Lesbianism in Homophobic Societies

Lesbianism in Homophobic Societies



Table of Contents

Introduction3

Part 15

Shamim Sarif5

I Can't Think Straight6

The World Unseen9

Purpose13

Theoretical Foundations13

Queer Power18

Lesbian culture20

METHODS21

Participants21

Perceived erotic value of homosexuality.22

Sex-role attitudes23

BEHAVIORAL ORGANIZATION OF LESBIANS24

SOCIAL VISIBILITY25

Procedure26

APPLICATIONS30

STATISTICS33

Result33

Mediational Analyses38

Sex-Role Attitudes39

Discussion40

Conclusion48

References51

Lesbianism in Homophobic Societies

Introduction

Being from an Indian background yet being a British national, I am a product of both Eastern and Western culture, stuck in between two worlds almost but able to provide insight from both cultural values. I have had lesbian friends of both cultures who have had to deal with their sexuality, often hiding it from those closest to them because they wanted to not be seen as corrupt and possibly being disowned by family members, resulting in confusion and pain for themselves.

I like questioning traditional attitudes and never accepting things at face value. So when the opportunity arose for me to write a dissertation on something I felt strongly about, I chose to explore lesbianism in homophobic societies. I wanted to dig beneath the surface and find out more about how religion and culture makes lesbians feel their sexuality is difficult to live with especially in a modern world where everything is moving forward, how or rather why are they held back from being accepted into society?

Why is sexuality for women viewed as a choice when I thought sexuality is not fluid but rather fixed, I thought it was something you feel rather than choose so why does it come with a family and community backlash? I will be looking at how Shamim Sarif represented lesbians in her films I Can't Think Straight (2008) and The World Unseen (2008) to further understand these non conventional gender roles in intimate relationships and how they understand and define themselves as lesbians of ethnic races in a romantic film genre and how these films are fundamentally about women's rights to be unrestricted and liberated in societies which may not accept them. I will also look closely into which culture, if any, are dominating or driving the plots in each film and whether in one culture lesbians feel empowered by their sexuality.

I think that homophobic attitudes in society come from social conditioning of how sexuality should work leaving room to criticize sexuality if it does not fit into a pigeon hole. Moral standards of sexuality are that straight people are normal and gay people are not. As broad minded as a person may be, they can reject those who are not straight or even reject themselves if they are not straight, denying the truth and trying to change to being straight.

Religious values are often tied in to fear of gay and lesbian people, rather than it being an alien concept, it is said to be wrong and damaging to society's structure. I know myself that even though you would think that Hinduism as a religion which promotes sexual images and texts in the form of kama sutra and tantric sex. There is still an immense fear of those who are lesbian or gay, not being familiar to how their relationships work, they ...