Moroccan-Dutch - LGBT-related Attitudes

LGBT-related Attitudes

See also: Societal attitudes toward homosexuality

Laurens Buijs, Gert Hekma, and Jan Willem Duyvendak, authors of the 2011 article "‘As long as they keep away from me’: The paradox of antigay violence in a gay-friendly country," explained that members of three ethnic groups, Dutch-Moroccans, Dutch-Antilleans, and Dutch-Turks, "are less accepting towards homosexuality, also when controlled for gender, age, level of education and religiosity." Police files state that perpetrators of anti-gay violence in Amsterdam are as often Dutch as they are Dutch-Moroccan, and Buijs et. al said Dutch-Moroccans "are over-represented as suspects" because 16% of male youth under 25 are Dutch-Moroccan compared to 39% of male youth under 25 being native Dutch. The Party for Freedom (PVV) had stated that "The perpetrators of antigay violence in the big cities are almost always Muslims, almost always Moroccans." Buijs et al say that overrepresentation of Dutch-Moroccans in statistics of antigay violence recorded by Dutch police is "more likely the result of their low social-economic position, combined with the fact that their family networks are less tight, and their upbringing less strict, than for example those of Dutch-Turks." Buijs et al say that the lack of tight family networks and the more lax upbringing "draws the Dutch-Moroccans, more often than youngsters from other groups, away from their homes and schools to public spaces, where they learn to live according to the tough and hyper-masculine codes of the culture of the street."

In their survey Buijs et al. found that Dutch-Moroccans have more severe problems with the deviation of gender roles than with homosexual practices in and of themselves. Of the ethnic groups in the survey, Dutch Moroccans were the only ones who preferred masculine lesbians and feminine gay boys over feminine lesbians and masculine gay boys. In addition Dutch-Moroccans indicated an aversion to anal sex in the survey. Buijs et al said "The resentment expressed by the Moroccan participants towards anal sex might be explained by the fact that they find it hard to deal with sexual ideas in western societies, in which men who take the active sexual role are generally considered as homo- or bisexuals as well."