Generally, heterosexual humor that makes fun of gays—in the same way as humor that targets a racial minority—is a means to define an
otherness
that allows one,
a contrario
, to construct an identity. The homosexual
is not me,
the Jew
is not me
. This otherness refers to individuals whom we wish to be rid of or at least toward whom we feel only indifference. This mechanism is benign on the surface, but can reveal itself to be pernicious, inserting itself into everyday language, to the point that offenders become unconscious of it over time. The universe of the male homosexual is associated with everything that is feared by “real men” in modern society: inadequacy in sexual fulfillment, lack of physical strength and vigor. In short, all that makes a man “not a man.” An example: while serving a wine with a high alcohol content, a waiter might say, “It’s a strong one, not the type of wine you’d serve at Gay Pride,” without knowing the humor is homophobic.
Today, it seems that humor aimed at gays is changing. The classical representations of the feminized homosexual caricature (“the queen”), as well as the smutty gay jokes, seem less frequent than they were in the last decades, at least in Western society. The visibility of the gay community and its relative importance in contemporary culture are paving the way for a more refined humor that is made up less by sexual ignorance than by domestic clichés. Rather than the brutal, explicit jokes that make up the classic arsenal of gay-targeted humor, now we get: “How can you tell that your burglars were gay? All that had value is gone, and all that is left was tastefully rearranged.”
Finally, homophobia itself has become a source for humor, which is based on non-mean-spirited situations about sexual differences rather than negative, satirical representations of sexual otherness. This kind of humor allows the audience on one hand to address its homophobia and on the other to laugh at itself. In the end, what if humor were the best therapy for homophobia?
—Gilles Siouffi
Blondel, Eric.
Le Risible et le dérisoire
. Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1998.
Freud, Sigmund.
Le Mot d’esprit dans ses rapports avec l’inconscient
. Paris: Gallimard, 1953. [Published in the US as
Wit and Its Relation to the Unconscious
. New York: Moffat,Yard & Co., 1916.]
Flowers, Charles.
Out, Loud and Laughing: A Collection of Gay and Lesbian Humor
. New York: Anchor Books, 1995.
Labonte, Richard.
Tickled Pink: Lesbian and Gay Humor Fiction
. Boston: Alyson Publications, 1994.
Martin, Thierry.
Brèves gay de comptoir
. Paris: Montblanc, H & O Editions, 2000.
Minois, Georges.
Histoire du rire et de la dérision
. Paris: Fayard, 2000.
Sisser, Pierre.
Amour et humour gay
. Paris: Ramsay, 1995.
—Caricature; Gender Differences; Insult; Literature; Rhetoric; Song; Violence; Vocabulary.
IMPRISONMENT.
See
Prison
INDIA, PAKISTAN, BANGLADESH
In the Indian subcontinent, all sexual minorities—homosexuals, bisexuals, transgenders,
kothis
(“feminine men”), and
hijras
(considered members of the “third sex”)—have been (and are still) subjected to social, cultural, religious, and political oppression because of who they are and their sexuality. Homophobia is very present in the region, even if it takes on different forms than its usual manifestation in the West. In the past, homosexual relations were tolerated or condemned depending on the situation, but in Indian society overall, at least until recently, homophobia has been as discreet as homosexuality.
According to Hindu philosophy, the world in which we live is but one of many universes existing in time and space. Nothing is absolute or permanent, except for the divine yet completely unfathomable principle
brahman
, which is the source of everything. Everyone lives many lives, passing from one to the next, which allows for many kinds of changes (e.g., gender, orientation, or identity); in this concept, the life one has lived determines what is to follow. Gender is not constant and is never an absolute part of an individual’s identity because, like the body, it is simply an envelope covering the soul, which has neither gender nor sex. Thus, it is no surprise in Hindu mythology to find stories that evince a kind of sexual ambivalence, even if the dynamic is expressed in heterosexual terms. Sexual ambiguity and the fluidity of genders is a key part of this mythology.
The literary works of Ancient India often describe men with prostitute boys in non-pejorative terms, and whose roles in the daily life at court were perfectly normal. The
Kama Sutra
has an entire chapter on
auparashtika
(oral sex), in which the masters enjoy the fellatio performed by their male servants. The
Rajatarangini
(river of kings), the chronicles of the kings of Kashmir, describe the licentious mores of King Kshemagupta; in another historical text, the Tamil epic poem
Silappatikaram
(the jeweled anklet), a king of the Ganges plains pays tribute to a king of the Chera dynasty by giving him many gifts, including “a thousand
kanjuka
[boy prostitutes], with long flowing hair.” Erotic drawings of women embracing can be found carved in relief on temple walls, as well as in miniature on paintings. According to ancient architectural treatises, a temple is not complete unless it has representations of erotic figures, because sensual pleasure (
kama
) is as important as earthly duties (
dharma
) and spiritual goals (
moksha
). In the
Valmiki Ramayana
, one of many mythological texts, the
rakshasa
women of King Ravana’s harem make love together, and in the
Padma purana
, the king’s two wives engage in sexual relations in order to give birth to a child after the monarch’s death.
However, while philosophy might have recognized the essential diversity of things, society imposed an absolute submission to the sacred responsibilities (also
dharma
), the first responsibility of a man at the head of a Hindu
family
being to make children in order to perpetuate the cycle of life and to pay off the debt contracted at birth. Procreation was so important that the ancient legal texts (the
Dharmasastras
) specified severe punishments for men who did not fulfill this responsibility (castrated, impotent, or homosexual men were all grouped together under a generic term,
kliba
). Hence, the real question for Hindu gays and lesbians was
marriage.
Homosexuality could be ignored so long as it did not interfere with heterosexual marriage, which allowed one to procreate and thus fulfill one’s
dharma
. Homosexuality, meanwhile, risked leading one to
debauchery
and
sterility.
In the
Manusmriti
, which contains all the rules of conduct according to orthodox Brahmanism, a
kliba
is excluded from inheritance, sacrifices, and rituals. Sexual relations between men are forbidden, along with the following: wounding a priest, “inhaling liquors or other products that should not be consumed,” incest, bestiality, anal and oral intercourse between men and women, sexual relations taking place in a cart drawn by a cow, sexual relations with a menstruating woman, and sexual relations during the day. Some of the punishments included bathing fully clothed, fasting, purification (by eating five products of the cow: its urine, dung, milk, curdled milk, and butter), and social ostracism through loss of caste. The
Manusmriti
also prescribes chastisement for women who have sexual relations with other women. If a young girl seduces and sleeps with another, she must pay a fine of 200
panas
, plus double what the father of the “victim” would receive from the family of a future husband, as well as endure ten lashes of the whip. But if the perpetrator is a mature woman, the chastisement is even more severe. Her head is immediately shaven, two fingers are cut off, and she is made to ride across town on a donkey. The punishment of lesbians was thus manifestly more severe than that reserved for male homosexuals.
The
Narada purana
states that any transgression of the rules of caste, such as the spilling of semen outside of the vagina, will lead a man to
Reto-bhojana
, one of the many lower regions of the Hindu universe, where he must subsist by consuming semen, after which he will fall into
Vasakupa
, a deep, narrow, and greasy well where he must live for seven years, before being reborn as a lower life form. In the
Arthashastra
, an ancient secular text, a category exists called
ayoni
(non-vaginal sexual relations, with men or women), which are only lightly punished. In this case, relations between men are sanctioned against by heavier fines than those involving women. However, overall, homosexuality appears to be a minor offense. Thus, in the
Manusmriti
as well as the
Arthashastra
, certain homosexual offenses are less severely punished than some heterosexual ones, such as adultery with a person of a different caste.
Whatever the case, all of the ancient texts which describe sexual categories assigned a greater value to heterosexual relations than homosexual ones (which are often denigrated), insisted on the subordination of women to men, and, of course, justified the caste system. The texts also make reference to those who were effeminate, impotent, or otherwise inadequate. In short, this philosophy accepted and favored gender diversity, yet Indian society was founded on a strict masculine/ feminine dichotomy, forcing people who did not conform to live on the fringes, or to conform in some small way to the heterosexual norms. Nonetheless, there were apparently no violent persecutions of homosexuals during these ancient times, and even fewer executions, unlike the Western world.
With the introduction of the Persian, Turkish, and Arabic cultures in the tenth century CE, the phenomenon of urbanization culminated in a concentration of the elite in the cities of the Indian subcontinent. The cosmopolitan flavor of these Muslim centers fostered homoerotic attitudes that became apparent in medieval stories, presented without any pejorative commentary. The booming cities and numerous markets created a culture of the bazaar, founded on interactions between men of all classes, castes, and communities. Men would also congregate in taverns, houses of entertainment, and brothels. Dargah Quli Khan’s description of Delhi indicates that the tombs of Islamic saints were a favorite meeting place for men attracted by homoerotic relations.
Many consider the Qur’an’s condemnation of homosexual relations to be without appeal; its condemnation is connected to the Hebrew peoples, Lot, and the destruction of
Sodom and Gomorrah
. At least eight passages explicitly condemn the sin of Lot’s people.
Sharia
, the Islamic law based on the
ahadith
(traditions) and on the words of the prophet Muhammad, also condemns homosexuality. It is said that the Prophet declared that any man who has anal relations with a woman, man, or child will appear on the Last Day, stinking like a corpse; God would then nullify the man’s good deeds on earth, and he would perish in the flames of hell. Al-Nuwayri, who compiled the
ahadith
, suggested that both the active and passive partners engaged in homosexual relations be stoned. He recounted, too, that the first caliph, Abu Bakr, had a sodomite buried head-down under the debris of a wall, as punishment for his crimes. Others advocated setting those condemned on fire or throwing them from the top of a minaret. However, the Hanafi school, which tended to be the dominant school of thought in India, was much less severe in the condemnations it pronounced on homosexuality. Besides, it was often difficult to establish one’s guilt, as according to the
sharia
, at least four witnesses to the anal penetration in question were required.
During the twelfth century, the idea that the essence of God was unfathomable became prevalent, and that His beauty could only be perceived through the contemplation of His creations, which were the witnesses (
shadid
) to His magnificence. Within this perspective, the Sufis and other mystical poets of Persia often used homoerotic metaphors evoking the beauty of a young boy. This practice was severely condemned by many, most notably the Hanbali theologian Al-Jawzi, who considered this poetic and mystical discourse to be a mix of sodomy and idolatry, and thus doubly sinful.
By the nineteenth century, with the establishment of the British Empire in India, new laws founded on English legislation were introduced. These included the condemnation of fellatio and sodomy in Biblical terms, leaving no room for non-conformist identities or sexual conduct. The colonial government imposed its classification of acts “
against nature
,” and the resulting anti-sodomy laws have remained valid to this day, even though English law was abolished in 1967. Section 377 of the Indian penal code stipulates that any person engaging voluntarily in “carnal intercourse against the order of nature” is subject to a punishment of up to ten years in
prison
.
British missionaries and educators in India often denounced the customs of marriage, family, and sexuality that they found to be primitive, permissive for men, and degrading to women. With Victorian morals as reference, they criticized arranged marriages, marriages involving children, the dowry system, polygamy, polyandry, and matrilineal family structures. They condemned the licentiousness of the Hindu gods, the homosexual relations of the Indian kings, and their indifference to the aspirations of their subjects. Indians raised in the Western way would take up the same colonial discourse, affirming that although Indian culture had originally been very close to that of Victorian culture, it had fallen into
decadence
during the Middle Ages. They would hasten to add that homosexuality was foreign to Hindu culture, and thus strongly condemn it, as in the West, then internalize the homophobia that was part of Victorian Puritanism. Monogamous, heterosexual marriage was idealized and presented as the only acceptable type of sexual activity.