Where Homosexuality Is the Norm | Ted Fischer | Big Think

Where Homosexuality Is the Norm

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In New Guinea and the Amazon, it is common and culturally acceptable for men to have sex with men.

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Ted Fischer:

Edward (Ted) Fischer is the Director of Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt University.

Fischer studies cultural anthropology, specializing in matters of economics and moralities. Most of his fieldwork has been in Guatemala (with the Maya) but he has also worked in and written on Germany and the United States. His books include “Cultural Logics and Global Economies,” “Maya Cultural Activism,” and “Broccoli and Desire.” With Peter Benson he is now working on a project titled “Markets and Moralities.” He also has a video series out from The Teaching Co. titled “Peoples and Cultures of the World.”

He received his PhD, in anthropology at Tulane University and his undergraduate degree from University of Alabama at Birmingham after studying at Birmingham-Southern College.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Question: Where is homosexuality completely accepted?

Ted Fischer: How love is manifested varies greatly from culture to culture. And we, I think, often think of our way as the only way, or the best way, or the natural way, and yet it’s not. And this is really the power of anthropology is showing us we naturally think the way we do things is best very often. And looking around the world and saying, “Oh, among the Sambia in New Guinea they form homosexual bonds between men and also have husbands and wives.” That’s a different way of configuring families. A different way of configuring love. And it opens up the range of possibility for us to reconsider the way in which we do things. And it doesn’t mean we have to adopt somebody else's pattern, but just knowing that we construct this world in which we live, and if we want to we can change it.

There are few notable cases around the world. Among Plains Indians before contact and even shortly after contact, there was a recognized; sometimes it’s called a third gender. So men who would feel like they are truly women, and they would dress as women, and the they would take male husbands, and very much a pattern of romantic love, falling in love, marrying, not having children, of course but still living as husband and wife. So that’s one pattern that we find in a few cultures around the world. More often, interestingly, of men feeling that they should be women. A few cases that we find of women feeling that they should be men and dressing as men, but that seems to be more transgressive for cultures in some way. So that’s one pattern.

Question: Are women sexually shunned in any cultures?

Ted Fischer: Another pattern that we find, especially, in New Guinea and in the Amazon region are men forming very strong bonds between themselves, and sometimes this is sexual as well as platonic. And in these cultures a very deep suspicion of women. Women is seen polluting, as dangerous, as someone who would suck a man’s life blood out of them, and so in these cultures there’s still heterosexual bonds, and heterosexual relationships and that’s the norm. And yet it’s seen as dangerous. And men feel more comfortable in the men’s house where only men can go. And for example, among the Sambia of New Guinea that involves -- it involves sexual relations. So young boys are taught about sex by having oral sex with older men. And very -- and sometimes -- and then they’re expected then to go through this progression of having sexual relations with older men, then having sexual relationships with younger men, and then becoming heterosexual, choosing a wife and living with that wife and having children. Very often it’s hard for these men to make that transition to heterosexuality because women are scary, and they don’t want to be too polluted by women. So that’s interesting for this notion that heterosexually is natural. It probably is. I mean, most of the Sambia don’t want to continue with these homosexual relations for the rest of their lives. Some of them do and resist pairing up with a woman. But even for the ones who want to be with women, it’s a hard transition because they’ve learned a different kind of sex.

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