Recently in Sweden Category

Today, the Swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, today declared that the government will present laws and propositions for a new marriage law in Sweden from May 1, 2009. All parties in the parliament, but one - that also is part in the coalition government - are supporting it. [Link to the Swedish news paper dn.se][The Local's report in English] To avoid the problem with the Christian Democrats, the remaining three parties in the government will present a bill starting in parliament.

It's ironic to see that happening the same day as the Prop 8 looks to pass, and bring a ban on same-sex marriage into the Californian constitution.

I'm happy that we got a chance to get married in California - as party A & party B - the chance to tick a box for bride or groom wasn't there yet. Groom-groom, bride-groom, bride-bride - and it didn't say that the sex had to be the same as the gendered name. :)

"Using 'queer' is a way of reminding us how we are perceived by the rest of the world". It was true for Queer Nation in 1990 - and it seems likely be just as true in 2008.

"Gene in men decides if they are faithful" is the headline in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have discovered that males with the gene variant "allel 334" are more likely to be infidel/have problems in their marriages. And, if the men had the variance on both chromosomes they were twice as likely to have a "crisis" in their marriages.

The comparison is between men and two species of voles, where the voles made them look for the vasopressin. Good that one can blame ones genes for more and more things! If one wants to feel like a vole, that is!

It is fascinating that a socially non-acceptable behavior is construed as a problem that one needs to find biological correlates to it. No one seems to think about what the construct is beneath this research: the nuclear family, and where other family constructs must be wrong. And what is the hip thing now? Yes, genetics.

Sigh, this is the second time this summer there have been some odd research on human sexuality from KI published in PNAS. The last time it was a brain structures that were similar between gay men and heterosexual women [PNAS][PubMed].

I am not against studies being done about biological correlates to sexual orientation or behavior, but I think it is time that both researchers and journalists start to think about what they are stating as facts. What are the certainties and uncertainties? The article by the Swedish psychologists Kurt Ernulf and Sune Innala still has its importance: "Rats are hardly sexually oriented! Generalizations on animal behavior is too far-fetched"
 

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• Is fidelity in our genes?

Earlier today I signed my Swedish tax returns (deklarationen) electronically, online and paid the money that I owed to the Swedish government via my online banking.

A few hundred dollars poorer I paid the price for making an adjustment to my estimated tax. I actually managed to earn more than I had anticipated as a nurse last summer. Not that I had a high income, but that I worked more hours and shifts...

The picture is of the skyscraper that used to host the tax authorities in Stockholm. They have now moved to a new location, and this building will house students and a new shopping mall.

Some tax and money music via SeeqPod. 

In a classical book, Tearoom Trade: Impersonal Sex in Public Places, from 1975, Laud Humphreys described the story of men having sex with men. Its importance for today has been pointed out, especially after the events in Minneapolis (that BTW now has a new tourist spot! ).

The book is often presented as an example of very poor research ethics, based on the methodologies used by Humphreys. What he did was that he pretended to be a "watch queen" at a Tearoom (<T-room<toilet room - is that true?), i.e. preferring to watch others in action to participating. He later wrote down the license plates of the cars, checked ownerships with the DMV - and sought up the men and asked them if they were gay... This is, they say, not the way to conduct your dissertation work...

That public restrooms and other public scenes have been the meeting points and venues for men having sex with men have been described in several works. In Sweden this has mostly been described as a historic phenomenon by Associate Professor, Dr. Arne Nilsson, PhD, in his book "Såna och riktiga karlar" ("Such and real men") where the term "såna" were used as a label by the homosexual males themselves.

The book is based on interviews with older men in Göteborg, Sweden, describing the social lives in the era of 1930s to the 1950s. Dr. Nilsson relates it to the societal developments and the modernism that then had its break-through in Sweden.

It seems a bit interesting that all these events in the US coincide with the publication of a report from the National Board of Health and Welfare on how safer sex should be presented for MSM in Sweden (from QX, in Swedish).

For those wishing to explore the issue of senatorial tearoom trades there is a FAQ at slate.com.