In a culture where men and women are totally separated from each other and only a few years before all women were veiled and hidden away, I didn’t expect a lot more from my guru, but it does seem that even some wise and devoted spiritual leaders are also victims of their own culture.
Two young men often hold hands as they stroll together down the street here in Tripoli, but the same men wouldn’t dare hold hands with a girl!
I don’t know if holding hands means the men are gay or just friends, but I suppose that where females are strictly off limits and when the hormones rage, young men will find some release for their sexuality if not in outright homosexuality than in some other bizarre form of behavior.
I suppose a boy holding hands with a girl here in Tripoli would be considered a disgusting pervert and not just a fool in love.
In Rio de Janeiro I saw “normal” young girls and boys wearing nothing but mini-bikinis on the beach in public and here young people are more at ease wearing yards and yards of cloth, pants, shoes and veils—well, which way is “wrong”? Would it be “better” if everyone were alike? Should the dress of a person in a scorching desert be the same as the clothing of a person living on a tropical island?
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