The Cultural Politics of Female Sexuality in South Africa by Gunkel Henriette;

Author:Gunkel, Henriette;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Humanities
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Group
Published: 2010-02-10T00:00:00+00:00

TECHNOLOGIES OF HOMOPHOBIA

So far this chapter has focused on two different power relations within the homosocial-homosexual continuum: the power of heterosexual men over each other and the power of men over women. As previously indicated, homophobia is a crucial element of homosocial structures, inscribed within the power of heterosexual men over people who are identified as being gay/ queer. According to Sedgwick homophobia is not used to sanction individuals and their behavior. It is rather “about the regulation of heterosexual men” (Storr in Sedgwick 2003, 44). This has been already argued in the first chapter of this book in relation to Sinfield’s (1994) work on masculinity and the nation-state.

In the context of apartheid South Africa this is, again, apparent within the structures of the South African Defence Force (SADF) in which the conception of white masculinity as a militarized form of masculinity needed to be contested institutionally, not only in relation to political non-conformity, but also in relation to gay men—and, to a certain extent, against lesbians.14 Responding to information submitted to the health sector hearings of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that unfolded human rights abuses in the military, Van Zyl et al. (1999) documented medical treatment of gay men and lesbians within the SADF by army health professionals and medics between 1967 and 1991.15 The research focuses in particular on the psychiatric unit that was established in 1969 within the South African Medical Services—in order to deal with, not only “combatrelated mental problems” and clinical disorder in a time when the war(s) intensified, the length of service increased and the size of armed forces expanded (Resister No 47 in Van Zyl et al. 1999, 132), but with any other form of non-conformity, ranging from political resistance to drug ‘abuse’ to being gay.

While homosexuality was not tolerated among permanent force members, it was not considered as grounds for exemption for conscription into the SADF either. It was, nevertheless, seen as a ‘disease’ requiring medical treatment, handled internally rather than via the civil courts. Conscripts who were suspected of being gay were “encouraged to ‘confess’ their deviance, and submit for treatment [ … ] in the psychiatric unit” (Van Zyl et al. 1999, v)—usually with the aim of converting them to heterosexuality (Van Zyl et al. 1999, 45). Gay conscripts were ‘treated’ for homosexuality using aversion electric shock therapy (at least until 1980), hormonal treatment, and/or punishment which consisted of, for example, being sent to the notorious labor camp Greefswald.16 These ‘treatments’ took place without full consent and often had long-lasting effects on the ‘patient.’17 But the ‘care’ did not end there. Paul Kirk, for example, highlights the practice of forced sex assignment surgeries in cases of ‘unsuccessful’ aversion therapies—meaning cases where the conscript did not ‘successfully’ turn to heterosexuality after ‘treatment’—arguing that at least fifty operations were performed on conscripts per year between 1971 and 1989 (Kirk 2000b, 4).18

Sexuality was a crucial element to various forms of punishment within the military, that is, above and beyond these explicit attacks against homosexuality.

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