What ever happened to ritualized homosexuality? Modern sexual subjects in Melanesia and elsewhere

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the legacy of ritualized homosexuality as a behavioral practice and as an analytic category of research in Melanesia since the early 1980s. A case study of striking change among the Gebusi of Papua New Guinea suggests that ritualized homosexuality and insemination of boys have become behaviorally vestigial or moribund and that characterizing sexual practices in these terms has been difficult to begin with (as the original proponent of these terms has himself suggested). Historical change in Melanesia reveals linkage between the contemporary construction of heterosexual norms and desires for locally modern development and progress. A larger issue is how researchers of sexuality may unwittingly accept Western ideologies of sexual choice and freedom while positing historical and non-Western practices as culturally bound rather than being open to individual exploration and interpersonal diversity.