Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBTQ+ studies: Difference between revisions

Proposed Addition:

 

 

In most non-western and non-westernised traditional societies, there exists a completely different concept of male sexuality than in the West. (1) It has been the same in pre-modern West. (2) Of course, it can also be argued that even in the modern, western, heterosexual, middle class industrical society, even after several decades of the introduction of the concept of sexual orientation, a significant number of men in these societies -- often the majority -- still do not relate with sexual identities, even though they openly accept same-sex desires and needs. The western society has not really dealt with this indiscrepancy, and has not been able to explain it satisfactorily. Additionally, these men also suffer severe emotional, psychological and social trauma because of imposition of the concept of ‘sexual orienation’ on them, by the western society, and could actually be one of the reasons why many men do not come to terms with their same-sex feelings and fight with it all their lives. (2) (3)

 

1. The men’s spaces are very strong. Men’s spaces refer to spaces which are exclusively for men, and where women are either not allowed or their entry is highly restricted. (4) (5)

2. Man’s sexual need for other men is considered to be a universal phenomenon, meaning that to like other men sexually is believed to be an integral part of manhood, which all men are born with. This belief may be limited in the privacy of men’s spaces, within which men acknowledge it openly, whereas denying the existence of such a need in formal and mixed gender spaces. Or they may be openly accepted even in the formal spaces. It all depends upon how accepting the formal spaces are to male-male sexuality. An example of the latter is Kandahaar in Afghanistan. (2) (6) (7)

3. There is no concept of sexual orientation at all, in all of these societies (the modern day non-western and non-westernised societies, the pre-modern west). There is no division of men or their isolation from the mainstream men’s group on the basis of ‘sexual orientation’. (1), (7), (8), (9), (10), (11), (12), (13), (14), (16)

4. On the other hand, there is a strong division of the male population between masculine gendered males (called ‘men’), and feminine gendered males (known as the third-sex, and often clubbed along with the hermaphrodite), irrespective of their sexual orientation. The third-sex is considered a separate gender category, and its members are not considered either men or women but a neutral or intermediate gender. Thus, a man having sex with men is not the same as a third-sex male having sex with men. A man and a person of the third sex are not considered same-sex. It has been the same in the west before Christianity. Only the feminine male is considered different. Only the feminine male aspires for a separate identity, be it Catamite, Hijra, Kathoey, Gay, Homosexual or MSM. Only the feminine male fits into these identities and is comfortable with them. (11) (15) (16) (17) (18) (19)

5. When the western concepts of ‘gay’ and ‘homosexual’ are implanted – often aggressively by western educated ‘gay’ activists/ chauvinists -- in these traditional societies where men’s spaces are strong, they are automatically converted into gender identity– the third gender identity, by the popular culture. Thus, in these societies, only the effeminate, feminine gendered male is considered ‘gay’ or ‘queer' or ‘homosexual’, no matter how it is defined in English. (16) As a direct contradiction to the western concepts, often, even the heterosexual transgender is defined as a ‘homosexual’ by the vernacular population, as the term is seen to denote their femininity, not their ‘sexual orientation’. (20) (23)

6. The English educated section, and the westernized populations of these traditional societies (like in India) however, at least in formal spaces, adhere to the western concepts, although in practice they may follow both western as well as traditional concepts of sexuality. (10)

7. Whereas the westernized feminine gendered male population in these societies lap up the concepts of ‘gay’ and homosexuality, the men resent the imposition of this western concept and fight it as long as men’s spaces are strong. But when these spaces are broken through the process of heterosexualisation, men in these societies are eventually forced to adopt these concepts. (23)

 

 

“Sexual identity is not universally understood as solely located in the individual in the same fashion as lesbian and gay identity in middle-class Western societies.”

 

 

Quotes from the research paper:

“Despite recent theories of sexual identity development and synthesis, very little is actually known about why some people who experience same-sex attraction integrate their experiences into a lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) identity by identifying with LGB-affirming ideologies, while others dis-identify with LGB-affirming ideologies. It is unclear whether specific milestone events lead to one outcome, or whether multiple outcomes are possible with respect to sexual identity synthesis.”

 

Bissu are gender transcendent, pre-Islamic priests. See Leonard Andaya, 'The Bissu: Study of a Third Gender in Indonesia', in Other Pasts: Women, Gender, and History in Early Modern Southeast Asia, ed. Barbara Andaya, Hawai'i: Hawai'i University Press, 2000:27-46.

“Today Mariani, Rani, and I went to a wedding. The three of us are so free to move. Mariani (bissu)[50] and Rani (calalai' ) can move in women's spaces and into men's places because they are neither and yet both. Similarly, I have the position of foreign researcher that allows access to the men's arena, and I am a woman which allows access to the women's arena. Rani sat with the women in the kitchen for a while and cooked talibo (B) [a type of seafood]. Afterwards s/he moved to the front of the house and socialised with the men. Women and men are not able to do this travelling between spaces so easily.[51]”

 

There are several references in the book to men’s spaces (all-male spaces) and how they are beneficial for men, and how heterosexual spaces (mixed gender spaces) harm men, and it also establishes the relationship between heterosexualisation of men’s spaces and the emergence of the concept of ‘homosexuality’.

 

Page 96:

Page 98:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,44067,00.html

www.nfi.net/NFI%20Publications/ Pukaar/2007/Pukaar%20-%20Apr%2007%20.pdf

 

“Massad's point, though, is this: In the Arab world, men who have sex with men are, for the most part, not "gay", and need no liberation from prosecution. They are not "gay" because "gay" is a Western identity that The Gay International has attempted to thrust upon them.”

 

Quote: “The central thesis of his 25-page polemic was that promotion of gay rights in the Middle East is a conspiracy led by western orientalists and colonialists which “produces homosexuals, as well as gays and lesbians, where they do not exist”.

 

 

 

 

While same-sex behaviour has existed since the beginning of human evolution, defining oneself as gay is a relatively modern invention and is unlikely to prevail in perpetuity.

Homosexuality and homophobia exist in a cultural context, as do heterosexuality and heterophobia. Culture is man-made, not biologically given. It evolves and changes.

 

Page 102

"Terms like "sexual orientation", 'heterosexual', and 'homosexual' distort and misrepresent the truth about male gender and sexuality. Sexual Orientation is not a valid concept. The basic assumptions behind it are wrong."

“But the basic drawback (of the scientific discourse on male-male sexuality) is that they conveniently assume that the modern socio-political ‘gay’ identity constitutes a distinct biological group, which is an absurd and unscientific assumption.Men of different genders came together on a common platform ‘homosexual’ in the west only because of their oppression under heterosexualisation and not because of any biological affinity.”

 

 

Page 103

 

“The Pali canon contains numerous references to homoerotic behaviour and to individuals who today would be variously identified as hermaphrodites, transvestites, transsexuals and homosexuals. However, none of the sex/gender categories named in the c anon precisely matches any of these contemporary notions, but combines instead elements of these diverse physiological, gender and sexual conditions in distinctive formulations. “

“The Vinaya identifies four main sex/gender types: male and female, and two additional categories, called ubhatobyanjanaka and pandaka in Pali.”

(18) Kathoey; Wikipedia; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathoey

The term kathoey or katoey (Thai: กะเทย, IPA: [kaʔtʰɤːj]) generally refers to a male-to-female transgender person or aneffeminate gay male in Thailand.

 

“In the culture of the Indian subcontinent a hijra (also known by a number of different names and romanized spellings) is usually considered a member of "the third sex" — neither man nor woman. Most are physically male or intersex, but some are female. Hijras usually refer to themselves as female at the language level, and usually dress as women.”

“Kothis are regarded as feminine men or boys who take a feminine role in sex with men, but do not live in the kind of intentional communities that hijras usually live in. Local equivalents include durani (Kolkata),menaka (Cochin),[3] meti (Nepal), and zenana (Pakistan).”

“These identities have no exact match in the modern Western taxonomy of gender and sexual orientation.”

 

In a series of workshops on masculinity conducted by an NGO with men of all ages in several cities of North India, the men described a famous TV character Dilruba as a ‘homo’. Dilruba is a limp-wristed, extremely feminine person, but his sexual interest is only in women.

 

“Western gay-rights groups are causing great harm to those they purport to assist by forcing them to either choose the Western "gay" label, or choose not to realize their true sexuality.”

“Like the Byzantines who viewed unveiled women as prostitues or lower class women and thus succeeded in creating the veiled Arab woman simply by implying they are a lower class if unveiled, Western literature of the last 1000 years referring to the Arabs as sodomites and pederasts and now, incredibly as homophobes, has imposed its mores and culture on their fluid concepts of Arab sexuality.”

 

Page 100

“Case Study: The HIV/ AIDS intervention programme being implemented in India, which is heavily funded by foreign donors, is being used by certain vested interest groups to divide the Indian male society along the lines of sexual orientation, and create a homosexual identity. Although, it has not worked and the only takers for the homosexual identity have ben the English speaking feminine gendered males, the entire social machinery — including the media and the government — has put its weight behind this endeavour.