Gay Life in Baghdad

Gay journalist Michael Luongo returns to Baghdad to report on what has -- and hasn't -- changed since he was there in 2007. In the piece, the author takes readers to gay safehouses, killing sites, and even popular gay cafes and spaces in Baghdad in what is believed to be the first time an article has ever had material directly from such locations.

Michael Luongo writes:

This visit would be full of stark contrasts. It was as if there were two different Baghdads — at least. ... I would see a hospital where the bodies of gay men had been dumped, their anuses closed shut from a heavy glue used to torture them. I would visit a safe house, chatting with gay men and transgender Iraqis who hid for safety, yet at the same time were welcoming and life-affirming, teaching me gay Arabic slang and joking about sex with gay Saddam-look-alikes.

And I would meet other men from different parts of Baghdad, young, fashionable, masculine, with far less to fear, who did in fact cruise along the colorful banks of the Tigris on Abu Nuwaz Street and spend their evenings at fashionable cafés popular among gays in West Baghdad, flirting with men they met through the website Manjam as they sat back in comfortable seats visible from the street.

Read the full article HERE.