A Workshop on “Sexuality, Globalization and Socio-Economic Transformation”
A workshop on “Sexuality, globalization and socio-economic transformation” was held in Hanoi on July 28, 2012 and in Ho Chi Minh City on July 29, 2012. The workshop was a Resource Center activity on Gender, Sexuality and Health within a project entitled “Towards sexual and reproductive health and rights for all”.
The workshop facilitator was Dr.
Paul Boyce – an anthropologist and lecturer in the Department of Anthropology,
University of Sussex (UK). Dr. Boyce has intensive international working
experiences in the field of sex work, male-to-male sexualities, drug use and
HIV prevention. He is also a member of the International Curriculum Development
Team for a Ford Foundation-funded program on international sexuality studies
and research (managed by La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia). His
academic career aim is to develop practical and analytical connections between
ethnographic practice, community work and anthropological theorization of
gender, sexualities, health and socio-economic change and continuity.
The workshop developed and enhanced
the knowledge of theory and current research concerning socio-economic change,
globalization, and sexuality for the participants. There were about 30
participants who are experienced researchers, lecturers, program officers and people
working in management and policy development in the field of gender, sexuality,
health and development.
Introduction
Vietnam is currently undergoing
great social and economic changes, with the liberalization of the economy
offering new contexts for work, consumerism and life choices. Around the world,
socio-economic change has been accompanied by changes in people's intimate life
aspirations. In particular, social and economic growth typically parallels
greater social mobility and neo-liberal values, which in turn typically
engenders new freedoms in women's sexual lives (beyond the expectations and
restraints of kinship), challenges to established systems of patriarchy, and
also the liberalization of cultural values regarding same-sex sexualities. Such
changes are visible in Vietnam from a couple cuddling on a motorbike to the
songs in karaoke bars as Tine Gammeltoft described in her article[1].
Along with social and economic
changes, cultural values and expectations endure. As much as Vietnames society
may be changing, many traditional beliefs about sexuality, gender and family
life still persist. Many people live their lives between contesting life-worlds
and values - new, old, modern and traditional etc...While Vietnam is now part
of the World Trade Organization and is among leading countries in the region
regarding access and use of the internet and other telecommunication
technologies, discussions on virginity, pre-marital sex, and cohabitation are
always ‘hot’ subjects in the media. Lisa Drummond and Hellen Rydstrom
commented in their book that Confucianism is still very much rooted in and
influences Vietnam society nowadays[2].
Sexuality and Social Change in
Vietnam and Other Countries
Nowadays, people have more choices
in life to follow their own preferences and personal aspirations such as their
lifestyles and relationships including sexual relationships, e.g. same-sex
marriage and the rights of sex workers.
When talking about sexuality, one
may think of it as being an ‘in the body’ biological issue. However, according
to the social scientists, sexuality is also a social and psychological issue;
it can change based on social construction and subjective experience. Sexuality
is strongly affected by traditional and cultural values.
To address health issues such as
HIV, we are concerned with sexuality as biological and medical issues, and at
the same time we also address the cultural meanings and values that shape
people’s sexuality and sexual risks.
Around the world, sexuality is an aspect
of personal human experience that has been subject to strong and often
contested personal and social values.
In Vietnam, according to the website
VnExpress, there are public debates on the Ministry of Justice’s referendum for
the legalization of same-sex marriage as the Ministry is preparing for an
amendment of the current Law on Marriage and Family. According to the Ministry,
it is still too early to legalize same-sex marriage due to our country’s
tradition.
In “Modernity, Sexuality and
Ideology in Iran” by Kamran Talatoff, one issue has been a common concern since
the mid–nineteenth century: how should Iran become modern? However, up to the
present, modernity has never truly unfolded in Iran due in large part to Iran’s
reluctance to embrace the seminal subjects of gender and sexuality. Talattof’s
approach reflects a unique look at modernity as not only advanced by industry
and economy but also as advanced by an open, intellectual discourse on
sexuality. Talattof uses the life of Shahrzad as a metaphor to illustrate the
conflict between modernity and tradition and Iran’s failure to embrace an overt
expression of sexuality. In the 1970s, Shahrzad was a film star, dancer,
actress, filmmaker, and poet, but after the Revolution in 1979, she was
imprisoned and eventually became homeless on the streets of Tehran. Her failure
was due to poor social changes.
Social scientists (for example
Anthony Giddens in the late 19th century) and historians have long
been interested in the way in which the most personal, intimate, seemingly
innate and natural aspects of our lives are conceived and lived in the context
of social, economic and historical change.
The Social Construction of Sexuality
In addition to the types of persons,
sexual behaviors, sexual instincts or drives, the social construction approach
also focuses on the meanings, practices, identities and social context as well
as their relationship to discourses, institutions, power relations, politics
and economies.
A participant gave an example: When
I see a woman who has to work as a sex worker for a livelihood and she also has
to financially support her lover who is a drug addicted man, I think why is she
so naïve. However, her lover might bring her a different meaning because he is
one of her needs.
According to Hert, when doing
research on the Sambia ethnic minority in New Guinea (1981), same-sex, male
sexual experience before marriage is a way to cultivate/produce masculinity. In
many cultures, same-sex sexual activity raises no personal questions about whether
one is homosexual, bisexual, or heterosexual. Therefore, sexuality is specific
to culture and it is culturally constructed.
The History of Sexuality
According to Foucault (1978) and
Weeks (1977), ‘sexuality’ emerged as a discrete attribute of the human
experience in 19th century European thought. Professional discourses
were raised to regulate personal conduct and behavior. Specific forms of sexual
deviance emerged and there became a distinction between homosexuality and
heterosexuality.
According to Gagnon & Parker
(1995), sexuality can no longer be regarded as an intrinsic attribute of ‘self’
or as biologically inherent. This is an outcome of intellectual and social
processes bound up in language and knowledge systems of post-Enlightenment.
From the 1960s and onwards, there
were political movements about identity to challenge the dominant
(institutionalized) meanings that applied to the category homosexual.
Limitations of Constructivist and
Historical Approaches to Sexuality
These approaches were mostly derived
in terms of scholarship on sexuality and historical transformation in Western
societies. They may unintentionally feed into a view that makes changes in
sexual culture, around the world, follow a Western model.
Nowadays, ethnographic and other social research reveals more complex situations, wherein societies are developing and changing through complex social processes and not along a linear Western path.
According to Dr. Khuat Thu Hong, in
the West it was about individualism and life-style; while in Vietnam it is more
about cultural and political issues.
Femininity and Sexual Agency
According to research by Quach Thu
Trang[3], on
socio-transitional Vietnam, unmarried women are surrounded by contradictory
discourses on femininity and sexuality. Young women put great weight on female
virginity, while at the same time they also consider sexual relations between
unmarried couples as natural.
In addition, women see sexuality as
a part of a woman’s ‘self’ that is not always only passively determined by men.
(…) “In relationships with men, (…) I drive men but always pretend I am driven
by them.” (Xuan, 32 years old). This is an implication that the relationship of
power between men and women is shifting.
Binary Systems of Meaning-Making on
Sexuality
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According to Gayle Rubin (1984) ,
the categorization of sexuality is not just natural but socially constructed.
In setting out a ‘charmed circle’,
Gayle Rubin thought that society distinguishes two kinds of values: the values
in the small and inner circle are considered by society as good/natural ones,
such as: heterosexual, married, monogamous, procreative, free, coupled, in a
relationship, same generation, at home, no pornography, bodies only,… while the
values in the big and outer circle are considered by society as bad/unnatural,
such as: homosexual, in sin, promiscuous, non-procreative, for money, alone or
in groups, casual, cross-generational, in the park, pornography, with
manufactured objects,…
With these categories of sexuality,
it is shown that sexuality is not only natural but socially constructed.
Globalization and Sexuality
Three models were presented:
- Model 1: Sexuality is produced by and emerges through
globalization and social change.
- Model 2: Existing (traditional) sexualities are
influenced by globalization.
- Model 3: Sexuality is one aspect of social change and
cultural continuity – an aspect of the relationship between globalization,
social change and cultural continuity.
In fact, there are different kinds
of patterns that one cannot know between sexuality and globalization; which is
the cause or the effect.
Le
Thi Hanh
[1] Gammetoft, T. (2006) Being Special for Somebody: Urban
Sexualities in Contemporary Vietnam. (translated) in series Gender, Sexuality
and Health 11/2006. CIHP. World Publishing House. Ha Noi, Vietnam.
[2] Drummond, L., Rydstrom, H. (2004).
Gender Practices in Contemporary Vietnam. Singapore: Singapore University
Press.
[3] Culture, Health & Sexuality –
An International Journal for research, intervention and care, Vol.10
Supplement, June 2008:S152.
[4] Gayle Rubin. Thinking Sex. 1984
