Gay musicians in Turkey

International Forum of Psychoanalysis, cilt.14, ss.224-226, 2005 (Scopus)

Psychological analysis of gay musicians in Turkey

FAHRAD SHIDFAR

Istanbul Technique University, Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract

In order to launch research into gays and the music they perform in various bars and night clubs in Istanbul, Turkey, I

managed to arrange a few interviews with some gay musicians, analyzing their life characteristics and their relationship with

music, providing a spotlight on their performance and stage characteristics, and finally analyzing their private lives,

searching for the leading effects and causes, which had been derived from their psychology and eventually their behaviors.

During this analysis, I took advantage of Freud’s theory and tried to make a connection between the gay music in Turkey

and the discussions of ‘‘id’’, ‘‘ego’’, ‘‘superego’’ and ‘‘defense mechanisms’’ in Sigmund Freud’s theory, focusing on the gay

musicians’ musical performance and looking for the roots of the differences and distinctions in their performance, in their

inner worlds and in what actually made them successful in performing music when compared with non-gay singers in the

music markets of Istanbul. I tried to uncover the role of Turkish culture and traditions, and the religion of Islam, in shaping

the gay musicians’ mental reactions and the function of their defense mechanisms, and finally to elucidate the possible

explanations for the popularization of gay musicians in Turkey.

Key words: gays in Turkey, defense mechanisms, jealousness, escapism