The Magic Stick: "American Gods" Airs Fire Skeeting Gay Scene

STARZ Series Wins Fan Approval For Groundbreaking Magical Gay Scene

We hadn’t heard much about “American Gods” on STARZ but the show is definitely making headlines after Sunday’s episode.

The show featured a four-minute long groundbreakingly graphic gay sex scene between actors Mousa Kraish and Omid Abtahi (who are both straight in real life). The show found the pair having sex in Abtahi’s character’s hotel room after meeting when Kraish’s character picks him up in a NYC taxi. Abtahi plays Salim, an Omani trinket salesman, while Kraish plays a mythical creatture from Arabian and Islamic mythology known as Jinn or Ifrit. Both men appear fully nude in the scene, which begins when the Ifrit emerges after taking a shower and drops his towel revealing a full on erection. Here’s where it goes above and beyond anything shown on television before — once Salim and the Jinn start going at it, the scene changes to a CGI enhanced mythical world where they make love until climax, which is pretty spectacular from the descriptions we’ve read — as the Ifrit busts a great ball of fire on his partner.

Kraish, who plays the Ifrit told Daily Mail:

‘Following the responses on social media, I am struck by amazement how much the fans are involved with every moment and how they’ve responded to this chapter in AMERICAN GODS in particular.

‘How they’ve responded to me and Omid as the Jinn and Salim have been so positive that I’m just happy that I’m doing all the fans justice. It’s quite moving. A great loving fan base for Neil Gaiman and his work.’

It was the first sex scene for Kraish, but he says it was made easier because of his friendship with fellow actor Abtahi:

‘When I found out Omid Abtahi was cast as Salim, that made it so much easier because we’ve been actual friends for the past 10 years. I met Omid when I first moved to Los Angeles from Brooklyn, NY and we clicked as friends and respective artists. Also, we kept running into one another at auditions so he was part of the “brown-actor” community as we would say jokingly.’

Kraish also said he put his faith in Bryan Fuller, the show’s executive producer, who is gay.

‘I remember having a deep conversation with him about the nudity and telling him that I wanted to make sure we were not doing this to be shocking or gratuitous. And he truly walked me through his vision. And when you just put your heart and trust in the hands of a man like that you know it will be beautiful.

‘As for how it portrayed Middle Eastern men while it was in the back of my mind, I wanted it to focus on two people who just connected and loved one another because they needed each other. It doesn’t matter what your race or sexuality is…everyone can understand and connect with that,’ he said.

It definitely sounds like some ground breaking stuff… Fuller previously told Entertainment Weekly that he had the actors reshoot the scene after not being entirely convinced by the first take. He also told TV Guide that the love story between Salim and Jinn were crucial to maintaining the integrity of the 2001 novel “American Gods” that inspired the series.

‘[It] was an opportunity for us to challenge the audience to not look away from the beauty of this experience for Salim.

‘We wanted to make it beautiful. We wanted to make it hypnotic. We wanted to create a sex-positive experience, not only for Salim but for all the men like Salim who have a corrupted sense of sexuality for whatever reason and can’t truly be their sexual selves,’ he said.

Will you be tuning in to this show? Do you think these actors will end up having any issues from the Middle Eastern community?

Peep some of the audience reactions below:

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