Thread: Sochi Olympics and the Law against Gays in Russia +

The only problem with this Pew survey is that the word "homosexuality" may be subject to difficulties or ambiguities in translation.* And also the words "accept," and "society," and "should". Though at least the question mark is universally understood, I suppose!

*In some cultures, for example, a "homosexual" is widely understood to be a male who takes the so-called пассивную роль when having sex with another male -- but people might not automatically assume that a male in the "active" role is a "homosexual," unless the question-asker specifically says something like: "By the expression homosexual behavior, I mean to include both the active and passive roles." For that matter, neither ancient Hebrew nor ancient Greek had a general term for "homosexual" that included both the male/male and female/female varieties; they were conceptualized separately. And I would expect that when some Russians HEAR the term "гомосексуализм", they might THINK "мужеложество", for example. (The latter word has had several different definitions at different times in Russian history, but according to Wikipedia, "мужеложество" always implied "male/male" -- as its etymology suggest -- and never included lesbian contacts.)

Now multiply these basic problems of translation and connotation by more than a dozen different languages, and it's hard to be sure how meaningful the poll results actually were.

Originally Posted by Throbert McGee

And I would expect that when some Russians HEAR the term "гомосексуализм", they might THINK "мужеложество", for example.

It's a valid observation. But to be exact, they might think 'MALE homosexual relations of any kind', while мужеложество implies 'intercourse' (let us say it's a narrower term, ).

People tend not to think about the technical accuracy (or scientific) of the term; besides, any borrowed word or scientific term may evolve in its own way in a given language. In Russian 'homosexuality' in everyday language almost always implies male homosexuality. One shouldn't forget also that lesbian relations are often not treated as something negative, even acceptable (at least it seems to me in Russia that is the case).

The pollsters (researchers) probably (hopefully) clarified what they meant by the term 'homosexuality', but of course it's not always clear whether the interviewed understand the question 100%. Probably they had to use a broader term for the purpose of the survey (it is implied that the idea of the survey was to ask specifically about 'homosexuality', and not to make it gender-specific).