Same-Sex and Queer Studies

Gender and Sexuality ANTH 2301 Same-Sex and Queer Studies Anthropological studies of heterosexuality remain fixated on mainstream gender categories and norms, despite their potential for intriguing and illuminating research. Studies showing that same-sex romantic relationships are common in civilizations throughout the world, began surfacing in the 1970s and 1980s, are even more disturbing to conventional Western sensibilities. Renowned British anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard, a contemporary of Malinowski and Mead, devoted his early career to researching social structure and witchcraft among the Azande and the Nuer, two distinct African tribes. Evans-Pritchard later in his career started reflecting on the many accounts he had heard during his years of researching African communities, especially those that described the precolonial predominance of samesex romantic behaviours in Zande society. In a piece on the subject, he explains how single adult warrior men frequently adopted younger males as "wives" or sexual partners since they were unable to marry since there were not enough married women and could not commit adultery with other men's wives (1970). In the same way that he would have to serve the natal family of a female bride, the warrior gave bride riches to the younger man's parents and rendered services to their family. The younger guys referred to themselves as women, and the couples assumed the roles of husband and wife. Male couples engaged in intercourse "between the thighs"—that is, the elder man entering the space between the younger man's thighs—because the Azande disapproved of anal sex. Zande women were just as likely as the males to participate in same-sex relationships and behaviours. Men were allowed to have many wives in Zande society, a practice known as polygyny. A husband slept with each of his wives in turn. In a household with many spouses, a woman would ultimately spend numerous nights alone herself. She may have had only a few sexual encounters with her spouse over her married life if she had married a monarch who had several hundred wives. Evans-Pritchard was informed by Zande men and women that lonely spouses would frequently come together at night, chop a sweet potato or manioc root into the shape of a penis, and wrap it around one of the women's waists. They penetrated each other in turn with this vegetable phallus. In public, women might also establish a "love-friend" connection, which Zande men often believed to be a front for same-sex relationships. However, women's same-sex romantic activities were discouraged, unlike interactions between males. Many cultures have sexual rituals involving older and younger males, which have sparked debates about consent and child abuse. Anthropologist Gilbert Herdt (1984) detailed initiation ceremonies in which teenage boys were expected to fellate elder male mentors in order to acquire the male essence that would transform them into fully socialised men. Herdt studied a community in New Guinea he named the "Sambia" (a pseudonym). Herdt called this activity "ritualised homosexuality," but there are many who disagree that such symbolically intricate ritual activities can be adequately described using Western concepts of sexuality. Certain same-sex behaviours are more casual and private, while others are ritualised. Certain cultures interpret same-sex behaviours as a stage linked to teenage exploration and guidance. Girls in Ghanaian boarding schools are known to experiment with same-sex relationships, as is the case in many modern-day African countries. It is referred to as supi in Ghana (maybe a contraction of superintendent or supervisor). A senior girl may consider a junior girl as a particular friend in boarding high school (Dankwa 2009; Gyasi-Gyamera and Søgaard 2020). Some of these connections are somewhat informal. For the senior girl, the junior girl does errands like getting food or water. The junior girl receives safety and assistance from the senior girl (such schools may be fraught with challenges, such as bullying and a lack of supplies). A supi relationship may intensify both physically and emotionally in some cases. The two females send each other love letters, exchange presents, and give each other affectionate touches. They may share a bed or take a shower together. Supi is not just for a certain type of female (i.e., recognised lesbians); it is popular with schoolgirls as well, almost all of whom go on to marry men and become wives and mothers as expected of them. Over the last twenty years, same-sex relationships in Ghana have been stigmatised by evangelical Christianity as immoralities that need to be eradicated via rituals akin to exorcism. Although supi is a vague activity that occasionally involves sexuality and occasionally does not, evangelicals in Ghana have stigmatised it. Christian journalists have called lesbian partnerships "supi-supi" and produced articles about affluent ladies snatching away young spouses. Sensational and condemning films like Lurid Popular Women in Love (1996) and Supi: The Real Woman to Woman (1996) link women's same-sex behaviours to a covert mermaid worship group known as Mami Wata. Numerous anthropological studies detail same-sex customs in cultures that prioritise heterosexual marriage and procreation. In these situations, sexuality is more of a ritual, stage of life, coping mechanism, or way to enjoy oneself than it is an identity. In certain cultural contexts, same-sex relationships are viewed as complimentary to heterosexual relationships, albeit occasionally being hidden from public view. They are entirely consistent with the traditional expectations for heterosexual marriage and family life. For example, Roger Lancaster (1992) discovered that traditionally masculine males may preserve their fundamentally heterosexual identities if they assumed the "active," penetrating role in samesex interactions. Lancaster conducted studies on gender and sexuality in Nicaragua. People who practise same-sex and transgender rights have created public identities and communities throughout the world as a result of the LGBTQIA+ movement's advancement, which has its roots in the US and western Europe. These groups are advocating for the acceptance and legal acknowledgment of their relationships. American gay and lesbian groups remade their own activities as "the real thing," a set of connections and behaviours integral to their entire way of life, rather than engaging in same-sex pleasures as a stand-in for "the real thing" or as something done "on the side." This claim has significant ramifications for ideas of community and family. If the cornerstone of kinship systems based on biological lineage is heterosexual marriage and reproduction, then same-sex partnerships imply alternative kinds of kinship based on networks and shared ideals. Anthropologist Kath Weston delves at how lesbian and gay families in the San Francisco Bay Area created family networks that both mirrored and subverted conventional ideas of family in her 1991 book Families We Choose.