Bachi Bazis: What’s There To Say, If Anything At All

In Afghanistan, bacha bazi is a dancing boy, usually from a poor family, that is recruited by older, richer men to dress as a women. Typically, the boys would be sexually exploited and paid handsomely.

My primary question in writing this post is how can one begin to speak about these things? I am very suspect of the reporting surrounding this subject as it all seems to have emerged in the past couple of years (Washington Post, In the Now, DailyMail, et cetera) In all these articles, there is an emphasis on Western powers’ lack of action. The articles also seem to imply that the boys are OK with their roles, because of the profit.

For this reason, I wonder whether my own Western-conservative paradigms of sex and sexual relations are pushing me to reject the dancing boys phenomenon. What can be a more sophisticated lens of viewing this practice?

I pose this as a challenge to myself and my peers. Given all that we have learned about western representations, knowledge and power, and the politics of reception, how can we discuss this subject, if at all?