Richard Burton, T.E. Lawrence and the Culture of Homoerotic Desire

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the Arabic-speaking regions of the Ottoman Empire saw a crucial change in attitudes towards sexuality. Notions of ''respectability'', ''propriety'' and ''sexual morality'' were being transformed in literary and cultural discourses, a shift that was related to the gradual rise in anti-Ottoman Arab nationalism. However, contemporary Orientalists such as Sir Rich...