ABSTRACT
Across the world there are peoples and cultures that acknowledge and accept the existence of same-gender desire among their own kind. The traditional forms of same-gender homoerotic relations examined in these pages are distinctive totalities, sexual cultures, which embody lifeways. But a culture that regards homosexuality as a form of Otherness too alien to live near or love—as a sin, a disease, or a crime, as an immoral or antisocial act—makes life much harder not only to live but also to survive for those named as Other. In American society the vulgar expression of sexual chauvinism and sexual moralism depicts heterosexuals as all "good" and homosexuals as all "bad," angels and devils. In other cultures we have seen that sexual lifeways do not always look like those of the identities "gay" and "lesbian" as these are defined in the United States and similar western nations.
