Same Sex, Different Cultures by Gilbert Herdt

Same Sex, Different Cultures

Exploring Gay And Lesbian Lives

Gilbert Herdt

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

From Library Journal

This ambitious volume tries but misses. Seeking to give a worldwide overview of his topic, Herdt (Children of Horizons, LJ 7/93) succeeds only in providing a cursory introduction to the gay and lesbian culture in the United States. No new information is provided, just a rehashing of much of what was published a decade ago. Herdt gives ‘developing countries’ short shrift and covers well-documented cultures like Greece and some in Asia a mere four pages each, though he is to be commended for including age- and role-structured homoerotic relations in the few areas of the world he decides to cover. Lesbians will be especially disappointed. Serious readers would do better with more substantive works like Bret Hinsch’s Passions of the Cut Sleeve: The Male Homosexual in China (LJ 9/1/91). Public libraries will want, but research collections may want to pass on this one.?Kevin M. Roddy, Univ. of Hawaii at Hilo Lib.

Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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