IN NICARAGUA - HOMOSEXUALITY WITHOUT A GAY WORLD

This paper addresses the social construction of homosexual relations a mong men in Nicaragua in the late 1980s. The political economy of a na tion, subjected to a devastating war by the United States, created con ditions where sexual relations among men have not become organized int o a gay world which would be familiar to North Americans and Europeans . Rather, homosexually-inclined men remain fully integrated in family and neighborbood life where they are often ''known about'' but not ''r ecognized,'' a condition which dissolves separateness but also suppres ses the development of a gay culture beyond the bounds of heterosexist expectations.