I post this because friends of mine who served in Afghanistan have told me similar things directly. In fact, one friend who served told me that culturally, women are strictly utilitarian. Men are for ‘fun’ sexually speaking, and this was the norm for that culture. In any case, below is a report on Afghan sexuality and add to this some of the documentaries presented on the matter, it would appear that rape of boys is in fact the norm for sexuality over there. Rape, and then killing them when they reach puberty. Th whole documentary of the dancing boys of Afghanistan is here on Vlad somewhere or likely can be found on kitmantv.blogspot.com

Eeyore for Vlad

By Spengler  ASIA TIMES

Social scientists attached to the Second Marine Battalion in Afghanistan last year circulated a startling report on Pashtun sociology, in the form of a human terrain report on male sexuality among America’s Afghan allies. The document, made available by military sources, is not classified, just disturbing. Don’t ask, don’t tell doesn’t begin to qualify the problem. These are things you didn’t want to know, and regret having heard. The marines got their money’s worth from their Human Terrain adjuncts, but the report might have considered whether male pedophilia in Afghanistan has a religious dimension as well as a cultural one. I will explain why below.

Most Pashtun men, Human Terrain Team AF-6 reports, engage in sex with men – boys – in fact, the vast majority of their sexual contacts are with males. “A culturally-contrived homosexuality [significantly not termed as such by its practitioners] appears to affect a far greater population base then some researchers would argue is attributable to natural inclination. Some of its root causes lie in the severe segregation of women, the prohibitive cost of marriage within Pashtun tribal codes, and the depressed economic situation into which young Pashtun men are placed.”

The human terrain team responded to scandalous interactions between Pashtun fighters and North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops, some reported with hilarity by the media. An article in the Scotsman of May 24, 2002, reported, for example: “In Bagram, British marines returning from an operation deep in the Afghan mountains spoke last night of an alarming new threat – being propositioned by swarms of gay local farmers. An Arbroath marine, James Fletcher, said: ‘They were more terrifying than the al-Qaeda. One bloke who had painted toenails was offering to paint ours. They go about hand in hand, mincing around the village.’ While the marines failed to find any al-Qaeda during the seven-day Operation Condor, they were propositioned by dozens of men in villages the troops were ordered to search.”

Another interviewee in the article, a marine in his 20s, stated, “It was hell. Every village we went into we got a group of men wearing makeup coming up, stroking our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises.”

The trouble, the researchers surmise, is “Pashtun society’s extremely limited access to women,” citing a Los Angeles Times interview with a young Pashtun identified as Daud. He only has sex with men, explaining: “I like boys, but I like girls better. It’s just that we can’t see the women to see if they are beautiful. But we can see the boys, and so we can tell which of them is beautiful.”

Many of the Pashtuns interviewed allow “that homosexuality is indeed prohibited within Islam, warranting great shame and condemnation. However, homosexuality is then narrowly and specifically defined as the love of another man. Loving a man would therefore be unacceptable and a major sin within this cultural interpretation of Islam, but using another man for sexual gratification would be regarded as a foible -undesirable but far preferable to sex with a ineligible woman, which in the context of Pashtun honor, would likely result in issues of revenge and honor killings.”

For the rest of this disturbing article, please click through to Asia times.

Washington examiner:

By: Sara A. Carter 12/20/10 8:05 PM
National security correspondent

Pfc. Martinez Wangner from Rockville MD of 2nd Platoon Bravo Company 2-327 Infantry stands guard outside the door of a house during a patrol in Chowkay district near Pakistani border in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan, Tuesday, Dec. 21, 2010. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
A document released by WikiLeaks described efforts by high-ranking Afghan officials to quash reports of police officers and other Afghans arrested for “purchasing a service from a child.”The leaked diplomatic cable quoted former Minister of the Interior Hanif Atmar’s concern that publicity about the arrests, which involved the hiring of “dancing boys,” would “endanger lives.”

The author of the diplomatic cable fretted that the case would be “blown out of proportion, an outcome that would not be good for either the U.S. or Afghanistan.”

The vast gulf between U.S. and Afghan attitudes about homosexuality and pedophilia has generated concern among U.S. advisers in Afghanistan since the American presence there began to expand.

In late 2009, U.S. and British forces ordered a study of Pashtun male sexuality. They were worried that homosexuality and pedophilia among Afghan security forces and tribes could create cultural misunderstanding with allied troops, according to a copy of the report obtained by The Washington Examiner. Continue Reading →