Scandinavian Homosexualities

Book excerpt: Scandinavian Homosexualities offers non-Scandinavian readers a rare opportunity to explore the history, sociology, notions, experiences, and cultural politics of homosexuality in Scandinavian societies in English. This unique insight into some of the most advanced countries in regard to institutionalized civil rights for lesbians and gays will help you direct change and progress in your own country. Chapters in Scandinavian Homosexualities draw from a range of theoretical and methodological strands to give you an overall picture of homosexuality in Scandinavian society. They cover a wide range of issues, including: traditions and practices in the legal regulation of same-sex sexuality the historically changing understanding of femininity and masculinity physical, social, and cultural niches of same-sex desire and sexual conduct theoretical approaches to individual experiences of sexual and erotic self In Scandinavian Homosexualities, you’ll come to see the cultural and social differences that exist between Scandinavian and Anglo-American societies. Specifically, you’ll see how differences in the culture of gender and sexuality may bear upon our scholarly theories and conceptualizations of homosexuality and on our analysis of sexual and gender politics. In many of the chapters there is, thus, an agenda to encourage comparisons among Western societies. The Scandinavian countries are among the most advanced in the world with regard to institutionalized civil rights of lesbians and gays. They are also, which is relevant for analyses of sexuality and homosexuality, societies where men and women are exceptionally equal in access to social, economic, and cultural resources. You can directly apply what you learn in Scandinavian Homosexualities of the cultural specificities of gender and sexuality in Scandinavian societies to your efforts to establish equality for same-sex relationships within your own culture.