Male Homosexuality

Should Singapore's conservative, communitarian society continue to criminalise male homosexuality in the name of its common good? This is the fundamental question raised by Singapore's continued retention of Section 377A of the Penal Code, a colonial-era law that criminalises only male homosexual conduct. With reference to Parliament's reasons for retaining 377A and scholarly arguments against homosexuality, this article reconstructs, and debunks, the best philosophical case in favour of 377A; namely, that it should be conserved to sustain communitarian Singapore's common good. Instead, the article argues that, because homosexuality is morally permissible, 377A does not satisfy the 'goodness' component of the common good and hence does not, and cannot, sustain communitarian Singapore's common good. Rather, a communitarian approach to 377A, one based on an inclusive conception of communitarianism and an aggregative conception of the common good, would lead to its repeal and vindicate gay men's right to equality.

In this dissertation, I will seek to review how historical homophobic repression has been depicted both within and outside of Cuba by cultural productions. This dissertation will explore three films as a means of exploring the relationship between institutional homophobia and memory politics in Cuba. I will analyse the representation of homophobic repression in Néstor Almendros and Orlando Jiménez-Leal’s documentary Conducta Impropia (1984), Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío’s Fresa y chocolate released by the ICAIC (1993), and the American film interpretation of Cuban exile Reinaldo Arenas’s autobiography Before Night Falls (Julian Schnabel 2000). I will explore differing popular and academic critiques of homophobia in Cuba to gain a deeper understanding of the socio-political context of homophobic repression during the period 1965-1980. The dissertation will conclude by balancing progressive policies granting Cubans with LGBTQ Rights with an understanding of the continued significance of the representation of homophobia in cultural productions during the period 1980-2000. These films have contributed to collective memories, and hence contemporary socio-political understanding of, institutional homophobic repression during the period 1965-1980.

[o Traviata] Libidinoso e effeminado até ao extrêmo a sua voz era duçurosa, sibilante, sua phrase curta e ameigada, seus requebros petulantes, constituindo-se no todo o pederasta mais convidativo e cynico. (PIRES de ALMEIDA, 1906, p. 79) 2 Resumo: No século XIX, a categoria de "efeminação" surgiu aqui e ali como uma característica negativa ostentada de certos indivíduos do gênero masculino em diversos tipos de documentos. Tanto nos jornais quanto nos romances, bem como em teses de douramento dos jovens médicos, uma descrição nada lisonjeira acompanhou os homens que agiram, falaram, se vestiram ou se comportaram como integrantes do gênero oposto. O objetivo deste artigo é investigar vários enquadramentos de sujeitos considerados efeminados em diferentes fontes, e as conexões e diferenças entre estas categorizações que povoavam o imaginário do império brasileiro. Palavras-chave: Gênero; Efeminação, Século XIX BRIEF NOTES ABOUT EFFEMINATION IN 19 TH CENTURY DOCUMENTS (1853-1896). Abstract: At the 19th century, efemination was a very peculiar category in some documets, like newspapers, novels, and the doctoral thesis wrote by the medicine students to getting his academical degree. These descriptions weren't good at all about men whom get dressed, spoke, or behaved unlike his own gender. The objective of this brief article is study distinct kinds of framing these people in distinct documents. Introdução: Durante a consulta de vários documentos do século XIX tratando sobre vários temas relacionados a papéis de gênero ou práticas sexuais divergentes, foi possível observar o aparecimento de um atributo bastante particular: a efeminação, uma 1 Mestrando em História Social pelo PPGH da Universidade Federal da Bahia. 2 Traviata foi o nome de um famoso pederasta carioca na virada do século XIX para o XX, muito hábil na confecção de chapéus. Os grifos em itálico são meus. Cf. ALMEIDA, José Ricardo Pires de. Homossexualismo (A libertinagem no Rio de Janeiro): estudo sobre as perversões do insticto genital. Rio de Janeiro: Laenmmert, 1906.

En 1929 la Ley de Protección de Menores creó en Chile instituciones y mecanismos que forjaron y legitimaron prácticas disciplinares de vigilancia, regulación e intervención de la infancia. La sexualidad de los menores ocupó allí un lugar privilegiado, ya que era clave en la estabilidad de un proyecto de nación que suponía la reproducción biológica y social de la familia patriarcal, heterocentrada, hegemónica y debidamente jerarquizada. El estudio de los Informes Médicos de la Casa de Menores de Santiago, conservados en los expedientes judiciales del Tribunal Especial de Menores de la ciudad para el periodo 1929-1942, permite describir las examinaciones médicas de la homosexualidad masculina; además reflexionaremos, según artículos escritos en la época por médicos y otros actores relevantes, sobre las nociones que subtienden estas prácticas, sus objetivos y finalidades.

Since 1929, the Chilean Minors Protection Law established institutions and mechanisms where disciplinary practices of surveillance, regulation, and intervention of childhood were forged and legitimized. The sexuality of minors played a significant role, since it was key in the stability of a project of nation that was based on the biological and social reproduction of the patriarchal, hetero-normative, hegemonic, and hierarchical family. Through the study of the medical reports of the Santiago House of Minors preserved in the judicial records of the Special Minors Court of the city between 1929 and 1942, this paperanalysesthe medical examination of male homosexuality. Additionally, through the discussion of articles written at the time by doctors and other relevant actors, this paper will reflect on the notions underlying these practices, and their objectives and purposes.

Commercial sex is a risky business and men who buy sex engage in a form of voluntary risky behaviour. Using Stephen Lyng's notion of edgework, this qualitative study examines Hong Kong men who buy sex in Hong Kong/China and argues that these men's engagement can be understood as a form of leisure edgework which balances risk and pleasure by negotiating the boundary between order and chaos. This article concludes that men buying sex can be seen as a form of resistance to normative companionate sexuality and the skills they exercise are key cultural principles needed in late-modern society. Edgework therefore plays an important role in modern intimacy, especially in shaping masculinity and men's sexual scripts.

With the recent legalization of gay marriage in France, the couple has become the most valued social unit in the gay community. The emergence of the ''chemsex'' and ''slamming'' subculture—which involves injecting drugs during sexual encounters—on the fringes of the gay online dating scene has thus aroused new fears and anxieties. While slamming is often portrayed as a risky, extreme, and deviant practice divorced from the sentimental norms of stable relationships, this article aims to provide a more nuanced understanding of how practices of injecting drug use—and significantly, attendant practices of managing risks and harms—are entangled with the search for love and willingness to build lasting emotional bonds among young gay men. Drawing on ethnographic immersion on two gay dating sites and 25 life story interviews with gay men who inject drugs in Paris and Lyon, I argue that the link between romantic relationships and injecting drug use is anything but straightforward. The suffering and loneliness that follow romantic breakups can trigger uncontrolled drug use while feelings of ''love fusion'' between ''slammers'' can encourage further risk-taking. But romantic relationships can also provide crucial symbolic and material support to place limits on drug use in ways that reduce harm.

Este artigo aborda os processos de construção de identidades homossexuais entre um grupo de nove jovens universitários da cidade do Rio de Janeiro. A partir de entrevistas realizadas entre os meses de Agosto e Outubro de 2012, discuto como a elaboração de
uma identidade homossexual masculina é perpassada por uma série de negociações e ocorre por meio de quatro processos distintos: percepção, aceitação, prática e comunicação. Através da análise dos relatos dos sujeitos sobre suas trajetórias, busco
evidenciar como estes quatro processos são essencialmente dinâmicos e não-lineares, acontecendo, por vezes, de modo simultâneo.

Modern heteronormativity in Hong Kong has been produced via British colonialism, land developers, and the family, and maintained through post-colonial administration. Together, these factors have resulted in a heterosexual culture of intimacy with rigid public/private distinctions. Homonormativity has emerged with the rise of tongzhi (synonym for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered) space in Hong Kong since the
1990s, but has had the effect of marginalizing certain tongzhi along lines of class, age, and the body. Based on the narratives of 14 older (60+) gay men in Hong Kong, this article discusses how they have negotiated same-sex intimacy in everyday sites at two specific times – in their parents’ homes and public toilets in the 1940s–1950s, when homosexuality was a crime and homosexual identity had not yet developed; and in their own
homes and within the present-day tongzhi world, which presents them with new opportunities and challenges. Using a post-structuralist conception of power/resistance that
juxtaposes power and resistance in the same site, this article argues that the private home and public spaces are sites of governmentality/resistance while tongzhi spaces are sites of desire/domination, with class and age being important social identifiers of Hong Kong gay men. Through radical use of spaces, a tongzhi heterotopia can be created and practised in both hetero-/homo-sexual worlds. This article contributes to the sociology of sexuality by exploring how governmentality via British colonialism (and postcolonialism), land use, and the family shape tongzhi bodies and space, exposing the
domination of hetero-/homo-normativities in tongzhi lives, and highlighting tongzhi resistance in Hong Kong.

For many men anonymous same sex acts in public places are an important social institution, well organized to find a sexual partner. Explicit and easily understandable codes of communication are shared by the participants in these places. In this work the results of an ethnographic research conducted in the public park of a city located in northern Italy, which hosts anonymous sex acts between men, are presented. The search for impersonal sex, or sex without emotional involvement between two sexual partners, defines a major component of male homosexual culture. For many men the first sex act with another man is defined, in addition to the recognition of one's desires, by learning the ways to meet partners in public places, and the debut in the places where they can be found. Some places are outdoors: parks, gardens and beaches. The location of these places is strictly related to the characteristics of the territory. Areas and places for occasional sexual encounters require at least two features: they have to be public and safe at the same time. These " erotic oasis " , as they have been defined already a quarter of a century ago, should be freely accessible to all members of the community, but must also ensure the highest protection and anonymity for the participants. The city park under consideration satisfies these two imperatives. In this paper it will be also shown that " sex without love " is appreciated by itself. Outdoors sexual encounters are appealing not only because they are available, secure and anonymous, but also because they are considered very pleasant and especially "exotic". It will be shown that only anonymous sex can provide peculiar feelings, emotions, anxieties, and excitements. In these places specific forms of expression of desire, specifically researched and carefully constructed, are found.