Re: homosexuality in Turkey

[Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 8/9/06, Jim Devine <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On 8/8/06, Sabri Oncu wrote: >... Here in Turkey males can kiss and
> carres each other, hold hands, walk in arms, so and so forth, and
> nobody would think that they are "fagots" or such. Same goes for the
> females. This is not to say that there is no homophobia, hatred of the
> "other" or what have you here ... <
>
> Earlier, Louis Proyect wrote: >I have spent enough time in Turkey to
> know that you have to keep your homosexual identity a secret and
> Turkey is a lot more open than Egypt or Iran. And I am talking about
> secular Turkish society, not places like Eastern Anatolia. It is a
> plain fact that YOU CANNOT BE OPENLY GAY there.  <
>
> Sabri, do you think that Louis' description is accurate?

Here is another article on sexuality in the Middle East.  The more
society gets proletarianized and urbanized, the more individuals adopt
the Western sense of homo/bio/hetero sexual identities; and the more
individuals adopt such identities, the more the older way of life,
with its particular arrangement of sex/gender/sexuality, gets
disrupted.  To employ Raymond Williams' terms, it's a conflict between
the still dominant ideology rooted in the past and the emergent
ideology rooted in the penetration of global capitalism.  This
happened earlier in the West: recall, for instance, the trial of Oscar
Wilde.

Power and Sexuality in the Middle East

Bruce Dunne

Sexual relations in Middle Eastern societies have historically
articulated social hierarchies, that is, dominant and subordinate
social positions: adult men on top; women, boys and slaves below. The
distinction made by modern Western "sexuality" between sexual and
gender identity, that is, between kinds of sexual predilections [and]
degrees of masculinity and femininity, has, until recently, had little
resonance in the Middle East. Both dominant/subordinate and
heterosexual/homosexual categorizations are structures of power. They
position social actors as powerful or powerless, "normal" or
"deviant." The contemporary concept of "queerness" resists all such
categorizing in favor of recognizing more complex realities of
multiple and shifting positions of sexuality, identity and power.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Sexual relations, whether heterosexual or homosexual, continue to be
understood as relations of power linked to rigid gender roles. In
Turkey, Egypt and the Maghrib, men who are "active" in sexual
relations with other men are not considered homosexual; the sexual
domination of other men may even confer a status of
hyper-masculinity.17 The anthropologist Malek Chebel, describing the
Maghrib as marked by an "exaggerated machismo," claims that most men
who engage in homosexual acts are functional bisexuals; they use other
men as substitutes for women-and have great contempt for them. He adds
that most Maghribis would consider far worse than participation in
homosexual acts the presence of love, affection or equality among
participants.18 Equality in sexual relations, whether heterosexual or
homosexual, threatens the "hyper-masculine" order.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Violence directed against male homosexuals appears to be on the rise.
Effeminate male dancers known as khawals were popular public
performers in 19th-century Egypt; today that term is an insult,
equivalent to "faggot."21 The 19th-century khawals may not have
enjoyed respect as "men," but there is little evidence that they were
subjected to violence. Hostility to homosexual practices has been part
of the political and cultural legacy of European colonialism. Today,
global culture's images of diverse sexualities and human sexual rights
have encouraged the formation of small "gay" subcultures in large
cosmopolitan cities such as Cairo, Beirut and Istanbul and a degree of
political activism, particularly in Turkey. Although homosexuality is
not a crime in Turkey, Turkish gays, lesbians, bisexuals,
transvestites and transsexuals have been harassed and assaulted by
police and sometimes "outed" to families and employers. Turkish gay
activists have specifically been targeted. Effeminate male prostitutes
in contemporary Morocco are described as a marginal group, ostracized
and rejected by their families, living in fear of police and
gay-bashers (casseurs de pédés). For some, as for Turkish
transsexuals, prostitution serves as one of the few ways in which they
can live their sexuality.22 Many homosexuals in Middle Eastern
countries have sought asylum in the West as refugees from official
persecution.23

FULL TEXT:
<http://www.merip.org/mer/mer206/bruce.htm>
--
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>
<http://mrzine.org>
<http://monthlyreview.org/>