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Two men, troubled by their past, cross paths where the desert and mountains meet the sky.
Short stories about human diversity and the vexing riddles of human sexuality.
You heard quite a lot about this young woman. This article expands the issue and provides a view of the bigger picture.
From greenleft.org
By Farida Iqbal
Eighteen-year-old South African athlete Caster Semenya has done nothing wrong. Yet she has been accused of deceiving the world about her gender. There is nothing wrong with Semenya’s body. Yet her body has been paraded in front of the world by the mass media as if she were a sideshow freak.
Semenya is a talented athlete. Yet her career is at stake.
Semenya won the 800 metres in the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Championships on August 19. She was accused by the international media of having won the race due to her unfair disadvantage of “really” being a man.
Semenya, like many other female athletes, has been subjected to sexist judgement of what a female body is supposed to look like.
Semenya is an intersex woman. But intersex women are not the only women who have been subjected to such scrutiny. The accusation of looking “too masculine” has always been used to degrade female athletes, including Martina Navratilova. For years the media focused on her highly developed biceps.
Semenya was subjected to invasive “gender tests” (actually testing biological sex, not gender). The test results were leaked to the international mass media. Australia’s Daily Telegraph was the first to run the story, revealing Semenya has internal testes and no womb. This may or may not be true.
If it is true, it is a discovery that would prompt any 18 year-old to do some profound soul searching about their identity, their relationship to their body, and their relationship with the world.
Ideally this soul searching would be done in the person’s own time, in their own way.
Yet for Semenya there was no question of privacy. The most intimate details of her body were revealed to the world in lurid headlines in the international mass media: “Semenya has male sex organs” (September 11 Sydney Daily Telegraph) “a woman… and a man!” (September 10 NYDailynews.com) “Is SHE a he?” (August 19 Melbourne Herald Sun).
The definition, the Studies and the Debate
(Yes, we’ve not only made it controversial, we’ve also made it scientific)
Homosexuality refers to sexual attraction or sexual behavior between people of the same sex, or to a sexual orientation. As an orientation, homosexuality refers to “an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectionate, or romantic attractions primarily to” people of the same sex; “it also refers to an individual’s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them.”
Homosexuality is one of the three main categories of sexual orientation, along with bisexuality and heterosexuality, within the heterosexual-homosexual continuum. The number of people who identify as homosexual – and the proportion of people who have same-sex sexual experiences – are difficult for researchers to estimate reliably for a variety of reasons. In the modern West, major studies indicate a prevalence of 2% to 13% of the population.
A 2006 study suggested that 20% of the population anonymously reported some homosexual feelings, although relatively few participants in the study identified themselves as homosexual.
Psychology was one of the first disciplines to study homosexuality as a discrete phenomenon. In the late 19th and throughout most of the 20th centuries, pathological models of homosexuality were standard. On December 15, 1973, the American Psychiatric Association, removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders. The American Psychological Association Council of Representatives adopted the same measure on January 24-26, 1975.
Beacon of Light
There is more reason for hope in our society when an organization like the Ford Foundation not only recognizes and acknowledges the natural diversity of human sexuality, but also throws its enormous weight behind promoting a more positive understanding of human diversity including the GLBT community. In addition to the positive affects of understanding and the negative affects of the various kinds of prejudice, the foundation deals with all related aspects of human sexuality. Enough cannot be said to stress the importance of their impact on creating a better, more productive, healthier and harmonious society.
From the Ford Foundation Report (Preface)
After widespread neglect over many years, the value of studying human sexuality has recently been recognized for its bearing on many important debates and problems in contemporary society. This is the result, in part, of contributions from feminist theory, the emergence of gay and lesbian movements, new efforts to prevent sexual abuse, and the international AIDS epidemic, which have generated a significant amount of new research on human sexuality. Along with increased research we see academics, advocates and community activists in the field coming together to exchange information and ideas. Having combined forces,they are focusing new attention on the ways in which gender and sexuality are shaped in different social and cultural settings, and on the complex interactions between sexuality, health and issues of social justice. This new wave of activity has led to the creation of more effective program interventions and services.
Since the early 1990s, the Ford Foundation has recognized the general lack of information and theoretical understanding concerning human sexuality. Through its work in the reproductive health field, the foundation has supported social science research and training, advocacy and public education on sexuality, sexual health and sexual rights. Early programming revealed the critical role sexuality and gender play in determining women’s social status and ability to protect themselves against violence, disease and unwanted pregnancy. As our work has evolved, it has also come to include a focus on the role of sexuality in healthy human development.
Our primary motivation in writing this report is to stimulate conversation and to encourage other donors and organizations to support work on human sexuality. Funding is needed to advance efforts by social science researchers, HIV/AIDS and reproductive health advocates, community activists, parents and practitioners. At Ford, we welcome partnerships with other donors interested in this important field.
Susan V. Berresford
President
Ford Foundation
Wikipedia defines bisexuality as sexual behavior with emotional [and/or] physical attraction to people of both genders (male and female), or a bisexual orientation. People who have a bisexual orientation “can experience sexual, emotional, and affectionate attraction to both their own sex and the opposite sex”; “it also refers to an individual’s sense of personal and social identity based on those attractions, behaviors expressing them, and membership in a community of others who share them.” It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation. Individuals who do not experience sexual attraction to either sex are known as asexual.
According to Alfred Kinsey’s research into human sexuality in the mid-20th century, many humans do not fall exclusively into heterosexual or homosexual classifications but somewhere between. The Kinsey scale measures sexual attraction and behavior on a seven-point scale ranging from 0 (exclusively heterosexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual). According to Kinsey’s study, a substantial number of people fall within the range of 1 to 5 (between heterosexual and homosexual). Although Kinsey’s methodology has been criticized, the scale is still widely used in describing the continuum of human sexuality.
Those Reporting They are Bisexual by Political-Gender Cohort (VL=Very Liberal, L=Liberal, M=Moderate, C=Conservative, VC=Very Conservative)
Bisexuality has been observed in various human societies and elsewhere in the animal kingdom throughout recorded history. The term bisexuality, however, like the terms hetero- and homosexuality, was only coined in the 19th century. Read the full wikipedia account here.
In my novel, Five Married Men, all five husbands fall into the middle spectrum between heterosexual and homosexual. They love their wives unequivocally and none regret being married, though the weight of society’s mores wears mercilessly on them, along with a lifelong indoctrination as to what defines masculinity. They love their wives but they also face an inner struggle, an identity that they have to keep suppressed, a growing urge for an intimate connection with another male. They fear living out their lives in a painful state of hopeless denial. When the opportunity to explore this side of their nature presents itself, they surrender. They are unable to equate their physical affection for each other as infidelity, but they are racked with guilt over lying to their wives.
Five Married Men explores the unsuccessful stages of denial, the process of taking the first step, the jubilation involved when two bisexual men connect, the arguments for and against guilt, and the consequences for all concerned. The powerful emotions experienced are an integral part of this story, both from the husband’s and the wife’s perspective. Along the way, in this case, they discover a winning solution is difficult if not impossible to find.
Of course that’s not always the case. Many couples, though so many tragically end in divorce, find ways to compromise and even redefine the parameters of their marriage. More often than not, the road is difficult and emotional, but love and mutual respect often prevails, if both partners can find a way to shed “conventional wisdom” and the phantoms of social/religious indoctrination. It takes recognizing the fact, no matter how the marital parameters are redefined, that the foundation of the marriage will always be intact, that love will remain strong and will perhaps grow stronger.
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