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Gay and Proud Athens Dendrinos, Panayis (2008) Contemporary Greek male homosexualities : Greek gay men's experiences of the family, the military and the LGBT movement. PhD thesis. http://theses.gla.ac.uk/2653/ Copyright and moral rights for this thesis are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the Author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the Author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Glasgow Theses Service http://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] Contemporary Greek Male Homosexualities: Greek Gay Men’s Experiences of the Family, the Military and the LGBT Movement Panayis Dendrinos Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Glasgow Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences Faculty of Law, Business and Social Sciences March 2008 Abstract This thesis provides an ethnographic analysis of how Greek gay men experience the ways in which their sexuality is subject to „negotiation‟ in the family and the military, how these „negotiations‟ influence and sometimes even inhibit the creation of an LGBT movement. The experiences of my ethnographic informants produced little material for generalisations but the diversity of their voices suggests that they are constantly fighting between the desire to belong and the wish to remain different. I argue that the theoretical framework of timi and dropi (honour and shame) can still be a valuable explanatory tool for an understanding of Modern Greek homosexualities. Yet, this thesis offers a critique of this paradigm for its neglect to account for the possible ways in which the sexual contact of the men in a family may occasionally be seen as a threat to the family‟s honour. As a result, silence becomes a defence mechanism that many of my gay interlocutors and their families employ to deal with homosexuality. This varied silence often inhibits the sense of pride in the man‟s homosexuality and in turn prevents him from joining the movement that would require him to be vocal about his sexual self. The military experiences of my interlocutors, on the other hand, challenge the assumption that the military is a strictly heterosexual space. What they often describe as the „homo-social‟ environment of the military acted as a catalyst for several of them to come to terms with their homosexuality. The thesis also explores the history of Greek LGBT activism from its inception in 1976 to today and examines the reasons behind its limited success in capturing the hearts and minds of my interlocutors. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 2 Acknowledgements 4 List of Illustrations 5 Introduction 6 Chapter 1: Gay Men‟s Experience of the Greek Family 48 Chapter 2: Greek Gay Men‟s Experiences of the Military 86 Chapter 3: The Emergence of Homosexual Activism in Greece 126 Chapter 4: Greek LGBT Activism in the Period between 1990 and 2007 168 Conclusion 211 References 229 3 Acknowledgments This thesis represents a long journey, at times a painful one, which would not have been possible without the encouragement and support of a number of people who believed in me even when I doubted my self. An enormous debt and gratitude are owed to my family who have supported me emotionally and financially throughout the years. I thank Nicole Bourque, Maud Bracke, Simon Charsley, Anna Devic, Kevin Francis, Fiona Harris, Angela Jones, Anthousa Kalomoiri, Kiki Karatzaferi, Olive Kearns, Justin Kenrick, Hara Papatheodorou, Charles Paterson, Emma Purvis, Francesca Stella, Francesca Scrinzi, Sam Smith, Jonathan Spangler, Stratoula Theodoratou, Penny Travlou, Matthew Waites, Lyndell Weaver for their friendship and constant encouragement. Peter Lucas and Andrew Simmons have been valuable friends and have offered me emotional and financial support on numerous occasions. Judith Okely has been a source of inspiration and a mentor. Fabienne Malbois has offered me unwavering support and encouragement. I am grateful to Andy Smith for scanning the illustrations and for his friendship. Elpida Chlimintza has dedicated many valuable hours of her time formatting the text but also offering psychological support. I am privileged to have her as a friend. A special thanks is owed to Iain Porteous for providing me with a computer and a printer in a time of need. An immeasurable gratitude is owed to Professor Bridget Fowler for her support, encouragement and intellectual stimulation. Robert Gibb has read the thesis diligently, has provided me with valuable feedback and critical insights and has also been a true friend throughout. I am grateful to the Giannakopoulos‟ family for their love, support and the continuous supply of chocolate throughout the last few months. Georgia Giannakopoulou to whom this thesis is dedicated, has given me the impetus to continue with the journey of this thesis, to face my demons and to find the inner strength to go on when I was ready to give up. Our discussions and her meticulous editing have enriched this text greatly. Finally, my gratitude goes to the men I met during my research and I hope I have done justice to their experiences. 4 List of Illustrations Figure 1: Athens Gay Pride 1996 Poster. 9 Figure 2: Irakleidon Street, my main fieldwork site in Thission. 30 Figure 3: Tram Cafe. 32 Figure 4: Kirke Cafe. 33 Figure 5: Yannis Tsarouhis, „seated sailor with reclining male nude‟. 118 Figure 6: Yannis Tsarouhis, „sailor and nude in front of a three-piece door‟. 119 Figure 7: The cover of The Ellinika Agalmata. 122 Figure 8: Mr Gay Greece 2000. Front cover of „Mr Gay Greece‟ magazine. 171 Figure 9: 01 article on Factory. Title: “Fucktory – A night in the meat market.” 177 Figure 10: Athens Gay Pride 2005 poster. 190 Figure 11: Athens Gay Pride 2005, pictures from the event. 191 Figure 12: Images from Athens Gay Pride 2006. 192 Figure 13: Images from Athens Gay Pride 2007. 193 5 Introduction “We have arrived in the Sexual Tower of Babel where a world of past silences has been breached” (Plummer 1996:34) A hot summer night in June of 1996 I went with Yiannis, one of my principal gay informants, to Pedion Areos, a large park in downtown Athens. For the second time, the park was going to be the venue for the annual Gay Pride festivities. Colourful posters advertising the event had appeared a few weeks prior in several gay bars and in the centre of Athens. Across the middle of the posters [Fig. 1] were the English words 'Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transsexual Gay Pride '96', with „Gay Pride '96‟ written in the colours of the rainbow, symbols of the international gay flag. Underneath them, in Greek capital letters, was the phrase Imera Omofilofilis Syneiditopiisis: Anoixti Prosklisi (Day of Homosexual Consciousness: Open Invitation). This was followed by the name of the venue, the date and place of the event, and the names of the d.js, the sponsors and the organisers. The Gay Pride of 1996 was going to be a significant one, as this was the first time that all the key figures in Greek homosexual activism had been involved in its organisation. The incorporation of the words lesbian, bisexual and transsexual in the posters reflected the all- inclusive, all-embracing spirit of that year's Pride festivities. Ever since the celebration of the very first such event in 1982, which was held in Zappeion, an open-air park in the centre of Athens, the nature of the annual Gay Pride celebration had been a point of contention among gay activists. The 1996 Pride proved to be equally controversial. Some activists favoured the idea of the festivities taking place outdoors with a public parade similar to those happening abroad, whereas others argued that the event should take place indoors, preferably in one of the city‟s gay venues. The latter felt that in this way the festivities would attract more participants who would prefer the privacy and security of a gay space. That way there would be fewer chances of the participants being recognized and also of being bullied. The low turn out for the first Gay Pride in 1982 was 6 Figure 1: Athens Gay Pride 1996 Poster. subsequently sometimes attributed to the fact that this had been an outdoors event. At the beginning of June 1996, a meeting occurred among various gay activists who discussed the form of that year's event and finalised its venue. The conciliatory mood observed in that meeting among gay activists was short-lived. At the last minute, EOK, the major lesbian, 7 gay, bisexual and trans-sexual (LGBT) group at the time, withdrew from the organisation of the event. The reasons still remain unclear, but the presence of Grigoris Vallianatos, a key figure in gay activism, in the organizing committee may have had something to do with it. By 1996, Vallianatos had become a controversial figure among gay activists as he was accused of using his work as of the main spokesperson for Greek homosexuals in order to promote his business ventures. Despite these last minute political complications, the event did go ahead as planned. At the time of our arrival at around ten o'clock, the Pedion Areos Park was relatively quiet. A large banner welcomed us to „GAY PRIDE '96‟ – the words were written in English, maybe because English is the most spoken foreign language in Greece or maybe, on the other hand, because, whilst English is a popular language, it is still a foreign one and could, therefore, guarantee a relative degree of secrecy.
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