Male homosexuality in 21st-century thailand, Wijngaarden, Jan W. De Lind Van

A number of explanatory lenses are used in the different book chapters that zoom in on different structuring/explanatory frameworks for making sense of gender and sexuality in Thai cultural contexts, as used and applied by the study participants. The first is Buddhism. Buddhist beliefs and traditional ideas about karma, fate, hierarchy, family, masculinity and femininity played important roles in the young mens childhood understandings about homosexuality and same-sex relations- especially in terms of their cause and morality. The second lens for understanding male homosexuality in Thailand is gender, where men are divided into feminine-oriented bottoms and masculine-oriented tops. A third lens is modernity/the desire to develop and grow, closely linked to Thailands globalizing economy and the increasing role of the Internet and social media. The Internet functioned as an important playground, a platform for trying-out different presentations of the self via Facebook and chat applications - and in many men this resulted in a rejection of their previous self-presentation as effeminate, which they gradually started to associate with being backwards, rural and traditional. The fourth lens is related to economy. Many of the young men in the study searched for romantic relationships based on complementarity and were looking for boyfriends who had something they did not have--money, a better position in society, or wisdom/the ability to guide. Most of the more effeminate men saw their sexuality as valuable, and several of the study participants described in this book - especially those coming from poor families - engaged in sex work and used their youth and beauty to find a wealthy long-term partner, in the hope of lifting their families out of poverty, towards a more prosperous future. The fifth lens is nationalism, or more specifically the concept of being a good Thai; gradually the young men learned that the Thai sense of self and the importance of performing ones role as a good son in public can be used as a strategy to cover-up private behaviors and desires. The sixth and final lens is family. Being good, respecting elders and elder siblings, financially supporting (grand-)parents, having good manners, meaning acting appropriately in time and space, gave the young men a way to retain the respect and support of elders and seniors, and determined how they dealt with (non-)disclosure of their sexuality to their families and others and explained their ability and des