry of ‘Obaid-e Zakani are examples, then present-day Middle Easterners differ from them in their readiness to talk or write about sex. Most present-day Middle Easterners, outside of a close circle of same-age, same-sex friends, do not readily discuss sex in an open fashion, as many observers have pointed out (Beeman 1981). 5. In a recent visit to Istanbul (April 20, 2013), I saw a display of men dressed in Ottoman costume displaying many of the sports popular with elite men during this period. 6. Thesura that was, and still is, frequently cited to prohibit music, and especially dance is 8.35: “And their worship at the (holy) House is naught but whistling and handclapping. Therefore (it is said unto them): Taste of the doom because ye disbelieve” (Qur’an 8.35, 172). 7. There is frequently confusion regarding a person’s ethnicity, because of the use of Arabic names for everyone. Clues are often provided by terms like “al-Isfahani” to ascertain whether or not the individual is an Arab or a Persian. Since al-Isfahani would seem to indicate a person born in the city of Isfahan in Iran, one might assume Abu l-Faraj al-Isfahani was an Iranian, but in fact, he is an Arab, and a direct descendent of the Umayyad dynasty.

Load more