COVER FEATURE

Circles of Sexuality

htein lin

There is currently a churning across Southasia, a clamour for recognition, for rights and for a life of dignity. Amidst this, armed with wide-ranging buzzwords such as representation, inclusion and non-discrimination, sexual minorities have also demanded to be heard, and to be put on the national agenda. To many, sexuality may seem to be an unimportant topic, a frivolous diversion from the more critical problems of poverty, war, disease, illiteracy and casteism; it might seem to be an issue that will sort itself out once ‘major’ political issues are tackled. Fraught with morality and still labouring under a general suspicion of the erotic, sexuality, when it does enter mainstream political discourse, has been framed as a ‘problem’ – be it in relation to sexual violence, the HIV/AIDS epidemic, or the intermarriages of gender, caste or ethnicity that are traditionally prohibited.

Yet the construction of sexual hierarchies and social arrangements of who can ‘legitimately’ have sex with whom, and how they must conduct it, clearly illustrates the power relations at play in society itself – constructions that are increasingly being challenged. Moreover, it is precisely times of great political upheaval that offer significant possibilities for radical reappraisals of sexuality. With a proactive judiciary, and a wide-ranging interpretation of citizenship, for instance, Nepal has recently taken significant steps towards recognising the rights of sexual minorities – a breakthrough that other countries of the region might want to study.

Living under archaic criminal laws, sexual minorities have long inhabited spaces shunned by ‘normal’ society, developing unique sub-cultures and survival strategies. Although myths, taboos and stigmas around sex still persist, there is a discernible opening-up taking place regarding issues of sexuality in general and women’s sexuality in particular. Slowly, and crucially, sexuality is also coming to be regarded as fluid, as a range of behaviours and situations that go beyond the inflexible binary categories of ‘heterosexual’ and ‘homosexual’.

Unfortunately, the overarching discourse around sexual minorities in the region remains dominated by NGOs and donor agencies, talking exclusively in the language of international standards and universal human rights. This has ended up as a drive toward homogeneity, and with the linking to global sexual-rights movements there has been a significant loss of local articulation of identities. Furthermore, in all the talk of ‘visibility’ and ‘coming out’, might it be that the naming, categorising and shaping of identities inadvertently preclude the possibilities of a nuanced understanding of sexuality – one that might more closely mirror the realities of the sexual minorities in Southasia?