Talk:Non-westernized concepts of male sexuality

article is now totally wikified

I just finished inlining the last orphan refs and wikified a few terms. The "wikify" tag no longer seems necessary and I took it out --Enric Naval (talk) 21:09, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

Huge problem with article

This entire article seems to try to point out that different cultures have much looser and less clear cut definitions of gender and sexuality than the west does, but that holds true for only some cultures. For example, in Saudi Arabia, they have incredibly restrictive gender and sexual roles. 76.232.62.205 (talk) 06:32, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks

I see there's a lot of recent work on this article, thanks for that. Homosexuality is currently at WP:GAR, and one of the complaints is that the material does not have enough of an international perspective; I will link to this article to get some of that perspective. - Dan Dank55 (talk)(mistakes) 21:48, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

POV

This article is unbelievably POV. It's an interesting POV, but it's still a POV. The entire article rests upon an unsubstantiated notion that the "western" view of homosexuality is the same as the essentialist view. Upon this assumption rests the entire article, which seems desperate to prove how much gayer the world really is in the eyes of the writer. I would love a good quality article about such subject matter, but this ain't it. Also, the article is paradoxical. It seeks to attack the people who lump all same-sex love into the same rigid category called "homosexuals," and yet it does so by grouping all cultures around the world except Europe and the Anglosphere into an equally arbitrary category called "the non-west." Surely, there can't be such a unified view from Shanghai to Timbuktu, so how can any of these generalizations be cited or taken seriously? Also, it totally ignores the effects of Islam in Indonesia, where transexuality is traditionally celebrated by the indigenous culture, but despised by the religious clerics, some of whom advocate violence and vandalism in the name of Allah. Neither Indonesia nor Islam are "western," are they? This is but one example of the article's infirmity. There's no need to mention Iran and Nepal, where gays and transexuals are routinely beaten and gang-raped by police squads.

In short, this article needs total rewriting or deletion. And, if it is to be rewritten, it needs sources which reflect a widespread anthropological view on the subject, and not OpEd sources which all seek to push a philosophical point of view of their own.72.78.167.63 (talk) 07:34, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Agree. Slapped a couple of flags on there. Dybryd (talk) 21:17, 9 July 2008 (UTC)

Disagree. The article is about how the sexual and gender lives of men are structured in non-Western cultures. There is no attack on anyone... by that count, the article on 'gay' would seem an attack on cultures that don't differentiate on the basis of 'sexual orientation' as is done in the West.

Also, you are right about the difference between West and non-West being vague (actually West means the industrialised, advanced nations of the first world that have a European background), however, since we can only stick to things that have been researched, and there is no research on whether West and non-West is applicable, for the time being we should stick with that.

Again, the article never makes any claims, that same-sex relationships are accepted in the wider/ formal society in these cultures. It only says, that straight men widely indulge in it, in most cases, they don't talk about it in the formal space, but it is not taboo in men's spaces. Which means, you can still be imprisioned or killed by the State if they catch you (In societies like Iran, e.g.) ... however, those targeted are usually the 'gays' which in these societies mean the feminine gendered males. Perhaps, we should mention this fact in the article, if we can some sources for it. (Masculinity (talk) 06:40, 16 September 2008 (UTC))

Western world view

Perhaps the title of this article should be changed to "The Western view of non-westernized concepts of male sexuality" because none of the commentary seems to reference any any non-Western pundits. 151.195.3.100 (talk) 16:20, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the first reference is from palestinian Joseph Massad, and there is also hawaian Barbara Andaya, but dunno if she counts as western.

It's not actually bad to use a western author that has dedicated his/her life to study non-western stuff, but this article could do with more non-western sources and authors.

This looks like just the typical systemic bias that comes from preferring english language sources over sources written in other languages. --Enric Naval (talk) 22:24, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I think this comment is very out of place. The Western world view is to negate the way the indigenous societies structure their gender and sexuality, and judge them using the Western model of Sexual Orientation. (Masculinity (talk) 06:52, 16 September 2008 (UTC))

This article is bogus=

The article makes a huge mistake in assuming that because a third gender exists in these cultures, it has to be the be-all end all of relationships between homosexual males. In the overwhelming majority of indigenous non-Western cultures, male-male sexual relationships were the majority of homosexual relationships, while third gendered relationships constituted a smaller portion or sometimes were not present at all. Of course, classifications like "homosexual", "gay", and "sodomite" evolved out of a homophobic atmosphere (which the article plainly ignores). In a society where homosexuality was accepted, the need for an identity was not there. Homosexuals existed, but they lived lives as men who loved men or women who loved women. This is how they were seen and this is how they were. The classification "homosexual" did not exist in ancient Greece either. There was a third gender also. Are we to infer the same conclusions about Greece this article does about non-Western cultures based on that? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.199.249.252 (talk) 15:44, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

• The article doesn't make any such pretensions as you are attributing to it. It clearly shows that the non-Western societies make a distinction between sexual relations indulged with men by masculine gendered males (who are known as men in these cultures by various names, i.e. mard in India), and those indulged by the third sex or feminine gendered males.

It was the same in ancient Greek by the way. Alexander was not a Catamite (the 'gay' of his times). But he loved men. And so did most male youth in Greece, where boys were married off to other males before they turned 30 and married girls. However, the 'gays' were still different. The Catamites were the feminine gendered, third sex males (like in all the other non-Western cultures), whose identity revolved around receptive anal sex. It's the same concept of male sexuality that this article talks about. Its the same in Kandahaar where most men have sexual bonds with other males, but 'gays' are still considered different. Gays are those who are feminine, and have exclusive preference for receptive anal/ oral sex.

• It is interesting to note that in the pre-modern west, in fact till the time that the concept of sexual orientation was made to be the rule, the situation in the West was exactly the same. (Masculinity (talk) 06:33, 16 September 2008 (UTC))

You simply cannot WP: verify your universalist claims. I always have thought that this article should be scrapped. Good luck to anyone who tries to disagree with Masculinity.--Agnaramasi (talk) 05:47, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

This article is no more my article. I left it when what I wrote was sabotaged by a section of the LGBT editors. It has since been rewritten by other editors on wikipedia. And the innumerable references provided are proof that it is not the viewpoint of anyone editor.(59.180.159.194 (talk) 07:36, 27 December 2008 (UTC))

Merge

A merge tag was added (with reason in edit summary, but i couldn't find a discussion.) As both pages had huge overlap in ideal content (one was world-wide, other was the non-westernized world) and neither were too long, i have merged them. Both articles had myriad tags, and the merge still has major ones (totally disputed and complete rewrite), but this is certainly a topic that is best served in total, so the comparisons make sense (non-Westernized seems inherently to be a comparison, so needs info on what "westernized" attitudes are). Imo, working on the merged article, and making summary sections for other relevant articles (eg, masculinity, homosexuality) is the way forward, with new articles only needed when the combined article is at a decent quality.Yobmod (talk) 09:17, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Since the content was merged, I see no problem with this. It will be easier that it gets fixed if it's in only one place. --Enric Naval (talk) 15:05, 4 February 2009 (UTC)