Growing up in a small delta city, Gamal Alaa always knew that he wasn’t like his school mates. He and his friends were all from good, educated middle class families, but at the end of the day there was something that did not add up. He excelled at school, and got top honors at the prestigious Faculty of Engineering at a nearby university. But he still felt out of place.
“I knew that I was different, even when I was a little kid, he says. “Even before I knew about sex or any of those adult terms, a long time before that I knew any of that, I knew I was different in a way. But I didn’t know what to call it.
In his first year of university, Gamal began using the internet and making friends in chat rooms. Online, he discovered a whole new world. Women and men chatted and flirted through coy profiles and messenger services in a way that would be impossible in public.
Even more taboo, there were chat rooms just for gay Egyptians to meet, make friends, and flirt. It was in this parallel e-world that Gamal found a name for his feelings. Gamal, he realized, was gay.
“I could go online and read about people’s lives, and see that they had lives and relationships and they dated, he says. “That was when I knew what to call it, that it existed in the world and it wasn’t just me. I wasn’t the only one.
Adam Aboul Naga, a twenty-something media professional also raised in the delta, felt the same way the first time he found a gay Egyptian website during his university days.
“I went to this site www.gayegypt.com because I heard people at school talking about it, making fun of it and saying how bad it was that it was there, he says. “I didn’t have any gay friends, or know anyone who was gay. Before I went on that site, I had no idea about being gay in Egypt.
In the last decade, the Internet has opened up whole new worlds of information for those tech-savvy enough to turn on a PC and give their mouse a few clicks.
While market research indicates that internet penetration in Egypt is a low 8%, these forces of free-flowing information are nonetheless showing the wired, largely urbanized few a whole new set of sexual possibilities and lifestyle options that were unheard of a generation ago.
After reading the message boards at gayegypt.com for several weeks, Adam moved on to gay dating websites based in foreign countries, like www.gaydar.co.uk. On these sites, members can create profile pages, send messages, make friends and arrange dates.
“I’ve met a lot of guys over the internet. With very few exceptions, everybody I met was online, through Gaydar, he says. “I have met maybe 50 people over the internet. Some of them turned into friends – 2 of my best friends I met through Gaydar. One of them actually was my school friend at university. We didn’t know that each other were gay, we just knew each other from school.
Gamal, who is almost 30, also opened an account on a dating website. Soon he was browsing profiles, making new friends through chat services and trying to decide which men were safe to meet.
Both men say they have a number of guidelines they follow before they decide to meet one of their online buddies. They have to have things and common and get along well in their chats; they must both be interested in being friends and not in just meeting for a quickie; and they must agree to meet in a public place for coffee or lunch, just like two friends.
If someone meets those criteria, and they have fun in their real-life meeting, then they might become friends or even start dating. But more often than not, both men say, such meetings lead to neither long-term friendship or serious dating.
Sometimes they end up as one night stands, says Adam, especially if one or both men are feeling depressed about other things happening in their lives.
“A few months ago I was really feeling down one day and I was online and I saw this Dutch guy, he says. “He was kind of old, in his 40s, and was staying here in a hotel. I asked him when he was leaving and he said that night. So I went to his hotel and we had sex like one hour before his flight.
Afterwards, Adam says, the tryst made him feel bad, and he realized that it was just a way of coping with his unhappiness.
“After we had sex, I felt cheap. I felt like an unpaid prostitute, he adds. “I don’t even know his name. Maybe he said it, but I don’t remember his name now. I think I only did it because I was feeling down.
Other times, the meetings get off on the right foot but end very badly. Both men say that stories of homophobic violence and petty mugging are common. Gamal has experienced it first hand.
“Back in a time when I was less careful, years ago, I met someone after chatting just one time, says Gamal. “He seemed to be a good guy – cultured, educated, a university graduate, he had a job, he was good looking. It should have worked fine.
“I met him, and he robbed me, even though I met him in a public place – we met in a shopping mall in Nasser City, in one of the coffee shops on the first floor. It scared the hell out of me – I never expected it to happen.
Working with a partner who made a distraction inside the shop, Gamal’s date took off with his expensive new mobile. When Gamal called the man to confront him and ask why he had stolen the phone, the man threatened to tell everyone on his SIM card that he was gay. “You’re a fag, he said, “and you deserve what happens to you.
Still, Gamal says he was lucky that nothing worse happened. “I have heard of worse stories, horrible stories of people being mugged and robbed, or tranquilized, drugged and thrown out of cars while driving on the highway, he says. “There are horrible risks you take with gay chatting and dating here.
Years of online dating have taught both men a lot about gay life in Egypt, and the perils and possible happiness of a life lived with a little help from the internet world.
Adam met his current boyfriend, Sherif, over the internet. The two are in a happy, committed relationship and so are predictably not as pessimistic as some about the possibility of gay romance in Cairo. But Adam says that he is acutely aware of the challenges, both personal and professional, of living a gay life in Egypt. “I am involved in a lot of different things, he says. “In university I was involved in a lot of student activities. I was a leader of a big organization at my university, so State Security knew who I was. Now I am a journalist, so State Security knows who I am. I think the government has it on my file that I am gay, and my biggest fear is that someday they will black-mail me.
“Its hard to think about the future because right now its easy for Sherif and I, we’re young, he says. “But people talk to me about marriage a lot. And what about ten years from now – two 35 year olds living together? And they’re not dating? What’s the story with that?
Gamal, who is currently single, says that his years of online dating have made him pessimistic about gay life in Egypt.
There is too much hostility to homosexuality, he says, too little respect for people’s private lives, and too much pressure to follow the acceptable path of sexual chastity until heterosexual marriage. Egyptian society does not leave any space for people like he and Adam to live their own lives, he says.
“Since I started dating through the internet, I’ve had 3 serious relationships, says Gamal. “Two were with Egyptians and one was with an American. But they were all failures, of course. None of them worked. I don’t think it is possible for two guys in Egypt to stay together for the long term. Everything is against it here – it’s taboo, it’s illegal, it’s forbidden.
“You have to be discrete, and discretion is one major element that makes everything fall apart, that makes it break up, he adds, his voice more resigned than sad. “If you’re going to share a life together people have to know about it. But you can’t do that here, so everything always falls apart.
