Western constructions of homosexuality

Both Murray and Roscoe and Najmabadi explore the complexities produced when applying inherently western gendered identities to non-western contexts. Each author highlights what is overlooked when applying such simplified constructs (ones with distinct meanings attached) to these distinct environments. Najmabadi presents a gendered continuum that holds a distinct gender binary as the extremes (masculinity <--> femininity). To move on the continuum, one must take away or add aspects of one subject position from/to another; as she suggests, "our contemporary binary of gender translates any fractures of masculinity into effeminization" (3). She notes that this distinct gender binary is the product of "modern heterosocialization," (3) a process introduced by Europeans through an "othering" of homosexuality that became associated with modernity, producing a reconfiguration of family life and new understandings of sexual norms.

What I found to be particularly notable is her challenge to Foucault's "homosexuality as type" it in the context of the West. She aptly explains that making such a distinction, however, has the potential to: 1) render homosexuality an "alien concept for formation of desire" in other cultures, that can be used as a homophobic excuse to keep such an identity within the confines of the West, and 2) produces the "premodern" as distinctly different period than the modern, rather than a still-relevant context that must be analyzed in conjunction with the present (19). As she notes as well, "it would be a mistake to think that prior to that time there were no identifications whatsoever by desire types" (19-20).

Murray and Roscoe expand on that same theme, showing the reader that, contrary to mainstream belief, homosexual acts do and have occurred within Islamic culture, but are just not acknowledged as a distinct identity as understood by the West. As they suggest, "northern European and American will to not know that anyone else anywhere else ever noticed recurrent homosexual desire" (29). Murray and Roscoe utilize linguistic analysis to highlight the important distinction between discrete homosexual behavior vs. (western) homosexual identity, differentiating between roles, acts, and identity within such a paradigm. They demonstrate that such a desire does exist, especially in cultures where it has been made to look as though it does not occur, both through the avoidance of acknowledgement within the culture itself (or the lack of a declared "identity" through that behavior as such; "covert category") and at the same time unbeknownst to western (read: northern European and American) society.

I thought it was fascinating - and so true - the way in which they also discussed the "'Western notion of homosexuality as a state of being'" (36) as it stands in contrast to homosexuality as an activity that does not carry an identity as such. I think it's important to note, however, that this dichotomy - despite Murray pointing to these different interpretations as Western and non-Western, respectively - is one that individuals within Western society still experience and struggle with themselves as well. Calling our attention to the idea that the term "homosexuality" is an "etic classification" (one that, Murray and Roscoe note, does not define the entirety of homosexual behavior, placed from the outside) is crucial to the way we conceptualize such identities going forward.