When Napoleon occupied Egypt in 1798, the presence of French Orientalists offered Egyptians a rare opportunity to mingle and interact with their country's new rulers. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti's (1754- ca.1822) chronicle entitled 'Ajaib al-Athar offers valuable information about the interaction that took place between the French savants and Egyptian 'ulama (cf. Peter Gran, David Ayalon, and al-Sayyid Marsot's publications). While al-Jabarti's account furnishes us with a historical perspective, Hassan al-'Attar (1766-1835) offers a literary depiction of those interactions in his "Maqamat al-Faransis" (cf. Elliot Colla and Shaden Tageldin's research). Another source that has so far eluded the attention of scholars are Isma'il al-Khashshab's (d. 1815) homoerotic poems on Louis Rémy Raige (1777-1810), a young French Orientalist. These poems shed light on a different type of interaction, namely, the homoerotic attraction. In this paper, I will examine those poems and compare them with two other types of poems al-Khashshab wrote: the "ghulamiyyat," in which he expresses his infatuation with young servant lads, and the panegyrics he dedicated to his Mamluk patrons. As panegyrics, the poems follow the well-known trope found in classical ode poetry (al-Mu'allaqat), whereby the poet's ungrateful lover is displaced by a generous and steadfast patron. However, viewed as homoerotic compositions, al-Khashshab's verses subvert the depiction of Oriental homosexuality in the European canon at the time. Whereas European travellers regarded homosexuality as symptomatic of Oriental decadence and moral depravity, al-Khashshab's poems undermine those misconceptions by portraying Raige as coyly eager to reciprocate with his ardent Egyptian lover. The poems are significant because al-Khashahab's reversal of normative gender roles complicates the depiction of Middle Easterners as passive and lazy, as Edward Said pointed out in Orientalism. The verses depict an assured, confident lover addressing an equally robust French beloved. The self-respect of both parties is not undermined as a result of the occupation. Unlike al-'Attar's maqama, al-Khashshab does not depict the French as entirely feminized. As a result, his masculine-cum-effeminate depiction of Raige subverts the way French Orientalists (e.g. Volney, Denon, and Fourier) cast themselves in their respective travel accounts--as detached (heterosexual) observers, who are immune to the locals' darts of love, and as masters of their own desires and actions. In effect, al-Khashshab's poems reveal an important aspect of cross-cultural interaction, namely, the mutual homoerotic desire for the Other.