Geography of Perversion

by Rudi C. Bleys

This research explores the Western conceptualizations of non-western patterns of same-sex desire and relates these to the evolution of European attitudes to homosexuality. It contributes to the historiography of western constructions of cultural and sexual "otherness" and aims at unravelling in particular how the construction of modern "sodomite," later "homosexual" identity was intertwined with essentialist definitions of so-called "racial" identity.

Genres: Theory, Sexuality

352 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1995

Reviews

[fausto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is probably the best introduction and compendium on the male-homosexual related ethnographic approaches from western Europe. The main thesis of the book is that colonialism is a key factor in order to understand the rise of the first homosexual rights movement in the Germany in the early 20th. Bleys analyzes the construction of the “primitive homosexual” body and social role. As the western ethnologies were dealing with the huge amount of cross-cultural male homosexual behavior, they were seeing the rise of a distinctive homosexual subculture inside their our countries (mostly in England, Holland and France, as have been studied by some scholars) since the early 18th.
Actually, Bleys considers that early colonialism by Spain, England, France, Holland and Portugal, and their reports of berdaches and travestites in America is a major influence in the development of a distinctive effeminate homosexual stereotype at that time.

The only reason I did not give the book the five stars is for Bley’s dismiss of feminist approaches to pederasty, sexology and male sexual behavior, while he acknowledges the importance of those approaches, he is constantly dismissing them as an important factor in the development of sexual discourses inside a patriarchal culture. If you are not interested in those feminists’ approaches, is easily a five-stars book. Actually, I think is a must read for every course on gay studies.