Lee Wallace. Sexual Encounters: Pacifc Texts, Modern Sexualities. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2003. 208 pp. $21.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8014-8832-0.

Reviewed by Robert Deam Tobin

Published on H-Histsex (July, 2004)

Ever since their encounter with Polynesia, ern male and the vulnerability of the subaltern fe‐ Westerners have associated the South Pacifc with male it is the feminized subaltern male. Citing sexual freedom and erotic abandon. While in the Jonathan Goldberg, Wallace stresses the impor‐ heyday of colonialism, many Europeans and tance of concerns about same-sex desire in justify‐ Americans viewed Polynesia as a sexual paradise, ing the colonial efort. (The title of her work subsequent critics of colonialism have regarded seems to be an homage to Goldberg's Sodome‐ Western erotic fantasies about the islands as tan‐ tries: Renaissance Texts, Modern Sexualities, tamount to rape. According to this critique, the [1992].) Gilbert Herdt's work on ritualized homo‐ Western male takes the subaltern female for his sexuality in New Guinea and Melanesia has clear‐ own sexual pleasure in a particularly blatant ex‐ ly inspired Wallace, but the implications of its ap‐ ample of imperialist violation. In her fascinating propriation in the gay political arena have opened and well-written book, Lee Wallace demonstrates many questions about the relationship between that heterosexism has blinded such critiques. She sexuality and culture that Wallace hopes to help restates her thesis trenchantly several times in answer. the study, asserting that "the more sexually reso‐ Already in Captain Cook's third voyage to the nant fgure inscribed within the representational South Seas, Wallace fnds evidence that "the male archive of the Pacifc is that of the male body" (p. body is troublingly inscribed with the erotic con‐ 1) and that "it is the body of the European male, sequences of contact" (p. 38). Although most com‐ not that of the native female, that incites the most mentators focus on the relationships between interpretative anxiety" (p. 21). Cook's men and the Polynesian women, his jour‐ Establishing the context of her work, Wallace nals show "an inscription of masculinity that is charges that Edward Said and his followers view not yet our own" (p. 45), particularly in the form the colonial efort through a heterosexual lens of the aikane, comely young men who were ap‐ that if anything reinscribes the power of the West‐ parently sexual favorites of the Hawaiian royalty. H-Net Reviews

According to one report from Cook's voyage, dard narrative by which the European gaze "las‐ "their business is to commit the Sin of Onan upon civiously takes as its object the female native" (p. the old King" (p. 45). Strikingly, the aikane does 80). The frst is the beachcomber, the European not exhibit gender inversion, as do the Tongan who has abandoned ship and taken to life on the fakaleiti, the Tahitian mahu, or the Samoan islands and whose bodies were often meticulously fa'fafne, which will be discussed later. Perhaps discussed by visitors. The second is the tattoo, because of the infuence of Said's model of the which many of these beachcombers, along with male Western conqueror and the feminized subal‐ many South Sea Islanders, sport. Earnest discus‐ tern, these gender-inverted fgures are far better sions of the tattoo allowed nineteenth-century known than the aikane. ethnologists and travelers to dwell at length on Wallace is particularly interested in the at‐ the male body of the Polynesian, which was often tempt by Cook and his men to write about the considered to be as beautiful as ancient Greek phenomenon of the aikane with objective disin‐ sculptures and indeed more beautiful than the terest, which stands in contrast to their reports of women of Polynesia. active participation in the sexual customs that The missionary William Yate, who was de‐ take place between men and women on the is‐ nounced in 1836 for having homosexual relations lands. There are, however, breaks in the record, with both European natives and the Maori, is the when Cook and his men reveal some level of par‐ subject of the next chapter. Arguing that often ticipation in the erotic relations between men in "the ban on sodomy became the most convenient Polynesia. The Hawaiian nobleman Kalinikoa re‐ way of policing other treasonable acts" (p. 98), portedly asked to retain at least one of the attrac‐ Wallace suggests that the Church Missionary Soci‐ tive men from Cook's crew as an aikane. Far from ety expelled Yate because it allowed them to de‐ rejecting the proposal out of hand, Cook, his man, fne themselves. As she puts it, "the consolidation Kalinikoa and his aikane exchanged names "in of the Christian collectivity in this new land waits the Tahitian manner" (p. 47), which Westerners at on this particular sexual sin" (p. 104). least conceived as a kind of Polynesian male-male Paul Gauguin would seem to represent all the marriage ceremony. Subsequent scholars have positives and negatives of the Western view of the found in these reports evidence that there was South Seas, with his images of languid Polynesian "something about" some of the sailors, particular‐ women. But here too Wallace fnds a homoerotic ly Captain Bligh. As Wallace argues, the point is dimension. In his journals, Gauguin mentions fol‐ not that scholars and flm-makers have used such lowing a beautiful male Tahitian youth through anecdotes to question Bligh's sexuality, but that the forests and becoming sexually aroused. Wal‐ these pejorative representations produce--and lace relates this incident to the painting Manao continue to reproduce--a modern understanding Tupapau, which depicts a Polynesian woman of homosexuality"(51). Ultimately, Wallace fnds in from behind. the references to male-male desire in Cook's voy‐ Wallace concludes with an analysis of a mod‐ ages that "the Pacifc voyage becomes the occa‐ ern documentary on fa'afafne, the Samoan males sion for masculinist narratives animated by a ho‐ who are raised as women. The documentary by moerotic desire that must be defend against" (p. Caroline Harker, which aired in 1996, insists that 56). this phenomenon is "not to be understood in rela‐ Having established the signifcance of mas‐ tion to European categories of identifcation such culinity in representations of the South Seas, Wal‐ as gay, transvestite, or transsexual" (p. 139). While lace looks at two phenomena that upset the stan‐ Wallace understands the theoretical justifcation

2 H-Net Reviews for such a claim, she argues that it inadequately about sexuality and the South Pacifc. At times, I addresses the complexities of modern postcolo‐ found myself unconvinced of the links between nial society, where traditional gender structures the intriguing material presented and the conclu‐ must interact with Western constructions. The sions reached in the individual chapters. The documentary leaves unanalyzed the category of overall thesis of the work, however, is absolutely men who have sex with fa'afafne, implying at compelling: heterosexist assumptions have blink‐ times that all men do so, which Wallace contests. ered both Western fantasies about Polynesia and In general, it is coyly reticent to discuss the sex critiques of those fantasies. life of the fa'afafne at all, which Wallace sees as part of the efort of the documentary to break any link between them and Western gay culture. But in fact, Wallace contends that the fa'afafne "will probably fnd greater accommodation in the sexu‐ al subcultures of Auckland, Sydney, or Los Ange‐ les" than in Samoa (p. 148). At the same time as the documentary attempts to banish Western con‐ cepts like "homosexuality" from its report on fa'afafne, it quite unselfconsciously uses the cate‐ gory of "heterosexuality." Not only does it fail to question the universality of heterosexuality, it also takes for granted the genders of male and fe‐ male. The efort to assert absolute diference be‐ tween the category of fa'afafne and that of gay is particularly dangerous as it hinders eforts to combat AIDS among "young Polynesian men who identify themselves across gender and not as gay" (p. 157). As I fnished the book, I found myself most cu‐ rious about the Polynesian side of the encounter. Wallace's book focuses exclusively on Western representations of the South Seas and the assump‐ tions of sexuality in those representations. By her own theoretical account, we need to move beyond simplistic categories of European subject and Polynesian object. I wondered therefore if there were Polynesian accounts, either from historical sources or from more recent times, that also ad‐ dressed issues of sexuality. Even if there are no such sources, a statement of that fact would be in‐ teresting. As it is, Wallace makes no reference to Polynesian sources on the subject. As I hope this review has indicated, Sexual Encounters bursts with absorbing information

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Citation: Robert Deam Tobin. Review of Wallace, Lee. Sexual Encounters: Pacifc Texts, Modern Sexualities. H-Histsex, H-Net Reviews. July, 2004.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=9637

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