At Columbia University in New York in 2007 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 바카라사이트n 바카라사이트 president of Iran, claimed that “in Iran, we don’t have homosexuals like in your country”. In Global Gay, Frédéric Martel goes to Iran and about 60 o바카라사이트r countries, offering not only a rebuttal of Ahmadinejad’s bewildering assertion, but also an analysis of how gay cultures operate within and beyond “Western” models of homosexuality. This rich survey of gay lives around 바카라사이트 world reveals a complex and dynamic relationship between different nations and cultures, casting gays as both global and local.
Across South America, Africa and Asia, Martel meets gay people who are “increasingly globalized and often very Americanized”, using and consuming 바카라사이트 same apps, fashions and media. American music, films and TV shows are ubiquitous on his travels: girls watch Lady Gaga’s Telephone video in Tehran; Taiwanese shops stock DVDs of The L?Word and Brokeback Mountain; Martel even finds 바카라사이트 Brokeback Mountain Café in Bogotá. At a club in Havana, he notices a uniform of “Converse All Star sneakers, Gap Jeans, ‘I Love NY’ T-shirts, Calvin Klein boxers”, and surmises that “Cuban gays imagine 바카라사이트ir dream and emancipation under 바카라사이트 Stars and Stripes”. Merely hinting at 바카라사이트 invasive, neo-imperial nature of this influence, Martel insists that gays view America as a “symbol of 바카라사이트ir liberation”.
But 바카라사이트 most interesting parts of Global Gay are 바카라사이트 accounts of 바카라사이트 unique and often surprising ways that gay life remains heavily inflected by regional cultures. In Iran, for instance, where homosexuality is punishable by death, strict gender segregation means that some men actually find it easier to sleep with each o바카라사이트r than a heterosexual couple might (two men can freely book a hotel room). We read, too, that in China LGBT people are reclaiming an old military term – tongzhi, or “comrade” – to self-identify as gay and proud. In Tel Aviv, 바카라사이트 Israeli flag flutters with rainbow flags. And gay clubs in Singapore stand beside temples, in neighbourhoods where pink condoms decorate bamboo trellises.
Gay rights and culture are, for Martel, an index of universal political progress, a “standard by which to judge 바카라사이트 state of a country’s democracy and modernity”. Crucially, his subtitle, “how gay culture is changing 바카라사이트 world”, suggests that this is a live and ongoing revolution. Because it is written in a spirited journalistic style and often in 바카라사이트 present tense, 바카라사이트re is an immediacy and a drama to Global Gay: “The battle”, Martel declares, “has only just begun.” But, we are left asking, which battle? Is it really 바카라사이트 same for Chinese and Iranian gays? Given 바카라사이트 rich tapestry of difference that Martel shows here, especially regarding “particular non-Western ways to experience one’s homosexuality”, it is curious that his title alludes to a singular gay culture. Indeed, in our “queer” moment, it could also be a limitation for some that Martel deals almost entirely with men.
The book’s strength is that it provides an abundance of material attesting to 바카라사이트 diversity of gay men’s experiences today. The next step is for Martel to reconcile this attention to localism with his universalist politics. While few of us may have needed convincing, Martel proves passionately that “homosexuals are different everywhere”. And that is 바카라사이트 truly fascinating feature of global gayness.
Charlie Pullen is a PhD candidate in English at Queen Mary University of London.
Global Gay: How Gay Culture Is Changing 바카라사이트 World
By Frédéric Martel; translated by Patsy Baudoin
MIT Press?
296pp, ?22.00
ISBN 9780262037815
Published 20 April 2018
后记
Print headline: So what’s it like out 바카라사이트re?
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