So, does anyone know if there's any cultural, religious or mythological significance in the fact that Salim and the djinn end up in bed together? I'm curious, just because of the fact that this is a part of the book that a lot of more "conservative" readers are disturbed by.

- - - -
PRESS RUN BUTTON!

This was one of my favorite parts of the book, in fact, I love all of the "vingettes", more than the main story, so far, although I am curious to see if they all come together towards the end. I have about 100 pages to go.

I think the purpose was to show that gods can be homosexual, even ones who come from repressive societies, and to show things aren't the way they seem. I like the clue Neal provides that, -(I can't remember the exact words)- for obvious reasons, his romantic relationships had been brief and anonymous.

gmzoe: edited out ad

[This message was edited by GMZoe on November 16, 2003 at 07:36 AM.]

I don't think their sexual encounter had anything to do with homosexuality. Salim is so struck with awe at the absolute beauty of the Djinn, that male and female no longer matter, and they make love as a means of expressing deep, wonderful emotions.

A very intriguing question indeed. I don't know if Neil intended it to be, but the sequence is a rather poignant comment on the realities of some Islamic cultures in opposition to the doctrines they preach. In an RS article some time two summers ago, a Taliban sympathetic Afghani was quoted as saying, "Women are for having children, men are for loving." Or something to that effect.

quote:

---

I don't think their sexual encounter had anything to do with homosexuality. Salim is so struck with awe at the absolute beauty of the Djinn, that male and female no longer matter, and they make love as a means of expressing deep, wonderful emotions.

---

I really like that idea, never thought of it in that way ... of course the Djinni represents Home for Salim too, and he longs for a touch of home... anyway...

... I do think Salim is gay. Know how they say that stories are truer than reality? This refers to the stereotypes that are often used to give a story more meaning, or to make a point. For example, if a story tries to point out that women are untrustworthy, you will find no women in it who keep their promises. That doesn't mean the writer hasn't met any, but he's leaving that part of reality out in order to stress his point.

To get to my point: a common stereotype is that women and homosexuals touch other people in order to give them comfort or moral support; men do not (at least not strangers). I wondered about Salim laying a hand on the Djinni's shoulder when he told his story, but when they ended up in bed together, it made sense to me.

It's cultural: In the middle east, Women are for babies, Men are for birth control.

Great comments, one and all.
I like a whole lot about that scene. For one thing, the encounter has the result of transforming both characters--emotionally, certainly, but also literally, since they end up trading roles after their time together. In this way their relationship gets them both out of traps--Salim's dead-end sales thing, and the afrit's hated cab driving experience--and onto higher ground, as it were. Salim is sucicidal until he has this encounter, suggesting the power of spiritual/sexual healing (to put it in a most cheesey, seventies sort of way).

I also like that they die together, indicating that their relationship carried on past the first encounter. This seems to add validity to their relationship, and supports the idea that they were truly involved, rather than just having a one-time experience.

Neil's quality as a writer comes through in this section, too...because it is so powerful, even if the reader is not male, not middle-Eastern, not an Afrit...etc.

Cheers!

Madmags

Pardon me...it's Ifrit, not Afrit, right? May the fleas of 1000 camels infest my armpits.

quote:

---

I also like that they die together, indicating that their relationship carried on past the first encounter. This seems to add validity to their relationship, and supports the idea that they were truly involved, rather than just having a one-time experience.

---

Hm. Did I miss something? One scene ends with Salim leaving the hotel to find his cab... and later (I have a harper torch ed, page 372) "It killed two pedestrains, an Arab taxi driver and the taxi driver's passenger." I assumed that it was Salim that was killed, not the djinn/Ifrit... if this little blurb is even talking about them. I thought maybe yes since it was specifically an Arab taxi driver... and this was the only one we knew of.


And, for my two cents... I don't know if there is any significance other than someone being so completely lost and lonely that they reach out to anyone... lucky them if he happens to be immortal.

Jess

This message has been edited. Last edited by: clueless_1der,

I didn't really get the impression that the passenger was the origional Djinn... I would say that Salim was gay, assuredly. I also think it amusing that this would be in new York, where everyone's supposed to be able to find their kicks, and the obviously repressed guy from nowhere comes in and manages to get laid with a guy, which he really wants, and an immortal one at that. I love my home.

So.. I don't think the ifrit was gay. I'm going by memory, but he did mention to Salim (who goddammit is obviously gay, but I'll get to that later) anyway he did mention to Salim that he would do anything to change the situation he was in. I'm not sure why sex with ifrits makes you change places with them (seems like a heterosexual relationship with one would get confusing real fast) but it did the trick. It got the ifrit out of the situation he was in. And if I may get a bit explicit, it says that Salim came twice and the ifrit only did after an hour of oral sex. Not the reaction of an ifrit enjoying himself much. I think that sentence there clearly shows that the ifrit wasn't gay, and Salim was. And I don't buy the whole thing about Ifrits being so beautiful that even straight men can't resist them. Nice thought, but it sure didn't seem like this ifrit was getting play every night to me... Anyway I guess it was good for him that he struggled his way through it because if he hadn't, he would've been squashed by that I-beam.
-jowls

My guess is, the ifrit was bisexual. It strikes me that the sort of wild spirit / trickster that ifrit seem to be would be a lot more permissive, particularly since wild spirits in many cultures seem to be a way for people to vicariously live out socially unacceptable desires... see Clurican in Sandman... also, after the first three hundred or so years, I get the feeling that one would have been around the block and back...

Question- did Salim become an ifrit after this, or just a cab driver? If it was him that was crushed under the I-beam, I think that points toward ifrit.

I think that the inclusion of that relationship is esential to in some ways make the gods more "human".
The one things that I don´t know if it was necessary, was that of including too many details of the sexual encounter.
Why do you think Neil did it??

I'm sorry if your own sexual or religious inhibitions kept you from enjoying part of this book but it's very arrogant to presume you could tell the author how he should write. Every single piece of the book is there for a reason, to develop the story and envelop the reader in the universe he creates, even the dirty parts. Salim was clearly gay because of the encounter and the numerous hints beforehand. The Ifrit was arguably gay but that's not the point. Whoever said

quote:

And if I may get a bit explicit, it says that Salim came twice and the ifrit only did after an hour of oral sex. Not the reaction of an ifrit enjoying himself much. I think that sentence there clearly shows that the ifrit wasn't gay,

was way off base. If the Ifrit was only there to satisfy Salim he could have stopped after Salim came once. This may be hard for you to believe now but sex isn't always over in seven minutes.
It is an interesting academic question whether there is some historical evidence that Ifrits satisfy men or perhaps Gaiman didn't even think about it, and that homosexuality is a natural and normal part of life and this character just happened to be queer.

sorry if this thread was long dead but i'm a new member

Does the significance really matter to something that is not relevant to the main plot? I do like the beauty of the scene, however.

The thing that confused me was that I thought homosexuality was highly frowned upon in Islam.

What other people said about both of them being lonely makes sense for why they'd get together (quite literally in fact- they switch places after all); it was just that I thought it wasn't allowed by the religion.

Would that be of any significance?

I would have to agree with a few of these posts and disagree with many of them as well. I do not think the sexual encounter was meant to be loving, although I do think it was meant to evoke a sense of homesickness. I think the ifrit was sincerely homesick, and that powered on some of the encounter, but at the same time, I think the posts ignore the fact that Neil focuses on the destructive/exploitative powers of sex rather than the "beautiful". Case in point: the first bit of sexuality we get is Laura's mouth being filled with another man's...

Then we have a prostitute quite literally eating a man with her...

And then we have the ifrit changing places. Why is the change significant? Because basically it saves his ass from the oncoming war. This cannot be overlooked: he goes awol through this sexual encounter.

In this way, I think one is right to point out the graphic details as not necessarily being a long night of love, but rather the discrepancy between reactions was quite purposeful. The gods use sex and use human desire for sex against humans. We have Lucy trying to seduce Shadow with her breasts on television. And, as stated before, we have the Queen of Sheba trying to eat her fill through sex.

For those who think sex is always beautiful, one should also realize that here, it is presented as dark, questionable, disease-ridden (in philosophy as much as physiology). While we live (in America and Canada) in a sexually open society, we cannot disregard the fact that this year alone in Canada, Syphilis is at a 908% rise, and (at least according to a poster at a local drug store) 1 in 4 people in North America have genital herpes.

My point? I think AG is not about the loving side of sexuality, or even the beautiful, but about the distorted, diseased, dark portion of it, in which it becomes currency and ammuniation. It is currency for the gods and ammunition against a vulnerable Shadow. One should note that Shadow explicitly rejects sexuality from the gods: he turns away from Wednesday's taste for younger women, he contemplates watching a pornographical movie and then decides it would possibly only hurt him more (in relation to thinking of Laura having sex with another man); he rejects Lucy's offer.

The point being: sexuality, I think, in general is either ammunition or currency. It can be loving, it can be beautiful... but not for Shadow, and not in AG. Like it is stated in a previous post, it isn't that there is no relation to sexuality being beautiful in reality... but, it is often ignored, there exists in that act a host of other possibilities, painful jealousies, burning disease, blatant exploitation and abuse. This is why I feel strongly that Neil is explicit only to point out that the ifrit is not experiencing the same thing as his partner. For the ifrit, this is something utilitarian; his mind is elsewhere, and that is why he cannot "come" until much later. He is worried about the oncoming war, and wants no part of it. If there is happiness for the ifrit, it is merely because he has found a way OUT.

Good points, but then what do you make of Shadow's feline encounter in Cairo?

From Neil's Journal:

quote:

Hello, Neil.

I was always happy that to see that you often included or represented lesbian characters in your writing. Is it deliberate and something that you are very conscious of? Is it from any specific influence at all? Interestingly, I don't recall any gay male characters, though. Just like the girl-kissers, huh? Me, too.... ;}

Rassamay

You don't? Let's see, in Sandman, among the characters who reveal their sexual orientation (which tends always to be a minority of characters) and off the top of my head, in the male gay camp you've got Alex Burgess and Paul McGuire (in episode one and The Kindly Ones) , the Cluracan, the Corinthian, Hal Carter, and, depending on your definitions, Wanda. Also several young actors and Christopher Marlowe. In American Gods you've got Salim and the Genie. (One major character in Neverwhere is gay, although you'll not know it until he develops a romantic liaison.) Over in the short fiction, you've got Mr Alice in the 999 story, "Keepsakes and Treasures", the inventor of the reboot drug in "Changes", and a fair number of other characters actually, now I come to think of it.

I tend not to write characters with sexual orientation as a starting point, unless that's how they define themselves. Most people don't.

So... Salim and the Genie are gay.

When I was reading AG, the outcome of the encounter between Salim and the Djinn threw me for a loop. It was not an outcome I expected...

I think after reading that story I officially became a fan of Neil Gaiman... I felt included. *sniffs*.

I look forward to seeing more gay and lesbian characters in Gaiman's writing...

Hmmm...just about to finish American Gods and that part did somewhat surprise me, but not that much. I think that for a god or mythological creature, a human would be like a different species, anyways or lower or more base, so the sex doesn't seem to matter as much. The Ifrit seemed to be doing what he was doing out of emotion and need, the human needed companionship and was lonely and feeling misunderstood. They connected and it was so intense it was physical. I don't think being gay or straight mattered, in this kind of story--I mean, whose to say that a magical creature has a gender or a sexual identity, really anyways, or who can say how a creature like that might affect a mortal being, straight, gay or otherwise....i dunno, that issue just seemed unimportant--it was the connection that seemed important to the vignette...and the fact that the emotion became or was physical--that the emotional and the physical were conflated..
it also reminded me of a more graphic version of that scene in The Great Gatsby where Nick goes home with the photgrapher guy to see his portfolio