“The Dancing Boys Of Afghanistan”
While most of you last night were watching the Madonna episode of “Glee” or observing Kate Gosselin get booted off “Dancing With The Stars” (both of which I taped and zipped through around midnight), I was tuned in to PBS’ Frontline series, which was presenting a docu called “The Dancing Boys of Afghanistan.” The film, which you can watch online here, goes inside an ancient, illegal practice that’s once again flourishing — an organized sex trade in young Afghan boys. While I applaud the doc’s relative lack of sensationalism, its lack of cultural context was a little jarring. It didn’t even mention one of the main reasons why men in parts of the Muslim world turn to boys or other men for sex: because the world of women and the world of men are kept largely separate, and the taboo for having sex with a woman not your wife is often greater than that against having sex with a boy.
