A search of the various encyclopedias in the many search engines on the Internet defines buggery in line with the Concise Oxford Dictionary. In all these sources, buggery is equated with sodomy, which has its meaning in the biblical account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorra, based on the prevalence of homosexuality in those societies.

As a young girl growing up in the Anglican Church in Stanmore, St Elizabeth, I wondered, what caused this feature of these ancient communities. My vivid imagination suggested that their dilemma was either related to their water source or to a master plan of their creator.

Another feature of the definition of buggery was the connection to bestiality. Such a bizarre connection was a feature of the 'Buggery Act', which was adopted in England in 1534 during the reign of Henry VIII. At some point the lawmakers of 16th-century England knew something that caused them authoritatively to define buggery to include "only anal sex between men and bestiality". After all, such powerful men of their times were known to "run with the hares and hunt with the hounds".

So passionate were the patriarchs of Church and State in England about homosexuality that they went as far as hanging "those buggers". The records show that the "last execution for the crime took place in 1836". As time passed, the English patriarchs took on a veneer of the civilised and in 1967 they repealed their buggery law "in so far as they related to consensual homosexual acts in private".

In commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the United Nations heard a proposed resolution for the universal decriminalisation of homosexuality. This moment in time, according to Petre Williams, environmental editor of the Jamaica Observer, has raised the hopes of the organised sector of the gay and lesbian population within the nation state. They believe that one day soon, the Jamaican Government will discard the anti-buggery law, which is still on the books.

Decriminalisation

In this debate on the decriminalisation of homosexuality, we must not forget that it is the patriarchs of all religious and cultural groupings who make up the United Nations and who will be putting forward their point of view on the matter. It means therefore, that it will be a long time yet before any universal convention against discrimination against gays and lesbians will be signed in the corridors of Geneva or New York.

In the meantime, all those who purport to defend the human rights of all our citizens need to take a stance against all the violations of such rights by state agents or by members of civil society.

Of course, even before this development at the UN, on November 4, Dr Peter Figueroa who was then the head of Epidemiology and AIDS in the Ministry of Health, stated strongly and without apology that the urgent repeal of Jamaica's anti-buggery law is vital to the control of the spread of HIV and AIDS in the society. Dr Figueroa took his stance within the framework of the public health needs of the Jamaican population.

It will be interesting to see whether all our holy-wigged ostriches will continue to bury their heads in the homophobic "trucks of sand" while the HIV/AIDS pandemic continues to rob far too many of our young men and women of their chance to a productive and long life.

It is within this mindset that I welcomed the response of Dr Orville Taylor of the University of the West Indies to the UN resolution. Having said that, I totally disagree with Dr Taylor's assertion in Petre Williams' mentioned article that the "existing buggery law on the Jamaican books is biased against male homosexuals since there was no provision for the punishment of females caught having sex with other females". I am of the opinion, based on my understanding of the male psyche, that "buggery" as a concept that has everything to do with the male definition of human sexuality and within this worldview women's sexuality is not considered important or vital to the power of the man.

Potential to rape

When Henry VIII and his type made the laws, they did so against the background of a culture that valorised the penis and its potential to rape the social, economic and spiritual potential of all the regions of the world. It is the penis, therefore that, according to the men of State and Church, should be controlled in order to perpetuate male dominance.

Women, on the other hand, can be buggered at will by the masses of heterosexual men who choose to have anal sex with them. After all, the woman is a mere vessel for the reproductive forces that designed her to conceive and bear children. While this reproductive function is seen as her main sexual role, she also is burdened with the prerogatives of cultures that ensure that she does not deviate from her role as the property of the male.

It is against these notions that women in many societies come to accept anal sex as a natural and normal mode of the sexual landscape. For instance, in societies where every bride has to be a virgin, young girls are forced by the men of their villages and towns to have anal sex in order to preserve their hymen for the patriarch.

Clearly, women's sexuality is not valued, and in this vein anti-buggery laws do not apply to women because women have no penises. In fact, in Jamaica, lesbians are seen as jokers pretending to be having sex. After all, "two pot cover caan shut". Furthermore, there is the strong undertone among men and women of this land we love, that all a lesbian needs is a good man to change her. But for such women there will be no good men because there is a general understanding that lesbians are "ugly, fat slobs with long braids under their armpits".

In this socio-political and historic face scape there will be no feminisation of the buggery laws. That is why women of all sexual orientations should join the fight to remove all vestiges of racism, sexism, homophobia and other systemic ills from the Jamaican society.

Repressed sexuality

Today, we are living in one of the most violent periods in the modern history of our nation state. Women and children are murdered, raped and sexually abused by men and boys from all sectors of the society. Perhaps, we should all think about a time when men can step out of the 'elevator' and 'closets of secrecy' and deal with their true selves. This will certainly help them to deal with their repressed sexuality and the anger they feel in a place where they have to pretend that their main sexual object is the female of the species.

To set all this in context, let us not forget that on December 10, 1948, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and recognised "the inherent dignity and the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family". Recognising that the great ideals of this declaration was not enough to protect the human rights of many sectors of the human family the United Nations adopted and opened for signature ratification and accession the following: