[lbo-talk] Colonialism and Homosexuality

Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
Wed Jun 20 07:15:10 PDT 2007


--- Yoshie Furuhashi <critical.montages at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> While exceptions exist, the prevailing view of
> sexuality, after
> Stonewall, has come to tend to correlate with
> economics, within a
> nation and between nations. Among the poorest of
> the poorest nations,
> the notion that society should be divided into
> "sexual orientations,"
> homo, hetero, and bi, and that each person ought to
> have "sexual
> identity" is not yet common sense. The richer
> peoples of the richer
> countries, especially in Europe, tend to take it for
> granted that
> society ought to be so divided and there be equality
> between "sexual
> orientations." Among those who economically fall
> into the middle,
> such as the Russians, the notion of "sexual
> orientation" is probably
> now common sense, especially among urbanites, though
> acceptance of
> equality based on that hasn't become the national
> norm yet.
>

This doesn't relate directly to what you're saying, but Tthere is a large difference in Russian societal views on male and female homosexuality. For instance the former was officially outlawed (though the law seems to have been very rarely enforced, largely used in cases of paedophilia) and not even Stalin banned the latter.

I think one should keep in mind here that 1) not only is Russia a relatively recently urbanized country that retains many peasant values*, but also 2) in the not-very-long-ago Soviet days homosexuality was classed as "decadent behavior of the decaying capitalist West," and so, like prostitution, officially did not exist. Even though of course it actually did. Soviets were prudes. I mean, getting a divorce would get you thrown out of the Party, given that the nuclear family was supposed to be the sacred kernel of Communism.

*Of which widespread corruption and nepotism are two. It's a translation of peasant views on relations with the state and looking out for one's network of loved ones translated into a modern society. Or that is my theory.

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