Sambia Sexual Culture: Essays from the Field

Gilbert Herdt, Sexual Culture: Essays from the Field, Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1999, xi + 327 pages.Reviewer: Andrew P. LyonsWilfrid Laurier UniversityTwenty years have now passed since the publication of Guardians of the Flutes which was arguably the best ethnographic examination of sexuality since Malinowski's Sexual Life of Savages. Gilbert Herdt returned to New Guinea several times until 1993 when a nearly fatal bout of malaria led him to curtail his visits. This volume draws on those later field trips. Herdt re-examines and develops themes which he first discussed in Guardians. He also discusses the significance of his work not only for social anthropology but also for the Gay Liberation Movement. All of the nine essays in the volume originally appeared elsewhere and most readers will have read a few of them already. However, they fit very well together, and the author has contributed an excellent theoretical introduction. Readers unacquainted with Herdt's ethnography should note that it describes a population which prescribed homoerotic fellatio as a necessary part of male social development. There was no sexual play in the period prior to initiation. Prepubertal youths in the first stages of initiation were fellators; adolescents in the third stage of initiation were fellated by the younger boys. Marriage to females occured at the end of the initiation cycle. These customs reflected a system of thought in which mature male sexuality was tenuously achieved and always threatened by feminine, specifically menstrual pollution. An adequate supply of sperm was stored in the growing boy as a result of fellation. The receipt of sperm in heterosexual intercourse enabled women to produce breast milk.The notes on the book cover describe Herdt as a renowned anthropologist, a description which may provoke some jealousy but which does attest to his achievement. Until 1980 the anthropology of sexuality occupied a marginal place in our discipline. This was partly because sexuality was excluded by existing paradigms such as structural-functionalism and cultural ecology, and, more surprisingly, by later developments in psychological anthropology. In large measure this was because there was little middle ground between sociological approaches which regarded sexuality as too natural, too universal (see p. 4) and too threatening to sociological method to be worthy of consideration, and behaviouristic or ethological approaches which are neglectful of social meanings Within anthropology the study of sexuality could only be subsumed under such headings as kinship and gender.Another cause of neglect was the degree of professional, political and humanitarian risk involved in such investigations. Esther Newton has complained that her work on drag-queens was not regarded as legitimate research (Newton, 2000: 223). Of course the homosexual student of sexuality faces additional barriers. Sometimes they reflect pure prejudice; on other occasions biases may be more subtle. Kath Weston (1998: 189-211) has complained that her own work on lesbian sexuality within the USA has led to a degree of professional marginalization (such research, argue critics is not real fieldwork).Very often, the disclosure of information may be perceived as harmful to populations and individuals who are subject to the surveillance of outsiders as well as exploitation by sexual tourists. Such reports may also embarrass cultural insiders who wish to distance themselves from tribal traditions. It is for this reason that Herdt disguised the identity of the Sambia of the Eastern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Last but not least the obtaining of information on matters sexual involves the establishing and affirming of a degree of trust which is most difficult to create as well as linguistic skills of a high order. There is no society without sexual taboos; there are few without rules of privacy or secrecy with respect to some matters. …

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