wiseheart: (Default)
wiseheart ([personal profile] wiseheart) wrote2004-08-14 10:15 pm
Entry tags:

Samoa Queens

I've just watched a highly interesting documentary film about Fa'afafine on Samoa: men who live like women.

Apparently, if there aren't enough girls in a family, they simply raise a few boys as girls. They dress like girls, move like girls, speak like girls and do work that is traditionally assigned to women in Samoan society.

As girls are rigorously guarded by their families, young Samoan men have their first sexual encounters with Fa'afafine. These are straight men, who later marry and have traditional families. Fa'afafine consider themselves heterosexual women, despite their different... equipment and are sometimes called "the third gender" of Samoa.

They are also fully accepted, even by the Catholic church of Samoa - as long as they don't live with a man as a couple. I don't know what Rome says to it, but as the priest interviewed in the documentary said about such a couple: "I consider them as friends. What they are doing during the night - how can I know?"

I only found German links. For those who understand German, here is one:
http://www.arte-tv.com/de/wissen-entdeckung/geo-360/605538.html

Arte-tv is a joint French-German company, BTW.

Edit: I googled for the thing and did find English links, after all. Try this:

http://www.the-sisterhood.net/transworldnews/id57.html

[identity profile] larian.livejournal.com 2004-08-14 02:14 pm (UTC)(link)
Wow, couldn't some of the ...industrialized nations take a lesson from that!

[identity profile] earonn.livejournal.com 2004-08-14 10:47 pm (UTC)(link)
Ah, so you saw the report I've missed. Some time ago I heard of these (wo)men already, an interesting principle, though I wonder what the men chosen to live as women think about it - after all, it doesn't seem as if they were only homosexual in any way.
The priest's statement and acceptance by the catholic church was a (highly welcome) surprise for me. And a good reminder that the wide-spread prejudice against the church considering (homo)sexuality hasn't much to do with reality.
To make this less serious: just imagine Elrond raised as a woman to please...oh, Eru! ;))))

[identity profile] jilba.livejournal.com 2004-08-15 03:42 am (UTC)(link)
Fascinating. More societies should take a leaf from this book. I think it's a wonderful solution to an age-old problem, and yes, the rest of the Church should sit up and take notice.