July 10, 2008
A young Indian patient of mine has just come out. Overcoming his enormous fear of rejection, he has finally admitted to his conservative Hindu family that he is gay. For those who doubt the power of symbols, he was partly inspired by the first gay parade in Delhi last week.
A large portion of the several thousand who marched wore masks to remain anonymous. They were both celebrating their sexuality and protesting against an 1861 penal code enacted by the British that "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" is punishable by life imprisonment. While it is rarely applied, there are still cases of corrupt police using it to blackmail suspected homosexuals.
In the same week the first gay pride marches took place in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Cuba. It is all part of globalisation. Sexuality is a feature that is being reimagined across the globe, especially in the developing world. Premarital sex, female sexual pleasure and homosexuality are all striving for legitimacy.
The use of sex workers by local young men is declining in Thailand as premarital sex becomes more legitimate. In Japan, women are postponing marriage to workaholic husbands and engaging in sex tourism to places such as Bali. Time magazine claims that the fastest growing sex toy market is in communist China.
The stand-off in Malaysian politics, where an opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, is again facing sodomy charges, is a timely example of the tension between economic and political innovations with the inevitable social freedoms. Anwar is seen as a figure promoting modernity. His conservative opponents hope to link sexual perversion and immorality with such an outlook, knowing it is an association much of the population may also make.
The unease was also reflected when the Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed there were no gays in Iran, during a controversial speech at Columbia University last year.
While it sounds ridiculous to Western ears, such pronouncements indicate that despite the prosperity from opening up to trade and money flows being welcome, the associated sexual desires that co-exist with the desire for modernity are harder to swallow. There is nothing quite so frightening to authority and order as our most primitive urges unleashed.
Thousands of gays have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution, according to Amnesty International. Throughout the Middle East and Asia, homosexual activity is fiercely denounced in public but occurs widely in private, especially in Islamic societies where sexual segregation is marked.
How it varies from Western practice is that most men having sex with other men do not consider themselves gay. For many, the fact that a man has sex with another man has little to do with "gayness". The act may fulfil a desire or a need, but it doesn't constitute an identity.
Nor does it strip a man of his masculinity. But as a more Westernised notion that stresses orientation over acts takes hold, this delicate balance is under threat. Empowered by travel and media images of the West, many such people are proclaiming their sexuality in public, demanding it be accepted as more than an aberrant practice, something they are and not just what they do.
In an amazing twist, one of most articulate voices calling for reform within Islam is the Canadian journalist Irshad Manji, a celebrated lesbian.
Cases such as the world first that occurred in Australia in 2003, when two Bangladeshi men received refugee status on the grounds that homosexuals were a social group being persecuted, are likely to increase. Their case was later overturned on appeal, but it made global headlines nevertheless.
It was only in 1973 that homosexuality was no longer classified as a mental illness by the field of psychiatry. Even that decision was fiercely contested. In barely three decades, the church is facing a schism over gay clergy, and gay marriage is a source of heated political debate. Furthermore, gays are now well over-represented practising as psychiatrists.
Aversion therapy is, however, still rife within the developing world, used after distraught families become aware of their gay children or relatives. There are entire clinics devoted to banishing what is seen as an illness to be cured.
The joker in the pack is HIV/AIDS, an epidemic of such potential lethality that it threatens to utterly destabilise societies. In countries such as India and China, governments are being forced to face up to the spectre, and are considering how to better accommodate gay populations. With the Olympics imminent, an estimated 40 million to 50 million homosexuals in China are celebrating a newfound openness that includes Beijing gay bars, a national AIDS hotline and a host of bestselling gay books and magazines.
While our mass consciousness contemplates the apocalyptic promise of climate change, terrorism and poverty, another chapter within the politics of intimacy is being played out in public. The growing gay debate around the world is a symptom of a wider desire for sexual freedom. The yearning for human self-expression is at least as great in the bedroom as it is in the ballot box.
The associated backlash is a sign that it will be fiercely contested. Those who fear such developments ultimately associate such freedoms with more than mere immorality, but the first step towards social breakdown and the ultimate demise of the family unit, something that is confirmed for them by images from the West.
From initial reports, my patient's confession to his parents was not taken very well. It is early days, but like foreign governments all over the world previously unaccustomed to contending with the politics of sexuality, his parents will have to get used to it.
A large portion of the several thousand who marched wore masks to remain anonymous. They were both celebrating their sexuality and protesting against an 1861 penal code enacted by the British that "carnal intercourse against the order of nature" is punishable by life imprisonment. While it is rarely applied, there are still cases of corrupt police using it to blackmail suspected homosexuals.
In the same week the first gay pride marches took place in the Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Cuba. It is all part of globalisation. Sexuality is a feature that is being reimagined across the globe, especially in the developing world. Premarital sex, female sexual pleasure and homosexuality are all striving for legitimacy.
The use of sex workers by local young men is declining in Thailand as premarital sex becomes more legitimate. In Japan, women are postponing marriage to workaholic husbands and engaging in sex tourism to places such as Bali. Time magazine claims that the fastest growing sex toy market is in communist China.
The stand-off in Malaysian politics, where an opposition leader, Anwar Ibrahim, is again facing sodomy charges, is a timely example of the tension between economic and political innovations with the inevitable social freedoms. Anwar is seen as a figure promoting modernity. His conservative opponents hope to link sexual perversion and immorality with such an outlook, knowing it is an association much of the population may also make.
The unease was also reflected when the Iranian leader, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, claimed there were no gays in Iran, during a controversial speech at Columbia University last year.
While it sounds ridiculous to Western ears, such pronouncements indicate that despite the prosperity from opening up to trade and money flows being welcome, the associated sexual desires that co-exist with the desire for modernity are harder to swallow. There is nothing quite so frightening to authority and order as our most primitive urges unleashed.
Thousands of gays have been executed in Iran since the Islamic revolution, according to Amnesty International. Throughout the Middle East and Asia, homosexual activity is fiercely denounced in public but occurs widely in private, especially in Islamic societies where sexual segregation is marked.
How it varies from Western practice is that most men having sex with other men do not consider themselves gay. For many, the fact that a man has sex with another man has little to do with "gayness". The act may fulfil a desire or a need, but it doesn't constitute an identity.
Nor does it strip a man of his masculinity. But as a more Westernised notion that stresses orientation over acts takes hold, this delicate balance is under threat. Empowered by travel and media images of the West, many such people are proclaiming their sexuality in public, demanding it be accepted as more than an aberrant practice, something they are and not just what they do.
In an amazing twist, one of most articulate voices calling for reform within Islam is the Canadian journalist Irshad Manji, a celebrated lesbian.
Cases such as the world first that occurred in Australia in 2003, when two Bangladeshi men received refugee status on the grounds that homosexuals were a social group being persecuted, are likely to increase. Their case was later overturned on appeal, but it made global headlines nevertheless.
It was only in 1973 that homosexuality was no longer classified as a mental illness by the field of psychiatry. Even that decision was fiercely contested. In barely three decades, the church is facing a schism over gay clergy, and gay marriage is a source of heated political debate. Furthermore, gays are now well over-represented practising as psychiatrists.
Aversion therapy is, however, still rife within the developing world, used after distraught families become aware of their gay children or relatives. There are entire clinics devoted to banishing what is seen as an illness to be cured.
The joker in the pack is HIV/AIDS, an epidemic of such potential lethality that it threatens to utterly destabilise societies. In countries such as India and China, governments are being forced to face up to the spectre, and are considering how to better accommodate gay populations. With the Olympics imminent, an estimated 40 million to 50 million homosexuals in China are celebrating a newfound openness that includes Beijing gay bars, a national AIDS hotline and a host of bestselling gay books and magazines.
While our mass consciousness contemplates the apocalyptic promise of climate change, terrorism and poverty, another chapter within the politics of intimacy is being played out in public. The growing gay debate around the world is a symptom of a wider desire for sexual freedom. The yearning for human self-expression is at least as great in the bedroom as it is in the ballot box.
The associated backlash is a sign that it will be fiercely contested. Those who fear such developments ultimately associate such freedoms with more than mere immorality, but the first step towards social breakdown and the ultimate demise of the family unit, something that is confirmed for them by images from the West.
From initial reports, my patient's confession to his parents was not taken very well. It is early days, but like foreign governments all over the world previously unaccustomed to contending with the politics of sexuality, his parents will have to get used to it.
Tanveer Ahmed is a psychiatry registrar.
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