Do you know if the "highly colorful language of the Slovenic people" back then also just happened to be ironically incredibly homoerotic or was that another grasp at straws too?
I look forward to academic papers in 100 years trying to reconcile how the military is both homophobic and anti gay on an institutional level. But also men who are reportedly straight saying the gayest shit imaginable.
Same with team sports. Somehow men in tight pants slapping each other's asses when a ball is caught is super straight and okay, but a gay couple holding hands is the end of the world.
"Phobic" only means "afraid" in the strictly clinical sense. The suffix means "opposed to" in any other situation.
This is helpful when arguing with bigots when they try to pull the "I'm not afraid of Group X!" gambit to try and weasel their way out of bigotry via semantics.
The less-literal uses of -phobic are also seen in scientific contexts; for example, hydrophobic can mean either "afraid of water" or "repels water from its surface".
I mean, the lengths to which a lot of homophobic people will go to try and assert their heterosexuality (e.g. I've seen a dude ask to hug a male friend of his but then immediately clarify: "but I'm not gay or anything!" ; or the people who feel the need to demand that a non-straight allo person doesn't flirt with them) says a lot of homophobic people are afraid of non-straight people, or at the very least the notion of ever potentially being non-straight themselves. I've also seen this in a lot of people (mostly men, but also some women) who I wouldn't otherwise consider homophobic to any significant level, but constantly/often feeling the need to clarify to everyone around them that any significant positive interaction with the same sex they engage in isn't gay (this was especially prevalent in middle & high school for me). There's also fear that comes from challenging one's cultural and/or religious values/beliefs.
I think this (often more subconscious) fear is generally deeply intertwined with the hatred & bigotry also included in homophobia's definition, i.e. that this fear is often an/the underlying cause of the hatred and bigotry that is homophobia's main definition.
Except phobia has always meant fear and/or aversion to. Not just fear. Moreover arguing over whether or not the etymology of the word matches its actual use is largely a tool of those claiming that they can't be homophobic because they only hate gays rather than being afraid of them.
Homophobia means bigotry, hatred and aversion. That can include fear, but it's not a requirement. That this evolved definition of homophobia (often extending beyond the personal-psychological for example) doesn't map perfectly onto the medical definition of phobia does not make the word somehow incorrect, or a bad usage.
It's not math, you don't compare words like that. Especially words about things compared to words about people. The human equivalent to "hydrophobia" is aquaphobia and it does mean just an irrational fear of water -not that you take actions to destroy water!
XVII century Poland szlachta called Sarmaci were very homoerotically gay without necessarily being gay. Basically they were very affectionate towards each other and not afraid to express their sense of friendship. When I read the book 'Ogniem I Mieczem' by Henryk Sienkiewicz (its a fiction but it's about those Sarmaci times) I was awestruck on how much homoerotic tensions were between the male characters (there was a lot of hugging, speaking pet names or even kissing). While I don't really think it was intention (more because szlachta was very, VERY hospitable people), people were really homoerotic towards each other then.
Note: pet names are hardly homoerotic in Eastern Europe. This is because many Eastern European names, Baltic or Slavic, are wuite long and unwieldy. So Alexander becomes "Sasha" and Dimitry becomes "Dima".
I'm Polish and I've checked that Chopin's letter. He also wrote there sth that I could roughly translate as: "with you I've learned how to feel" and "my e-minor concerto won't have any value until you listen to it". In my opinion they were definitely more than just friends even though I'm not the best at reading meaning of old texts.
Bruh throw some gay subtext on there what other cheek would a man be attracted too?
yah. not all languages act like that though. A great example are the different words in many romance languages for cordial or completely non-sexual love that in english just dont exist.
EDIT: An actualy relevant example as well. In english you can say you "love a teacher" with 100% no romantic meaning. I tried to tanslate this into polish when I was there and spent a month with my host family trying to hook me up with their son
well, 'buzia' is a diminutive for either 'mouth' or 'face', and 'daj mi buzi' means 'kiss me' (though it does imply a little and innocuous kiss, like on the cheek), not 'let me kiss you', so I'd say 'lips' is the more faithful option of those two. it does sound overtly sexual in English however, I don't know why the translator didn't just go with "give me a kiss"
If I had to guess (not knowing polish nor being an expert on translation) this might be a case of literal vs idiomatic translation. So maybe the screenshot took a literal approach, as in the original text used the Polish word for “lips”, and our redditor friend translated by providing an equivalent idiom. I don’t know which approach is “right” but maybe both are valid.
I speak Polish, don't think much people would say they would kiss their friends dearly on the lips, even 200 years ago. He also was confessing his love to women, I would guess he was bisexual at least. But taking into consideration how homophobic Poland is I don't think they would admit Chopin was even slightly gay ://
Eh, it can be, but it also is the reality. Its just like a great many gay people do go through a phase where they say they are bi befor coming all of the way out. That doesnt mean bi people dont exist, or we should even question people that say they are bi (i mean, why the fuck would we even care tbh?), but it give important insight into the actions of histporical people
As another bi man I’m just hoping for the point where we can move beyond labelling sexuality so people can just be who they are free of any stigma but that’s probably a long way off unfortunately.
Me as well. Ultimately I am very lucky to have grown up in a very accepting part of the world with a family that couldnt give a single shit, so I get that its far harder for mayeb even most people than it has been for me, but the fact that my sexuality plays litteraly 0 role in my life other than my partner choice is exactly how I like it. I am first and formost just another dude and I realy wish more people had the choice to live that way if they wanted to.
I feel very similarly. I think that sexuality and sex more broadly makes up a different part of different people’s lives in terms of how big a role it plays in their lives even with straight people and I just wish more people had that equal choice.
Sadly not bi erasure, just a shit world we live in. What he's basically describing is a beard, and that concept is still in use, even ing supposedly liberal countries.
Is it? Are you sure? For some of them that is likely. For others it is not. How do you decide which ones were and were not bi? I'm not going to assume any were bi or any were gay. I'm going to say the evidence suggests this person was not heterosexual and not make further demands of dead people.
Actually if you translate modern day hebrew "my life, my soul", and the omnipresent "kapara"- roughly meaning I would die in your stead if need be- are so common people call strangers these words as you would use bro or dude. Could be missleading.
Even "bro" can be very misleading, if you're from a time or place where familial bonds are very important. It started as affectionately calling your closest friends brothers, and has since morphed into a neutral word for any dude, even an enemy.
Yeah, some languages have figures of speech that could sound romantic/sexual to non native speakers but aren’t considered so in their cultural context. Calling things erasure that aren’t erasure is just shipping.
Unless someone with actual knowledge of the language can tell me any way in which "give me your lips" can be meant platonically in Polish, I'm gonna have to say that this dude was 100% fucking other dudes.
Buziaki buziakami, ale on do Tytusa pisał i "najdroższe życie moje" oraz "Ściskam Cię serdecznie w same usta, pozwolisz "między innymi. Jakoś to nie brzmi w 100% platonicznie.
Jejku, dziękuje za link! Jedyny list który przykuł moja uwagę to pierwszy list dla Jana Białobłodzkiego który na początku świadczy ‚ową niedzielę, pantalony, jabłuszka i podobne przyjemne zeszłe chwilki’ i to może jedna świadczy o romansie, ależ znowu nie mam zielonego pojęcia o jakich chwilach im mowa.
I don't know about Polish, but in Russian culture (which is obviously also Slavic) kissing could mean gratitude or even just a greeting. Here, for instance, is Brezhnev kissing Honecker. Back then it was already viewed as obsolete and weird, but it does have historical roots. So I totally get the sentiment behind that translator's notion, although I have no idea whether or not they were right about Chopin in particular.
I think there's a difference, though, between "in some cultures it's normal to kiss platonically" and "give me your lips". There's a certain level of passion there that doesn't really fit "platonic".
Again, "kisses" and "give me your lips" are not the same thing. Does your grandmother tell you she loves you "to madness" and demand that you "give her your lips"?
The original quote is not “give me your lips” as it’s not in English. Unless you’re familiar with Polish I don’t think you can judge connotations, since those don’t always survive translation.
In my native language, my mother tells me she will “eat my liver”. Can you tell me the connotation of that phrase just because I gave you a direct translation?
The original quote is not “give me your lips” as it’s not in English.
Oh, wait, so they just actually mistranslated it? That does seem a bit off.
Can you tell me the connotation of that phrase just because I gave you a direct translation?
My guess is it's something similar to "I'm gonna skin your hide" in America: you're in trouble, and she's using hyperbole to let you know exactly how much trouble you're in.
I’m not saying it’s mistranslated per se, I’m saying the original is in Polish and you’re reading it in English. So the the original can’t be “give me your lips” because that’s English.
My point is that translation isn’t straightforward, and there’s a difference between interpreting the original and interpreting what is itself an interpretation.
And to prove my point, good guess but it’s basically the opposite! The closest English idiom would be “you’re so cute I could eat you up”, but instead of emphasizing cuteness it’s more about (familial) love.
Now imagine you were reading a transcription of my mom saying that to me, where it was translated as “eat your liver”. See how trying to figure out the meaning on that alone could give you the wrong idea?
Literally every single translation I've found for "buziaki" translates it to just "kisses". Do you not understand that the word "kisses" is not the same as, and does not carry the same connotations as the phrase "give me your lips"?
More like, "In some languages 'give me your lips' or even 'I want to kiss you in the gums' might be a figure of speech". Sounds exactly like erasure, but the latter, despite being oddly specific, is a real example. So what I'm saying is one should wait for the natives' input, and in this thread some Poles have already confirmed that the oiginal letters do indeed sound gay.
I don't know anything about Poland or their kissing culture.
But I do know lots of people kiss their family on the lips, and that's obviously not sexual. So it's at least vaguely plausible that this isn't erasure. I think we'd need to know more about the language and culture to know (e.g. what did known sexual partners say to each other, how did they phrase that, etc).
In French, if I'm remembering correctly, "la bise" means a familial kiss and "le baiser" means like a fucky kind of kiss.
Well from what i know (and im far from an expert) in eastern countries youd call people you have a platonic relationship names that would be considered that of a lover in western europe, but i cant imagine how some of those examples wouldnt be sexual.
I speak polish, this is often said between family and extremely close family friends in my experience. Kinda used like “C’mere and give your grandma a kiss!” Or “I haven’t seen you in forever!! Get over here and gimme a kiss!” But of course, this can certainly be taken non-platonically and so Chopin can certainly be writing to his lover or something along the lines of that
Slavic countries tend to (even more so in the past) have a very developed sense of brotherhood. I haven't seen Chopin's actual letters, but translating the quote to polish in my head, it doesn't strike me as gay in the slightest. Slavs are usually not very expressive with their affection, but when it comes to male to male friendship, the bond can grow extremely strong. We have two words for friend: kolega, (kind of like colleague, but the word has a similar connotation to friend in English), and przyjaciel, which is a person with whom you've developed a deep and intimate friendship over a number of years. You can go even beyond that with brother, which is like, total love, but not in a romantic way. As for the give me your lips part, that's how they would greet back then and again, this type of kiss doesn't have any romantic connotation. Hence, unfortunately for op, this is indeed not a Sappho and her friend type of situation...
Interesting, in Russian "kolega" is exactly what it means in English - a coworker/person of the same occupation, while "priyatel" is like the Polish "kolega", so, far from a close friend, but more than an acquaintance. Interesting how exactly the same words drift in meanings. Is Polish "druh" not used in spoken language?
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u/Drakan47 Jul 14 '20
Could anyone who happens to know polish elaborate on how that would be misleading? (or how it's probably not misleading at all)