By Orquillas, Decena
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
Before going further into how homosexuals are being viewed by the fourth year college students of the University of the Philippines Cebu, the researchers prefer to have a better understanding and to look into the deeper sense of the variables of the study, specifically the views and the concept of homosexuality.
The first section of this literature review discusses on how homosexuals started and how they were discovered in the society as time passed. Next, the researchers took account how other authors and researchers defined homosexuality and their own study of matters involving the acceptance and rejection of homosexuals by the people. In the second section, the researchers of this paper considered looking into different perceptions of the people and glancing on how homosexuals were treated with in the society. Finally on the last section, the researchers recognized the notion that views of the people could be influenced by different factors namely, age, gender, religion, education and the media. Furthermore, the researchers aimed to discuss how these factors could affect the reactions of the people towards homosexual activities particularly, public display of affection among homosexuals, same-sex marriages, cross dressings and as well as their employment in the community.
Homosexuality has always been an issue in the past but it wasn’t openly discussed by people back then. Homosexual presence was kept a secret from the public causing them to be barely noticeable in ancient times.
In history, gay people never revealed themselves to the public. They just came out in the open when they were exposed or discovered (Bullough, 1976). They were found in the majority of customs which anthropologists have discovered. Furthermore, same-sex relationships were allowed and even favoured by the early Greeks and Romans, and also places in China and Japan (Gramick, 1992).
Professionals and laymen have interpreted homosexuals in many different ways and have come up with various ideas of what are their true nature, when did homosexual activities start, and even the factors that could have influenced or made individuals in becoming homosexuals.
Don Browning (1989) reviewed David Greenberg’s, “The Construction of Homosexuality.” He said that Greenberg disagreed on people’s point of view that homosexuality is not stable. Browning continued that Greenberg also described the words “homosexual”, “gay” or “lesbian” as antiquated. Using these words would tell people that “homosexual behaviour” is related to everyone, perhaps “biological or psychological”, is reasonably static eventually.
According to Havelock Ellis, in his book “Sexual Inversion” (1897), stated that homosexuality is a condition that is intrinsic or natural, not an illness or crime. Moreover, he stated that it is manifested in many other species in nature (Wikipedia.org).
On the other hand, Sigmund Freud (1935), an Austrian neurologist, believed that human beings are, by nature, bisexual, and that becoming a homosexual or heterosexuals is caused by experiences with parents and others.
Herek (1997) cited Freud, who wrote a letter to an American mother which stated that:
Homosexuality is assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice, no degradation, it cannot be classified as an illness; we consider it to be a variation of the sexual function produced by a certain arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the greatest men among them (Plato, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, etc.). It is a great injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime, and cruelty too....(para. 6)
If [your son] is unhappy, neurotic, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his social life, analysis may bring him harmony, peace of mind, full efficiency whether he remains a homosexual or gets changed....(para. 7 )
Jorgensen (2009) also explained that from the conventional perspective, homosexuality is a preferred way of life. The reason is understood to be primarily inadequate parenting, troubles in sexual aspects and also demonic interference. It is considered that homosexuality keeps people with in this behaviour, unable for them to free themselves from this stage.
For Medelson (2008), anyone could be born with or without a “same-sex emotional and physical preference”, however recognition as a homosexual is by a person’s preference or by a force unto him or herself.
Medelson (2008) continued that there are two views on the nature of homosexuality namely essentialism which is related to the identification and approval of one’s self for a particular gender, and the other would be social constructivism which involves a person’s character which is a product of contact between the person and with one’s society. Therefore, homosexuality is seen as more of a character rather than a “sexual preference”.
According to Nugent (1992), the head of Kinsey Institute for Sex Research in Indiana, Alfred Kinsey (n.d.) theorized that there is not only one reason for human beings to possess a particular sexual orientation. Therefore, there could be a variety of factors that could affect and individual to become what he or she is, whether a heterosexual, homosexual, vice versa.
Homosexuals could have numerous reasons of how they became what they are, whether it is innate, a choice, or because of environmental factors; however, the society doesn’t consider this matter when it comes to their treatment towards homosexuals. It is evident that the citizens in the society have different level of acceptance concerning lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders.
Marotta (1981) examined the life of Donald Webster Cory, author of “The Homosexual in America”, as one of the people who feared for others to know about his homosexual feelings. He was confused about the fact of not being normal like other men. He was completely embarrassed by it because he was scared for not being accepted by the society. Cory attempted to give up his foolishness and wanted to be straight. He got married but when his homosexual behaviour continued he opted to seek help from a psychologist.
Cory tried to give in on his homosexuality but because of pressure on how the people in his society would view him, everything changed. The environment is really one of the factors on how a person shows himself in public.
Homos (2001) was able to find out that are different factors that could affect an individual’s views towards homosexuality. He said that according to the International Social Survey’s Program 1998/1999 which conducted a survey regarding the tolerance of homosexuals in 29 nations including the Philippines, one’s age, gender, education, and religion can cause the tolerance of homosexuality to vary in the different nations.
Details from the survey explained that Philippines, along with Chile, were the least tolerant towards homosexuality. The results of the survey proved that different age brackets have different levels of acceptance of homosexuals in the 29 nations. For young people, homosexuality can be wrong sometimes. The middle aged ones had more negative responses. Generally, the survey showed that the older the respondents are, the least tolerant they were of homosexuality (Homos, 2001).
Moreover, Homos (2001) said that considering gender, the survey showed that the tolerance level of homosexuality of males differ from that of females. Though both men and women don’t condemn the homosexuals, men show more negative reactions to them. In the Philippines, the perception of men and women towards homosexuals are hardly different from each other.
When it comes to education, the survey showed that the more educated people are, the more they understand and accept the homosexuals.
Finally, according to the International Social Survey’s Program, religion makes a huge difference to one’s view towards homosexuality indicating that church goers are least tolerant of homosexuals than the people who have no personal belief in God (Homos, 2001).
Societal views towards homosexuals are considered to be mostly influenced by a person’s belief or he’s own stand in life. It is expected that the kind of outlook they have comes from the determined ideas of the people around them, especially the church.
Atkinson and Hackett (1995) stated that in the Bible, a quote in the book Leviticus expresses a negative response toward homosexuality. The quote states: ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination’.
Atkinson and Hackett (1995) believed that it is undeniable that religion is one of the most influential factors that determine the present attitudes of the public towards homosexuals.
“The homosexuals hasn’t got nearly the foot in the door that the black has,” said Jack Nichols (n.d.), co-editor with Lige Clarke at Gay, the first weekly newspaper for gay people in the United States distributed on newsstands. “At least it’s understood that blacks are human beings. The majority of Americans don’t grasp that about homosexuals” (Turk and Kenney, 1973).
Turk and Kenney (1973) supposed that in America, homosexuals are just considered to be a “minority group” who are not receiving rights from the law just like everyone else. Restrictions to the gay community are backed by the reasons that “gay cause is both dangerous and immoral”.
“It (homosexuality) has been called among other things a sin, an illness, a way of life, a normal variant sexual behaviour, a behaviour disturbance, and a crime” (Bullough, 1979). It is seen by the society as an “emotional illness” or the symptom of illness”, which is backed up by psychotherapists (Turk and Kenney, 1973).
Ofrenes (2003) affirmed that the American Psychological Association (APA), decades ago, had already disregarded homosexuality from its “official list of mental disorder”. Even if homosexuality is not being recognized as a disorder, still the idea that homosexuality is an abnormality prevails.
According to Bullough (1976), homosexuals, though some people have accepted their presence, are never fully accepted by the majority.
Most of what all know about homosexuality and attitudes toward homosexuality is derived from religious and legal authorization against homosexual behaviour. The society’s treatment towards homosexuals ranged from “tolerable to harsh oppression” (Atkinson and Hackett, 1995).
Del Pilar and Manalastas (2005) indicated that an individual’s negative view towards homosexuals as well as their idea that leading a homosexual life is immoral or abnormal is known to be heterosexism. Heteroxism involves the notion that having a relationship between the same sex is erroneous, which considers homosexuals as inept as heterosexuals in becoming “parents or professionals”, and that homosexuals shouldn’t acquire the common rights that heterosexuals possess.
Also Shackelford and Besser (2007) identified that the start of having pessimistic attitudes towards homosexuality is said to be from the society’s traditional gender culture. It is on how they look at it through their own beliefs and customs.
Some objections against homosexuality are made by people who oppose to giving civil rights to homosexuals because of their belief that homosexual behaviour or expressions are harmful to the society and that the homosexual population would increase. Nevertheless, this argument is just an “unproven assumption”. There is no evidence that a society that allow homosexual behaviors increase in population of gays and lesbians. But also, communities that show “hostile and punitive attitudes” towards homosexuality don’t exhibit a decrease in homosexual population (Nugent, 1992).
Nugent (1992) said that homosexuals sometimes are being referred to as the “invisible minority”. Even from the idea that homosexuals could be identified by how they dress, act and work, the wide spread of homosexuals in our society are still kept hidden, from continuous pressure the public gives.
As for others, they view homosexuality the cause of erroneous parenting. Also researchers Neil and Jean Mastellone (2010), believed that a homosexual behaviour is an “extreme selfishness”. This extreme selfishness is said to be a reaction of continuous sexual abuse by sexual maltreatment of parents (Ground Breaking Homosexuality Research). Through time, there were homosexuals who slowly became liberal and wanted to fight upon the civil rights they needed to gain as what most of the heterosexuals have. As what Gramick (1992) stated:
Not all societies view homosexuality as a taboo. A study of 193 world cultures reported by Hock and Zubin (1949) showed that male homosexuality was accepted by 28% of the cultures and rejected by 14%, while 58% showed partial acceptance or equivocation. Pomeroy (1969) reported that 53% of 225 American Indian cultures accepted male homosexuality, while only 24% of the cultures rejected it. Although the cowboys of the Wild West in the nineteenth century scorned effeminate men, they apparently widely practiced same-sex behaviour. Pomeroy contends that overt homosexuality was probably more common among this group than among any other group of males in the United States (p.29-30).
Besen and Zicklin (2007) stipulated that in the United States, several studies have recorded that gays and lesbians are being accepted by more and more citizens. In general, religious institutions are still against it though gay rights are being supported by many different organizations.
Actually, homosexual activities were already legalized in some Western nations in the 1930’s to 1960’s. But gay communities only received limited rights during the mid-1970’s in some developed countries (Wikipedia.org).
As the power of the media flourished, the identity of many homosexuals boomed throughout the world. Through vast screens, homosexuals began to open up their career by entertainment which mostly gave them positive responses.
According to Eguia (1997), the media has evidently affected the perception of individuals towards homosexuals. The show business industry is already populated a fair number of personalities that belong to the third sex. “Where before gays were stereotyped as noisy beauticians and shrieking pimps as portrayed on TV programs, now there is a change in the characters as parents or as good providers for the family as depicted in one of the episodes of ‘Maalaala Mo Kaya’.” (p. 2)
Eguia (1997) went on saying that homosexuals are also proven to be capable of hosting high rated shows, be it entertainment hosting or news reporting which just shows that homosexuals, most especially gays, can effectively draw attention from viewers.
Eguia (1997) was able to conclude from her study, that since young people are mostly exposed to TV programs involving gays, therefore they are more capable of understanding how gays act and socialize with others. They were able to accept that showing gays in TV programs would be a stepping stone in acknowledging gays in the society.
Homosexuals had gradually but successfully entered the art of film. However, there are cases that when homosexuals are being portrayed in films, social factors affected how they are being depicted giving an unrealistic and wrong sense of how homosexuals are. “Religion, being one of the significant influences in cinema, has continuously condemned homosexuality as a sin throughout history” (Teo, 2009, p.1).
Also according to Teo (2009) homosexuals, usually gays, are almost always getting the roles of comical characters especially in the Philippine entertainment industry. Sometimes, the way that they act are so exaggerated that they are almost, if not already, in the verge of being a mockery towards homosexuals.
In addition, Teo (2009) was able to interview Lex Bonife, a screenwriter and cinematographer, who explained that portraying gays with comical or funny characteristics might be the “easiest way to get accepted by the society.”
According to Lora (2008), Joel Lamangan, the director of the film “Manay Po”, has stated that people view gays as “homogenous species”. Lamangan continued to say that what the public don’t understand is that homosexuals are classified differently and that the way they dress and behave aren’t the only reasons for assuming that a person is homosexual.
Furthermore, Eguia (1997) conducted a research on the attitudes of first year highschool students of Jose Memorial State College and Rizal Memorial Institute in Dapitan City towards gays. She used intervening variables specifically, sex, age, school and religion and was able to conclude that the said respondents mostly possess positive attitudes towards gays and that there is a significant relationship between the intervening variables and the attitudes towards gays.
This conclusion was further justified by the researchers Bangot and Perez (2010), who studied on the current responses of undergraduate students of the University of the Philippines in the Visayas Cebu College towards lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. Bangot and Perez (2010) were able to gather and conclude that the following profile of the respondents, the peers, family and exposure to media, had an important role of the level of acceptance and attitudes of the homosexuals.
Through the course of time people are gradually accepting the presence of individuals that are attracted to the same-sex in the community. In our generation today, as numerous homosexuals open up to the public, we could perceive that the interactions of most of the people are surprisingly satisfactory.
Though homosexuals have already received favourable treatments from the people, there are still situations that they fear that their sexual orientation could cost them some rights that are entitled to every human being regardless of character.
For example, with regards to employment, Nugent (1992) stated: “Protection in employment generally implies legislation that makes it illegal either to fire someone solely on the grounds of a homosexual orientation or to refuse to hire an individual for the same reason” (p. 12). Nugent (1992) continued to say: Even if an employer learns about the private sexual behaviour of an employee, that information ought not to be used against the employee unless it can be proven that the behaviour in question seriously affects the ability of the person to fulfill the duties associated with his or her position (p.13).
For Shackelford and Besser (2007), views on homosexuality could also be from a common factor of characteristics which is “Openness to Experience.” On how an individual explores his or her self into the world to experience new ideas and events could help an individual understand himself in order to express further on whom he or she truly is.
The youth are already affected by the conflicting ideas of accepting and supporting gays and condemning or stop tolerating them. Studies show that young men are less tolerant of gays than lesbians (Besen and Zicklin, 2007).
Lora (2008) considered homosexuality as a matter that is greatly involved in most fields in the society, such as literature, religion and politics. Through the course of time, the public’s perception towards homosexual issues underwent changes. Though the people aren’t ignorant about these issues, they tend to believe that it is “too sensitive”.
Gays and lesbians are often associated with the concept of same sex marriage and cross dressing. The sight of men in women’s outfit or the other way round is already common in some countries including the Philippines. Perhaps the most common cross dressers are gays who can usually be seen in beauty parlours and gay bars.
According to J. Neil Garcia, a Filipino journalist, homosexual activities specifically cross dressing and public display of affection among gays and lesbians in the Philippines aren’t actually widely accepted in all social classes because if they were, there would be more of these activities occurring in the country than what the Filipinos are seeing now. Regarding cross dressing in the Philippine history, Garcia stated: “despite Catholicism—with its own sacramental frocks worn by its ‘men of the cloth’—and three hundred years of Spanish colonial rule, cross dressing, effeminacy and gender transitive behaviour never really disappeared in Philippine society” (page 13).
As homosexuals shout out for same-sex marriage to be legalized, they undergo a lot of pressure and hardships. The public continues to rebel on the notion of their marriage because of the negative impact it would cause the society.
For that reason, Jones (2009) created a poll in Gallup in the United States and gathered results revealing that in the year 2009 the percentage of those who opposed to same-sex marriage continues to stay high by 57%. However, those who support for permissible same-sex marriage has considerably grown higher when Gallup initially questioned in the year 1996. It is shown in the survey that it reached up to 46% in 2007.
In a separate poll which was observed by the age level of the people, youthful Americans are seen more supportive to same-sex marriage than older Americans. The majority of ages 18-29 showed support ranging up to 60% while other remaining age groups scored supports up to 40% (Jones, 2009).
Jones (2009) went on saying that though majority of the Americans consider that the government “should not discriminate” gays, the community appears to be hesitant for giving security to the idea of same-sex marriage.
Additionally, there are few states that have lately permitted gay marriage. Even New Hampshire and New York are at present giving an option to legalize gay marriages in their states. Obviously the movement on the rule for gay marriage reaches to the “state level”. As for their President, Obama himself doesn’t give support to it, though he understands that it is not he who decides but must be the states themselves (Jones, 2009).
There is also an issue regarding the kind of language that gays use in casual conversations here in the Philippines and it is already a widespread phenomenon. In the Philippine context, the language used by gays is referred to as “gay lingo”. Saliganan (2000) conducted a research on how the gay lingo used by gay writers in a particular newspaper in Cebu City, which is the Freeman’s Banat News, affect the attitudes towards gays.
Saliganan (2000) tried to find out whether there was a connection between the attitude of her respondents, who are the mass communication students of the University of San Jose Recoletos, towards gays and their exposure to gay lingo in Cebu Local tabloids. Her studies showed that her respondents’ attitudes towards gays aren’t influenced by their exposure to gay lingo in the Freeman’s Banat News.
Saliganan (2000) concluded that it is not significant how much people are exposed to gay lingo because their exposure wouldn’t affect much how the people would view gays. Furthermore, she said that there could be more influential factors than the media which can affect the attitudes of the society towards gays.
In connection to this, Saliganan (2000) believed that because of the gay lingo that is used by several local gay writers, the articles become more interesting and unique. But even though there are people who are entertained by the gay lingo here in the Philippines, there are still those who believe that the usage of gay lingo means obliterating the conventional language resulting in the discrimination towards gays as well as the gay lingo.
Homosexuals are indeed facing numerous challenges in their lives by merely existing which are evident in the information that the researchers gathered. Gramick (1992) stated:
The majority can and often does, reveal its prejudice and intolerance for diversity. Because the majority of individuals feel, react, or believe one way, must all persons do so? As long as the minority group does not harm or infringe on the majority and vice-versa, the two should be able to co-exist peacefully (p. 25).
The sources that the researchers gathered will help them in the analysis of their study. The sources would give them an overview on how and why the view towards homosexuality of the 4th year students of the University of the Philippines Cebu is being attained and constructed. Furthermore, they would know whether there are impacts caused by the variables like religion, education and the media on the views towards homosexuality. The various analyses of some authors and other researchers would finally guide the researchers in finding out and concluding the possible answer to the main problem of the study.
