Re: Malthus/Thanksgiving

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Melvin wrote:
> Starting from the
> existence of a communist society - based on this stage of development,
> means the
> reemergence of human sexuality and concepts such as homosexuality lose
> their force
> and have no meaning.

Not everything can be reduced to modes of production. In primitive hunting
and gathering societies there was homosexuality.

---

Speaker: American Indians more accepting of sexuality
Tracy Whitehair
For the Kaimin

Gender within some American Indian tribes goes beyond just male and female,
an expert on Indian gender issues said Thursday at the UC.

Many tribes even have a term for the "third gender," or gay male tribal
members, said Beatrice Medicine, an anthropologist and authority on gender
and sexuality,

She told a crowd of about 50 that Indians have traditionally been more
accepting of divergent views of sexuality. Even though the past few decades
have seen changes in how the "men who want to be women," are viewed within
the tribe, Medicine said when she was a girl there was no stigma attached
to the "wintke," the Lakota term for a gay man.

"Acceptance of gender can be instilled at a very young age," she said.

Medicine said the translation of the Lakota term "winkte" is "win-" meaning
"woman" and "-kte" meaning "wants to be like." She also said "-kte" has
another translation: "to kill."

"It's kind of an interesting double meaning," she said.

No term for lesbians has been found in native languages, Medicine said,
because female sexuality has not been studied as much as that of the "winkte."

As a child on the Standing Rock reservation in Wakpala, S.D., Medicine
remembers her parents teaching her about gay tribal members. She said they
told her that sometimes a man wants to be like a woman.

"But you have to respect him because he's still Lakota," Medicine said.

full: http://www.kaimin.org/Dec00/12-8-00/news12_12-8-00.html



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