-
MEN’S SEXUALITY AND WOMEN’S SEXUALITY
0
One of the most striking aspects of the anthropological literature on sexuality is the near-universal concern that men have about pollution or contamination resulting from contact with women. The Kaluli men of Papua New Guinea repeatedly warned anthropologist Schieffelin against sleeping with his wife and pointed to Schieffelin’s clumsiness on the trail as a result of such indiscretion (Schieffelin). The Kaluli men share the same concern as the men of the Central Highlands of New Guinea, as reported by Read: “In their view of the world, too close and constant an association with the opposite sex, even with one’s own wife, could impair a man’s vigor or retard his growth during the critical years of adolescence”. Mead generalizes that for all of Polynesia, “all women, and especially menstruating women, are considered contaminating and dangerous”. Suggs found this to be the case in the Marquesas; men would refuse sex during menstruation for a variety of reasons. Impotence might result, and they also voiced complaints against the practice on aesthetic grounds (Suggs). Tahitian males consider menstrual blood dangerous (Levy). The Fulani of Upper Volta designate menstruation with a phrase which, literally translated, means “to see dirt” (Riesman). Fulani women cannot pray during their menstrual periods. Menstruation and its associations seem to stand as the basis for the Fulani’s radical separation of male and female spheres, women being naturally weaker. Navajo women of the American Southwest cannot conduct a chant while menstruating (Bailey). The Navajo have an interesting paradox: although it is dangerous to have intercourse with a menstruating woman, to do so increases the likelihood of pregnancy (Bailey). In native South America, we find Mehinaku men who see menstrual blood as especially dangerous, capable of causing sickness and cramps in men.
Schieffelin observes from Kaluli:
Those women are weaker and less dynamic than men, that they are slow and clumsy and know less, is part of the same general condition of debility they manifest in menstruation. And this condition is dangerous to men because it is capable of destroying their manhood. The man who spends too much time in the woman’s section . . . who touches his wife too often or who eats food a woman has stepped over is likely to become emaciated, develop a cough, or lose his endurance on the trail.
The implication here is that menstrual blood or menstruation is not dangerous per se; it is symbolic of the weakness or danger that men more generally attribute to women. That Schieffelin’s clumsiness on the trail could be attributed by the Kaluli to his sharing a bed with his wife indicates a more general cultural separation between strength and weakness and agility and clumsiness that ascribes success to men but places blame on women. After all, a man should be able to negotiate a trail smoothly by nature; should a man falter, he is suspected of female contamination. Schieffelin, who knows he is clumsy by nature, sees the irony and sexism in the Kaluli men’s comments, and states: “It struck me as poignant irony that the person on whom a man most depends in his domestic household and whom he usually holds in his affections is also the one most dangerous to his vitality”.
Because the pattern is so pervasive and consistent in male/female antagonism, one might conclude that there are important, cross-societal universals about men and women. Although such a claim can be substantiated, to do so would be to miss the point about context. Many of these societies seem to be built on a “we/ they” male opposition; the “we” is generally the male domain, and the “they” consists of women, who some of the time are incorporated into “we” but usually are treated as a weaker, more dangerous “they.”
*131/187/5*
Related Posts:
Tags: Men’s Health
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.