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Gay Apia


Gay Apia

There is no "gay scene" nor gay community, per se. In common with much of the rest of Polynesia there is widespread acceptance of homosexuality in Samoa. This acceptance of fa'afafine (the way of a woman) owes much to the tradition of raising some boys as girls. In families with all male children parents would often choose one or more of the boys to help the mother. Because they would perform the work of women they were raised as if they were girls. Although their sex was widely known, they would usually be dressed as girls. Many, however, would eventually get married (to women). Modern fa'afafine are more likely to have chosen to live as women, and more likely to be homosexual. Boys who appear effeminate may be recognised as fa'afafine by their parents. They will neither be encouraged nor discouraged. Fa'afafine tend to hang out together and bars popular with them tend to change over time. Gays who are self aware enough to realize they are gay, and not fa'afafine, may travel in fa'afafine circles, and thus be more readily recognized as gay. There is an annual fa'afafine pageant. The friendly samoan culture combined with a desire to shine favor from visitors (who are presumed to be very wealthy, by comparison) can lead to confusing signals from friendly men. Lesbianism is much less accepted. While there are, of course, lesbians, there is no such thing as a lesbian scene and nowhere to easily meet Samoan lesbians.

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Apia Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.

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