A gay Saudi living with HIV tells about Aids and sexual oppression at the heart of the Arab world

 Marcel Wiel:

I found out I was positive in 1990 when I was 25. I’d been sexually active since I was 15, even though in Saudi Arabia this is illegal and severely punished. If you were caught, you may be let off with the police outing you to your family who’d shame you into submission. But you also risked jail or deportation. This depended largely on your nationality and the circumstances of your arrest. There was also the danger of being blackmailed and losing your job.

At the same time, sex was very easy to get. All you had to do was look available. People could smell the sexual desire on you. But it was always so fraught. As soon as someone you’d cruised had cum, they’d be off. You’d need to go through several partners to be satisfied. Saudi Arabia is the kingdom of the quickie.

When I was 15, I decided I was going to be English. I didn’t want to be Saudi, because I was gay and knew how harsh things were for gay people in Saudi Arabia. So I started speaking English and only hung out with Britons and Americans. I led two lives, one involved school and family, the other was with older gay expatriates.

The rocking throne
By the time I started university at 18, I mostly socialised with 30- and 40-year-old gay men, having completely adopted a Western look. This was rare in those days for someone who didn’t come from a very wealthy family, but I felt totally out of place with my own culture and society. I wanted to belong somewhere where gay sex wasn’t a dirty deed or something that was done in the dark and never spoken of. Many people lived a dual life.
Saudis are taught from early on that the throne on which Allah sits rocks every time two men have penetrative sex. Given how much of it goes on, it must be like a bloody disco up there.My first brush with HIV came in 1986. My Scottish boyfriend’s flatmate came back from a trip in the US and was very ill, ending up in hospital with severe breathing problems. He was the first person I knew who died of Aids.

At the time, I had a summer job in the hospital where he was being cared for and often visited. Everyone who visited him was called in for a test. My boss told me that if I didn’t have a test, I’d receive a summons from the Ministry of Health.
So I went for the test which was negative (I was so happy) and life sort went back to normal. Various theories circulated, such as withdrawing before orgasm was safe and being passive was risky. Gay Saudis in particular thought they were safe if they were always active.
By 1990, I’d had quite a lot of unprotected sex and had travelled abroad a lot because of my work. At the time, my sister was pregnant and was about to have a Caesarean. She needed a blood transfusion from a near relative and she asked me. I agreed but told her I’d need to have some blood tests to make sure I was all clear.
That time I tested positive. The doctor at the clinic who broke the news to me said: ‘You are carrying the Aids virus.’

Code of silence
Ten days later, I got a call from the Ministry of Health telling me of an appointment I had to keep with another doctor. He told me I was completely asymptomatic, but that I must never marry nor disclose my status to anyone for their own safety.
Later I found out that the official line was “we are Muslims, we don’t shag around and there is no Aids in Saudi Arabia,” so all cases had to be kept secret.
Because I was very depressed by my test result, I ended up seeing a psychiatrist. All he said was that I should read the Koran, even though there was always the threat that when I died, Allah wouldn't love me because I was gay.
I didn't feel there was space for me anymore. My life was getting smaller and smaller and was strangling me. I felt I was being watched all the time and was worried about being found out.
My sister persuaded me to get regular check-ups, and after many phone calls and lots of research, we eventually found a doctor who worked in a hospital quite far outside Jeddah, where my family lived.
The place was an old shabby building with two offices for doctors and an intensive care ward for terminal patients. My first appointment was with a doctor who told me to return every month and not to tell anyone I was going to this hospital. If pushed, I was told to lie.

Just following orders
I gave some blood and was given some vitamins but never any details about my situation, such as my CD4 count. After my fifth visit, I pressed the doctor to give me this information but he said he wasn’t allowed.
Eventually this, and the fact that I was made to wait in a ward with people dying from contagious diseases, made me flip. The doctors and nurses had masks, which gave them protection, but I was given no mask, as if I was dead already.
I threatened the doctor I would go public about the whole situation, naming him as my physician. This did the trick. I received my latest set of blood tests and was told I was doing very well. I asked him why he couldn’t have given me this information when I’d asked for it. He replied he was just following orders, so I said I’d never come back.

Conquering fear and secrecy
At that point, I decided to turn my back on my religion and my country and leave Saudi Arabia.
In 1996 on a business trip in the UK, I fell in love with someone and decided to live here. But all those years of keeping my status secret had really affected me. I didn’t tell my partner about being positive even though we had unprotected sex with each other and other people. I know it was really dirty and horrible for me not to tell him and I have to take responsibility for that.
When in 2000 he found out he was positive, I managed to disclose my status to him. Even though we had a huge falling out and he threw me out of his home where I was living, I really believe it was the best thing I could have done.
Now I understand that being secretive about my status was a pattern created from fear. I’d lived with this for so long that even years later my HIV was like a book I didn’t want to open. Only after my ex was diagnosed, did I manage to bring myself to register with a clinic in the UK.

Twenty-one years on from my initial diagnosis, I still haven’t needed to start anti-HIV treatment and only go for six-monthly check-ups. Also, if ever I do need to take them, the technology has moved on quite a lot, so side-effects are now minimal and some regimens are just one pill a day.
When I go back to Saudi Arabia these days, I see things have changed a lot. Thanks to satellite TV, social media and the web, people are much more exposed to information and ideas – like, when a couple of years ago the whole gay marriage thing hit the headlines in many countries, naturally people spoke of it in Saudi Arabia.
Also, in recent years, Arab authorities have been forced to make allowances for same-sex relationships when foreign LGBT diplomats arrive for postings with their civil partners or spouses. At the moment, there’s massive pressure for reform that's sweeping right across the region. I believe all countries in the Middle East have had a good kick up the butt. I never thought I'd see it, this groundswell of mass protest that seems to have come from nowhere. All the governments in the region are shitting their pants and no one trusts any officially sponsored media campaign.
Whether this translates into better rights for LGBTs, that's hard to say at the moment. What is certain though is that this will only happen if freedoms of expression and the person are constitutionally enshrined and guaranteed.
HIV and sex are still taboo for Saudi society, which rigidly tries to segregates the genders and only makes everyone feel highly sexed. So men end up having sex with each other, with the so-called straight ones acting all macho and making this big deal about never being passive, while the more effeminate gays play up to all the clichés.
The dating sites may be very popular, but its users are always very afraid of blackmail and take loads of precautions when they exchange information. Sex generally and gay sex in particular are seen as quite dirty and wrong. No-one feels completely free. It's quite toxic really.
On the positive side, not being in Saudi Arabia has made me realise just how I love my country – and not just the weather. I love my culture, the language, the people, the music and it's where my family is. I told them I was gay to them sometime ago and, despite a bit of a bumpy period of adjustment with a few relations, these days it doesn't make any difference at all. I'm totally accepted and embraced, and in some cases, the relationships are even stronger and more loving.
Being in London is great and so's my life in the UK. But I'll never feel like I belong there. It's not home.

About the writer who conducted the interview:Marcel Wiel is a London-based journalist and currently the deputy editor of The Guardian's syndicated news service. His new book is the gay relationships how-to guide Find Love In A Gay Bathhouse published by Homohappy Books. He is happily married to his partner Pierre.