Sexuality In India Research Articles

Breaking barriers, forging paths: a conversation on gender, caste, and sexuality in India

Breaking barriers, forging paths: a conversation on gender, caste, and sexuality in India

On literature, society, sexualities: An interview with the writer Vasudhendra

ABSTRACT This interview discusses same-sex relationships, especially gay relationships, in the writer Vasudhendra’s semi-autobiographical book, Mohanaswamy, which became India’s first book in the Kannada language to focus on gay life. Vasudhendra talks about the need for social progress in understanding LGBTQIA+ sexualities and the implicit requirement of LGBTQIA+ literature in vernacular languages in India. He elucidates on his experience in counselling gay youths, how he has navigated the difference in gay life between rural and urban areas, and the appropriate way to deal with the variance in their experiences. Though Vasudhendra’s attention is on gay narratives, he also discusses the presence of patriarchy in Indian society, the impact of law on LGBTQIA+ sexualities, the lack of queer vocabulary in Indian vernacular languages, and the need for a more inclusive gendered terminology. The interview ends with the writer’s hope to see a change in society’s perception of non-normative sexualities in India.

Oh India! Pornography, Postcoloniality, Transnational Assemblages

The essay locates three instances of hypersexual imagery in Indian cinema, casted to adult scenes, deemed equivalent to pornography with particular reference to the logic of transnational global capitalist image. In contrary, the essay also draws the discursive logic of negation of the desiring sex(usual) image of Indian actor, engendered a space of domesticity, Indianness, sexual obscenity, cultural anxiety and moral panic. Thus, this imagination builds into argument, a point of analytical disjuncture, debating sex, gender and sexuality in India that disturbs, subverts and remakes the popular culture driven by the logic of repression/liberation with, bemusing women and national(ist) image to that of the complexity of emerging economic globalization and transnational consumer/capitalist market.

Brittle bonds: queer relationalities in literary and cinematic forms in India

Abstract From factories to hostels, homes to neighbourhoods, how do embodied practices in stratified spaces shape the contemporary terrains of queerness in India? In this article, I analyse two recent cultural texts from India, Neeraj Ghaywan’s Geeli Pucchi (Sloppy Kisses, 2021) and Hansda Sowvender Shekhar’s (2018) novel My Father’s Garden, Speaking Tiger Books, Delhi, to engage with the fraught dynamics of relationality and queerness. My analysis contests any easy celebration of community – by foregrounding the movements of dispossessed protagonists who do not fit into the paradigm of the privileged subject of queer politics. Yet these texts capture the fleeting possibilities of reaching towards one another in spaces carved through the operations of exclusion and discrimination. I bring together two texts in which the direct references to sexual identities formed via governmental or non-governmental networks are largely absent; rather, they ask fundamental questions about the in-between terrain of the relational. The dynamics of distance and connection is opened up in complex ways in these cinematic and literary texts as they create imaginative idioms to explore the brittleness of queer bonds formed through the hierarchized operations of class, caste and ethnicity. Through an analysis of the formal aspects of these texts, and the practices of spectatorship and readership they facilitate, I seek to underline how formations of sexuality in India can be unpacked only through a close engagement with the critical discourse on gender, caste and ethnicity.

From problem‐centered to centering relationalities: Engagements with disability and sexuality in India

AbstractThis article analyses how the sites of disability activism, special education, and online‐matchmaking approach the sexuality of disabled people in India. It argues that across these distinct yet overlapping sites, the sexuality of disabled people is engaged as a problem in need of a fix, which ultimately leads to the narrowing of disabled people's sexual choices, behaviors, and identities. The article suggests that when these field‐sites move away from a problem‐centered approach which focuses on looking for normative solutions and instead engage in the process of “problematization” by facilitating the sexuality of disabled people, they end up opening non‐normative, uncertain, yet perhaps more fulfilling sexual opportunities for disabled people.

“Whatever Happened toJogtaandJogtin?”: Subjugation of Dalits in Lower-Caste Religious Practices

AbstractThe economics of female sexuality in India are embodied in the caste system, which allocates women of certain caste groups to the domestic sphere and relegates Dalit/lower caste women to religious/sacred prostitution. The dominance of Shudra (often OBC) castes over religious spaces further marginalized Dalits and vulnerable lower-Shudra castes pertaining to the sexual exploitation of men and women within the institution of sacred prostitution. Shudra (OBC) castes’ hold over religious institutions in contemporary society facilitated the hegemony of the Brahminic ideology of caste and patriarchy even in the lower-caste religious practices like worship of female deities such as Yellamma in south India. This article discusses the religious aspects of the oppression of Dalits (outcastes) shaped by lower-caste religiosity through a study of the conditions of Dalit men and women who are dedicated to the temples of village deities and are varyingly called Jogta, Jogtin, Jogini, Potaraju, Matangi/Matamma, Shivashakti, Basavi, and Murali in different regions of south India. The current study is based on the experiences of Joginis and Jogtas from Telangana and Marathwada region of the state of Maharashtra. This article explores the livelihood aspect of the Jogini system, in other words, the economic vulnerabilities shaped by caste hierarchies that result in the perpetuation of the practice of sacred prostitution; how the caste hierarchies refigure in the reorganization of masculinities through the institutions of Jogini and Jogta; and how the question of Dalit self-respect is construed by Joginis and Jogtas within the paradigm of religious institutions.

Changing Paradigm of Criminalizing Adolescent Sexuality in India

Changing Paradigm of Criminalizing Adolescent Sexuality in India

“The secret is that the secret changes”: Sex and Taboo in India and Indian Young Adult Fiction

Mainstream film and media in India constantly expose children and young adults to sexually explicit, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic content, while opposing the need for sex education in schools – a dichotomy which exposes a deep-rooted taboo regarding sex and sexuality education that perpetuates situations like the spate of gruesome rapes and child sexual abuse across the country in the last decade. To examine this paradox and its effects, this paper does a close reading of a few select contemporary young adult novels as a form of rebellion against prevalent taboos regarding sex and sexuality in India and a subversive mode of sexuality education among its young adult readers. Issues of slut-shaming, revenge porn and blackmail, online abuse and consent are predominant in these books and this paper explores the detrimental effects of this persistent taboo about sex among youth in India through these books – <em>Mayil Will Not be Quiet!</em> (2008), <em>Mostly Madly Mayil</em> (2013), <em>This is Me, Mayil</em> (2018), <em>Facebook Phantom</em> (2013), <em>Talking of Muskaan</em> (2014) and <em>The Lies We Tell</em> (2019) – and address the critical silence regarding Sex and Young Adults in India. It attempts to do so by studying the texts against the definitions and development of the taboos and prejudices about sex and sexuality across Indian history and culture which continue to be used in the argument against the need for sex education for young adults, which this paper reads as an act of exerting power to control the private lives and personal choices of minors.

Gender, Resistance, and Identity: Women’s Rewriting of the Self in Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess

The image of Indian women has often been associated with the act of obedience and submission. Previous studies on gender and sexuality in India’s literary tradition and culture point to the dominance of heteropatriarchal normativity and the scarcity of the image of a powerful woman capable of contesting and dismantling such impositions. In this study, we argue that Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s Before We Visit the Goddess (2016) presents a more nuanced image of the Indian women who constantly problematize the mainstream prescriptions of gender roles and boundaries. In pursuit of the argument, this study aims to explore the novel to examine the multiple ways in which the leading female characters contest, negotiate, and reconstruct pre-existing definitions of gender identities. As an analytical framework, we draw upon the poststructuralist feminist Hélène Cixous’s notions of “the feminine,” “the other,” and “écriture féminine” (feminine writing) to shed light on female characters’ struggles against submission to patriarchal discourses. The findings reveal that the three female characters—i.e., Sabitri, Bela, and Tara—resist discourses of masculinity through empowerment in their unique ways: establishing a business, getting a divorce, and having an abortion. Through such practices, the female characters demonstrate the will of both a woman and a mother and a strong sense of love that works as a key factor in their resistance to patriarchy and rewriting identity relations.

Agents of Ishq and Contemporary Discourses on Sex and Sex-Education in India

Abstract This paper examines Agents of Ishq, an online site/project seeking to create a space for the public discourse of sex and sexuality in India, with particular attention to a single music video that is part of the project. The content produced by the project is informed by idioms of Bollywood films and film-music. The paper draws on the notion of popular culture to see how meanings are encoded within the video productions and explores the politics of representation of these audio-visual and textual resources. It also briefly examines the effect that being hosted on a digital platform, freely accessible at any time and from any location, (rather than as part of traditional and broadcast media) has on the content produced by Agents of Ishq. It examines the need for the proliferation of pedagogical resources of this kind and, at the same time, draws attention to the ways in which they need to be critically problematized in terms of the cultural hegemonies they may run the risk of reinforcing.

Managing mobility: commuting domestic workers, mobile phones, and women’s ‘honour’ in Kolkata

ABSTRACT Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Kolkata and rural West Bengal and engaging with literature on mobile phones in the global South, and on gender and sexuality in India, this article seeks to understand the incongruence between widespread mobile phone use in India and commuting domestic workers’ own accounts of their mobile phone use. It illustrates the important role that mobile phones play in enabling commuting workers (who are mostly women) to find work and manage relationships, but also how commuting workers play down their mobile phone use, guarding against suspicion from husbands, sons, and others. Such suspicion reflects the stigma around women’s mobility/sexuality, connected to ideas about women’s ‘honour’ and the perceived risks associated with women’s work and journeys. When workers’ mobile phone use is, then, perceived to be ‘inappropriate’, or if workers transgress norms and expectations relating to ideas about women’s ‘honour’ in other ways, they can face (further) surveillance and abuse, their access to phones thereafter often being controlled by men. Contributing to gendered analyses of mobile phones in the global South, the article shows how phones can at once create new possibilities and freedoms for commuting domestic workers while at the same time reinforcing gendered power relationships.

The Queer Narrator

Hijras, India’s “third gender” now often translated as trans figures, have long been defined by their castrated status in colonial and postcolonial discourse, which has aimed at conflating their social and moral positions with their corporeal modification. This article juxtaposes various sets of narrative accounts to explain the theological underpinnings of liberal explanations for accommodating queer sexuality in India. First, the article looks at contemporary Bollywood films in which hijras are often inserted into the plot to bring the villains to justice, sometimes by castrating them. This seeming contradiction, in which queer personhood is made life-affirming, reveals the complex ways in which hijras have been redefined as legitimizing forms of historical queerness in South Asia. Their role, it is argued, is better understood not through an ontological notion of generosity but through the particular dramaturgical position of the sutradhar that the Hindu-Muslim theology of South Asia makes available. The sutradhar is the one who holds (dhar) the strings (sutra) of the dramatic plot. The voicing and enacting of the moral position with which queer ethics have been associated, both in film and in life, are drawn from this character. Given that the long documented history of hijras has made them quite intelligible to South Asian people without the need for translation, this article argues that debates of queer sexuality must go beyond the civilizational terms of “West and the rest” and explore the theological material available for the crafting of queer personhood and ethics.

Effects of Menopause on Sexual Function in Indian Women: A McCoy's Questionnaire-Based Assessment.

Background:Menopause is associated with physical, physiological, psychological changes and may lead to sexual dysfunction (SD) effecting woman's health and well-being. Scientific research in the area of female sexuality in India is scant. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate female sexual function at perimenopause and menopause and determine the association between sociodemographic and physiological factors with sexual function.Materials and Methods:This was a cross-sectional hospital-based study carried out in perimenopausal and menopausal women. Study participant's details were collected by gynecologists and clinical research professionals following the participant's informed consent. The case report and McCoy female sexuality questionnaire were used. The association between sociodemographic status and sexual function was determined. Data were summarized using descriptive statistics for portraying profile of the participants and t-test for comparison.Results:A total of 129 women in the menopausal (SD − 3.26) and 112 in the premenopausal group (SD − 6.01) were enrolled. The sociodemographic parameters did not significantly affect the sexual function scores in both groups. In terms of vaginal atrophy, a significant increase in urgency was noted in the postmenopause group. The general domain of sexual function was significantly lower in menopausal than and perimenopausal with a P < 0.001. Looking at individual domains of sexual function, for sexual interest, satisfaction, vaginal lubrication, and orgasm, the mean value of perimenopausal participants was significantly higher when compared to menopausal women; for a primary partner domain, no significant differences between the two groups were noted.Conclusion:Overall, the sociodemographic profile did not impact sexual function in this study. Compared with menopausal women, perimenopausal women showed better, more complete sexual function based on McCoy's score except partner-related domain that is constant from perimenopause to menopause in a monogamous relationship.

Who ‘framed’ Ramchandra Siras? Journalistic discourses of sexual citizenship in India

In 2010, a professor in India was forcibly outed as gay and catapulted into a nationwide debate about LGBTQ rights in India. A textual analysis of prominent Indian English-language newspapers revealed the framing devices journalists used to report the case, unpacking how coverage essentialized gay identity, signified civil rights and citizenship, problematized notions of consent, complicated public/private demarcations of sexuality, and negotiated competing claims of morality. Journalistic discourse inevitably privileged dominant western neoliberal conceptions of sexuality, reducing sexual citizenship to a particular classed and gendered subject at the expense of a more expansive range of alternative sexualities in India.

A Chronicle of Sexuality in the Indian Subcontinent

Human sexuality has been researched, documented, and scrutinized through the centuries but persists in retaining its unfathomable depths in its layers. Sexuality in India has undergone paradigm shifts from the Bronze Age civilization to present-day India. Ever changing facets dependent on the cultural, social, religious, political, regional, and timely aura have resulted in sexuality in India having many hues. The manner of experience and expression has also undergone significant changes over time in individual desires, attitudes to sex, beliefs, values, behaviors, gender roles, and relationships. We chronicle the conceptualization of sexuality in its inception in ancient India and its journey through the ages.

Courting marriage: juridification of intimate relationships in North India

This paper examines cases of elopements and choice-based marriages in North India that have consolidated into an established form of litigation in the past two decades. Through ethnographic research at the Punjab and Haryana High Court, I delineate the nature and scope of legal processes in validating relationships of choice and in mediating between couples and their kin groups. The proliferation of elopement cases, popularly known as court marriages, reflects a juridification of potentially deviant marriages, where discourses on universal rights both inform, and are, in turn, shaped by the dialogue initiated in such courtroom proceedings. I argue that court marriages signify a creative re-imagination of law, a research subject that is gaining traction within the field of legal anthropology but is, as yet, under-represented in the study of gender and sexuality in India. While feminist scholarship from South Asia has contributed immensely in highlighting the patriarchal biases in judicial intervention on gendered violence and discrimination, the creative possibilities inherent in legal procedures continue to be under-emphasized. Combining recent anthropological research on law and classical kinship studies on marriage, I propose that court marriage is an innovative, contextually-driven effort to re-imagine both legal spaces and the institution of marriage itself.

The eunuch archive: Colonial records of non-normative gender and sexuality in India

ABSTRACTThis essay explores the quotidian, mundane colonial archive of sexuality. It is particularly concerned with accounts of colonised peoples’ sexuality that were produced at the local level of colonial administration and were deposited at the margins of official archives. In the 1860s and 1870s, British colonial administrators in north India compiled district registers of ‘eunuchs’ that recorded brief notes on the lives of local people who challenged a binary understanding of gender and were understood as sexually ‘perverse.’ The British were particularly anxious about the transgender hijra community, whom they labelled ‘habitual sodomites’ and ‘criminals.’ This essay builds on Anjali Arondekar’s analysis of sexuality and colonial archives, but argues that there are some limitations to her approach. In particular, this article argues that attention to practices of record keeping, circulation and archiving reveals contested and contradictory forms of knowledge about ‘eunuchs’ in colonial archives.

Methodological challenges in understanding sexuality in Indian women.

Byline: Michelle. Barthakur, Mahendra. Sharma, Santosh. Chaturvedi, Suraj. Manjunath Sir, Phenomenon of sexuality in India is colored by several significant facets of its culture.[sup][1],[2] The present communication focuses on challenges encountered during collection of data for a study on sexuality among women survivors of breast cancer. The study utilized a single group, cross-sectional, and exploratory design. A mixed-method approach was used with both quantitative and qualitative forms of data. Sample consisted of fifty survivors, and qualitative data were obtained from 15 out of the 50 survivors. Ethical approval for the research study was sought from the Institute's Ethical Committee Board of NIMHANS, Bengaluru, and St. John's Medical College and Hospital, Bengaluru. Participants were provided with information leaflet, and informed consent was taken from survivors before interviews were undertaken. Sexual functioning was assessed quantitatively using Sexual Responsiveness Scale,[sup][3] a 24 item self-report measure used to assess sexual functioning: desire, arousal, orgasm, and resolution. The semi-structured interview schedule included open-ended questions about the impact of the illness and its treatment on the sexual relationship with spouses. The range of ages was 28–73 years old (mean = 52.9). Twenty-five (50%) of participants had attained postgraduate level of education and majority of the participants, i.e., 37 (74%) of them were Hindus. The age of onset of illness ranged from 26 to 65 years (mean = 46). Number of years of survivorship ranged from 1 to 28 years and majority of the sample, i.e., 40 (80%) were diagnosed in Stages I and II. The results revealed on the Sexual Responsivness Scale (SRS), range of total score can vary from 0 to 16 with higher scores indicating better sexual functioning. The mean of the present study was 2.34 suggesting poor sexual functioning in the survivors. Moreover, out of the 50 survivors, 15 of them refused to respond to the measure for various reasons enumerated in [Table 1].{Table 1} Emerging data from the interview schedule revealed survivors were comfortable in sharing experiences related to body image issues and emotional impact with spouses. However, with regard to understanding the physiological aspect of sexual functioning or sexual intimacy practiced in nonsexual behaviors, the researcher hit a wall. The participant's responses tended to be “no problem,” “there is no sexual intimacy left” or that “there was initial difficulty after the treatment but its all fine now' or “These questions are intense.” However, when attempts were made to probe for further details regarding the nature of problems, there was a tendency by survivors to stonewall these questions. The nonverbal behaviors included tendencies to smile or laugh when asked questions about it or maintain a stoic expression which made it further difficult for the researcher to probe for both ethical issues and the rupture of rapport that had been formed. …

A Gender Based Study of HIV/AIDS Related Knowledge and Sexual Attitudes in Students from Laddakh

Introduction: A review of studies conducted on sexuality in India has revealed that premarital sex in youth is prevalent in 0-10 percent of women and 15-30 percent men and it is on rise. The young people indulge in risky behavior pattern such as infrequent or irregular contraceptive use. Youth is facing a significant risk of sexual health and lack in making informed sexual choice. The objective of this study is to explore the HIV/AIDS related knowledge and sexual attitudes held by young students from LaddakhMethodology: Systematic sampling was used to collect data from 100 Laddakhi students living in Jammu in the age range 18-29 years. The mean age of the sample was 22.28. Sexual Attitude Scale and HIV Related Knowledge Questionnaire were applied in this study.Results: The results of test indicate significant gender differences in sexual attitudes. The male Laddakhi students held more favorable attitude towards pre marital sex, polygamy and pornography than their female counterparts. In comparison to male participants, the young female participants reflected favorable attitude towards establishing same sex relationships. The participants in the study also hold misconceptions about HIV/AIDS.Conclusions: In addition to low level of awareness on HIV/AIDS, holding favorable sexual attitudes might result in involvement in risky sexual behavior. Organizing awareness campaigns at school level to focus the youth might be useful in curbing the potential involvement of young students in risky sexual behavior.SAARC J TUBER LUNG DIS HIV/AIDS, 2015; 12(1), Page: 14-19

Portrayal of gay characters in Bollywood cinema

Hindi cinema production from India is the largest in the world. Cinema reflects the society which it portrays, and in turn influences social attitudes. Hindi cinema, often known as Bollywood, demonstrates deep roots in society. In the last decade homosexual behaviour was legalized by the Delhi High Court but subsequently deemed illegal by the Supreme Court. These changes reflect changes in social attitudes. In this paper we highlight social attitudes to homosexuality – both male and female - in the context of portrayal in Hindi cinema. Historically, cultural and social values and the attitudes towards sexuality in India have been sex positive, but over the past 200 years under the British colonial rule they became very negative and indeed punitive towards homosexuality and homosexual men and women in line with prevalent Victorian attitudes to sex and sexual activity. Various descriptions and sexual identities have been identified and described in the literature. In this paper we describe a small selection of films from Hindi cinema which depict homosexuality. These portrayals have been largely negative. We describe the possible reasons for this and the potential impact these portrayals may have on audiences.