A bisexual male TV talk show host in Pakistan whose on-screen character is a married woman has managed to slip mention of sex into his dialogue without upsetting the Islamic fundamentalists (no mean feat at the best of times).

An excerpt from the NYT story:

Ali Saleem may have devised the perfect, if improbable, cover for breaking taboos in conservative, Muslim Pakistan.

In a country where publicly talking about sex is strictly off limits, Mr. Saleem has managed not only to bring up the subject on his prime-time television talk show -- but to do so without stirring a backlash from fundamentalist Islamic clerics.

And he has done so as a woman.

When Mr. Saleem takes to the airwaves, he is Begum Nawazish Ali, a coquettish widow who interviews Pakistan’s glitterati and some of its top politicians.

A real woman could not possibly do what Mr. Saleem does. In the unlikely event a station would broadcast such a show, the hostess would be shunned. And taking on the guise of a married woman -- whose virtue is crucial to her whole family -- would be equally impossible.

But apparently a cross-dressing man pretending to be a widow is another matter entirely.

It is something of a mystery why a man who openly acknowledges he is bisexual is a sensation here. Traditional Islamic teaching rejects bisexuals and gays, and gay Pakistanis have few outlets for a social life. The gay party scenes in Lahore and Karachi are deep underground.

Mr. Saleem has his own theory for his popularity: he thinks Pakistan has always been more open than outsiders believed.