Go Home, Gay Boy! Or, Why Do Singaporean Gay Men Prefer to “Go Home” and Not “Come Out”?

摘要

Anglo-American ontologies posit that gay men should come out to match their outer selves with their inner ones. In Confucianized Singapore, however, gay men refrain from coming out to their parents to avoid shaming their families. Instead, they couch their homosexuality in kinship terms and “go home” with their boyfriends (Chou, 20006. Chou , W.-S. 2000 . Tongzhi: Politics of same-sex eroticism in Chinese societies , Binghamton, NY : Haworth Press . View all references). “Going home” gains familial acceptance, but it does not challenge mainstream discourses of homosexuality. By examining how Singaporean gay men negotiate their sexuality with their families, I question the validity of coming out and going home as both ontological discourses and strategies.View full textDownload full textKeywordsAnglo-American self, coming out, Confucian self, going home, SingaporeRelated var addthis_config = { ui_cobrand: "Taylor & Francis Online", services_compact: "citeulike,netvibes,twitter,technorati,delicious,linkedin,facebook,stumbleupon,digg,google,more", pubid: "ra-4dff56cd6bb1830b" }; Add to shortlist Link Permalink http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2011.581930