6:42 PM
Editor
I am disappointed, but not surprised, that people just automatically assume you are gay because you are a just, sensitive soul Hilath.
MY experiences lead me to think that Gender roles are socially constructed as well as biologically determined.
Once (15 years ago) I was very friendly with this woman who once confessed to me that she once fancied me a little, but never bothered to act on it because her family and herself always assumed I was gay because I read/wrote poetry and cared for human rights…
It is just an interesting observation that if you are not a ruthless tyrant, you must be gay…that seems to be universal.
In most traditional societies there was once some avenue for a man to express his feminine side in dance, or dress, or art or ritual scarrification, or some form of spiritual experience…and vice versa, in certain ceremonies. It was probably much more common to see more men dressing, dancing in drag in Maldivian Bodu Beru performances than what it is now, for example, at a certain historical point.
I wonder if perhaps, and this is only a speculation, if traditional societies had less incidences of gay men being cold and loveless towards their wives because, they could love their wives genuinely and make love to them with a non-gay heart because they could vent their feminine side through ritual etc…
What if many men think they are gay but are not really gay, just, desparate to express their feminine side and be accepted for that?
Puritanical, militant streams of Judeo-Christian-Islamic culture has, perhaps more than any social force, repressed the femininse aspect of man and the masculine aspect of women. The traditional Maldivian women were indeed, very strong, often great warriors… Anyone who knows Maldivian women can testify that they are very strong women in general in comparison to women from the rest of the world, which is why it is so mysterious to see the way women are being “Wahhabi-ized…”
There were many Maldivian men who were accepted as poets, as being free to express their feminine side. I have read some beautiful, beautiful Maldivian poetry written by men…
Is it healthy to allow society to become more and more entrenched in oppressive, rigid, gender roles? Will it create more supposedly unhappy, gay men or more supposedly lesbian women to fail to confront the militant ethos of puritanical militant Islam?
Just a thought….
Via Hilath.com
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