Dubai Pays Lip Service To Love

Dubai gets a lot of attention for its staggering displays of wealth, as it positions itself as a London-meets-Disneyland on crack. But that wasn’t the experience for one British couple, who face a 30-day jail sentence for kissing.

Back in November, the two defendants were casually strolling through a beachfront shopping mall when the offending lips were smacked. Or were they?

The couple swear it was a peck on the cheek. But the local woman who originally called the police to report the crime said her children saw full-frontal tongue action. Later, under police questioning, the woman changed her story twice – now, she herself saw the forbidden lip-lock. Even later, she decided to add that the couple were “touching each other in a sexual manner.”

A city court, with only this woman’s shifting testimony, sent the couple to jail and tacked on 2,000 UAE dirhams (about $550) in fines to boot. After jail, they’ll be deported. Apparently the couple has six witnesses ready to testify on their behalf, but the court didn’t allow the couple’s lawyer to make his case at trial because the witnesses weren’t Muslim.

A few weeks before Kissgate was made public, I was back in Dubai right around Valentine’s Day. You couldn’t walk anywhere without seeing ads hawking the most exclusive gifts “for your loved one.” Supermarkets stocked giant candy hearts. Billboards pointed me to jewelry stores teeming with diamonds. And every self-respecting restaurant had to have a special Valentine’s menu, appropriately priced for the occasion in the hundreds to thousands of dollars per couple. I suppose celebrating love in Dubai is only legal if you pay for it.

That reminds me of a much more upsetting night I had, years earlier, while visiting nearby Abu Dhabi. Friends had told me that prostitutes were openly selling their services out of most bars, so on my last night in town I built up my nerve and walked into one of them.

The whole place was packed so tightly with Thai and Chinese women that I had to brush past two or three of them whenever I took a step. The women ignored me, but the mostly Arab and Western men who came ready for action trained their eyes on me right away.

I forced my way out of there five minutes later, having been propositioned so many times in that short stretch that I had to stop myself from vomiting in the gold-paneled, carpeted elevator. Apparently the police in Abu Dhabi, which has a reputation for being much more conservative than Dubai, turn a blind eye to this thriving sex trade. A friend later told me that each of the bars specialized in a different ethnicity of trafficked women.

But the saddest thing about Dubai are the traditional Emirati couples. The husband in his white robe and his wife in black, strolling along the beach as their children run ahead, chasing the gulls. Their hands brush and then hold, only to be pulled away like they’ve touched a flame if they think anyone is looking. I’ve seen that heartbreaking display in many places all over Arabia, but there’s something especially bittersweet about seeing it in Dubai, a city that looks like the future, stuck in the past.