Sexual orientation: a late 20th century concept confined to the West?

Yes. And as it turns out, it isn't too much of a scientifically attested concept either. Funny how a lot of people can blindly follow social constructs without even questioning or learning about them, no?

In speaking of sexual desires and practices between males, I use the term male-male sexuality" rather than the more familiar "homosexuality" for deliberate reasons. To begin with, as I explain in Chapter I, inhabitants of the Japanese archipelago before the last century did not usually draw a conceptual link between male-male and female-female forms of erotic behaviour. Thus to adopt the term "homosexuality," which implies an inherent connection between the two, is to accept uncritically the effects of a discursive process whose very emergence demands historical accounting...

To impose such categories as "homosexuality" and "bisexuality" upon a society or conceptual universe, whether non-European or pre-nineteenth century, in which they would not have been understood in the same sense that they are currently understood, if indeed at all, and in which behaviour often followed patterns quite different from those we associate with them in our own societies, is unwittingly to hide from view the experience of those very historical subjects whom we seek to comprehend.

Even the word "sexuality" invites misinterpretation, so clarification is in order. By "sexuality," I do not mean fixed sexual orientation, as late twentieth century speakers of English tend to do, for instance, when they refer to a particular individual's "sexuality" -- meaning that person's place within the currently canonical trinity of "homosexuality," "heterosexuality," and "bisexuality." For much of the period examined in this study, the notion that each individual possesses a deeply rooted personal identity based on the biological sex of the preferred sexual object or objects (and specifically whether it is the same as or different from her or his own), and the tripartite taxonomy of sexual types that has resulted from this construction, held no currency in Japan, nor had they emerged even in the West.


Credit: Pages 5 and 6, "Cartographies of Desire: Male-male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950", by Gregory M. Pflugfelder [Published by University of California Press, 1999 ISBN 0520209095, 9780520209091 399 page]

Disentangling Heterosexuality from Masculinity

Does heterosexual sex make a man more masculine? Does homosexual sex feminise a man? No and no. This article tries to disentangle the "traditional" North American point of view that heterosexuality and masculinity automatically imply each other.

Abstract: In traditional North American society, being "masculine" is often defined as (1) the opposite of being "feminine" and (2) avoiding sexual contact with other men. Recent trends in attitudes toward homophobia and masculinity, however, suggest that these traditional orientations may have begun to change in North American society. Drawing from a multiyear ethnographic study of heterosexual male college cheerleaders, I argue that associated with these changing attitudes and practices, many men are beginning to disentangle heterosexuality from masculinity. In this context, I demonstrate how avowedly "straight" men, in some instances, engage in gay sex and openly view such encounters as non-threatening to their own personal identities and public status as heterosexuals. The study carries theoretical implications for the conditions under which heterosexuality and masculinity do not imply each other and, most speculatively, when and how gay men are considered masculine.


Credit: "Disentangling Heterosexuality from Masculinity" by Eric Anderson, American Sociological Association

Read the entire paper here: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/1/0/9/5/0/p109509_index.html

PLU (People Like Us)

Name: PLU [acronym], People Like Us [noun]

We have one word for this: vague. Or relative.

First, one needs to answer who is "us"? What is "us" made up of? Can we really have people who are like us in all ways? Or if we mean just one aspect of our being, then we have many PLU groups. A single mother working as an artist who is Protestant Christian can have three PLU circles: single mothers like her, artists like her, and Protestant Christians like her. And we all know that humans can be more complicated than that. That single mother/artist/Protestant is also Danish American, a breast cancer survivor, a democrat and an animal rights activist.

Who is "us" again?