Same sex MALE ACTIVITY is illegal and punishable by 10 years imprisonment which involves hard labour.
Jamaica has one of the harshest anti-gay laws found world wide. In Jamaica, unlike here in Canada, same sex activity (not just same sex marriage) is illegal and punishable with up to 10 years imprisonment involving hard labour. It is also a country that experiences high rates of violent assault against (and murder of) those believed to be gay.
Now, two caveats. Firstly, in reality, the likelihood of being sent to prison for the full 10 years for same sex activity is very low, this is a punishment that is rarely meted out these days. However, to be sure, people in Jamaica still do get arrested and charged if they have allegedly engaged in homosexual behaviuor. And if nothing else, they will be subjected to police questioning/interrogation (or “quizzing”- the British term which is in use there).
Secondly, while the punishment might not be enforced, it still remains on the book which means that it could hypothetically still be applied.
Third, it is very significant that in Jamaica, MALE, gay sex activity is illegal, whereas FEMALE lesbian sexual activity is not. Why is this the case? We’ll discuss this soon.
Firstly, though, we’ll touch on the topic of media representations of crime. So, I’d like to provide two examples of media representations of same sex activity which both confirm its deviant and unlawful status on the island. The first is Buju Banton’s 1988 reggae hit “Boom Bye Bye”. This song promotes the murder of a gay man, and it sold a large number of records in Jamaica at the time. I warn that the content of the lyrics and song will be very disturbing, and you do not have to listen to it them you feel uncomfortable doing so. I post it, however, because I think its important, to encounter this material head on in order to understand how powerfully the mass media can frame crime and deviance.
Here is the link below
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWa7fzeX3xo
For a bit of clarification, in Jamaica patois parlance, “batty bwoy” is a derogatory term used to refer to someone who is gay.
While the law constructs this activity as illegal, it is clear that the music media perpetuate and reinforce values and beliefs that male homosexuality is evil, wrong. An important thing to understand is that the mass media (like movies and music) are consumed by a lot of people, of all ages, and so it has a very powerful influence over attitudes and beliefs, and how people come to represent things in their minds. Indeed, sociologists understand the media to be a primary agent of socialisation. So music such as this can very much socialise people into adopting homonegative attitudes, which are further reinforced by anti-gay legislation.
Note the reference to “God” in this music, this will be important as we unpack this further.
Quick point before moving on. Recall, the difference between denotative and connotative meaning. What’s so impressionable here is the fact that the homophobic messages operate on the level of denotation in this music, not connotative. The words are clear and explicit, the messages are unmistakably forthcoming: gay people are “nasty” and unnatural and should die.
Now please find below links to three clips from news coverage of an assault on a “gay individual” in Jamaica.
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1XxeqOIBao;
https: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3AyRwOqTp0;
Consider the ways in which these news reports socially construct both the violent protesters and the people believed to have been engaging in gay activity. Who gets more screen time? Whose story is getting told? How does the phrase “alleged homosexual” construct gay activities? In each of these clips, we have to pay attention to both the denotative and connotative meanings. On a denotative level, the story is a report on a mob of rowdy violent protesters threatening the life and safety of a group who identify as gay. Indeed, in its literal and descriptive form, it is reporting on a violent hate crime. However, on a connotative level, a different opposite message is being sent. Instead, it is a story about alleged gay activity. It is a story about a group of people who discovered that a group of gay men were engaging in “criminal activity”. Thus, on a denotative level, the crime is the assault and the offenders are the mobsters. But on a connotative level, in fact the gay men are criminals and the mobsters are bringing them to justice. While the police are there to protect and retain the gay men and to prevent them from being abused, it is clear that that they will also be carrying out investigations into these men’s activities as well (i.e. quizzing thm). The majority of time is spent providing the audience with evidence to support the claims of the violent protesters that the men were engaging in gay activity. A great deal of time is given to interviews of the violent mobsters- and they are allowed to share their grievances and opinions in detail. Once again, these news clips serve to reinforce social constructions of male sexual activity as deviant and criminal, but disturbingly, they go further by reconstructing an activity that, here in Canada, would be thought of as violent assault (a serious and unacceptable crime), into something that is more acceptable, understandable, and suitable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3AyRwOqTp0;
