Best Queer Arabs Podcasts (2025)

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AD’s All New Top Ten Podcast Countdown: #5 The Queer Arab Glossary 36:32

Play Pause

28d ago36:32

36:32

A brilliant anthology of images, essays and slang locates and embraces Arab queerness and defines the urgency of resistance to oppression, arbitrary force and to the Gaza genocide.Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.By Arab Digest

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Medieval Arab Lesbians (feat. Labia Gas & The Saffron Massage) 36:12

4d ago36:12

36:12

The Dark Ages: Rome has fallen, the Church won't shut the fuck up, there's a killer plague for every season, and everyone else is dying of BOREDOM. Right? WRONG. Western Europe may have been a shitshow for much of what we ridiculously call the "Dark Ages," but the rest of the world had its act together. Specifically: Baghdad around the 800s AD. At …

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AD’s All New Top Ten Podcast Countdown: #2 Syria: caught between Türkiye and Israel 29:50

6d ago29:50

29:50

Both Israel and Türkiye see Syria as a prize to be grasped; for President Erdoğan as a zone of influence and economic opportunity; for the far right extremists in the Netanyahu government as an opportunity to seize territory in pursuing their vision of Greater Israel. First podcast 8 January 2025.Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the c…

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215. Two-Letter Words 19:25

8d ago19:25

19:25

Listener Erika wrote: "Perhaps an idea for a bonus ep of Four Letter Word season would be one on two-letter words: there’s an established list that Scrabble nerds end up memorizing, and it’s full of weirdness." In fact, there are TWO established lists, NASPA, the North American Scrabble Players Association, which has currently 107 two-letter words,…

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Inheriting on an Embodied Level: Deconstructing Zionism through Dance with Hadar Ahuvia 35:21

12d ago35:21

35:21

Join Hadar Cohen in conversation with Hadar Ahuvia: dancer, choreographer and ritual facilitator. Hadar Ahuvia shares of her journey to dance as a politicized art form that helped her deconstruct the Zionism living in her body. She explains how Israeli folk dancing was intentionally choreographed from various ethnic dances and how this modern cultu…

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The Hanky Code: A Quickie History 35:15

12d ago35:15

35:15

Welcome to The Hanky Code, aka Grindr for Boomers. Following on from our cruise through history last week, we've delved deeper into the notorious handkerchief code. The code was a form of flagging, which used different coloured bandanas to signal sexual / kink preferences. In this bonus Quickie episode, Bash unpacks the extremely colourful history …

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AD’s All New Top Ten Podcast Countdown: #3 Yemen: the Huthis and Al Qaeda 30:46

14d ago30:46

30:46

With the ability to attack maritime shipping in the Red Sea the Huthis threaten not just regional but international security while the Gaza war has given them a huge propaganda victory, one that would be decisively undercut should Palestinian statehood be enabled. No. 3 in our Top Ten with Elisabeth Kendall was first broadcast on 29 January 2025.Si…

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Cruising: A 4,000 Year History (feat. Alex Espinoza) 1:10:38

19d ago1:10:38

1:10:38

You know the feeling: when you lock eyes and the look lingers just a little too long. His hand brushes over his fly. And boom! A small smile confirms it: You're about to be cruising, my king! And all it took was a public park, centuries of sexual shame, and a little bit of courage to get you there... Now it's no surprise that the elegant and much-e…

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214. Four Letter Words: Bane Bain Bath 35:43

21d ago35:43

35:43

For today’s instalment of Four Letter Word season, we’re hopping from ‘bane’ to ‘bain’ to ‘bath’, via poison gardens, doll’s eyes, alchemists, placentas and waterborne curses. Visit theallusionist.org/bane for more information about today's topics, plus a transcript of the episode. Support the show at theallusionist.org/donate and as well as keepin…

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AD’s All New Top Ten Podcast Countdown: #4 Palestine and a new awakening 34:45

21d ago34:45

34:45

In a landscape of genocide and ethnic cleansing a leading Middle East writer and analyst peels away the empty rhetoric to unflinchingly show the catastrophe that Israel has chosen to inflict upon the Palestinian people over decades while finding hope in the generation of young Arabs who have discovered their identity in the ongoing tragedy of Pales…

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Emperor Nero: Portrait of a Bottom on Fire (feat. Andrew Lear) 1:00:07

26d ago1:00:07

1:00:07

He fiddled while Rome burned. He married two men. He may even have kicked his pregnant wife to death. But he ALSO invented animal pelt kink, so could he have been THAT BAD?! This week, Bash is joined by classicist and queer historian, Professor Andrew Lear, to discuss the scandalous, salacious, and slanderous life of Emperor Nero — Ancient Rome’s m…

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Butt Pirates: A History of Queer Piracy (feat. Rebecca Simon) 1:04:40

1M ago1:04:40

1:04:40

🏴‍☠️ Before there was BRAT, there were Butt Pirates. 🏴‍☠️ This week we're hoisting our slutty sails – that's what I call my underpants – to plunder the treacherous homosexual deep, with pirate historian and author Dr. Rebecca Simon (Pirate Queens; The Pirate’s Code) to answer the age-old question: Why are men on a ship always kinda gay? First of al…

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AD’s All New Top Ten Podcast Countdown: #6 Erdoğan plays a long game 35:44

1M ago35:44

35:44

Just after Joe Biden’s disastrous presidential debate in June of last year and just before the annual NATO Summit Arab Digest invited a leading Washington-based Middle East and Türkiye analyst onto the podcast to discuss amongst other matters what a Trump presidency would mean for Türkiye and the wider Middle East region.Sign up NOW at ArabDigest.o…

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Leonardo da Vinci: Prince of Sodomy (feat. Professor Catherine Fletcher) 1:15:03

1M ago1:15:03

1:15:03

Leonardo da Vinci? More like Leonardo da Fist Me. We've all heard of the man behind the Mona Lisa. But did you know he was also one of Florence's sodomitical sweethearts? In this episode, we pull back the vajazzled curtain on Leonardo da Vinci to reveal a homo neither tormented nor repressed, suffering dramatically for his art, but a messy, charism…

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AD’s All New Top Ten Podcast Countdown: #7 Syria has a new strongman 32:20

1M ago32:20

32:20

Summary: on 8 December last year the regime of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was routed in a lightning offensive that had burst out of the previously besieged rebel enclave of Idlib. The offensive was spearheaded by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa known then by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani.Sign up NOW at ArabD…

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213. Four Letter Words: Dino 51:19

1M ago51:19

51:19

The latest four letter word of Four Letter Word season is dino. 'Dinosaur' is derived from Greek 'terrible lizard', and they could have called it 'whopping great lizard' or 'sublime lizard' or 'hey cool lizard', but no. TERRIBLE. Professor Hannah McGregor of Material Girls podcast and author of the book Clever Girl: Jurassic Park explains humans' r…

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A Queer History of Vampires (feat. Sacha Coward) 1:09:30

2M ago1:09:30

1:09:30

Hot, rich, European, emotionally unavailable... sound familiar? It's your Hinge profile all over again. No, silly, it's vampires! We are thrilled to welcome back folklorist and queer historian, Sacha Coward (author of Queer as Folklore) this week, as we trace the gloriously queer history of vampires—from ancient blood-sucking demons to modern brood…

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AD’s All New Top Ten Podcast Countdown: #8 Netanyahu and the war of weaponised narratives 32:59

2M ago32:59

32:59

On 27 September 2024 the Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in Beirut in an Israeli airstrike. Four days later Arab Digest invited the security and defence specialist Dr Andreas Krieg onto the podcast to discuss the assassination and the broader picture within the context of his study on the weaponisation of narratives.Sign up NOW a…

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Before We Were Trans: A New History of Gender (feat. Kit Heyam and Marty Davies) 1:14:39

2M ago1:14:39

1:14:39

Heads up! This is the episode where we solve gender. Famously a "construct," it turns out Mx. Gender has been around for hundreds of thousands of years. This podcast is only 70 minutes long so we're sticking to the last 5,000... but still. Not bad. Join Bash and his honoured guests this week – Kit Heyam and Marty Davies – as they delve into the dee…

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Was Marie Antoinette A Lesbian? (feat. Eleanor Herman) 56:38

2M ago56:38

56:38

She was young, she was hot, and she was hated. But did she eat pu$$y? Marie Antoinette was many things: a teen bride, a fashion icon, and according to Sofia Coppola, a big fan of The Strokes (I knew I liked this bitch!) She's famous nowadays for losing her head, but did she also give it? And to whom / with what degree of relish? In this week’s epis…

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AD’s All New Top Ten Podcast Countdown: #9 Lebanon looks forward 29:50

2M ago29:50

29:50

With the appointment of a new president and the arrival of a new prime minister in early 2025 optimism among the Lebanese has grown despite a shaky ceasefire and the ever present threat of IsraelSign up NOW at ArabDigest.org for free to join the club and start receiving our daily newsletter & weekly podcasts.…

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212. Four Letter Words: Park 48:04

2M ago48:04

48:04

Get in, winner: we're going on a field trip. We're spending the day in five of Vancouver's city parks with Justin McElroy, Municipal Affairs Reporter for the CBC and ranker of Vancouver's 243 parks at VancouverParkGuide.ca. Together we ponder: what IS a park? You think you know, then along comes a slab of concrete called a park to test your taxonom…

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AD’s All New Top Ten Podcast Countdown: #10 Understanding Iran 28:51

2M ago28:51

28:51

Through July and August we are featuring our all new top ten podcasts countdown. We begin with Sanam Vakil’s Understanding Iran first podcast 8 October 2024 a week after Iran had hit Israel with ballistic missiles. The attack was in retaliation for the Israeli assassinations of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, the IRGC general Abbas Nilforoushan and t…

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Gay Marriage Was The Gayest Love Story Ever Told (feat. Jeremy Atherton Lin) 1:08:38

2M ago1:08:38

1:08:38

Once upon a time—aka the 90s, when I bravely decided to be born—gay marriage was the only thing we queers could talk about. But why? Why were we so hell-bent on getting married? And how did the fight for marriage equality impact real people on the ground? In this episode, Bash is joined by writer and memoirist Jeremy Atherton Lin, author of Deep Ho…

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Tchaikovsky Comes Out To Mother Russia (feat. Simon Morrison) 1:23:34

2M ago1:23:34

1:23:34

Imagine a world where you're Russian, gay, and happy about it. No this is not propaganda from the ultra-secret "Pinko" department of the Kremlin (they def have one of those). This is the very real story of the magnificent Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the world's greatest composers and a big old homosexual. He wrote the 1812 Overture, The Nutcra…

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The Danger Games in the Middle East 31:35

2M ago31:35

31:35

Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes the defence and security analyst Andreas Krieg to the podcast to discuss the latest moves in a dangerous game that Israel and Iran are playing out while Donald Trump dances on his social media stage and Western nations join him in throwing out the rules-based order that with all its flaws provided a modicum o…

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211. Four Letter Words: -gate 37:03

2M ago37:03

37:03

The other day was the 53rd anniversary of the break-in at the Watergate Hotel, which not only caused a lot of political uproar, it had a big linguistic legacy: the suffix -gate to mean a scandal. Today, as part of Four Letter Word season, we have a list of -gates - royal, sporting, political, food, showbiz - it's a non-exhaustive list because there…

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A Queer History of Food (feat. Rachel Cleves) 1:05:40

3M ago1:05:40

1:05:40

What's so gay about food? (Besides the fact that you use your mouth for it.) The answer, OF COURSE, lies in 18th century France. In fact, food's sexy origins go even further back, all the way to the ancients: from Eve's naughty apple to Ancient Roman oysters (they made their orgasms more intense!). But it was the invention of the restaurant in 18th…

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Walking into war eyes wide open 27:54

3M ago27:54

27:54

As the limits of Donald Trump's transactional approach to foreign policy becomes all too dangerously clear Arab Digest editor William Law welcomes the Iraq expert Renad Mansour on to the podcast. With the old world order evaporating almost overnight state and non-state actors have rushed to fill the vacuum. This week's conversation reveals how in t…

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Jewish Spiritual Ecology & the Wisdom of Andalus for Our Times with Katie Wachsberger 53:52

3M ago53:52

53:52

As an agricultural designer and practicing Jew, Katie Wachsberger speaks through the lens of ecology on rewilding Judaism, liberatory multi-religiosity, and a fundamental rupture caused by colonization. Katie shares about the retreat she organized in Al Andalus called Decolonizing Judaism and shows how our relationship to land serves as a mirror to…

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Toxic Boyfriends of Greek Mythology: Part II (feat. Liv Albert) 1:10:34

3M ago1:10:34

1:10:34

Why do bottoms always die in Greek mythology? If you're a fan of Greek myth, you know the gods love to act like humans: they love, they fuck, they fight...they throw dinner parties. But they also love to kill us. When gods show up on Earth, it typically means someone's about to get pregnant or dead, real quick. (Or both.) And the pattern holds for …

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The Kurds see an opening 30:36

3M ago30:36

30:36

With rapid change sweeping a region still in the throes of wars the Kurdish people spread across four nations see an opportunity to secure if not their dream of a nation then autonomy within national federal structures that would secure their rights and culture as a people. Arab Digest editor William Law invites the Kurdish-American journalist Sirw…

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210. Four Letter Words: 4x4x4 Quiz 24:02

3M ago24:02

24:02

Four Letter Word season continues with a quiz (which is a four-letter word itself) about four letter words. Test your etymological knowledge, and hear about the original nepo baby, John Venn's invention that wasn't the venn diagram, brat, gunk, rube, the time(s) Led Zeppelin changed their name, and plenty more. Play along while you listen - there's…

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Eleanor Rykener: Trans Sex Worker of Medieval London? (feat. Dr. Mireille Pardon) 1:02:28

3M ago1:02:28

1:02:28

The year is 1395. The city: London. The crime: an "unmentionable, ignominious vice" commonly known as sodomy. And the perp? A rascally, resourceful enigma named John Rykener, who enters the court records "calling herself Eleanor," wearing women's clothes, and defying gravity / everything we know about medieval gender. But John/Eleanor Rykener – or …

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The Future of Queer Communism (feat. Eman Abdelhadi) 54:43

3M ago54:43

54:43

What comes after the collapse of capitalism? Mass famine? Global war? Environmental destruction? Oh wait, all of that's already happening! It seems like, as a species, we're at a bit of a breaking point. Which means revolution is afoot, and we have to wonder: what the hell happens when it gets here? For most of us, though, it's not easy to project …

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US and Iran edge closer to a deal 25:55

3M ago25:55

25:55

The Iran expert Sanam Vakil joins Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss the likelihood of Washington and Tehran striking a new nuclear accord. What sort of a pact will the Ayatollah and the self-proclaimed ‘dealmaker in chief’ arrive at and what will America's Gulf friends, to say nothing of the Israelis make of it? The White House has said it …

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A History of Gay Communism (feat. Josh Rivers) 51:59

3M ago51:59

51:59

What if it's actually your butthole that will lead the revolution? This week, we're getting penetratingly political with writer and podcaster Josh Rivers (⁠Busy Being Black⁠), as we explore the radical legacy of Mario Mieli's ⁠Towards a Gay Communism⁠. Here's the thing: Capitalism doesn't just steal your time and money—it also reinforces the gender…

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Saudi Arabia and an uncertain oil market 28:38

3M ago28:38

28:38

Arab Digest editor William Law's guest this week is the energy analyst and Digest regular contributor Alastair Newton. Their conversation focusses on how Saudi Arabia is seeking to shape oil prices and the market to meet their financial requirements as Saudi Aramco profits dip and the costs for Mohammed bin Salman's multiple giga-projects continue …

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Historical Homos: Season 4 Trailer 3:37

3M ago3:37

3:37

We're back my little Hormones! Join Bash and his heavy flow of genius guests this season for another no-fucks-given romp through humanity's Big Gay Past. (We all have one!) Come for the history, stay for the laughs, and if you're lucky, leave with a boner. Please note: Erectile Gift With Purchase (EGWP) not guaranteed. First cum, first served. We'l…

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209. Four Letter Words: Serving C-bomb 50:39

3M ago50:39

50:39

Ten years ago, on the fourth episode of the show, I investigated why the C-word is considered a worse swear than the others. Since then - well really just in the last three years or so - there has been a huge development: the word has hit the mainstream as a compliment, in the forms of serving it and -y. Linguists Nicole Holliday and Kelly Elizabet…

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Stories of Return: Identity & Displacement with Layla Maghribi 1:25:55

3M ago1:25:55

1:25:55

In this episode, Layla Maghribi shares personal stories of ancestral pilgrimage to Libya and Syria. She traces her family history of activism against colonialism, which she continues through her own work, and highlights the critical history of Italian colonialism in Libya that is so often overlooked. In conversation with Hadar Cohen, Layla explores…

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A Gulf bonanza for the 'dealmaker in chief' 36:45

3M ago36:45

36:45

Two top Washington Middle East analysts join Arab Digest editor William Law to discuss President Trump's recent trip to the Gulf. Annelle Sheline and Jon Hoffman reflect on the deals made, Trump's meeting with the former jihadist and now president of Syria Ahmad al-Sharaa and the significance of the president deciding to bypass Israel and Prime Min…

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Sheer Mag on Signing to Jack White's Record Label, Creed Stealing Their Logo, and Their Bad Pitchfork Review 1:43:52

3M ago1:43:52

1:43:52

We spoke to Sheer Mag from Philadelphia about scenes around the world including: * Tina stealing Dan Deacon’s glasses * Crazy Spirit beating up a member of their old band on New Year’s Day * The twisted legacy of Mummer’s Day * The South Philly DIY venue/house where they lived, Nut House * Pitchfork’s 6.7 review of Playing Favorites * Irish car bom…