Tibet

[Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema]

The conventional notion in the modern US that gays are "unmacho and sensitive" is,
of course just one historical experience. Or rather it is non-gays' stereotypical
impression of what men are like who prefer other men as sexual partners. After all,
such aggressive male types as the British and Prussian aristocracies in the
nineteenth centuries often preferred homoerotic experience.


>
> >The surprise amongst many Western admirers of the Dalai Lama when he let
> >slip his hostility to homosexuality spoke volumes. To the Lama's
> >admirers in the West it seems odd that a religion that is so unmacho and
> >sensitive should frown of homosexuality. But the interpretation of
> >Buddhism as 'unmacho' or 'sensitive' has nothing to do with Buddhism
> >itself, and everything to do with Western expectations of Eastern
> >mystics.
> >

But, on the other hand, although, as I say, I know little about Tibet, this seems
superficial --


>
> >Surprise, surprise: A religion that is rooted in the most backward
> >social conditions of Tibet, where the surplus product is entirely
> >redirected towards the unproductive consumption of a monastic leisure
> >class, gives rise to backward views about homosexuality, the family and
> >women.

Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema