For some decades, scholars have assumed gay identities and gay cultures have forms that are historically, culturally and geographically specific. Most research is however done from the perspective of one specific place and time and the few examples of cross-cultural comparison have been quite unsatisfactory. Gay culture is circumscribed as the social and spatial organization of sexual practices between males and the representations of these practices. Research will stress the spatial organization of gay cultures because gay culture needs a space to be expressed. The embedment of gay space and culture in public space and general culture will be a central focus of the project.
Margins illuminate what are the sexual rules and boundaries of a culture.
At the same time and amazingly, it is precisely the marginal style that develops very succesfully on a global scale. Strong social and sexual relations have developed among gay men around the world. An international gay culture has come into existence that has everywhere its local flavours. In this project, local organiz- ations of gay space are compared, as are local and global gay cultures. The focus is on urban cultures because gay cultures in general have their sites in the city and not in the countryside.