I made the sarcastic and disparaging reference to a mud hut because your gesture of presenting Yoruba culture as somehow untouched by homosexuality is ridiculous. If you’d said that it was something people knew about, but didn’t discuss because it was taboo, I’d believe that. I would never be stupid enough to allege that an entire culture was or is incapable of grasping and articulating a concept, because that would be both boorish and ignorant, but that’s essentially what you did. Mind you, I spend every workday with doctors from either Bangladesh or India, and I’ve seen enough of their work that I’d rather be treated by them than some US-born doctor of lesser expertise. I’ve worked with a doctor from Cameroon who I would place in the same category. Heritage counts for less than the individual’s own intellectual efforts. You have chosen to put forth an implausible and embarrassing notion, and it’s one I know from my own experience to be a fraud. It does a disservice to people from non-Western cultures, because its allegation that homosexuality is like some foreign spore contaminating pristine innocents is even more racist crap than alleging that the “natives” required the civilizing influence of a colonial occupier.

I started by reminding fx that this article is about India. India is not a monolithic culture–not all Hindus are the same, not all people from Maharashtra are Hindu, not all Hindus vote for the BJP. That would be ignorant stereotyping. It would not be ignorant stereotyping to note that many of the forces working to uphold India’s cultural conservatism are religious forces, and many of them have also acted to uphold the continued existence of the caste system. Acknowledging matters of sexuality doesn’t mean you have to engage in a Britney-thon. It means dealing with reality. Indian women are contracting HIV from their husbands, yet those women are demonized for the infection. This seems to be changing, slowly, but changing nonetheless. fx, I suppose that’s further proof of Western cultural hegemony. What if it’s Indians recognizing that some aspects of society and culture may have to change if Indian society is to remain physically and intellectually vital?

Again, if “Western” ways are so burdensome on non-Western cultures, then why is fx spending time here? Why devote time to something you seem to denigrate? Are you on the DL?

You may not be familiar with the quote, fx. You can easily explain the absence of terms in any given language. The oppressor and majority is able to manipulate language and literature in any way it sees fit. Hense, we have dozens of different translations of the Bible. At one time in the United States, people would say that they could not tell you that they knew any homosexual. Now, I would venture to say that very few could say they do not know a homosexual.

Here, for example, is an interesting explanation:

http://semgai.free.fr/doc_et_pdf/africa_A4.pdf

“Especially where Western influences (notably Christian and Marxist) have been pervasive, there is now a belief that homosexuality is a decadent, bourgeois Western innovation forced upon colonial Africa by white men, or, alternately by Islamic slave-traders. Around the world, people view homosexuality as a vice of some other people. Thus, the recurrent British claim Norman conquerors introduced homosexuality to the British Isles. Various French accounts view homosexuality as Italian, Bulgarian, or North African. Italians accept only the latter two homelands. Bulgarians attribute greater popularity and/or the origins of homosexuality to Albanians, and Albanians in turn to Turks. Similarly eastern Bantu claimed that pederasty was imported by the Nubians, Sudanese blame Turkish marauders, etc. Such views tell us something about perceived ethnic boundaries, but nothing about the origins or the historical transmission of cultural traits. The belief by many Africans that homosexuality is exogenous to the history of their people is a belief with genuine social consequences — in particular stigmatization for those of their people engaged in homosexual behavior or grappling with gay identities. These beliefs are not, however, based on serious inquiry, historical or otherwise.”

I honestly would not be surprised if India has far more than 10% homosexuals. We will find out as India becomes more of a modern country.