Bacchá

Dance of a bacchá (dancing boy)
Samarkand, (ca 1905 - 1915), photo S. M. Prokudin-Gorskii. Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

In the settled oasis region of Central Asia (Turkestan), entertainers known as bacchá (a Turkic term borrowed from Persian bacche بچه‌ "child, young man, calf") were once common, and constituted the commercial and transgender side of the local pederastic tradition known as bacchabozlik.

A bacchá, typically an adolescent of twelve to sixteen, was a performer practiced in erotic songs and suggestive dancing. He wore resplendent attire and makeup, has been considered by some as cross-dressing or actual transgender expression, but contested by others such as historian and anthropologist Anthony Shay as being more akin to situational homosexuality. The bacchá was appreciated esthetically for his androgynous beauty, but was also available as a sex worker. The boys were drawn from the ranks of the underclasses, as the profession was as much despised as it was admired. In some Southwest Asian provinces they were often Armenian Christians and Jews, while in Central Asia and Afghanistan they were both Muslims and Jews.^{[citation needed]}

The bacchás were trained from childhood and carried on their trade until their beard began to grow. Once they matured out of the trade, some were set up by their patrons in business as merchants, but most boys were left to their own, often meager, resources.

Though after the Russian conquest the ethnic tradition was suppressed for a time by tsarist authorities, early Russian explorers were able to document the practice. It was resurgent in the early years of the twentieth century as the boys were increasingly sought as entertainers by the new Russian (Orthodox) settlers, a practice criticized in the Central Asian Russian press of the time.^{[citation needed]}

The bacchá tradition waned in the big cities after World War I, forced out for reasons that historian Anthony Shay describes as "Victorian era prudery and severe disapproval of colonial powers such as the Russians, British, and French, and the post colonial elites who had absorbed those Western colonial values."^[1]

The practice of keeping dance boys still persists in northern Afghanistan, where many men keep them as status symbols. Some of the individuals involved report being forced into sex, while others report strong emotional and physical bonds formed over the course of relationships lasting many years, often into the boys' adulthood. At times the relationships interfere with the man's marriage. Occasionally the boy will marry his lover's daughter when he comes of age. The authorities are attempting to crack down on the practice as "un-Islamic and immoral acts" but many doubt it would be effective since many of the men are powerful and well-armed former commanders.^[2]

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See also:Male prostitution