De-radicalising the rights claims of sexual subalterns through ‘tolerance’

Abstract

In this paper I discuss discuss the proliferation of homoerotic imagery, literature and sex talk in the context of sexual subalterns in postcolonial India. The sexual subaltern has increasingly been accepted within the postcolonial space, and in the process disrupted cultural and sexual norms in the public arena. This disruptive capacity provides space for a more productive and complex politics than can be captured in the notion of 'coming out' or through a focus on non-heteronormative performances. While the public space has been more amenable to sexual subaltern claims and practices any declarations of victory maybe somewhat premature. I draw attention to some of the contradictory results produced in the sexual subaltern’s engagements with law, which has at times diminished the radical potential of sexual subaltern politics. While part of this loss can be attributed to the monochromatic lens through which law regulates the sexual subject, I focus on how there is a flattening out of the sexual subject produced and regulated in and through the discourse of tolerance. I argue that legal engagements have not resulted in the equal treatment of homosexuals with heterosexuals in law nor necessarily been emancipating. Instead, sexual subalterns are treated as a 'perversion' to be tolerated within the framework of liberal democracy and to deal with the excess that formal equality has failed to accommodate.