Notorious for its adherence to Wahhabism, a puritanical strain of Islam, and as the birthplace of most of the 9/11 hijackers, Saudi Arabia is the only Arab country that claims sharia, or Islamic law, as its sole legal code. The list of prohibitions is long: It’s haram—forbidden—to smoke, drink, go to discos, or mix with an unrelated person of the opposite gender. The rules are enforced by the mutawwa'in, religious authorities employed by the government’s Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice. If they catch a boy and a girl on a date, the Mutawwa'in might arrest the couple and jail them at the police station.

During the afternoons in various Saudi cities, traffic cops patrol outside girls’ schools as classes end, to keep boys away.

This has boosted Saudi Arabia's gay community. According to 26 year old gay Saudi Man, Yasser:

“It’s a lot easier to be gay than straight here,” he had said. “If you go out with a girl, people will start to ask her questions. But if I have a date upstairs and my family is downstairs, they won’t even come up.”

Yasser gestured to a parking lot across from the shopping center where he was being interviewed, explaining that after midnight it would be “full of men picking up men.” These days, he said, “you see gay people everywhere.”

This legal and public condemnation of men going out with women in Saudi Arabia leaves considerable space for homosexual behavior. As long as gays and lesbians maintain an outward conformity with Islamic norms, they are left to do what they want in private. Vibrant communities of men who enjoy sex with other men can be found in cosmopolitan cities like Jeddah, Riyadh and even Mecca. They meet in schools, in cafés, in the streets, and on the Internet. “You can be cruised anywhere in Saudi Arabia, any time of the day,” said Radwan, a 42-year-old gay Saudi man who lives in Jeddah. “They’re quite shameless about it.”

[size=24pt]Talal, a Syrian who moved to Riyadh in 2000, calls the Saudi capital a “gay heaven.”

[/size]

Lesbianism is also extremely common in Saudi Arabia's strictly segregated female only schools.

Yasmin, a self confessed 21-year-old lesbian University student in Riyadh who’d had a brief sexual relationship with a girlfriend (and was the only Saudi woman who’d had a lesbian relationship who was willing to be interviewed for this story), revealed that one of the department buildings at her college is known as a lesbian enclave. The building has large bathroom stalls, which provide privacy, and walls covered with graffiti offering romantic and religious advice; tips include “she doesn’t really love you no matter what she tells you” and “before you engage in anything with [her] remember: God is watching you.”

According to Yasmin: "In Saudi Arabia, “It’s easier to be a lesbian [than a heterosexual]. There’s an overwhelming number of people who turn to lesbianism,” Yasmin said, adding that the number of men in the kingdom who turn to gay sex is even greater.

Gay foreigners have also noticed the openness of Saudi men to homosexual relationships.

“When I was new here, I was worried when six or seven cars would follow me as I walked down the street,” Jamie, a 31-year-old Filipino gay man living in Jeddah, revealed. “Especially if you’re considered to have feminine features like me, they won’t stop chasing you.”

Jason, a gay South African teacher who has lived in Jeddah since 2002, notes that although South Africa allows gay marriage, he is more comfortable with his sexuality in Saudi Arabia because: “it’s as though there are more gays here.”

John Bradley an openly gay American and the author of the book "Saudi Arabia Exposed: Inside a Kingdom in Crisis", says that most male Western expatriates living in Saudi Arabia whether they are gay or not, are frequently approached for gay sex by Saudi men “at any time of the day or night, quite openly and usually very, very persistently.”

The gay men interviewed in Jeddah and Riyadh laughed when asked if they were worried about being executed. Although they do fear the mutawwa'in to some degree, they believe the Saudi Government isn’t interested in a widespread hunt of homosexuals. For one thing, such an effort might expose members of the royal family who are believed to be gay themselves. A gay man Misfir who identified himself as a police man said:“If they wanted to arrest all the gay people in Saudi Arabia they would have to put a fence around the whole country.”

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-kingdom-in-the-closet/305774/