Semen Warriors Of New Guinea

Semen Warriors Of New Guinea
For them, 'gays in the military' is a necessity
by Hank Hyena Published September 16, 1999 in Whoa!

Sometimes, culture shock is inevitable. Consider the following:
See also...
... by Hank Hyena
... in the Whoa! section
... from September 16, 1999

An essay by anthropologist Gilbert Herdt, editor of Ritualized
Homosexuality in Melanesia and the author of Sambia Sexual Culture,
shows how radically different cultural perceptions of a proper
masculine upbringing can be.

Bizarre homosexual rites are practiced extensively by numerous
Melanesian tribesmen in New Guinea and adjacent islands. Young boys
must "accumulate" semen for several years, either by regularly
receiving anal penetration, or by swallowing the ejaculations of older
males they fellate. This ancient custom springs from a religious
belief system that regards sperm as the essential conduit of masculine
energy; puny boys, they believe, are only transformed into virile
warriors if they ingest large quantities of sperm.

"If you boys don't drink semen, you won't grow big," a Sambian elder
tells prepubescent initiates. "You should not be afraid of eating
penises ... it is just like the milk of your mother's breast. You can
ingest it all of the time and grow quickly. A boy must be ...
inseminated... If doesn't eat semen, he remains small and weak."

Ten to twenty percent of all tribes in Melanesia -- an Oceania region
stretching 3,000 miles from Irian Jaya to Fiji -- have mandatory
"boy-inseminating" practices, claims Herdt. Boys here are separated
from their mothers when they are 7-14 years old, and installed in
"bachelor's houses."

The Marind-anim of Southwest New Guinea -- who were ruthless
headhunters -- give the boys to maternal uncles who "top" them in anal
intercourse for six years. The nearby Jacquai tribe refers to the
adult penetrator as "mo-e" (anus-father) and the receiving child as
"mo-mog" (anus-son). Big Namba chiefs of the New Hebrides Islands have
numerous boy lovers; the Keraki of the Papuan lowlands sodomize lads
at a bull-roarer ceremony; and the Great Plateau Kaluli "engage"
youths to older men selected by their fathers.

Although many boys tremble initially ("I felt afraid... the penises
were enormous," recalls Kalutuo, a Sambian from the Eastern Highlands)
they all adjust quickly, because they believe semen is an elixir for
manhood.

Many tribes -- like the Etoro of the Papuan Plateau -- claim that
semen does not even exist in boys until it is orally or anally
"planted."

This myth seems valid to tribesmen because boys start ejaculating when
they achieve adolescence -- they are allowed to penetrate younger boys
then, to maintain the tradition.

The "butching" of Melanesian boys with homoerotic activity is not
unique in the annals of history. Spartan soldiers were carnal
tent-comrades when they conquered Greece in the Peloponnesian War.
They believed genital bonding between buddies enhanced battlefield
loyalty and valor. The warlike Romans -- Mediterranean masters for 500
years -- were also a pederastic people. Catullus' poems reveal
that men seeking boys' bottoms were not regarded as sissies; the habit
was at least as "studly" as pursuing women.

The aggressive, arrogant, sperm-sucking warriors of Melanesia would
probably agree with Spartans and Romans that the current "gays in
the military" phobia is laughably obtuse; physical love between GIs,
they would suggest, is beneficent for morale. Gay male lust is often
castigated as "feminizing" in Western society, but Melanesians in
Herdt's studies refute this: the sole purpose of homosexuality in
their culture is to create "a fierce warrior masculinity that is the
inverse of femininity."

The New Guinea data contradicts the religious fundamentalists who
regard same-sex desire as a decadent post-civilized vice. Melanesians
subsist on yams and superstitions -- they are among the Earth's most
primitive peoples.

"Semen warrior tribes" are rapidly disappearing, due to oppression
imposed on them by Christian European colonialists in the last 150
years. The "heroic homosexual" customs will probably vanish soon,
buried under the inhibitions and scientific knowledge promulgated by
missionaries and bureaucrats.

Herdt's observations will remain, though, as documentary evidence of
an institutionalized queer culture that is often incestuous, always
non-consensual, and impelled by erroneous nutritional assumptions. One
wonders, though, whether the Melanesian model is actually any weirder
than the vast, civilized, imaginary construct that modern humanity
flutters inside, like a bird imprisoned in an invisible cage.

Hank Hyena is a columnist for SfGate and SfMetropolitan, and a
frequent contributor to Salon.