Greetings Economists, On Sep 25, 2007, at 11:22 PM, Mohammad Maljoo wrote:
There is no definitive statistics, but about 5 percent of Iranian populations are gays and lesbians.
Doyle, Well I think Jim's point applies to this guess. Being gay or lesbian is a cultural construct. One is not born gay. A society that defines same sex as evil will probably inculcate in everyone the sense "I don't do that" so there is 'no' gay or lesbian. Except don't ask don't tell comes into play. That means a society that 'forbids' same sex can't admit anything so what people do is not socially acceptable and therefore there is 'no' gay or lesbian. That said, I would point out that 'gay and lesbian' is not a fixed identity. I've run into myself quite a bit of people who don't see themselves as 'gay' but 'queer'. I used to think my own selected label, bisexual, effectively made me fluid in identity, but the term is a technical almost medical term that socially doesn't represent self definition in the sense of queer. Whereas for me 'queer' I associate with derogatory names and physical attacks which I'm not particularly interested in 'renaming'. Anyway I digress. These identities are not fixed amounts, especially if the society dynamics is based upon the knowledge production methods of different religions and cultures. The fixed amount is related to the cultural stability of the big institutions like religion that define how we 'know' each other in a given society. I think one might if one could trace social dynamics see how social institutions will give some space to some people to practice same sex, and not others. And predict how many people could be labeled gay. But the caveat is a revolutionary society would redo those dynamics so the definition is not fixed. It cannot really be fixed. Yes this means choice, not born. No we don't understand what real social change would give us. Primarily we don't understand how knowledge production is related to sexual connection. If revolutionary change comes out of language production practices, that doesn't impact sexual connection, because the mode of thinking are distinct. One being talk, one being feel. So as by product, the social change must somehow come to grips with distinct modes of 'knowledge'. We tend to call these areas 'private', but I think it rather a question of 'mobile' computing and how that works. Knowing all the time instead of in just discrete ways like a book. The boundless boundaries of 24 hour a day knowing. That strongly breaks with religious concepts like private personal relations to god. Which breaks the concept of gay and lesbian. thanks, Doyle Saylor
