The following, where I do not directly quote, is my paraphrasing of Herdt as my knowledge of the culture is a result of reading a few chapters of his, assigned for a class I am taking. As my copy of said chapters is a photocopy, I do not know from which of his works it comes.
The Sambia of
New Guinea have a sense of sexuality that is strange and exotic from Western eyes. Every man spends his youth - from about age 11
(correction: they go in around age 8) to about age 17 - performing secret and ritualistic fellatio on older men (women do not know about this). When they are around marrying age and pass through a particular ritual to the next stage of becoming a man, they receive fellatio from younger boys. Sambia women do not menstruate until between 16 and 19 years of age, and if they marry before menstruation, they perform fellatio on their husbands until they are fully mature. A boy is not a man until after his first two children are born.
Once they become men, the Sambia drink the sap of certain trees to replenish their semen supplies, which are seen as of limited quantity. Semen is a central symbol of power, strength, and growth in Sambia culture.
This all seems very, very strange to the Western world. Our conceptions of homo- and hetero-sexuality make an institutional switch from homo- to bi- to hetero-sexuality across the lifespan seem totally...fucked up. BUT, if we learn about the assumptions under which Sambia society operates, their actions make perfect, logical sense. This is because all normal (not mentally ill or retarded) humans behave according to the same
If...Then logic, but very different assumptions. I argue that if we understand the assumptions, we will see most human behavior as logical (at least at a societal/institutional level). (I do not use logic as a necessarily positive or negative word: understanding does not mean condoning. I am not attempting to draw any moral conclusions about the Sambia or any other culture, and, conversely, I am not arguing for a neutral, culturally relativistic approach to culture either. I simply mean to look at human logic.)
The assumption underlying Sambia sexuality is that semen must be attained, and is then of very limited supply. They believe that semen creates life, growth, maturity and strength. Women are seen as naturally maturing, due to their "blood organ", but men must be
made men. Because semen is not made by the male body, it must be put into the male body. When a boy performs fellatio on a man, he is receiving the man's semen. The semen makes him grow, and eventually hit puberty and mature physically. What does not go into growth of the body is stored in the boy's "semen pool". When the pool is full, it is expressed through "wet dreams". This is a major sign of sexual maturity, and having performed enough fellatio.
When a young bachelor acquires a wife who is not menstruating, he can give her strength and maturity by allowing her to drink his semen (perform fellatio). This hastens the process of becoming reproductively mature, although many women do so without the aid of semen. Thereafter, semen is stored by the female body and eventually turned into breast milk, which helps the infant to grow and mature.
Procreation is not a one-shot process, either. The semen of the husband must be added to and stored by the female body until a baby starts to form. The mother's blood gives the baby its blood, but the semen creates all bone structure and flesh. Thus, the strength of the man is given to his wife and child by his semen. Sex with women is seen as taking much more strength from the man than oral sex with a boy. When men marry and begin having regular sex with their wives to build up a baby, they must get semen from tree sap to replenish the source (it is not appropriate for men to perform fellatio). The sap trees are on their land, which has been passed down from their ancestors, and their semen goes into their children's growth and sexual maturity, thus the circle of fertility and life is passed through the generations.
"In male subjectivity...strength is a transactional product that makes use of the father's secret sexual acquisition of semen from other men, which he feeds to his wife, whose body, in turn, has a natural capacity to store the fluid and turn it into breast food that strengthens and matures the infant."
This is a much more complicated process of social interaction than I indicate here, as some women believe that they make their own breast milk, but others don't, and some men enjoy sex with boys for its own sake and others don't, and I have not even touched upon the concept of sexual enjoyment, orgasm and sexual play. But my point is that IF a society believes that semen is of limited quantity, that it can be stored in the body for later use, that it is necessary for a boy to get it from somewhere, and that it creates growth, strength, and sexual maturity in both sexual partners and offspring, THEN Sambia culture makes complete sense. Homosexual activity in boys in
necessary because of their understanding of how a boy becomes a sexually mature adult. The man can enjoy it and the boy can enjoy it (not all do), but, unless an alternative way to put semen in the body was created, it would happen even if both found it unpleasant. The boy receives what he needs to make babies, which is necessary for becoming a man. The man gives his semen to a boy who will then make children with the man's strength, thus spreading his masculine potency around the society and reinforcing bonds between the boy's kin group and the man's. (Often the boy is the man's wife's little brother, and his making the boy a man strengthens relations between the kin groups leading to supporting each other in war in the future and the boy possibly giving his daughter to the man's kin group of the next generation).
This is the most basic of overviews of Sambia sexuality, and in reality it is much more complicated than this as it involves spirituality, war, politics and just about every other aspect of life. But my point is that institutionalized homosexuality serves a major function in the development of each individual man AND strengthens bonds within the society. Institutionalized homosexuality is LOGICAL if you believe that sperm must be attained and sustained.
This is only one example of something exotic, strange, and counterintuitive for Westerners, but I do not believe that there is any cultural practice or institution that does not make sense given the assumptions involved. We all have the same brains, but we have very different information in them. Whether or not this universal logic applies to the individual, I am not sure. But I do believe that it applies to group goals and motivations for behavior. If this is the way it is (assumption) then we must do this (behavior).
If we do not understand the actions of another culture or group, we are missing information about their assumptions. I am tempted to say, but need more time to think about it: You cannot change the behavior of a group until you change the assumed world-view. Hmm...
