Excerpts from the book, "A critique of social constructionism and Post modern Queer thoery by Rictor Norton":
But the fact of the matter is that a great many indigenous societies didhave words for ‘the homosexual’. By this I mean that they had words which identified a homosexual personality type, not matching the sexological psychopathological personality disorder (which, baldly stated thus, undoubtedly is a modern social construct), but words roughly equivalent to modern queers – words which demonstrate a consciousness (albeit often contemptuous) of a queer stereotype or gay identity. Here are just a few words for queers from many hundreds: in the Middle East the xanitha plays the receptive role with older or richer men; in Nicaragua el cochon; in Italy the arruso and ricchione, andfemmenella, little female, for the transvestite; Loca and maricón in Latin America; the teresita in Argentina; bicha and veado in Brazil; masisi in Haiti; zamel in North Africa. In many languages the generic term for a male homosexual is derived from a female name: Spanish maricón andmariquita derive from María; Italian checca derives from Francesca; Flemish janet derives from French Jeannette; a Portuguese queer is anAdelaida; in England queer men have called themselves Marys, Mary-Annes, mollies, nancy boys, nellies.
Most – but not all – of these labels are derogatory stigma applied to the fucked rather than the fucker. This is also true of most modern non-scientific words for homosexuals.
No comments:
Post a Comment