Homosexualities. (Book reviews: global homo).

Homosexualities. By Stephen O. Murray. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000, 507 pages. Cloth, $38.00.

Reviewed by Jeffrey M. Dickemann, Ph.D., 2901 Humphrey Ave., Richmond, CA 94804; e-mail: [e-mail].

This impressive world survey is the most recent in a long line of attempts to map the varieties of (predominantly male) homosexuality. Building most specifically on recent predecessors Barry Adam (1986) and David Greenberg (1988), Murray employs a threefold categorization into age-structured (or age-stratified), gender-stratified and egalitarian, treating male and female relations in each category. In a concluding chapter, he attempts to find correlates of each form with other aspects of social organization and practice, with limited but interesting results.

This massive document rests most directly on Murray's half-a-lifetime of previous research, presented in volumes on Latin America, Africa, Islamic societies, and Oceania (rim and basin), and many other shorter publications. Murray's practice of providing extended quotations from his sources and his many critical comments on previous interpretations make this volume a necessary resource for subsequent scholars. Many of the critical discussions form extended essays (e.g., that on ancient Greece, addressing numerous previous works by Dover, Halperin, and others) carried forward in text and footnotes, constituting one of the delights of this volume.

Such an investigation implicates problems of interpretation at a distance, whether the distance of history or that of the outside observer, and the paucity of the sexual record, due to investigator avoidance or the screen of privacy. These inevitable limitations must impact the author's success in classifying each form. Murray notes that there is diversity, but there are only a few recurring patterns. However, what is being classified is not always clear: the dominant ideology, the most frequent behavior, the most visible behavior to the outsider, the most shocking? While discussing the pitfalls presented by the record, Murray is less clear on his own operations.

Problematic for me is the effort to fit each manifestation into only one category. Here, I think, the project could be said to go astray. For example, classical Greek male-male relations of eromenos and erastes are rightly classified as "age-structured." However, Dover (1980, pp. 69-73) maintains that feminine aspects tended to leak into the conception of the eromenos, especially after the 4th century. How could they not? Adult passive homosexuals were already depicted as effeminate in comedy and politics. Given the emphasis on beauty in boys at a time of life when they most resemble females, the subordinate roles of both boys and females, and the tendency in other "man-boy" societies to invest the boy with costume and finery like that decorating women, one begins to wonder whether the insistence on intercrural (rather than anal) intercourse and on the disinterest of the boy (at least in theory) may not be desperate ideological tactics to ward off the humiliating imputation of femininity.

Would it not be more accurate to conceive of all same-sex (and indeed all sexual) relations as expressions of certain fundamental relational themes, more often merged than discrete, combining with varying emphases, depending on the social functions and context of the interaction? Obviously dominance of one partner over the other is a primary theme (although dominance is contextual and rarely total), while gender and age contrasts always involve adult/masculine authority (however enacted) over youthful/feminine subordination. Murray's very term stratification reveals this. Other notions, such as semen as growth tonic or the sex act as virilizing, seem to be less deeply encoded, yet frequently recurring, strands, weaving in and out of the primary themes. Few human relations, if any, are purely one thing or another.

This is not to deny, as Murray shows, that there seems to be a shift from age- to gender-stratified relations in several places: Europe, Japan, and possibly China. However, it is not clear in what this shift consisted: dominant ideology, most frequent practice, or some other aspect? This attempt to classify single institutional manifestations under single rubrics is not to be confused with the appearance of more than one socially recognized form with contrasting emphases or attributes, in the same society, and placed by Murray under different types. For example, the evidence is clear that a classic Athenian kinaidos, or effeminate, anal-receptive adult male existed alongside the approved eromenos-erastes relationship (pp. 255-258).

The "abode of Islam," as Murray terms it, is a monster culture area, where again receptive homosexuality stigmatizes men as feminine. The same is true of Africa: "... the major African idiom of homosexuality for both men and women is gender. Where there are age disparities, the younger is generally cast in the feminine role. This is true for `boy-wives' and male `wives of the mine,' for Lesotho `babies,' and for the wives of women from Benin to Kenya ..." (pp. 248-249). However, these are all treated under the heading "Neither Masculinizing nor Feminizing"!

Addressing Europe under the same heading, Murray joins the ongoing dialogue regarding the appearance of a homosexual role, (i.e., self-identification as a sodomite), participating in a distinct subculture. The various view-points are discussed in relation to the Italian and English historical literature (and of course Foucault), but where are the other Europeans, the Dutch especially (cf. van der Meer, 1994)?

Murray, in any case, comes down strongly on the side of early identity and community. "If the authorities knew that males there [in specific Venetian locales] engaged in illicit acts, it is hard to imagine that those who repeatedly went there failed to conceive any patterns of desire and satisfactions of them!" (p. 152). Also, "... [i]t was a type of person, not just the act of sodomy, which was invoked whenever acts of sodomy came to judicial attention" (p. 160). However, this is too simple. Each of us has many patterns of desires, some of which we knowingly share with others, which do not, however, form named identities. Societies and legal systems have terms for yuppies, litterbugs, serial killers, soccer fans, and many other classes of persons who do not generally adopt a label for that aspect as a designation of a primary identity. Nor are all subcultures of like-interested people indicative of a shared primary identity. I may join with others at the flea-market, or the upscale restaurant, every weekend, but see no other commonality and share no label. The presumed concordance between membership in a group of actors, major identity, and label cannot be accepted, it seems to me, without more sociological investigation.

Phenomena usually categorized as third gender or trans-gender roles, such as the Omani khanith and the Tahitian mahu, are included by Murray under gender-stratified forms, justified by the observation that "gender variance and sex with the same sex into which a person was born are very highly correlated" (p. 293). True, and the insistence on a third identity has been often ill supported. However, it is my understanding that the sexual practices of such gender-crossed individuals are more flexible or variant than their rather more inflexible gender roles. The domains of sex and gender are indeed coordinated in most minds, in most rimes and places, but their disruption is complex. The concordance is formally violated in the creation of socially recognized transgenders, but again imposed in dictating transgender sexual propriety. Murray's treatment of transgenders as just another kind of homosexual, besides enraging some readers, may oversimplify these conceptual processes. Indeed, because homosexual activity per se is so unmarked or unremarked in so many societies, the varieties reported here tend to be only those that are gender-marked, as in the case of the North American berdache. Consequently, much of this section is about gender-crossing rather than homosexual practices per se.

Murray provides a useful survey of cross-gendered female homosexual relations, including a close reading of classical texts and summaries of early modern European and African data. Unfortunately he did not have access to Blackwood and Wieringa's (1999) important new collection. However, his survey underlines the widespread occurrence of heterogender roles in these same-sex relations. Again, many cases might fall under a transgender rubric; actual sex practices are, of course, largely unknown. Murray's treatment of the classic butch-femme relations of early twentieth century United States relies primarily on Kennedy and Davis' (1993) study of working-class lesbians in Buffalo and on Feinberg's Stone Butch Blues (1993). I doubt that the pattern of working femme supporting unemployed butch was as universal as Murray assumes. This depends on the degree to which masculine women were willing to "pass" as feminine during working hours, sacrificing masculine attire, at least below the waist. There were middle and upper class lesbians during this period, like Sara Josephine ("Jo") Baker, M.D., distinguished New York physician and public health reformer (Schwarz, 1986). That they wore skirts to avoid arrest (but did not eschew men's shirts, collars, and ties) does not, I think, negate their butch identity, unless we restrict the term butch to the working class alone. This may be due to Murray's lesser familiarity with, or interest in, lesbian sources. Neither the British nor French lesbian communities of the early twentieth century, interdigitated with each other and with that of Cherry Grove, New York City, are addressed, though there is a good deal of literature on them.

Another gender-stratified section reviews cases of "purportedly sacralized" male homosexual roles. Ancient Hebrew temple prostitution is dismissed as a myth; Murray also wishes to cast doubt on the more recent and more detailed Spanish accounts of Incaic temple prostitution, an example of which he quotes. Roman galli, mostly self-castrated transgendered religious cult members, are discussed at length, as are the Indian hijras; in neither case does sexual availability carry a sacred meaning. A long discussion on Indian and Pakistani cross-dressed prostitutes seems misplaced in this section. Shamans, African and Afro-Brazilian possession cults, and native North American cross- or mixed-gender statuses with sacred roles are addressed, but no hypothesis for the association of cross-gender or mixed-gender status with sacred roles is proposed.

In his third section, Murray addresses egalitarian relations, including those evidenced prior to the rise of the modern gay identity. Many African and Oceanic cases of female relations, before and after marriage, are cited, making it appear that egalitarian relations are far more common between women than between men. The treatment of the modern homosexual role, and the spread of gay and lesbian as concepts worldwide, forms an outstanding essay. Following Barry Adam's criteria for the "modern gay" ideal type, Murray discusses in turn group consciousness, a distinct subculture, egalitarian rather than age or gender-stratified relations, and the possibility of exclusively homosexual, rather than bisexual, lives. "A shared sense of oppression is probably more important to the persistence of consciousness of kind and to solidarity than are items of lifestyle, even if the latter become symbols of it" (p. 382). "[Urban North American gay communities were, even [in the 1970s], more institutionally complete than were ethnic communities.... they were moving ... toward de-assimilation into specific lesbigay institutions in contrast to assimilation away from ethnic institutions" (pp. 383-384).

The shift to egalitarian relations in recent decades is a shift "from gender and identity exogamy to gender and identity endogamy" rather than forming relations with straight partners (p. 385). "The transformation ended the necessity, not the existence of gender-nonconforming homosexuals" (p. 387). "[E]xclusive homosexuality is not a criterion for `modern' `gay' homosexuality" (p. 389). Murray sees the modern form as a product of the ability "to escape the constraints of religious congregation, local community, and extended family"; lack of necessity for and even reliability of these old supports makes individual independence in forging a new life possible, even necessary. There follows a survey of the modernization of same-sex relations in Latin America, Japan and South and Southeast Asia. This section is one of the most stimulating in the book.

In his conclusion Murray attempts, using the Human Relations Area Files (HRAF), to correlate certain social forms and practices with types of homosexuality. My own experience has produced skepticism about the validity of some HRAF codings, and Murdock's categories often seem outdated. This, and my previously expressed reservations about the "three types" of homosexuality, make the exercise seem unpromising. New codings, and more tightly designed tests of specific hypotheses would, I think, have been more fruitful. Still, some interesting results emerge. There is "some indication that where boys are freest to engage in sex with girls, they also more freely--or, at least, more visibly--have sex with each other" (p. 429). "Societies with gender-stratified male homosexuality are more likely to have matrilineal inheritance than are societies with the other two types" (p. 436), whereas those "with gender-stratified female homosexuality are more likely to have patrilineal inheritance than are societies in general or [those] with egalitarian female homosexuality in particular" (p. 437). In a concluding table, Murray displays some variables in which female and male homosexuality share correlations. Both tend to be gender- rather than age-stratified where there is a strong emphasis on female virginity before marriage. There are many opportunities here for more rigorous investigation of the correlations Murray has identified.

"Encyclopedic" is too dull a term for this engrossing work. If I have expressed disagreements, that is because the author draws the reader into dialogue. Written with erudition and firm, if sometimes quirky, opinion, the book is interlarded with humor and acerbic comment. Occasionally critiques of others are unjustifiably harsh. Thus, Evelyn Blackwood is criticized (p. 4) for blaming the lack of coverage of female homosexualities in the literature on the primarily male-generated ethnographic record. Elsewhere, however, Murray notes "one should be wary of this lack of data about lesbian behavior ... because most Melanesianists have been males studying males" (p. 360). Personal animus sometimes intrudes. (I am less critical of the many aspersions against Foucauldians.) Other criticisms, large and small, will be lodged against this meaty and massive work. I would urge readers to ignore the categories and labels, and enjoy the data and the discourse. Those whose appetite is whetted will want to turn to Murray's other volumes in his impressive, decades-long investigation of the world of homosexualities. For this achievement, we are in his debt.

REFERENCES

Adam, B. (1986). Age, structure and sexuality. Journal of Homosexuality, 11, 19-33.

Blackwood, E., & Wieringa, S. (Eds.). (1999). Female desires: Same sex relations and transgender practices across cultures. New York: Columbia University Press.

Dover, K. J. (1980). Greek homosexuality. New York: Random House.

Feinberg, L. (1993). Stone butch blues. Ithaca, NY: Firebrand.

Greenberg, D. (1988). The construction of homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Kennedy, E., & Davis, M. (1993). Boots of leather, slippers of gold: The history of a lesbian community. New York: Routledge.

Schwarz, J. (1986). Radical feminists of Heterodoxy: Greenwich Village 1912-1940 (rev. ed.). Norwich, VT: New Victoria.

van der Meer, T. (1994). Sodomy and the pursuit of a third sex in the early modern period. In G. Herdt (Ed.), Third sex, third gender: Beyond sexual dimorphism in culture and history (pp. 137-212). New York: Zone Books.