How did this thread go from suggesting this man is gay to same-sex sexual intercourse in the Middle East?
By the way, before the spreading of Islam as it was common in most ancient societies there wasn't a particular stigma against homosexuality. Despite the homophobia spread by Islam in those societies there is still a culture of homoeroticism and same-sex attraction that survives, but they don't rationalise it from a modern western perspective.
Years ago I remember I read that in Egypt some families encourage certain close relationship between two young men (teens) to develop a romantic relationship just like any other teen who falls in love with someone else, but they don't apply labels to that bonding and there is no explicit expression of that in the outside.
Bodybuilding has always been a means to sublimate same-sex desire in societies where homosexuality has been severly stigmatised, by the way.
Islam has reshaped their societies greatly, but some things still survive, it's just that they rationalise it in a different way.
