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Pakistan is one of the most homophobic countries in the world. Yet gay sex is apparently prevalent in the country, which is home to 183 million people, some 97% of whom are Muslim.

As the BBC's Mobeen Azhar reports in a fascinating investigation, the combination of the prevalence of gay mobile apps like Grindr and Scruff, plus the onus of arranged marriage, has made the Pakistani city of Karachi — the nation's biggest city, at nearly 24 million people — a hotbed of gay sex, even if actually maintaining a gay lifestyle is still incredibly difficult.

"[S]ome say the country is a great place to be gay — even describing the port city of Karachi as 'a gay man's paradise," Azhar writes.

Pakistan as a gay paradise? We're not entirely convinced, especially since homosexual activity there is illegal and punishable by a prison sentence. At the very least, Provincetown, San Francisco, and Vermont, Karachi is not. Gay rights don't exist there, being openly gay is still looked down upon, gay relationships are hard to come by, and Karachi pretty much fails on every metric of gay life except for one: man-on-man sex. Karachi is home to a lot of it.

Like any other country in the world (despite Iran's claims to the contrary), Pakistan has a homosexual population. Earlier this summer, for example, the Pew Research Center found that Pakistan was simultaneously one of the most intolerant countries in the world for gay people while at the same time being one of the world leaders in searching for gay porn. "As of this writing, Pakistan is by volume the world leader for Google searches of the terms 'shemale sex,' 'teen anal sex,' and 'man fucking man,'" Mother Jones's Alex Park wrote.