Same Sex, Different Cultures: Exploring Gay And Lesbian Lives

In this wide-ranging and readable book, Gilbert Herdt suggests that field anthropologists have gathered so little information about homoeroticism in non-Western cultures because they are asking the wrong questions--sometimes out of indifference or embarrassment, but often on the shortsighted assumption that same-sex relations will take the same forms that they do in the Western world. Drawing on research into sexual initiation rites and "sexual lifeways" from Africa to the American Southwest, Herdt convincingly demonstrates that many cultures "simply lack categories or general concepts that cover the meanings of the contemporary notion of the homosexual." The Sambia people of New Guinea, for instance, whom Herdt studied for several years, consider a lengthy period of male sexual interaction to be a vital (in fact, mandatory) initiation into manhood, but have no words for a life devoted to a same-sex partner. Although Herdt had explained his own life choices to them many times, his Sambian friends persisted in trying to arrange marriages for him, "feeling sorry" that he had no wife or children. Rich in anecdotes, Herdt's book provides fuel for ongoing dinner party disputes over the nature/nurture question and changing cultural constructions of homosexuality. --Regina Marler