Uzbekistan Blues
Saturday, December 05, 2009
Our Saturdays that summer, after sweating through the work week, were what we would call our “pool crawls” around the city. Too hot to be anywhere where we couldn’t take off some of our clothes, too bored to sit in the air conditioned comforts of our homes, or the hotel lounges and cafes where foreigners sat, we would spend our Saturdays driving around in his air-conditioned land rover, checking out different swimming pools around the city.
We would go to different hotels, sports centers, public pools, private pools, high end pools, low end pools, man made beaches by the filthy river that ran through the city, public fountains where people stripped down to their underwear and splashed about to relieve themselves from the oppressive heat, casting aside their Uzbek sense of propriety which kept them covered up, and frequently bathing in their underwear. And at once, I had seen more male flesh than I had in my entire experience in Tashkent.
While we’d speak in English admiring what we might see around us, without any fear that anyone would understand, Jason would tell me about the flirtation that he’d been carrying on with a professional boxer from Uzbekistan’s national boxing team, who had met at his gym and I would listen on enjoying vicariously his little adventure with a twinge of jealousy and some confusion.
Jason spoke some very broken Russian. And he said that he had found himself a nice boxer, who didn’t speak any English. I never quite understood what kept those relationships together, when two people didn’t speak the same language. Fantastic sex, I assumed. So I asked Jason, a bit indiscreetly about said fantastic sex and whether it made up for the fact that they couldn’t really communicate given the language barrier. But, much to my surprise, Jason told me, the flirtation was chaste – it had absolutely no sexual component to it, for the simple reason that the boxer was not gay. What fueled Jason’s pursuit was the mere possibility of sex, the hope that one day his boxer would break down and capitulate to his wishes and desires.
“So what do you do,” I asked.
“He lets me hold his hand while I drive the car,” Jason said. I suddenly wondered why I had been jealous all of those summer Saturdays. Jason was getting about as much action as I was in Tashkent. But, at the very least, he had something to fix his desires onto, which was better than me, in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction and boredom, and resigned to such a state.
Not only had he touched and held the boxer’s hand. He had been to his house, that is, his parents’ house, for dinner. He even slept over at their home, as the customary Uzbek hospitality generally requires not letting you out of the house even after being force-fed into something of a food coma, after the endless cups of tea and conversation prolonged to long after the conversation has been exhausted. He slept in the same room as the boxer. But only slept.
"Does he even know that you're gay?” I asked Jason. “Or that you're interested in him?"
Apparently he did, Jason said. Though I wondered how well Jason’s Russian language skills were capable of communicating that. Perhaps; the Russian word for gay, is the same as in English.
"And he's OK with that?" I asked and Jason nodded, though I couldn’t really believe him.
Homosexuality was not taken lightly here, and the Uzbeks were accommodating to a limit, and I think that this was the limit. But perhaps foreigners here were given a separate set of standards, in the same way that the rich here were, as they could, after all, buy their own rules and laws. And perhaps for his boxer friend, having a foreign friend was something like a prestige item, like a pair of designer jeans or an imported car. It certainly was something here to parade around. I think I would have hated to be in that position, the paraded foreign friend. But Jason seemed okay with it all, he didn’t seem to care that he longed for things he could probably never have.
"He has no problem with your holding his hand?" I asked him unconvinced.
"I told him that I hold hands with my friends when I drive my car." ¶ 7:44 PM 0 Comments
We would go to different hotels, sports centers, public pools, private pools, high end pools, low end pools, man made beaches by the filthy river that ran through the city, public fountains where people stripped down to their underwear and splashed about to relieve themselves from the oppressive heat, casting aside their Uzbek sense of propriety which kept them covered up, and frequently bathing in their underwear. And at once, I had seen more male flesh than I had in my entire experience in Tashkent.
While we’d speak in English admiring what we might see around us, without any fear that anyone would understand, Jason would tell me about the flirtation that he’d been carrying on with a professional boxer from Uzbekistan’s national boxing team, who had met at his gym and I would listen on enjoying vicariously his little adventure with a twinge of jealousy and some confusion.
Jason spoke some very broken Russian. And he said that he had found himself a nice boxer, who didn’t speak any English. I never quite understood what kept those relationships together, when two people didn’t speak the same language. Fantastic sex, I assumed. So I asked Jason, a bit indiscreetly about said fantastic sex and whether it made up for the fact that they couldn’t really communicate given the language barrier. But, much to my surprise, Jason told me, the flirtation was chaste – it had absolutely no sexual component to it, for the simple reason that the boxer was not gay. What fueled Jason’s pursuit was the mere possibility of sex, the hope that one day his boxer would break down and capitulate to his wishes and desires.
“So what do you do,” I asked.
“He lets me hold his hand while I drive the car,” Jason said. I suddenly wondered why I had been jealous all of those summer Saturdays. Jason was getting about as much action as I was in Tashkent. But, at the very least, he had something to fix his desires onto, which was better than me, in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction and boredom, and resigned to such a state.
Not only had he touched and held the boxer’s hand. He had been to his house, that is, his parents’ house, for dinner. He even slept over at their home, as the customary Uzbek hospitality generally requires not letting you out of the house even after being force-fed into something of a food coma, after the endless cups of tea and conversation prolonged to long after the conversation has been exhausted. He slept in the same room as the boxer. But only slept.
"Does he even know that you're gay?” I asked Jason. “Or that you're interested in him?"
Apparently he did, Jason said. Though I wondered how well Jason’s Russian language skills were capable of communicating that. Perhaps; the Russian word for gay, is the same as in English.
"And he's OK with that?" I asked and Jason nodded, though I couldn’t really believe him.
Homosexuality was not taken lightly here, and the Uzbeks were accommodating to a limit, and I think that this was the limit. But perhaps foreigners here were given a separate set of standards, in the same way that the rich here were, as they could, after all, buy their own rules and laws. And perhaps for his boxer friend, having a foreign friend was something like a prestige item, like a pair of designer jeans or an imported car. It certainly was something here to parade around. I think I would have hated to be in that position, the paraded foreign friend. But Jason seemed okay with it all, he didn’t seem to care that he longed for things he could probably never have.
"He has no problem with your holding his hand?" I asked him unconvinced.
"I told him that I hold hands with my friends when I drive my car." ¶ 7:44 PM 0 Comments
