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Sexual Occidentation and Its Consequences in LGBT Rights Politics: Reverse Orientalism, Homonationalism and Postcolonial Homophobia A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Master of Arts Kota Oguri May 2015 © 2015 Kota Oguri. All Rights Reserved. 2 This thesis titled Sexual Occidentation and Its Consequences in LGBT Rights Politics: Reverse Orientalism, Homonationalism and Postcolonial Homophobia by KOTA OGURI has been approved for the Department of Political Science and the College of Arts and Sciences by Susan Burgess Professor of Political Science Robert Frank Dean, College of Arts and Sciences 3 ABSTRACT OGURI, KOTA, M.A., May 2015, Political Science Sexual Occidentation and Its Consequences in LGBT Rights Politics: Reverse Orientalism, Homonationalism and Postcolonial Homophobia Director of Thesis: Susan Burgess In the current global clash over the rights of sexual minorities, what is often shared by both sides, homoprotectionist western politicians and activists and “homophobic” non-western government leaders is the association of sexual freedom/decadence with the West (sexual occidentation). In colonial discourses, however, societies outside Europe were often imagined to be the site of unrepressed sexuality, including homosexuality. Western travelers and scholars often reported widespread “deviant” forms of sexuality sometimes with disgust and sometimes with amazement, and missionaries and colonial officials promoted laws to regulate them as part of their civilizing mission. This paradoxical contrast between colonial and contemporary sociolegal discourses of sexuality suggest that sexuality is as politically malleable concept as the notions of freedom and rights themselves. Hence political homophobia and the effectiveness of the legal campaigns to combat it cannot be assessed without considering social and political contexts that legitimize the exclusion of sexual minorities. 4 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to express my gratitude to my advisor Professor Susan Burgess for her kind and patient reviews, comments and encouragement. I am also thankful to all the other faculty members of the Department of Political Science, especially Associate Professor Andrew Ross and Assistant Professor Jennifer Fredette, who served on my thesis committee and whose works and lectures gave me valuable insight for this project. I also wish to take this opportunity to thank LGBT/queer students, faculty members, staff and their allies especially at the LGBT Center and the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, including those whom I never had a chance to meet, for keeping the campus safe and comfortable for a genderqueer student like me. Finally, my study here at Ohio University was support by the Charles J. Ping Fellowship. I am deeply grateful to the faculty members and staff at Ohio University and Chubu University who have contributed to the long-standing friendship between the two universities and made this fellowship possible. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract ............................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgments ............................................................................................................... 4 Introduction – From Civil Rights to Human Rights ........................................................... 7 Chapter 1: Sexual Clash of Civilizations? Global “Culture Wars” Over the Rights of Sexual Minorities .............................................................................................................. 11 Human Rights and LGBT Rights: History of a “False Distinction” ..................... 11 “Rights Talk” and “Culture Talk”: Either Homophobia or Imperialism .............. 24 Trouble with Normal: Critiques from Within ....................................................... 30 Chapter 2: Orientalism and Sexuality: The Colonial Mapping of the “Vices” ................. 38 The Colonial Legacy of Heteronormative Laws ................................................... 38 The Cartography of Sexuality ............................................................................... 44 Containing Oriental Influences ............................................................................. 55 Homefront: Savages Within .................................................................................. 59 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 65 Chapter 3. Models of Their Future: The Open Society and its New Homophobic Enemies ........................................................................................................................................... 67 LGBT Pride as the American Pride ...................................................................... 69 In the Name of Love: The Emotional Politics of Homoprotectionism ................. 76 The New Repressive Hypothesis and Racialization of Homophobia ................... 82 6 Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 86 Chapter 4. We Don’t Have That in Our Country: Postcolonial Amnesia and Sexual Moral Panic .................................................................................................................................. 88 Postcolonial Homophobia and Postcolonial Amnesia .......................................... 88 Beards and Veils: Two Tales of “Postcolonial Amnesia” .................................... 91 Russia: To Be or Not to Be (Like Europe), That is the Question ............. 91 Iran: We have that in Our Country Unlike in Your Country .................... 95 In the Reign of Terror: The Apocalyptic Politics of Homophobia ....................... 97 Zimbabwe: The Devil is Among Us ....................................................... 101 Russia: “Foreign Agents” in the Fragile Empire .................................... 105 Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 114 Conclusion – “Pride” Comes Before A Fall? LGBT Activism Beyond Orientalism and Triumphantism ................................................................................................................ 117 Coda – Pilgrimage to Modernity? Same-Sex Love among Indonesian Domestic Workers in Hong Kong .................................................................................................................. 120 References ....................................................................................................................... 130 7 INTRODUCTION – FROM CIVIL RIGHTS TO HUMAN RIGHTS The colonial context… is characterized by the dichotomy it inflicts on the world. ––– Frantz Fanon (2004 [1961], 10) Sexuality is not the most intractable element in power relations, but rather one of those endowed with the greatest instrumentality: useful for the greatest number of maneuvers and capable of serving as a point of support, as a linchpin, for the most varied strategies. ––– Michel Foucault (1990, 103) On December 6, 2011, international human rights day, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton declared that “gay rights are human rights” (Clinton 2011). She emphasized the universality of gay rights by stating that “being gay is not a Western invention” but “a human reality” like “being a woman” or “being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority.” Recently, as Clinton confirms, discrimination and violence against sexual minorities1 have been increasingly seen as human rights concerns. Many politicians, 1 I generally use “sexual minorities” to refer to people with sexual orientation and gender identity different from the majority, including lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders who are often collectively called “LGBT.” I use this acronym “LGBT” to refer to the rights of sexual minorities (as LGBT rights) rather than much longer versions in queer “alphabet soup” (Stryker 2008, 21) such as LGBTIQQAA, not in any way with an intention to exclude those who do not neatly fit into these four categories, but just for the sake of convenience and because of the fact that, whether it is appropriate or not, it has been the most commonly used version in human rights discourse. Also, I sometimes use the word “gay” in several quotations because some people, both academics and non-academics, quite confusingly, use it as an umbrella for sexual minorities in general including trans people. Relatedly, while I am keenly aware of and deeply concerned about trans people’s unique needs (see e.g. Stryker 2008, Spade 2011, West 2014), my analysis here does not particularly distinguish their rights from the ones of sexual orientation minorities because they are in many cases treated collectively in dominant human rights discourse. If, then, my analysis fails to represent trans concerns that probably reflects the bias of contemporary human rights politics itself. 8 activists and organizations have begun to work transnationally to defend LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) rights as human rights. Domestic issues concerning sexual minorities soon gather global attention. As a Human Rights Watch official said, “It’s a very shrunk world for gay-rights activists” (quoted in Bob 2012, 107). The LGBT rights movement, which is sometimes referred to as the “New Civil Rights Movement” in the United States, is evolving into a new