Evelyn Blackwood [*]
Anthropological studies of women's same-sex relations in non-Western societies provide an important source for theorizing women's sexuality because they allow us to go beyond a narrow focus on Western cultures and concepts. Looking at studies from groups other than the dominant societies of Europe and America, I explore the diversity of women's sexualities and the sociocultural factors that produce sexual beliefs and practices. This article argues that sexual practices take their meaning from particular cultures and their beliefs about the self and the world. Cultural systems of gender, in particular, construct different sexual beliefs and practices for men and women. I conclude the article by suggesting some broad patterns at work in the production of women's sexualities across cultures.
This article explores women's sexuality from a cultural anthropology perspective. Anthropological evidence constitutes an important source for theorizing women's sexuality because it allows us to go beyond a sometimes narrow focus on the sexual categories of the dominant White societies of Europe and America (these groups will be glossed as "Western"). From a Western viewpoint, sexuality constitutes an essential or core attribute of identity; individuals are said to have fixed sexual identities or orientations. Sexuality as it is understood in the United States and Europe, however, often bears little resemblance to sexual relationships and practices across cultures. By looking at cultural evidence from ethnic groups and countries other than the dominant White societies of Europe and America, I will explore the richness and diversity of women's sexualities and the sociocultural factors that constitute those sexualities.
The perspective I take in this article follows social construction theory, which argues that sexuality depends on the cultural context for its meaning. Although Freud saw human sexuality as a precultural given that must be controlled or regulated by society, social construction theorists argue that sexuality itself is a social product (Caplan, 1987; Foucault, 1978; Padgug, 1979; Rubin, 1975). There are a variety of strands of social construction theory; the differences lie mainly in the extent to which culture is thought to produce sexuality (Vance, 1989). The strong constructionist view holds that a general sexual potential is constructed into particular desires, meanings, and behaviors by culture. A weaker view states that culture shapes or constrains the form sexuality takes but "natural" desires set the baseline of sexuality. In my view social processes do not act as constraints to a "natural" sexuality but actually produce sexualities through discourses of desire, religion, gender, and so on. This view argues that sexual acts, or what appears to be sexual, take their meaning from particular cultures and their beliefs about the self and the world. It is these beliefs or ideologies that anthropologists investigate to understand the meaning of sexuality. Sexual meanings are produced through any number of factors, including ideologies of religion, ethnicity, class, gender, family, and reproduction, as well as the material and social conditions of everyday life. These factors provide the context for the production of sexual relationships, desires, and longings.
In this article I first take a number of case studies of women's same-sex relations in ethnic groups and countries other than the dominant White societies of Europe and America to illustrate the sociocultural factors that produce sexual beliefs and practices. Then I explore how cultural systems of gender construct different sexual beliefs and practices for men and women. In the third section I use two detailed examples of female sexualities, one from Suriname and one from West Sumatra, to argue that sexuality is neither a static category nor a fixed identity. I conclude by exploring some broad patterns at work in the production of women's sexualities across cultures.
Although many of the examples presented in this article involve women whom Americans might identify as "lesbians," I do not use that term generally. The term "lesbian" in the United States commonly refers to a woman whose primary sexual object choice is other women. When applied cross-culturally, "lesbian" invokes an essential linkage among practices whose connections may be tenuous at best (for further discussion of this point, see Wieringa & Blackwood, 1999). Since the term does not work in all cases across cultures, I use the term "same-sex relations" to refer to erotic relations or practices between women.
Cultural Contexts of Sexuality
Female same-sex sexuality has been noted in a number of colonized groups, postcolonial states, and sovereign countries since the beginning of European imperialism (Blackwood, 1986b; Blackwood & Wieringa, 1999). Case studies of women's same-sex relations illuminate the particular sociocultural processes that construct sexuality. I consider three different types of relations--intimate friendship, erotic ritual practice, and adolescent sex play--that represent both the varieties of sexualities as well as the complexities of the social processes involved.
Intimate Friendships
A study done in Lesotho, a small country surrounded by the nation of South Africa, documents intimate friendships between schoolgirls called "mummy-baby" relationships (Gay, 1986). Mummy-baby relations are institutionalized friendships between younger and older girls and women that became popular throughout much of Black southern Africa starting in the 1950s (Blacking, 1978). Prior to this time in rural communities, young women were educated at puberty in initiation schools run by women. Each initiate was appointed a "mother," an older girl who helped her "child" through initiation. This practice established strong networks between two age sets of women, ties that were maintained through visits and exchanges of gifts for many years (Blacking, 1978). Because of missionary efforts to stop this form of education, the schools are now virtually abandoned. Young women now attend public or boarding schools in neighboring towns or urban areas. Yet the bonds between initiates serve as a cultural model for the mummy-b aby relations of contemporary schoolgirls and young women.
In the mummy-baby relationship, two young women start a relationship by arranging private encounters and exchanging love letters and gifts. The older girl, who becomes the mummy, might already have a boyfriend or other babies, while the younger one, the baby, is allowed to have only one mummy. The mummies are sources of guidance and "advice on sex and protection from aggressively courting young men" (Gay, 1986, p. 104) and appropriate partners in one's first romantic or sexual encounters. For girls who become mummies and babies to each other, their relationship is part of the romantic drama of growing up and learning the pleasures and responsibilities of relationships. They view their relationship as an affair or romance; hugging, kissing, and sexual relations are part of it. As they become older, they may in turn become mummies to their own babies or start to have their own boyfriends. For Lesotho women, the intensity of mummy-baby relations usually ends with marriage, when their attention is turned toward domestic responsibilities, but many women maintain the bonds of friendship with other women after marriage. Consequently, these relationships provide important emotional and economic ties for women within rural communities (Gay, 1986).
Mummy-baby relationships are constructed from a number of received cultural sources. The first source is the initiation school, where young girls received training for adult sexual practices and learned the importance of older girls and women as sources of friendship and social connection. In a culture where it is taboo for a mother to talk about sexuality with a daughter, older girls in initiation schools and now "mummies" are the culturally sanctioned source for this information. The second source comes from ideologies of sexuality. Although the Roman Catholic Church insists on virginity for Lesotho girls, within indigenous beliefs "female sensuality is both encouraged and restrained, but it is never denied" (Gay, 1986, p. 101). Young women's practice of lengthening the labia is seen as a way to make themselves "hotter." Their experiences with other girls teach them to develop and manage their own sexual feelings.
