Gay Culture Research Articles

Slim and slender: homoerotic images of young men in the 1980s Thai gay magazines

ABSTRACT This article aims to explain how masculine images of Thai slim and slender young men are constructed as homoerotic and homosexual desires focusing on the first generation of commercial gay magazines in the 1980s. Questioning the role of media in the formation of Thai gay culture, the paper explores the connection between consumer culture and the emergence of the modern Thai gay community during the 1980s. Not only do the text/articles in Thai gay magazines tell us about Thai gay culture and history, but the images of men whose photographs appear in Thai magazines also tell us much about the culture of masculinity in Thailand. Thai urban gay people perceived this masculine image and used it to achieve and sustain their sexual imagination. The article demonstrates the representation of male slim and slender bodies in specific social and cultural contexts, which Thai gay men had gradually learned about homoeroticism. It has been found that the homosexual attraction to the slim body image of Thai young men is culturally different from the Western paradigm of big-body gay clones involved in Western gay culture magazines. It could be noted that the cultural and social context behind these homoerotic relations is the changing way of presenting the masculine body of the Thai gay community.

On literature, society, sexualities: An interview with the writer Vasudhendra

ABSTRACT This interview discusses same-sex relationships, especially gay relationships, in the writer Vasudhendra’s semi-autobiographical book, Mohanaswamy, which became India’s first book in the Kannada language to focus on gay life. Vasudhendra talks about the need for social progress in understanding LGBTQIA+ sexualities and the implicit requirement of LGBTQIA+ literature in vernacular languages in India. He elucidates on his experience in counselling gay youths, how he has navigated the difference in gay life between rural and urban areas, and the appropriate way to deal with the variance in their experiences. Though Vasudhendra’s attention is on gay narratives, he also discusses the presence of patriarchy in Indian society, the impact of law on LGBTQIA+ sexualities, the lack of queer vocabulary in Indian vernacular languages, and the need for a more inclusive gendered terminology. The interview ends with the writer’s hope to see a change in society’s perception of non-normative sexualities in India.

Review: There is a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life, by Jafari S. Allen

Review: <i>There is a Disco Ball Between Us: A Theory of Black Gay Life</i>, by Jafari S. Allen

Transnational Connections

In reference to recent interest in transnational queer studies, this essay takes steps to document the long-standing tradition of cultural connection and exchange with regard to homosexual images that has taken place across the Gulf of Bothnia and influenced the understanding of homosexuality, lesbianism included, in both Finland and Sweden. It argues that the cross-border exchange has not only nourished lesbian and gay culture and cultural production in both countries, but also influenced the way in which homosexuality – and thereby the countries themselves – have been viewed. In the article, Finnish cultural products, such as detective novels, films, scandal and porn magazines are searched for traces of the enduring idea of Swedishness being intrinsically intertwined with homosexuality. Whereas the image of Sweden was rather tainted by homosexuality in the 1950s, the public perception of Sweden in Finland changed markedly in the 1960s. In addition to ideas changing, people also started to travel between the two neighbouring countries, ensuring that the cultural exchange was by no means a one-way street.

Barriers and facilitators for optimizing HIV screening target trans women in Taiwan: convergent mixed-method design

Background Trans women are a key global population affected by HIV infection. Although strategies have targeted to encourage trans women to complete HIV screening, frequency of testing in this population remains low. Purpose To reveal barriers and facilitators for a tailored HIV testing model targeting trans women. Methods A convergent mixed-method was applied. Quantitative data were collected via convenience sampling through online questionnaires, and qualitative data were collected via quota sampling through semi-structured interviews. Results In total, 213 participants were recruited with a mean age of 28.7 (SD = 7.57). A high percentage (67.1%, 143/213) of participants had never undergone HIV testing. They were more likely to have no monthly income, have been diagnosed or be experiencing gender dysphoria, have had condomless sex, and have current sexual partners with vaginal genital structure; many had never heard of HIV preventive medications. Integrated results showed that the barriers to accessing HIV testing included underestimated HIV risk, inadequate capacity of testing and results, insufficient access to preventive information within transgender community, and lack of dedicated screening resources. Facilitators included: delivering trustworthy messages through valuable channels and motivating companions through significant others, promoting the screener’s competency of transgender culture; the screener’s service experience should be available, and HIV testing options should be available via gender affirmation therapy. Conclusion The mixed-method analysis promotes the clarification of previously unknown experiences that impede and facilitate trans women’s access to HIV testing. This result could be applied to optimize the current HIV testing model to target trans women.

Demons in San Francisco Bay

In 1967, street minister Kent Philpott began outreach to lesbian, gay, and bisexual hippies in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco. Over the next decade, he counseled those who purportedly wanted out of what he referred to as “the gay lifestyle,” combining charismatic religious beliefs in demons, divine healing, and glossolalia with psychological theories on gender and child development. This article examines Philpott’s efforts to provide the nascent “ex-gay movement” with cultural, social, and intellectual foundations. This article specifically documents how sexual liberation, hippie culture, and conservative religion converged in San Francisco and spawned the “ex-gay movement.” Philpott, swept up by the Jesus People Movement, incorporated religious and psychological beliefs prominent in the Bay Area and infused charismatic Christian influences and traditional understandings of masculinity and femininity into the “ex-gay movement.”

(Homo)masculinities: dating apps and body image among young gay users in Spain

Mobile dating apps (MDAs) generate spaces where masculinities are (co)produced and reproduced, acting as platforms that define the standards of such masculinities. The objective of this article is to understand the role that MDAs play among young users in the construction of masculinity through body image. The data were collected from 40 semi-structured interviews to male users of MDAs, divided in four groups of age (18–25 and 40+ years old) and sexuality (gay and heterosexual) to compare their experiences and discourses. Results show that, despite muscularity being viewed as a sign of status in all groups and very prevalent in the gay group, users challenge its hegemony by questioning the use of enhancement drugs and the cult-like mentality of muscular users. Gay interviewees also discuss the prevalence of objectification and sexualization in gay culture, but younger users talk about challenging them in their self-presentation. Finally, age seems to give confidence to heterosexual users, while the reverse happens in our gay group. However, in their answers, age and socio-economic status are sometimes conflated.

Queering Edgework

Drawing on evocative autoethnographic accounts of cruising for sex in public, this article examines the cruising subculture within gay culture as a voluntary risk-taking leisure activity and thereby a form of edgework. Moreover, this article seeks to push the theoretical conceptualization of edgework beyond the gendered interpretations associated with the theory by using queer theory to re-examine the order/chaos binary along the heterosexual/homosexual edge of sexual identity. By queering edgework, cruising becomes a voluntary risk-taking leisure activity that both shatters and reifies sexual identity along this heterosexual/homosexual edge.

Hypnosuggestive Therapy and Sexual-Behavioral Training in the Correction of Homosexuality. A Case From Clinical Practice

Patient V., 16 years old, studies in the 10th grade of high school. He consulted me in order to correct his homosexual desire on the initiative of his parents who, unlike him, regarded his sexual orientation as pathology. Under their strong psychological pressure he agreed on conversion therapy, since it, in his opinion, would not deteriorate him but would be better for his parents. On the moment of his visit the heterosexual component of sexual desire was entirely absent. His platonic (romantic) libido to girls was awakened at the age of 8-9, and the erotic one at the age of 10. His erotic desire to males was awakened at the age of 12-13, and the sexual desire a year later. At the age of 13 he arrived at the conclusion that he was a gay. When the patient was 14 he liked his classmate of the same age, whom he did not confess in it. They had companionship and “friendship”. He interacted with that boy during 1-1.5 years. At the age of 15 he had his first homosexual contact with a 36-year-old male. The patient had more than 20 sexual contacts with men aged 17-36. Any manifestations of gender incongruence had never been observed. His andrological status have no pathology. The provided correction was as follows: 1. Cognitive influences targeted at formation of the patient’s beliefs about advantages of the heterosexual lifestyle. 2. Hypnosuggestive correction. Programming was targeted at suggestion of futility of the homosexual lifestyle, removal of the homosexual desire and saturation with the heterosexual one, formation of associations between homosexuality and unpleasant sensations and landscapes, negative social consequences of homosexual relations, mental disorders and somatic problems observed in homosexuals. Hypnotic suggestions were also carried out aimed at changing the aesthetic and sexual perception of female and male persons, increasing sexual attraction to girls and women. A normal course of heterosexual masturbation was programmed. Besides, we performed modelling of the normal course of sexual intercourses with persons of the female sex in the hypnotic state. 3. Sexual-behavioural training (sex therapy) using masturbation of the heterosexual character with involvement of porn resources from Internet. Naturally, any use of homosexual plots during masturbation was strictly prohibited. 4. Also the patient was charged with a task to form an ideal of female beauty by focusing his attention on persons of the female sex both in the real life and in Internet. Twenty-one sessions of hypnosuggestive corrections were conducted. In the process of the provided therapy the homosexual component of libido was decreasing, while the heterosexual one was increasing. After the 18th session of hypnosis the heterosexual desire was expressed by 100% and the homosexual one by 0%. Then 3 more sessions of hypnosis were conducted in order to secure the achieved results. An inquiry of the patient 4 months later after the performed correction demonstrated their stability.

Significance of localities, attraction of globalization, finding the way in-between: Hybrid cultural identities of gay men in Turkey

This article aims to find out how gay men in Turkey construct their cultural identities under the impact of globalization, global gay culture, and global gay identity. In accordance with this aim, this study questions whether they stick to their local culture, acknowledge the cultural flows enabled by globalization and global gay culture as the way they are, or find a way between these two forming a hybrid cultural identity. Thus, by focusing on the three possible cultural identity formations; cultural differentialism, cultural convergence, and cultural hybridity, that occur as a result of the interplay between cultural identity and global flows, this study conducts semi-structured interviews with fifteen Turkish gay men. The open-ended questions are formed in order to figure out the ways they interpret globalization and global gay culture &amp; identity, whether they are affected by it, and where they situate themselves considering the circumstances of the local and the global culture they experience. Depending on the interviews, this study concludes that gay men in Turkey embrace global gay culture as it generates positive outcomes. However, attaching a great deal of importance to their local and regarding as a way of identifying themselves, they not turn their backs on their local culture. Accordingly, making use of both the local and global while constructing their cultural identities, they regard cultural hybridization as the most plausible way out of such a dilemma.

Sexualised drug use among gay and bisexual men in New Zealand: Findings from a national cross-sectional study.

New Zealand has a unique illicit drug market, gay cultures and drug use patterns. Minimal attention has been given to how drug use shapes sexual practice, especially in the era of biomedical HIV prevention among gay and bisexual men (GBM). An online cross-sectional study of GBM ('Flux NZ') adapted from an Australian study was undertaken to explore connections between drug use, sexual practice, health and community. We describe drug use patterns, then identify three discrete groups determined by intensity of recent (past 6 months) sexual practice: no recent sex, recent sex and recent sexualised drug use. We examine factors associated with these groups and identify factors independently predicting sexualised drug use. Of 739 participants, almost a third had engaged in group sex (29%), 17.5% were taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), 6.5% were HIV positive. Overall, 59.5% had recently used illicit drugs (16.9% methylenedioxymethamphetamine, 6% methamphetamine, 3.3% gamma-hydroxybutyrate acid, 1.4% ketamine). Sexualised drug use was common (35.7%). Those engaged in sexualised drug use were connected to gay community and had a high uptake of biomedical HIV prevention. Independent predictors of sexualised drug use included being sexually adventurous, knowing their HIV status, having more than 10 recent sexual partners, engaging in group sex and sex at a sex-on-site venue. Many GBM engaging in sexualised drug use manage HIV transmission risks through regular testing, PrEP and HIV treatment. HIV prevention efforts should target GBM with less intensive sexual behaviour but who may be at comparatively higher risk of HIV transmission.

“Gays, it is said, are moving from the swish era into the macho era”: mapping the Butch Shift in the early South African gay press

Drawing from a content analysis of early issues of the gay newspapers, Link/Skakel and Exit, I map the force with which the masculinization of gay culture, the Butch Shift, entered the white gay imaginary in South Africa in the 1980s via transnational exchanges with comparable print and visual cultures from the Global North (especially the United States) and related processes of indigenization. Along with other relevant editorial and commercial content, selected advertising images for South African gay leisure spaces invested in macho iconographies are discussed as prominent sites for shifting white gay male identity away from effeminacy and toward hypermasculinity in this period. The sissyphobia (or anti-effeminacy attitudes), misogyny, and race politics that informed such discourses are also addressed, along with some polemics against the Butch Shift that appeared in Link/Skakel and Exit at the same historical juncture.

“There’s theology and then there’s the people I love. . .”: Authority and Ambivalence in Seminarians’ Attitudes Toward Same-Sex Relationships, Marriage, and Ordination

Abstract Drawing from 102 in-depth interviews conducted with first-year Master of Divinity (M.Div.) students at a Mainline Protestant seminary, this paper examines how students describe and account for their positions on homosexuality, same-sex marriage, and the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy. We found that students on “both sides”—i.e., those who lean affirming and those who lean non-affirming—invoked three primary authorities in their accounts: Biblical authority, Godly authority, and the authority of lived experience, as demonstrated in the lives of gay and lesbian people. We also found that nearly one-third of the students in our sample expressed uncertainty, ambivalence, and/or contradictions in their responses. Through a close analysis of these accounts, we show that ambivalence and uncertainty are rooted in attempts to navigate and “reconcile” the pulls of these different authorities and that attitudinal certainty is often accomplished by privileging one authority over others.

Leather nostalgia: Constructed histories of Dutch leathermen through national discourses of tolerance and white innocence

Through following sentiments of nostalgia and loss through leathermen’s personal narratives, and an analysis of 110 influential leather images, this article argues that constructed histories of the Dutch gay male leather scene reflect a nostalgia for a lost white gay masculinity that reproduces Dutch-centric conceptions of tolerance, freedom, and self. In these constructed pasts, the Dutch leather brotherhood purportedly developed as a space of exceptional acceptance, protected from encroaching straight and effeminate gay cultures in the 1970s. These memories feature a conceptualization of sexual freedom as indistinguishable from sexual expression, reflecting ideas of freedom and tolerance rooted in Dutch liberalism. Leather memorialization of sexual freedom mobilizes liberal conceptions of autonomy and self that locate freedom in expression, bound sexual pleasure to the individual, and disconnect it from sociopolitical contexts. In influential erotic images of hyperwhite men covered in black leather and dirt, the rare but exclusive appearance of people of color in racist sexual tropes reveals the racist discourse underlying imaginations of the past erotic scene. These constructed pasts continue to haunt larger fetish culture even after the closure of beloved leather bars—shaping their self-identities into the present, inflecting upon their current participation in leather culture, and creating the meaning they derive from this community.

Lesbian Solo Motherhood: Emma Brockes’s An Excellent Choice

The 1978 delivery of the world’s first IVF baby, Louise Brown, created what anthropologist Sarah Franklin termed a ‘bridge to new kinds of life’ – and, indeed, IVF and other forms of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) have facilitated a wide range of family formations, such as lesbians choosing to have children with the help of sperm donors. Much could be expected, then, of one particular memoir – Emma Brockes’s An Excellent Choice (2018) – which details Brockes, an English lesbian journalist living in the USA, becoming a solo mother by choice via sperm donation and Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART). However, my paper combines close reading with queer and feminist criticism in order to suggest that Brockes’s attitudes regarding motherhood reveal a disengagement with queer politics in favour of an espousal of homonormativity – which is defined as a privatised, depoliticised gay culture anchored in domesticity and consumption that does not contest dominant heteronormative assumptions and institutions, but upholds and sustains them (Weiss, 2018). Such a positioning is a highly privileged stance that potentially ‘blots from view’ (Weiss, 2018: 111) the much more numerous and socially vulnerable members of the North American LGBT+ community.

Geographies of queer economies

AbstractThis paper provides a critical overview of research in geography that has explored the economic lives of Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) individuals. I begin by considering how the consumption and production of mainstream commercial gaybourhoods is the primary approach through which geographies of sexuality, and queer geographies have engaged with economy. I then examine the ways in which digital spaces have blurred the boundaries of consumption and production, arguing that digital spaces are indicative of the much broader range of economic actions in which LGBTQ+ people take part. Finally, I turn to Gibson‐Graham's ‘diverse economies’, suggesting that this concept can attend to the existence of numerous multi‐scalar and overlapping queer economies. Developing a queer economies research agenda is crucial to turn attention beyond consumption and production in a narrow range of gaybourhoods, and to better portray the lives of those frequently excluded from mainstream commercial LGBTQ+ economies.

KEFAHAMAN DAN PERSEPSI TERHADAP BUDAYA SILANG GENDER DALAM KALANGAN PELAJAR UNIVERSITI

In the past decade, the proliferation of cross-gender culture, commonly known as transgender culture, in Malaysia has become a significant challenge to the Muslim community. The advancement of the digital world has provided a platform for this group to normalize cross-gender culture in the country. The combination of technological advancements and the abundance of social media applications has made it easier for all groups, especially the youth, to access various discussions, particularly on this issue. This is relevant as the younger generation also contributes to the emergence of this group. We can observe on social media platforms that the transgender community is becoming increasingly bold in openly spreading their ideology, to the extent of insulting Islam. For instance, they would livestream on their personal social media platforms while eating openly during the daytime in the month of Ramadan. Such actions demonstrate a fragility in religious understanding, leading them to engage in activities that contradict Islam without considering the concept of reward and punishment. Therefore, this study aims to assess the level of understanding and perception of university students regarding cross-gender issues in Malaysia. A survey questionnaire was distributed to respondents who were students at a university in Malaysia. The data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software in a descriptive manner. The study found that the respondents exhibited a moderate level of understanding regarding cross-gender issues in Malaysia. Additionally, their perception of cross-gender culture was also moderate. This indicates the need to extensively expose university students to the issue of cross-gender culture so that they become more aware of its presence. This study is considered significant in preventing society, particularly young Muslim individuals, from adopting an open-minded attitude towards accepting the presence of cross-gender culture and subsequently getting trapped in a realm that contradicts Islamic law.

From the Margins to the Mainstream: Gay Life in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

From the Margins to the Mainstream: Gay Life in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries

Analysis of Smartphone Text Data Related to mpox from a U.S. Sample of Gay, Bisexual, and Other Men Who Have Sex with Men During the 2022 Outbreak.

Purpose: We sought to understand technology-based communication regarding mpox (monkeypox) among gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (GBMSM) during the global outbreak in 2022. Methods: Forty-four GBMSM (Mage = 25.3 years, 68.2% cisgender, 43.2% non-White) living in the United States participated. From May 2022 to August 2022, all text data related to mpox (174 instances) were downloaded from the smartphones of GBMSM. Text data and smartphone app usage were analyzed. Results: Content analysis revealed 10 text-based themes and 7 app categories. GBMSM primarily used search and browser, texting, and gay dating apps to share vaccine updates, seek mpox vaccination, find general mpox information, share mpox information with other GBMSM, and discuss links between mpox and gay culture. Data visualizations revealed that changes in communication themes and app usage were responsive to major milestones in the mpox outbreak. Conclusion: GBMSM used apps to facilitate a community-driven mpox response.

Constructing Gay Male Identity in a Multicultural Society: A Qualitative Grounded Theory Study in Malaysia

Malaysia is a multiethnic and multireligious country in Asia that provides a rich landscape for the study of intersectional influences on sexual identity development. This study adopted a constructivist grounded theory research design to explore sexual identity development in 36 Malaysian gay males of varying ethnicities and religious affiliations. We proposed a five-stage Systemic Interaction Model (SIM) that theorizes sexual identity development as a continuous process of gay men discovering and then cycling between refining and redefining their self-concept. The five SIM stages are as follows: (1) noticing same-sex attraction and gender nonconformity; (2) exploring, experimenting, and eradicating differences from among same-sex peers; (3) confirming sexual orientation as gay; (4) accepting sexual identity as gay and (5) negotiating social expectations and pursuing a perceived ideal gay life. The five-stage model details the intricate intersectional, intrapersonal and interpersonal processes of Malaysian gay men as they move from passive roles into active cultural agents, developing their sexual identity in the relational, closeknit and tight Malaysian society in the process. Implications for health professionals and policymakers were also discussed.