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Article published In: Journal of Language and Sexuality
Vol. 11:1 (2022) ► pp.31–56

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Online discourses of ‘homosexuality’ and religion

The discussion relating to Islam in Finland

 | University of Jyväskylä, Finland
 | University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Published online: 11 February 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jls.20011.jan
Abstract
This article examines Finnish online forum discussions where religion and discourses of ‘homosexuality’ are connected in various ways. Previous research (e.g. Jantunen, Jarmo H. 2018a. Homot ja heterot Suomi24:ssä: analyysi digitaalisista diskursseista [The gay and the straight in Suomi24: Analysis of digital discourses]. Puhe ja kieli 38(1): 3–22. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) shows that in Finnish online discussions where sexual minorities are the topic, religion stands out as a significant feature – particularly in discourses on ‘homosexuality’. Via corpus-assisted discourse analysis (CADS), the present study adds to previous knowledge on this subject by qualitatively analyzing the occurrences of certain keywords in the Finnish societal context – one in which immigration and the visibility of both Islam and sexual minorities are perceived to have increased. The analysis found four interrelated key discourses in these online discussions: (1) Islamization as an alleged threat to gay people (in the data: ‘homosexuals’); (2) the alleged indifference/ignorance of people to Islam’s stance against sexual minorities; (3) relativist discourse(s) claiming all fundamentalists to be similar; and (4) othering – including for instance, the verbal stylization of Muslims as being particularly hypersexual.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.‘Homosexuality’ vis-à-vis religion
  • 3.Methodology and data
    • 3.1Data
    • 3.2Keywords and corpus-assisted discourse analysis
    • 3.3Ethical issues
  • 4.Discourse prosodies and keywords related to religion
    • 4.1Overview of discourse prosodies
    • 4.2Keywords related to religion
  • 5.Islam and ‘homosexuality’ as discussed on Suomi24
    • 5.1Discourse 1: Islamization threatens ‘homosexuals’
      • Data Example (6): ‘Islamization’
      • Data Example (7): ‘Gays are always having to watch out for Muslim gangs’
    • 5.2Discourse 2: Tolerant liberals ignore the fact that Muslims disapprove of sexual minorities
      • Data Example (8): ‘But Islam wants to kill gays who would usually support the Greens’
      • Data Example (9): ‘But in Muslim countries the President stays quiet…’
    • 5.3Discourse 3: Christian or Muslim – tolerance is better than fundamentalism
      • Data Example (10): ‘It’s little different from your [evangelical] fundy doctrine’
      • Data Example (11): ‘Most of the world’s Muslims accept gays’
    • 5.4Discourse 4: Hypersexualization and stylization
      • Data Example (12): ‘Preferably big-dicked black Muslim warriors’
      • Data Example (13): ‘allah great he love anal sex’
      • Data Example (14): ‘Yuck. Islam judge homo to lowest hell’
  • 6.Discussion and suggestions for further research
  • Notes
  • References
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