“Worse than dogs and pigs?” Attitudes Toward Homosexual Practice in Zimbabwe

Politicians call them the “festering finger,” endangering the body of the nation; churchmen say God wants them dead; the courts send them to jail. Zimbabwe has declared that it will not tolerate homosexuality. Gays and lesbians feel persecuted and their rights are undermined. The controversy that was ignited in 1997 when the Zimbabwean government forced the closure of a fair booth by Gays and Lesbians of Zimbabwe at the Zimbabwe International Book Fair continues to echo. At issue are fundamental questions of the scope of human rights protection in Zimbabwe and other African countries (BBC News, 1998 “UK more liberal on homosexuality, says survey.” (1998). BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8479624.stm  [Google Scholar]). Such issues have sparked endless debates on homosexuality in religion, politics, and other forums. This article seeks to explore the attitudes of both traditional Shona culture and Christian sectors in Zimbabwe. The goal is to find out if the practice is rooted in Shona tradition or if it can be seen as a new phenomenon emanating from Western political and Judeo-Christian influences on Zimbabwe. The article argues that the Zimbabwean attitudes toward homosexuality combine Christian and traditional morality. Finally, the article will discuss how Christian churches and traditional Shona culture come to terms with homosexual practice today.     

Good Gay Buddies for Lifetime: Homosexually Themed Discourse and the Construction of Heteromasculinity Among Chinese Urban Youth

Starting as an Internet meme, the homosexually themed gao-ji discourse recently became popular among Chinese urban youth in describing intimate relationships among heterosexual men. Positioned within a body of scholarship on the interplay between language, homophobia, and the construction of heteromasculinity, this article suggests that the gao-ji discourse manifests a form of male homosociality, through which new boundaries of Chinese heteromasculinity may be renegotiated. Based on qualitative interviews with college students, the article first tracks the genealogy of the gao-ji discourse in the wake of China’s booming Internet culture. The main body focuses on unpacking the daily use of the gao-ji discourse, with an attention to the two latent functions it serves (i.e., expanding heteromasculine behaviors and reiterating heteromasculine identities). In conclusion, I argue that the prevalence of the gao-ji discourse mainly resolves straight men’s anxieties against the background of growing public awareness of homosexuality; therefore, it cannot necessarily translate into social acceptance of homosexuality.     

Constructed Realities: Claude Cahun’s Created World in Aveux Non Avenus

ABSTRACT

In her 1930 publication, Aveux non Avenus, Claude Cahun used the relationship between her inwardly focused poetic writing and symbolic photomontages to construct a unique reality for self-expression. This article focuses on three chapters and respective photographic images from the publication to relate Cahun’s, and by association her partner Marcel Moore’s, discussion on sexuality and gender expression. The utopian dreamscape created investigates issues of narcissism and otherness, female homosexuality, dandyism and going beyond gender, individual and social critique, mocking the antiquated views of art and writing, accepting and breaking taboos, while allowing for other departures from the accepted norm. Through analysis of the publication and supporting evidence from early influences, it can be seen that Cahun created a world in Aveux non Avenus where she could exist in a space between the established feminine–masculine binary of 20th-century Europe.     

“Requestioning” AIDS: An Ethical Reflection From 1993 to Today

ABSTRACT

This article serves as one of the supplementary pieces of this special issue on “Mapping Queer Bioethics,” in which we take a solipsistic turn to “map” the Journal of Homosexuality itself. Here, the author examines the first feature-length article to address the relationship between HIV status and homosexuality. Lingering on both the temporal gap between the dawn of AIDS in American discourse and its inclusion in this journal, the author asks us to consider (in hindsight) such a delay bearing in mind queer theoretical projects of the present such as gay shame, stigma, and queer biopolitics.     

Reshaping Time: Recommendations for Suicide Prevention in LBGT Populations

ABSTRACT

This article serves as one of the supplementary pieces of this special issue on “Mapping Queer Bioethics,” in which we take a solipsistic turn to “map” the Journal of Homosexuality itself. Here, the author examines the journal’s 2011 consensus recommendations for the prevention of LGBT suicide. Invoking the axiom approach of Eve Kosovsky Sedgwick’s seminal Epistemology of the Closet, the author argues that merely offering practical guidelines at the level of the demonstrative and the instructive may not be sufficient models to address the urgency of suicide rates in LGBTQ youth populations.     

The Normalization Project: The Progress and Limitations of Promoting LGBTQ Research and Teaching in Mainland China

ABSTRACT

This article reflects on the author’s own experience of promoting LGBTQ research and teaching in mainland China, where the fight for institutional legitimacy and recognition has been a core element in this journey. After a historical survey of how Chinese LGBTQ research has grown out of the particular sociopolitical milieu, it focuses on a discussion of the “normalization project”—a key approach to both create and expand the institutional space for LGBTQ studies. Apart from the positive effects this project entails, this article also critically examines its limitations by bringing into the picture certain critical perspectives.     

An Exploration of Public Attitudes Toward LGBTI Rights in the Gauteng City-Region of South Africa

ABSTRACT

South Africa’s legal framework on the rights of sexual minorities is one of the most progressive in the world. Despite this, discrimination and violence against gay and lesbian people continues to be a challenge. Using large-scale survey data gathered in the Gauteng City-Region, this study examines public attitudes related to homosexuality. Most respondents to the survey felt that sexual minorities should have equal rights. However, a considerable proportion of respondents also held negative views toward gay and lesbian individuals, with close to two fifths of respondents believing that homosexuality is against the values of their community, and over 12% of participants holding the view that it is acceptable to be violent toward gays and lesbians. Further analysis also consists of an examination of responses cross-tabulated with the variables of race, gender, age, and education, revealing that younger, well-educated South Africans tend to be the most tolerant, but also exhibiting large variances in attitudes within groups.     

On Our Memory of Gay Sullivan: A Hidden Trajectory

ABSTRACT

This article examines psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan's approach to the issue of homosexuality. Sullivan (1892–1949), well-known for his interpersonal theory of mental illness, is believed to have accomplished a high recovery rate in his treatment of schizophrenia during the 1920s. Most of his patients, as well as Sullivan himself, were concerned about their “homosexual” orientations. He encouraged physical affection between male patients and male attendants, believing that it would free patients from their guilt for their “unconventional” sexuality. But he kept his compelling practice hidden, not bringing it into open discussion to confront the definition of homosexuality as “sickness.” This article traces the process in which the omission of the important aspect of Sullivan's practice began during his lifetime and continued in the scholarship since. In so doing, the article suggests a nuanced understanding of this important figure in the U.S. intellectual and cultural history of homosexuality.     

Openings: On the Journal of Homosexuality,Volume 1, Issue 1

ABSTRACT

This article serves as one of the supplementary pieces of this special issue on “Mapping Queer Bioethics,” in which we take a solipsistic turn to “map” the Journal of Homosexuality itself. Here, the author examines Volume 1, Issue 1 of the Journal of Homosexuality and asks whether the journal’s first contributors might reveal a historically problematic relationship whereby the categories of front-line LGBT health advocates in the 1970s might be incommensurate with the post-AIDS, queer politics that would follow in decades to come.     

RETRACTED ARTICLE: “It’s Like Birth Control for HIV”: Communication and Stigma for Gay Men on PrEP

Statement of Retraction

We, the Editors and Publishers of Journal of Homosexuality, have retracted the following article:

Grimm, J., & Schwartz, J. “It’s Like Birth Control for HIV”: Communication and Stigma for Gay Men on PrEP. Journal of Homosexuality, 66, 9, (2019), 1179–1197. doi:10.1080/00918369.2018.1495978

We are now cognizant of a substantially similar version of this article which was submitted to, and published in Health Communications.

We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retractions.

The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.     

The Erotic Lesbian in the Spanish Sexploitation Films of the 1970s

This article studies the representation of female homosexuality in the newly born erotic Spanish cinema of the 1970s, questioning the political and social implications of these first representations of lesbianism which contributed to shaping the first democratic discourses around women's sexuality. In order to do so, it looks at some of the most relevant films of the genre (most of which have never been studied before) and examines their portrayal of lesbian sex, focusing later on the figure of Ignacio F. Iquino and his film The Mask as the main representative of this genre in order to prove how the narrative construction of the eroticizing lesbian was largely based upon fascist conceptions of homosexuality.     

Exploring the COVID-19 pandemic experience of maternity clinicians in a high migrant population and low COVID-19 prevalence country: A qualitative study

BackgroundAustralia experienced a low prevalence of COVID-19 in 2020 compared to many other countries. However, maternity care has been impacted with hospital policy driven changes in practice. Little qualitative research has investigated maternity clinicians’ perception of the impact of COVID-19 in a high-migrant population.AimTo investigate maternity clinicians’ perceptions of patient experience, service delivery and personal experience in a high-migrant population.MethodsWe conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with 14 maternity care clinicians in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Interviews were conducted from November to December 2020. A reflexive thematic approach was used for data analysis.FindingsA key theme in the data was ‘COVID-19 related travel restrictions result in loss of valued family support for migrant families’. However, partners were often ‘stepping-up’ into the role of missing overseas relatives. The main theme in clinical care was a shift in healthcare delivery away from optimising patient care to a focus on preservation and safety of health staff.DiscussionClinicians were of the view migrant women were deeply affected by the loss of traditional support. However, the benefit may be the potential for greater gender equity and bonding opportunities for partners.Conflict with professional beneficence principles and values may result in bending rules when a disconnect exists between relaxed community health orders and restrictive hospital protocols during different phases of a pandemic.ConclusionThis research adds to the literature that migrant women require individualised culturally safe care because of the ongoing impact of loss of support during the COVID-19 pandemic.     

How to Be a Healthy Homosexual: HIV Health Promotion and the Social Regulation of Gay Men in the United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

Primary Objective: Health promotion has arisen as the main response to the problem of HIV prevention among gay men. Using the linked concepts of governmentality and health promotion as a neoliberal disciplinary technology, this article argues that health promotion in the time of AIDS has contributed to new forms of social regulation and governance for gay men. Methods and Procedures: This article presents an analysis of data from a study of U.K. HIV health promotion for gay men (interviews with health promoters and analyses of health promotion materials). Conclusions: This analysis of health promotion is helpful in describing an emerging form of governance dependent on incentive rather than censure (censure, pathology and “cure” are how we traditionally describe the use of medical knowledge in the regulation of homosexuality).     

Mirror Rubbing: A Critical Genealogy of Pre-Modern Chinese Female Same-Sex Eroticism

This article offers a critical genealogy of pre-modern Chinese female same-sex relationships. Through the analysis of the primary source materials in history, fiction, and drama, the author shows that female homosexuality is silenced and suppressed. To Confucianism, female same-sex relationships threaten to exclude men from accessing female sex and keep women away from participating in extending the family line. Even the Daoist theory of sex can be used to discriminate against female homosexuality by denying women the ability to initiate and maintain the cycle of yin-yang interaction in sexual intercourse. There are 2 recurring themes in the male writers' imaginings of female same-sex eroticism. First, heterosexuality is the preferred sexual order, and female same-sex desire arises due to the lack of sexual access to men. Second, heterosexual relationships and intercourse are the norm that female homosexuality aspires to imitate.     

Psychometric and Faciometric Support for Observable Facial Feminization in Gay Men

ABSTRACT

Though male homosexuality appears to be evolutionarily paradoxical, phenotypic feminization has been offered as a route for three current models positing a genetic basis for male homosexuality. We tested whether facial feminization is observable in gay men in two studies. In Study 1, using two composite images of gay and of heterosexual men, naive participants (N = 308) rated the “gay” face more highly on stereotypically feminine traits and actual femininity and the “heterosexual” face more highly on stereotypically masculine traits and actual masculinity. In Study 2, faciometrics of 428 Internet images of gay (N = 219) and heterosexual men were analyzed along six sexually dimorphic ratios. The faciometrics of gay men were more feminine, both in gestalt terms and for five of the six individual traits. The studies offer objective support for a more feminized facial phenotype in gay males that is difficult to explain through cultural or behavioral cues.     

Fathers’ and co-mothers’ voices about breastfeeding and equality – A Swedish perspective

BackgroundBreastfeeding has benefits for mother and child and the partner's support influences the decision as well as the duration of breastfeeding. The aim of this study was to describe partners’ knowledge and feelings regarding breastfeeding and how they reason about equality and involvement during the lactation period.MethodsA qualitative study using semi-structured interviews with 7 male and 2 female partners (labelled co-mothers) of breastfeeding mothers. The interviews were transcribed and analysed using a phenomenological approach.ResultsThe main theme Wish for the child to be breastfed/get breast milk described the informants’ desire that their child was breastfed and this desire was based on knowledge of benefits of breastfeeding but also on intuitive feelings of breastfeeding as something natural. The main theme Effect of breastfeeding on fathers/co-mothers described how breastfeeding affected the informants and their relationship to the child and the mother in different ways. The main theme Adaptation and acceptance described how informants accepted the impact that breastfeeding had and/or adapted to it and continued to wish for the child to receive breast milk.ConclusionThe informants desired that their children be breastfed/get breast milk. Breastfeeding affected the informants in different ways, which they handled by adapting to and accepting the situation, and they expressed a continued desire that their children be breastfed/get breast milk. Parental classes should include both parents to be and address how breastfeeding can be successfully performed and supported without threatening the equality between the parents.     

We Find Our Way About: Everyday Media Use and ‘Inhabitant Knowledge’

Abstract

In this article, the author proposes that media uses in everyday living can helpfully be understood as practices of wayfaring. Whereas meaningful relations between media and their audiences or users have typically been conceptualised as matters of representation and interpretation, he focuses on matters of movement and dwelling or of orientation and habitation, opening up the possibility of a non-representational approach for media studies. His starting point is a passing remark in Scannell’s phenomenology of radio and television, and a discussion of that remark leads him to a sympathetic yet critical engagement with Ingold’s work on wayfaring and inhabitant knowledge. Along the way, consideration is given to Tuan’s notes on paths and place-making, and to Merleau-Ponty’s writing on incarnate subjectivity and the acquisition of habit.