Anthropology and Homosexuality

This has been concealed from the general public, but now the veil of ignorance is finally lifted. Last academic year we had an Economic Anthropology course in SSE Riga, quite refreshing after the Fin Economics torment. As a part of this course, students are required to do some field research. In teams of two, people usually behave silly somewhere in public and record responses from other people. Some pretend to be stealing wallets, some investigate lifestyle of the homeless, and some walk their dogs in random places. Me and Mārtiņš set out to explore attitudes towards homosexuality in Rīga.

How did we do that? Very simple.  We took two same sex couples, one male and one female, and let them be intimately friendly in the public. We also carefully recorded responses from people who saw them holding hands, hugging and kissing each other. It was absolutely hilarious!  Behaviour of the male couple evoked disgust, resentment, and overt outrage. You would not find your life easy in Riga if you were a homosexual, and here is why:

The Maxima Episode

The male couple entered Maxima and started their shopping. They were soon noticed by one salesperson who was chatting with a security guard. They both started laughing and did not hide that they were very entertained. It two minutes the management of the shop to came from their offices to look at our couple and spy on, if we translate it from Russian,  „those gays“.  In three minutes all the people already knew that our participants were in the shop, even strangers shared the information. What is strange, our couple did not suspect being in the centre of attention even though the observer could hear open laughter in the background. The efficiency of spreading the information was striking -  people wanted to reassure themselves that homosexuality is still totally inacceptable – which they did through pointing fingers and chatting about how odd and inapropriate their behaviour was. The guys bought a pack of condoms and some dog food.

Girls did better though. It was more or less acceptable to walk holding hands or to hug another female, although most other women correctly recognized the homosexual behaviour. Men had to see the girls kissing to get the idea, and generally were very happy to see a female couple making out (well, the researchers were not upset either).

The research has little validity, can hardly be generalized, and definitely has the worst Cronbach alphas ever, but:

Major Findings

• Male homosexuality is perceived as far more evil than female homosexuality.
• Women are better in spotting homosexual behaviour, especially female couples.
• In order to conceal the fact that they are staring at our couples, men constantly looked sideways (so that they would get short glimpses at our couples) and women focused their sight slightly aside (so that they could use their peripheral vision).
• Individual people were puzzled and disoriented when they saw our couples. Groups, however, quickly formed their (negative) opinion about the couples.
• Mildly speaking, service quality is not the best if you happen to go shopping with your same sex partner.
• We had a very entertaining day, huge thanks to all involved in this research!

And it seems that Latvian society is not the only homophobic society there is:

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