ANUAL ON

SEX
UA
L RI
GH E NT
TS & RM
SEXUAL EMPOWE

Abha Bhaiya & Saskia Wieringa

Prepared for the KARTINI Network of Women’s Studies and Feminist Activism in Asia
 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS AND SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Jointly produced by JAGORI, APIK & KARTINI

Authors: Abha Bhaiya & Saskia Wieringa

Editor: Amrita Nandy-Joshi

Design & Cover: Nitisha Mehta
Project support and Typing: Nancy Gupta

Publication: 2007

Copies available in India

Jagori
B 114 Shivalik
Malviya Nagar
New Delhi 110 017
Phone: +91-11-26691219/26691220
Website: <www.jagori.org>

In Indonesia
Kartini/APIK (Asosiasi Peremepuam Indonesia untuk Keadilan)
Jl. Raya Tengah nomor 16
Kramat Jati
Pasar Rebo
Jakarta Timur-Indonesia
Phone: +622 18 7797289

For limited circulation only

 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

 Content

Preface 04

Introductory Session 06

Session 1 Setting the mood 15

Session 2 Sex and Sexuality 21

Session 3 Sexuality, Gender and the

construction of Masculinity and Femininity 29

Session 4 Sexualities: Notions of the Normal 37

Session 5 Multiple identities and multiple sexualities 47

Session 6 Body Politics and Pornography 59

Session 7 Sex Work and the Sex Industry 69

Session 8 Eroticism, Fantasy and the Right to Pleasure 79

Session 9 Sexualities, Law and Sexual Rights 85

Session 10 Sexual Empowerment: Strategising the Personal and the Public 95

List of Films 107

Glossary 108

Reference 112


 Preface
W e began writing this Manual as part of
our ongoing work as (activist/academic)
on issues surrounding sexualities, sexual rights
and women’s empowerment. The Manual is the
outcome of a research and advocacy project
on women’s non-normative sexualities by the
Kartini Network on Women’s Studies in Asia.
The sexuality programme is one among the five
themes worked upon by the Kartini Network;
the others are women’s studies, livelihood,
fundamentalisms and violence. The aim of the
Kartini network is to foster a closer collaboration
between activists and researchers in Asia who
are working on gender issues and for women’s
empowerment. We maintain that such work
ensures the critical relevance of research for
women’s studies programmes, while activists
strengthen strategies related to advocacy and
legal reforms in a more informed way.
The present phase of the research and
advocacy project on women’s non-normative
sexualities saw collaboration between activists
and researchers from the two participating
countries (India and Indonesia). The research
phase focused on three categories of ‘abject’
women—divorced/widowed women, young
urban lesbians and sex workers. Together,
these categories helped us investigate the
commonalities of non-normative sexualities. In
the advocacy phase, the attention was geared
not only towards developing tools in relation
to the three categories of women researched
 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
into, but also to expose the workings of
heteronormativity. Heteronormativity, as it is
lived in India and Indonesia, as indeed elsewhere,
not only excludes the marginal – those who live
non-normative lives – but also restricts those
inside the borders of normativity.
The research was originally designed by Abha
Bhaiya, Nursyahbani Katjasungkana and Saskia
Wieringa. It was carried out by four member
associations of the Kartini network — Jagori,
the women’s documentation center in New
Delhi, APIK (Association for Women’s Justice),
KPI (Indonesian Women’s Coalition) and the
University of Indonesia in Jakarta. The research
process was guided by both the authors of this
Manual, Abha Bhaiya and Saskia Wieringa, as
well as by Irwan Hidayana from the University of
Indonesia. Valuable inputs were also provided
by Nursyahbani Katjasungkana, the Kartini
network’s co-chair, who kept insisting on ever
new ways to involve the activists more closely
in the research process.
After an initial training in Goa, India, the
researchers set out to work. With patience
and great academic acumen, they prepared
five beautiful case studies for each category
for each country. We thank Sinta Bernadet,
Enday Sulistyowati and Widja Wijayanti, in
Jakarta and Bharti M. Borah, Ambarien Al
Qadar, Shabnam Berar and Pooja Rao in Delhi
for their perseverance, good humour and the
academic dedication with which they carried
out the original research that forms the basis
of this manual. A special mention must be
made of Ratna Batara Munti, who besides being
the director of APIK Jakarta, managed to
produce the profile of a young urban lesbian
in Jakarta.
Besides the collection of life stories, the
researchers carried out a media analysis that
was later summarised by Renu Addalkhar.
Another product of the project was a reader on
Sexuality and Sexual Rights in Asia, compiled
by Abha Bhaiya and Saskia Wieringa.
This Manual was tested out in two Training of
Trainers workshops, in Khajuraho, India and
Jakarta, Indonesia respectively. In India, the TOT
proved very valuable. The Indian participants
were mostly from women’s and sexual rights
groups from all over India. We thank Sanjukta
Chaudhuri and Sahba Syed (AALI) , Priya Raju
(CWS), Shramana Majumder(CFAR) , Shivangi
Rai( Lawyers Collective), Rohini Ghadiok
(Jagori), Archana More and Malvika Kadam
(MASUM), Ravi Jeena (MASVAW), Rahul Singh
(Naz Foundation), Jaya Sharma (Nirantar and
PRISM), S. Jayasree and Seema (SAKHI),
Akanksha and Shumita (SAPPHO), Gargi
Banerjee and Shalini Gupta (Sanhita) and Maya
Sharma (Vikalp).
The TOT in Indonesia was equally rich.
Participants came from various universities
and NGOs all over Indonesia. We thank Lusy
Palulungan, Farida Nurland, Farizal, Darwanis,
Esthi Susanti, Siti Syamsiyatun, Budi Wahyuni,
R.R. Agustine, Yuniarti Hanifah, Ida Ruwaida
Noor, Anna Sulikah, Yang Suwan, Asnifriyanti
Damanik, Estu Fanani, Masruchah, Cut Bietty,
Harmona Daulay, Tri Sulistyawati, Beauty
Erawati, and Ruth Styella Thei. The participants
from both countries were experienced activists
and academics, who made many insightful
contributions to this Manual.
This Manual would not have been possible
without the tacit support and hard work of Nancy
Gupta, whose attentiveness, commitment and
patience has been invaluable as she laboured
through multiple drafts of this manual.
Amrita Nandy-Joshi, who also compiled, wrote
and edited the TOT report, has done more than
editing this time. She provided many conceptual
insights and helped with significant details
and, thus, added a great deal to the text of this
Manual. Similarly Nitisha Mehta, as an artist
and designer has given her best to the project.
She has designed the TOT workshop report as
well as this Manual. It has been very assuring to
have this team of young, committed women as
part of this project. Our thanks.
In the course of the project, we have come to
be very appreciative of the continued support
of our funders: The Ford Foundation, New York
and Hivos, The Netherlands. The officers-in-
charge believed in our work and supported us
in various ways. A special mention must go to
Barbara Klugman and Roshmi Goswami, Ford
Foundation, New York and Delhi respectively,
and Frans Mon, Marc ter Brugge and Els Rijke
from Hivos. We also take this opportunity to
thank Jagori for the administrative and financial
management support.
Last of all, we, as authors of this Manual, must
thank ourselves, for our continued friendship
and trust in each other and the project, even
when writing this Manual proved to be a much
more complex and time- consuming task than
we ever could have imagined. This Manual will
be tested out in other fora. We hope that it will
be a useful tool for training and advocacy for
other NGOs working on women’s sexuality and
sexual rights in Asia and elsewhere.
Abha Bhaiya and Saskia Wieringa
Co-coordinators, Sexuality theme
Kartini Network

 Introduction
W e generally think of persons as “rights-
bearers.” They not only carry rights
with them, but also produce them, give birth
to them, usually through contestation and
struggle. Yet rights are never completely
produced. They remain in production,
continually reasserted and reinterpreted.
As they are “in production,” they reattach
to persons, bringing with them new
understandings of the meaning of personality
and identity in different contexts. Thus, rights
are also “person-bearers.” (Dean, 1996:73)
This Manual aims to increase women’s
awareness about sexual rights* and empower-
ment. It is an attempt to focus on sexuality
and thereby add to our theories and practices
of feminisms*. We see it as a tool to make
sexuality a more inclusive engagement of our
work within women’s movements. Sexuality,
as a subject, keeps changing its meanings
and nuances as it confronts ever enlarging
sexual diversities and sexual identities. The
Manual seeks to provide a space for dialogue
and conversations on multiple issues related
to sexual expression and its simultaneous
denial. One of the critical issues within the
discourse of sexuality is the construction of
heteronormativity* within societies which
controls not just those who are within its
boundaries, but even those who fall outside.
* Words/phrases with an asterix have been explained
in the glossary.
 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Why Study Sexuality?
Asking this question is akin to asking ‘Why
study life?’ Sexuality is quintessential to our
experiences—physical, sexual, emotional
and even spiritual. While sexuality is often
perceived as a personal and private subject,
it has wide-ranging political implications.
‘…evolving expressions of sexuality by
individuals and groups influence culture,
politics and religion. Sexuality is both central
to some of the greatest problems of our time
and is at the core of human well-being for
people of all ages…….the area of sexuality
is nothing if not hotly contested, a lightning
rod in contemporary life. Attitudes towards
sexuality can cripple or free. Battles rage
world wide between repression and freedom;
science and religion; feminism and patriarchy.
This struggle over sexuality is a profoundly
important one—a struggle that determines
not only how well societies treat their own
people, but how well societies are able to co-
exist.’ (Ford Foundation 2005:9)
Why Focus on the Deconstruction
of Normativities*?
The assumption of this research is that the
process of laying bare the so-called ‘abnormal’
categories of sexuality will also uncover the
creation, space, boundaries and underlying
mechanisms of ‘normal’ sexualities. It will
also reveal the many inherent injustices and
oppressive power relations that lie beneath
the cover of normality.
Conceptual Background
Sex, sexuality* and gender relations are
distinct but interrelated concepts in a vast
subject that covers the material (the body)
and the conceptual (gender). The essence
of this subject is the strict binary model of
heteronormativity—the ‘male’ and the ‘female’.
The strong mechanisms that constantly
guard and regulate these rigid categories
point both to their instability and resilience.
These mechanisms (cultural, political or
economic) ensure that living outside these
categories comes only with social ostracism
and deep psychic conflicts. Even the body
– the heart of the heteronormative model
– is never as stable or ‘natural’ as those who
uphold/enforce the model’s norms would like
to see it as. There is constant and consistent
reinforcement of what constitutes the
‘normal’ by traditions, culture, the media, the
market and the economy, both individually
and together. ‘Normalcy’ is not just created
and imposed, but also performed in order
to become or remain ‘normal.’ Normalcy
has its own cultural or historical variations,
thus proving that it is essentially unstable in
character. In every socio-historical context,
a different ‘normal’ is created, upheld and
enforced with ever changing but always-
effective mechanisms.
In most present day cultures, the core of
heteronormativity is formed by sexual
difference—that humanity is neatly and
‘naturally’ divided into biological females
and biological males. Any variation from the
two categories is not acceptable and therefore,
in most cases, medically operated. Those who
are different from the biological norm or those
who fall outside the normal or normative
become the abject, for example, homosexuals,
the physically/mentally challenged, single
mothers etc. Heteronormativity is enforced
by the creation of the abject, just as opposites
define each other (‘a woman is not a man’).
The abject* is not normal. Those who live in
the border zones, uninhabitable to ‘normal’
humans, paradoxically patrol the borders
of the normal and define its boundaries.
Thrown out of the ‘normal’ and dejected,
they fulfill the role of living as specimens of
what is unacceptable in society and live their
punishment not belonging to the ascribed
category. This process is the creation of
gender, of being not just male and female but
simultaneously man and woman.
Gender is a social system that acts upon
a supposedly passive body. Bodies are
understood within their social and historical
context. Cultures have different markers
to distinguish the female from the male
(and anything in between wherever that is
recognized). These are not only dress codes,
but also bodily shapes, traits and movements.
Today, societies hardly tolerate gender
ambiguities, let alone sexual ambiguities.
Yet in various Asian cultures and in earlier
historical periods gender and sexual ambiguity
was treated differently, at times even invested
with great spiritual power (AnnexureI.1), such
as the Ardhanarishvar figure (see Chapter 4).
The regulatory mechanisms most visibly at
work are the various cultural and religious
interpretations that influence gender relations.
Gender – as a power relation – is but a handy
tool of patriarchy that creates women’s
socio-economic, cultural and political
oppression.
Research
The research project, of which this Manual
is a part, investigated three categories of the
‘abject’ or the ‘abnormal’: (1) women who had
SESSION ONE : SETTING THE MOOD 
 lost their husbands, either through divorce or
death, (2) sex workers, and (3) young, urban
lesbians. We compared their life trajectories
in Jakarta and Delhi, two major cities in widely
different parts of Asia. Delhi is the capital
of a country with a large Hindu majority
and a sizeable Muslim minority, amongst
other religious and cultural pluralities. The
Indian state is constitutionally committed to
secularism and equal respect to all regions.
However, right-wing Hindu fundamentalists
have repeatedly tried to impose the notion
of a Hindu nation. Jakarta is the capital of a
sprawling archipelago with a large variety
of ethnic cultures; it has the largest Muslim
population of the world, as also smaller
minorities such as Christian, Hindu and so
on. The Indonesian state is constitutionally
secular, but religion plays a large role in public
life and is embedded in several regulations
that strongly impact people’s private lives.
Recently, there have been strong political
currents to impose stricter Islamic codes on
the lives of Indonesians.
The research was carried out with a number
of objectives in mind. In the first place, we
wanted to chart the lives of women who
live outside the heteronormative because
information on such women and their families
is scarce. Secondly, we wanted to explore the
boundaries and regulatory mechanisms of
heteronormativity in two countries. Thirdly,
we wanted this research to contribute to the
struggle for sexual rights not only for the
marginalized groups, but also for women
living within the norm. Fourthly, we wanted
to explore the possibilities of social and
sexual agency so as to contribute to a cultural
climate that will enable the deployment of
sexual rights.
Thus, the big question is: how can agency*
and transformation of oppressive sexual
relations be stimulated? However stable
 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
heteronormativity may seem at any given
moment in time and in any cultural context,
its inherent instability, and therefore
its potential for transformation can be
perceived. In the first place, any cultural
norm is necessarily a sequence of repeated
performances. The constant acting out of its
codes and norms reminds the performers and
their audiences of the comfort of the familiar. A
sturdy, butch woman performing masculinity
at once reminds her audience/onlookers of
what it ‘is’ that a man is assumed to be; at
the same time, her appearance questions the
stability of that knowledge as she disrupts
the sex-gender link on which it is modeled.
Similarly, a tomboyish girl made to wear a
skirt in school lays bare the enforced nature
of such dress codes.
Collective agency, in relation to sexual rights,
typically involves a number of moments
that can be either simultaneous or sequential.
An important step is the (re)discovery of
the ‘roots’ of certain behavior patterns or
assumed identities in earlier historical periods
or diverse cultural/religious traditions. This
Manual provides various examples that
may help in this process. Another step is
the assertion of a particular identity. Initially,
this may be very liberatory (‘out and proud’)
since it allows its adherents to affirm their
own personalities. However, it may also
stifle individual expressions and practices.
Group norms can become oppressive, just
as the norm of heteronormativity is oppressive
to many. A major dilemma in identity-based
groups is how to deal with diversity within
the group. On the one hand, there is a desire
to integrate within the social milieu, for all
members to ascribe to its norms; on the
other hand, there is the expression of
plural desires, practices and a sense of
partial belonging. A third moment is when
group members start questioning the wider
cultural, religious, legal, national or even
global dimensions of their identities. That is
the moment when a discourse and practice
of sexual rights becomes particularly
important.
These are the concepts, in a nutshell, upon
which this research project is built. In this
training Manual, these concepts will be
illustrated through discussions, exercises,
films and other methods so that participants
and trainers can discuss, critique and
internalize them.
This Manual can best be used side-by side-
with the Reader prepared for the same
project, entitled ‘A Reader on Sexuality and
Sexual Rights’, compiled by the authors of this
Manual. Wherever relevant, references will be
made to specific chapters in the Reader.
Parts of the Manual were tested out in two
TOT (Training of Trainers) workshops during
September 2006 in Khajuraho, India and in
Jakarta, Indonesia. Relevant fragments of
these sessions are included in the Manual.
Framework of the Manual
The present Manual seeks to build up a pool of
trainers to address the issues of sexual rights
via capacity building on issues related to
sex, sexuality and gender . The training also
aims to increase the knowledge of women’s
sexual (dis)empowerment and to suggest
culturally sensitive ways to address these
issues.
Many of the illustrations are based on
the results of the research into issues of
women’s rights, sexual empowerment and
normative sexualities in India and Indonesia.
In Indonesia, a prior step was a workshop
on sexual rights and sexual health held in
Ciloto in 2002, organized by the KPI (Koalisi
Perempuan Indonesia, Indonesian Women’s
Coalition). The focus of the present Manual
is on specific topics related to women’s
non-normative sexuality and on historical,
cultural, social and religious norms that
determine women’s sexual practices and
sexual empowerment.
It is important to mention here that the
Manual is part of an emerging sexual rights
mobilization and the greater visibility of
sexually marginal groups in both countries.
In addition, there is a growing literature
(academic and activist) on sexuality that has
enriched its discourse.
Users of the Manual
The users of this Manual will be trainers who
work with various women’s organizations
particularly in Asia. The networks of Jagori
in India and of APIK and KPI in Indonesia will
be used as an initial base to reach women’s
groups in these countries. The TOTs and
the follow-up workshops in both countries
have used parts of the Manual to test it out.
Many examples are based on women’s
experiences. With further training and
research in other Asian countries through
the Kartini network, experiences of women
in other Asian countries will be incorporated
and the theoretical and conceptual framework
will be refined. Therefore, the Manual needs
to be seen as work in progress and a growing
document.
The Manual will be used for purposes of
advocacy, to enlarge the public debate on
issues of sexuality and heteronormativity,
and women’s sexual empowerment and
sexual rights in general. Due to strong
societal restrictions on debates of this
nature, innovative ways will have to be
sought to address these issues in a culturally
sensitive way.
SESSION ONE : SETTING THE MOOD 
 Collaborating Organizations
This Manual is a collaborative project. Brief
descriptions of collaborating organizations
follows:
Jagori, a women’s training, documentation,
resource and communication centre, was
established in 1984. The main objectives
and achievements of Jagori have been
consciousness raising on issues such as
violence against women, women’s health
and sexual rights, right to education and
information, action research, campaigns and
feminist training for building leadership at
multiple levels. Jagori has a well established
library and a production and distribution
centre with multimedia material including
films, feminist music, posters, booklets
etc. It works directly with rural and urban
communities to strengthen the capacities
of marginalized people to intervene in
development processes. Jagori is part of
women’s movements as they derive strength
from each other.
APIK, Asosiasi Perempuan Indonesia untuk
Keadilan, or Indonesian Women’s Association
for Justice, was established in 1995 by
seven feminist lawyers. It aims to contribute
towards creating a society characterized by
gender justice. It therefore not only deals with
individual law cases but advocates for legal
reform and gender policies. At present, the
Association has branches in 14 Indonesian
cities. The Jakarta office has a well-established
documentation center and library. It regularly
publishes research on legal issues related to
gender concerns
KPI Koalisi Perempuan Indonesia, or
Indonesian Women’s Coalition, was
established after the fall of the military
dictatorship of President Suharto in 1998. It is
a women’s mass organization which focuses
10 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
on women’s rights and fostering democracy
and women’s political awareness. It works
on 15 different sectors, such as widows, sex
workers and sexual minorities.
Kartini is an Asian European Network that
was formally established in Manila in 2003.
Kartini aims to create synergy between
women’s/gender studies and feminist
activism in the region. The main objectives
of the Network is to strengthen feminist
analysis and perspective; work towards
social transformation, justice and equality;
forge collaboration between academics and
activists from the region, promote Asian
women’s studies and conduct action research
and gender training. Kartini has selected
five themes as focus areas of the network:
Women’s/Gender Studies, Fundamentalism
and Globalization, Resistance Against War,
Conflict and Violence, Sexual Rights and
Women’s Empowerment, and Livelihoods and
Securities. The Kartini secretariat is located at
APIK, Jakarta, Indonesia.
How to use the Manual?
This Manual is meant to be a guide. There
are innumerable ways of conducting a
session. The trainer is free to set her/his own
sequential order. Most Asian countries are
well experienced in conducting gender and
sexuality workshop and training. Therefore,
the objective is to create a deeper and
nuanced understanding of issues surround-
ing sex and sexuality, heteronormativity and
the institutionalization of sexual control,
from a feminist perspective. The Manual
is a spring board to conduct sessions on
various aspects of sex and sexuality. Users
must feel free to evolve their own sessions,
using their own examples according to context.
The Manual follows a pattern which is outlined
below. At present, it has ten sessions. While
the Manual is still being developed, sessions
can be added as per the need of the group and
the moment in time. As the Manual will be
used in various Asian contexts, we hope that
users will provide us with suggestions and
inputs which can be incorporated to include
aspects of Asian women’s experiences around
sexuality.
Each session comprises the following:
• Its main objective;
• A brief conceptual note;
• A few exercises to aid understanding of
the session;
• A film screening relevant to the subject.
Interspersed in the text are boxes with
stories, fragments of conversations or other
material that will be useful for discussion. The
Annexures provide more material that can
be used as handouts and reading material.
The facilitator should feel free to use it in the
manner s/he deems appropriate. The glossary
explains various terms that have been used in
the Manual; terms with the asterix* imply that
they are part of the glossary. A list of films is
also added as Annexure.
It is desirable that many exercises, handouts
as well as visual imagery are added. The
references listed at the back can be used
for further reading. In addition, a Reader titled
‘Sexuality and Sexual Rights in Asia’ has
been compiled. It offers useful background
material. Together, the Manual and the
Reader are geared towards training and
academic use.
Principles of Feminist
Training
(Bhaiya and Menon-Sen; 1989)
Training is a conscious intervention in
a defined process of learning/unlearning—
a collective process of reflection-action-
reflection. The Feminist Training Methodology
(FTM) is based on certain principles of training
and learning, as elaborated below. Feminist
trainers have further built on the participatory
methodology developed by the Brazilian
educator Paulo Freire by making gendered
realities visible.
Our methodological paradigm is based on our
understanding of patriarchy and compulsory
heteronormativity as systems of oppression.
Feminism forms our framework for struggle.
It is important to keep the following principles
in mind during trainings:
The body is the starting point of our
understanding of our ‘self’ and others.
Experiences of oppression (of women and
other marginalized groups of people) form
the basis of understanding larger structures
of domination and subordination.
Our realities are formed by our individual,
subjective experiences. Truths are not
neutral or all pervasive, but based on
subjectivities. Conceptualization takes
place based on individual experiences.
All realities must be interrogated—nothing
can be taken for granted. We must build
our confidence to speak out and ask
questions--the ‘why’ of everything that
happens to us.
Gender does not operate in isolation
of other systems of domination, such as
class, caste, ethnicity, disability, religion,
heteronormativity, marital status and so on.
Women, gay, lesbian, trans and pan
gender/sexual are not homogeneous
groups/categories. Each one of us has
multiple identities. We are continuously
divided by these differences.
There should be respect for diversity and
multiplicity-—creating space to stand and
speak against homogenization of our
experiences.
11
 A non-judgmental environment is
an essential prerequisite for honest
sharing, especially of our pleasure-giving
experiences of sexuality and sexual-social
energies. Women have been systematically
denied a claim to sexual needs and
desires. We have been taught not to speak
about our positive experiences.
We should not see marginalized and
oppressed groups of people as victims,
but as active agents of change capable of
subversive action.
Sexual oppression and denial are cultural
ways to exclude and expel. This is a
violation of our human rights.
Feminist training methodology challenges
the divide between the private and the
public—‘personal is political and the
political is personal’.
Maintaining confidentiality is another
important feminist principle. Participants
must feel secure in sharing their
experiences; there should be no breach of
trust.
Training must be seen as part of our political
action. It is a continuum that helps us reflect
on our individual reality in a collective
manner. The training is a space to agree and
disagree; to seek new horizons, new alliances
and possibilities of collective resistance to
our marginalisation. It is an intense and
concentrated experience. Often, it leads to
a feeling of euphoria. However, realities
outside the training room have not changed;
a person may find it difficult to deal with
the outside world.
As far as possible, the training should lead
to building mutual support, with participants
themselves playing an important role. It is
equally important that participants and the
trainer maintain confidentiality.
12 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Aims and Objectives of the
Training
Primarily, this Manual aims to strengthen
and broaden the sexual rights movements
and build new constituencies. The following
are some of the objectives of this training
process.
Create a group of trainers on issues related
to sexual rights;
Develop a deeper understanding of issues
related to sex and sexuality;
Break the silence around issues of sex and
sexuality;
Understand how the ‘normal’ and the
‘abnormal’ are created;
Provide tools to deconstruct
heteronormativity;
Increase awareness around various social
and cultural practices that deny women
their sexual rights;
Empower participants to lead safe,
pleasurable and responsible sex lives
and increase their skills to negotiate
safe, pleasurable and responsible sexual
practices;
Strengthen advocacy efforts towards
decriminalization of multiple sexual
practices based on the above principles;
Equip participants with knowledge of major
international and national instruments on
human and women’s rights, especially
sexual and reproductive rights; and
Strengthen campaigns around sexual
empowerment.
Suggestions for Trainers and
Facilitators
Have for ready reference:
Hard copies of a few case studies;
Profiles of people living a life of non-
normativity;
A media campaign on issues related to
legal struggle;
Campaign materials such as leaflets,
 press notes etc.;
Legal documents related to the session
on legal framework in the country;
Films, music, posters, poetry, folk and
other stories, stickers, buttons etc; and/or
other creative material; and
Visual images such as pictures, photos,
advertisements that either reinforce or
challenge heteronormativity.
Preparing the Venue
It is important to make the venue of the
training conducive for a group.
Ensure that it provides space to put up some
posters, post cards, banners and any other
Trainer’s notes
visual material on the walls; all this helps set
the tone of the workshop.
A wall can be dedicated for a few empty
charts where all new and old concepts
can be mounted as the training proceeds.
Participants can use this space to write words
and concepts that are not clear. The facilitator
should create time within the training period
for clarifications within the group where
participants share their knowledge about
issues and help each other get clarity.
The overall objective is to create an
environment of creative learning and sharing
of our most intimate experiences and thoughts
around the most hidden areas of our lives.
13
14 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Setting the mood
Objectives
Create a conducive environment;
Familiarize the participants with
each other;
Create a bond and personal
intimacy among participants; and
Share issues of commonalities
and differences.

session one

15
 Guiding Notes
The first day of the training should start with
the trainer/s clearly stating the objectives
of the training, using either a power point
presentation or a chart paper (refer to the
Introduction of the Manual), with a brief
background note on the context of the training.
The facilitator/s welcome the participants and
try to know whether they all are comfortable
with the logistic and living arrangements.
Since it is a residential training, it is important
that participants feel comfortable and
relaxed.
Name Game
To make participants know each other better
– and most definitely each other’s names –the
Name Game can be played in many different
ways. For example, you can do any of the
following.
a) Divided into pairs, participants are asked to
share their names and some unique qualities
with each other and then introduce their
partner to the group. This sets an immediate
bond between two people and creates a sense
of fun.
b) Participants stand in a circle and take a huge
ball of string. The first person holds one end
of the string and throws the ball at another
participant while shouting her/his own name.
The second person then also holds a part of
the string and throws it to another person
shouting one’s own name. This continues
till all participants are holding a part of the
string creating a complex web of strings. The
reverse process continues when each shouts
the name of the other with the string being
rolled back each time into a ball. This helps
people remember names of all participants in
a short time.
16 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
c) Differently coloured pieces of paper are
placed in the centre of the room. (The color
code is equally divided among participants).
Participants are asked to choose any colour
they wish and to draw a symbol which
represents how they see themselves. Colour
pens are distributed. A round of introduction
follows with each participant introducing her
or himself with the help of their symbol. This
helps in understanding each one’s aspiration
and self perception. The colored cards chosen
in the exercise can become a way to divide
participants into groups during the rest of the
training.
Following this, each group is given a task for
the rest of the workshop. Tasks can be shared
by all if the group is divided into smaller sub-
groups that take turns to do the following:
Review the previous day;
Manage the ambience of the room—
flowers, candles, sitting arrangement;
Plan ice breakers;
Help others heal;
Organize physical movements and
exercises, including dance and music,
yoga and aerobics and so on.
In the next exercise, participants are given
two cards of different colors--one to write
down their fear or apprehension, and the
other to write down their expectations from
the training. These are then put up on two
different walls. On the last day, just before
the evaluation, participants can revisit these
charts.
Sociogram*
(See Annexure 1.1)
The Sociogram is primarily a set of questions.
Participants form a group for each exercise,
according to their affiliation to an identity
(sexual or gender and so on). The facilitator
probes the issue around each identity by
analysing its formation, the differences
that emerge and areas that need further
discussion. This exercise helps in visiblising
differences and also addresses some difficult
issues in a group situation.
While some questions are mentioned in the
Appendix, many more can be added or some
could be deleted, depending on the formation
Trainer’s notes
of the group, the availability of time and the
mood of the group. The facilitator needs to
take into consideration the time required to
discuss some of these issues, as they can
lead to heated debates and differences in
the group. S/he has to be a patient listener
to different views; no voice should be stifled.
The objective is not to build consensus, but
to create a non-judgmental and welcoming
space for conversation.
17
 Exercise

Group exercise on multiple identities

Exercise 1

For the first part, the participants are given 45 minutes and made to sit in pairs.

The entire group of participants is divided into pairs, preferably of different

backgrounds. Right in the beginning, the facilitator should clarify that any information
that is shared in pairs, should not be discussed with others, without the consent of
the person concerned. The confidentiality of the process and the person must be
honoured.

Each pair is given a set of questions to share and discuss among themselves:

When did you for the first time realize that you are a heterosexual / homosexual
/ bisexual / transgender / transsexual / pan gender / any other? How was the
experience?

Share the discrimination/privilege you experience in that particular gender/sexual

identity.

When did you first experience your sexual stirrings? How was the experience?
Were you able to share it with someone? If yes, with whom? If not, what was the
reason and fear around it?

Have you ever challenged discrimination or atrocities inside or outside the family,
based on issues of sexualities and sexual identities?

Each group presents the outcome of the discussion in the plenary. These questions
can be changed and new ones added.

18 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

In the plenary, the main highlights of the discussion are shared. Some of this
shared information may be painful or very personal. Please note that the person
may not want to share it with the entire group on the first day itself. The facilitator
should consolidate the shared thoughts, and common and different experiences
of the participants. Certain issues that need a longer discussion can be noted on a
chart paper and reserved for discussion at some later point. It can be marked on
the wall.

Exercise 2

Participants form three groups to discuss the nature/ forms of obstacles and
opposition they have confronted within and outside their family and organizations,
peers and friends or the larger community. The outcome of the discussion is
consolidated on a chart paper for the session on future strategies.(See Session 10)

FILM SCREENING

Film: Antonia’s Line

Directed by Marleen Gorris

Synopsis: A beautiful and non-judgmental representation of sexualities and

multiple identity issues and how they are handled in communities. Moving through
five generations of strong women, the film explores women and men’s different
sexualities, issues of disability, hypocrisy of religion, patriarchal oppression of
women and women’s response to discrimination and sexual violence. The film
has a very strong impact on viewers.

In case there are other similar films, the facilitator could acquire a good print and
screen it. S/he should be familiar with the film and develop a frame work to discuss
its relevance to the theme of the day.

19
 Trainer’s notes

20 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Sex and Sexuality
Objectives
Break the silence and hesitation
around issues related to sexuality;
Understand the difference
between sex and sexuality; and
Evolve a common understanding
and definition of sexuality.

session two

21
 Guiding Notes
There is a significant difference between sex
and sexuality. Sex is usually thought of as
biological and therefore stable. It generally
refers to the genitals and the sexual act.
Although sex and sexuality are analytically
distinct terms, the term sex is often used to
conflate both. It is used to refer to sexual
practice or ��������������������������������
behaviour�����������������������
. The term ‘Sex’ often
simply relates to an ‘act’, a performance, while
sexuality is seen to be an abstract concept.
Sexuality encompasses innumerable aspects
of human existence—physical, sexual,
emotional, behavioural. Sexuality as it is
socially constructed is about the intricate ways
in which our feelings and desires are expressed
or denied expression. Thus, sexuality has
both positive and negative connotations as it
is rooted in a particular context.
Sexuality is shaped at the juncture of two
major axes of concern: with our subjectivity-
who and what we are; and with society- with
the future growth, well being, health and
prosperity of the population as a whole. The
two are intimately connected because at the
heart of both is the body and its potentialities.
(Weeks, 1986:34)
The widening claim of sexuality has helped
us to look at diversity of sexual experiences
and desires thus creating a space for inclusive
approach to sexual diversity & identities.
As we began integrating multiple sexual
identities, expression and fluidities, sexuality
became an enriched conceptual milestone.
The concept of sexuality includes not only
sexual identities, sexual norms, sexual
practices and behaviour, but also feelings,
desires, fantasies and experiences related to
sexual awareness, arousal and sexual acts
within heterosexual as well as homosexual
relations. This includes subjective(gendered)
22 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
experiences as well as the meanings attached
to them. Thus, the concept of sexuality
encompasses not only the biological and
psychological, but also the social and cultural
dimensions of sexual identity and sexual
behaviour.(Abraham, 2000:1)
Thus sexuality includes personal and
social meaning...A comprehensive view of
sexuality includes social roles, personality,
gender and sexual identity, biology, sexual
behaviour, relationships, thoughts and
feelings. Sexuality, being culturally defined
and socio-historically evolved, has different
connotations within different communities,
societies and groups. Even within the same
society the understanding of sexuality may
differ with age, social class and gender
(Vance, 1984:17). Sexuality is also a powerful
conceptual tool to explore power and gender
relations, which operate in a society.
As stated by Weeks, in contrast again to
essentialist notions, social construction
theory understands sexuality as being
produced through social, economic, cultural
and gender power relations. Sexuality is
constructed by society in complex ways. ‘It is
a result of diverse social practices, of social
definitions and self-definitions, of struggles
between those who have the power to define
and regulate, and those who resist. Sexuality
is not a given, it is a product of negotiation,
struggle and human agency’(Weeks, 1986)
Both sex and sexuality have many dimen-
sions—relational, recreational, emotional,
physical, sensual, and spiritual. These
are interlinked and cannot be separated.
Procreation is just one aspect of sexual
activities.
Sexuality is a broader term, linking the body
with phenomena such as fantasy and desire.
It is the most intimate form of communication
with oneself and between people, irrespective
of their sex or gender. It is a playful, joyous,
erotic, passionate, romantic and creative
interaction. It denotes a whole complex of
organic and neurological phenomena, which
acquire meaning in a specific social context.
Therefore, sexual desire and sexual
behaviour are both intensely physical and
at the same time social processes. They
cannot be seen apart from the context in
which they take place. Sex and sexuality are
played out in a context of unequal power
relations between the sexes, usually called
patriarchal. Within patriarchal conditions
women and men–whether heterosexual,
homosexual or others–experience sex and
sexuality differently. While experiences
of sex are innumerable, for women, more
often than for men, the first experience
of sex may be painful, especially in the
context of heterosexual sex.
‘Sexuality then is a form of power. Gender
as socially constructed embodies it, not
the reverse. Women and men are divided
by gender, made into the sexes as we
know them, by the social requirements
of heterosexuality, which institutionalizes
male sexual dominance and female sexual
submission. If this is true, sexuality is the
lynchpin of gender inequality.’
The notion of ‘virginity’, as an ideology,
controls the expression of women’s
sexuality. Women are praised and rewarded
for remaining ignorant about sex before
marriage. It is just the opposite for men.
The pressure to perform is high on men.
They are supposed to be knowledgeable
about sex and are stimulated to experience
sexuality before marriage. The ideology of
virginity, sexual ignorance and privileging
penile penetration are all forms of
patriarchal control of women. Vaginal
orgasm is part of this myth designed to
reinforce male sexual power. There is
a strong link between these patriarchal
prescriptions—they are directed to make
women feel inferior and always under
surveillance. Women are only relevant for
the fulfillment of male desire.
One of the ways in which men control women
through heterosexual relations is by defining
what is ‘normal female sexuality’. According
to this societal construction, women’s desires
are undesirable. Below this patriarchal surface
is the fear of female sexuality and therefore
the need to control it. Almost all ��������������
socities������
have
been obsessively engaged with the project of
sexual control of women’s sexuality. One of
the mechanisms of this control is to push the
issue of women’s desire and sexual fulfillment
in the silent zone. Sex is done to women but
not discussed. This makes women strangers
to their own bodies.
Even within women’s movements, sexuality
is mostly been addressed in the context of
sexual violence against women. It is only
in the recent past, with the emergence of
feminist lesbian groups that the discourse
around women’s sexual desires and the right
to sexual pleasure has gained visibility. This
is a long drawn struggle and needs a stronger
alliance building of various solidarity groups.
Often within the progressive groups the issue
of sexual rights is relegated to secondary
position as economic and political struggles
are seen as separate and more crucial from the
issue of sexuality. This is a short sighted view
as sexuality encompasses many aspects.
The major social structures that impacts
people’s sexual practices or ‘sex’ are the
family, where a child learns its first lessons
on intimacy and love, of the prohibited, the
illicit, and the licit; religion, with its norms and
regulations ,the community, based as it is in
ethnicity and class; the regional and national
political context of the state; and global
developments. The struggle for the assertion
23
 and the visibility of sex and sexuality has
to challenge all these state and non-state
institutions and structures.

Myths Around Women’s Sexuality

B. “It seems as if every movement women make can be interpreted as seductive to

men. Only as dead bodies we won’t be seen as sources of immorality any more. A
woman cannot speak out loud, or her voice is too sweet. Even when women wear veils,
their bottoms arouse men’s lust. So just bundle a woman up as you would a corpse,
then men cannot complain any more that they are seduced by us.”

N. “I think it has to do with the common belief that penile penetration is the only
source of sexual pleasure. Yet we women know that that isn’t true, that there are so
many other ways we can have sexual pleasure. But because everyone believes that
men have to penetrate and that needs great masculine strength, men become very
insecure. They need the confirmation and protection of women to be allowed to enter
the vagina. When that is threatened, they try to impose all kinds or regulations. Men
feel threatened when women demonstrate their power, with their bodies, their mouths,
their brains. That’s why men always try to dominate women, even until they want to
genitally mutilate them. Cannot we explore this line of thinking further?”

A: Yes, this myth that penile penetration is the only true sexual activity is widespread.
When my lesbian friends were interviewed on TV, the reporter asked the feminine one:
‘What do you prefer, men or women?” The feminine lesbian replied: “Well, a woman
of course!” The reporter got confused. “But how is that possible?” The lesbian replied:
“Well my lover has fingers, a tongue..” But the reporter remained unconvinced that
that could be a sexual activity.

S: The new regional regulations criminalize the meeting of women and men at night,
without the relatives of the woman being present. On what assumption are these based,
actually? They don’t see us as human beings any more, but as animals, as dogs, who
just have sex whenever they meet each other, without control.

From Jakarta TOT (6-10 September 2006, organised by the Kartini network)

Refer to Annexure 2.1 & 2.2

24 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

 Exercise

Group exercises

Exercise 1

Time: 90 minutes

Divide the group into two. Give each group a big chart paper with coloured ink pens.
If necessary, stick two chart papers together so that they have enough space to write.
Write the word ‘sex’ in the centre of the chart paper provided to one group. Similarly,
write the word ‘sexuality’ for the second group.

Ask each group to write all associated words that come to their mind on paper. It
should be a very spontaneous exercise where each participant supplies words that
come to her/his mind. The final result is a multi-colour collage of words.
Once they have finished writing the words, each group is also asked to write a
definition of the word written at the centre.

Both groups, as they present their charts in the plenary, talk about the words and
the associations they noted. The facilitator asks participants to identify words that
have positive/negative connotations. Participants are asked to explain their word
associations and how they feel about them.

In the next part of the exercise, each group shares the definition of the word given
to them. The definition mentioned earlier in this Session can be shared as a way
of defining sexuality. However, it has to be emphasized that there is no one way to
define sexuality.

25
 Exercise 2

Time: 60 minutes (15 minutes to discuss; 15 minutes for the presentation and 30
minutes for the consolidation).

Divide the participants in groups, according to the following institutions:

a) Family;
b) Religion;
c) Community/class/caste/ethnic group;
d) National political context; and
e) Global discourse.

Participants should write examples of practices in their assigned group that socialize
children towards certain sexualities in these institutions. Share and discuss.

Exercise 3

Time: 60 minutes (15 minutes to discuss; 15 minutes to do the presentation; and 30

minutes to consolidate).

Divide the participants into three groups and give each one of the following sentences
to discuss:
A) A woman should be a virgin before marriage;
B) A woman must play sexually secondary/ subordinated roles;
C) Penile penetration is the most satisfying sexual act for women.

Exercise 4

Time: 60 minutes (40 minutes for the exercise and 20 for de-briefing).

Divide participants into pairs. One in each pair becomes the sculptor and the other
the sculpture. The sculptors are asked to create a ‘good woman’ out of their partner.
After all sculptors are done with their work, they go around looking at others’
sculptures. Ask them to list the qualities of a ‘good woman’. These words are then
put up on the board. The partners then change their roles. They are asked to create
a ‘bad woman’ . A similar process is followed. They have to list the characteristics
of a bad woman.

The facilitator can lead a discussion about how many of them think of themselves as
good or bad women and why. Here, it is important to discuss the construction and the
ideology of a good woman and how it controls all women. This divide between the bad
and good is a very potent tool of patriarchy meant to control women’s sexuality.

26 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

 A similar exercise is done to create a good and a bad man. It will be interesting to see
how little characterizes a bad man. The characteristics of a good man are valorized.
The comparison between the two reveals the privileged position of men.

“Interestingly, producing a good or a bad man proved to be not as easy a task as

making models of a good and a bad woman. Most participants reported that they were
unclear about such stereotypical images of women. For example, a man engaging
in sexual activities before marriage did not make him bad. While women can never
escape the prescriptive values, men are seldom subjected to such extreme divides
based on their sexual activities.” (TOT Workshop,2006; Jagori and Kartini).

FILM SCREENING

Film: Who Can Speak of Men?

Directed by Ambarein Al qadar

Synopsis: This documentary presents three case studies comprising a girl child and
two adult women. All three dress up as boys or men. The little girl, Chini, addresses
herself in the masculine gender and dresses up as a boy. For this behavior, she is
neither accepted by the girls nor the boys in school. Arshin is a young woman and
describes the expectations that the family has from her, that is, as a young man
capable of handling the demands of the outside world. Kafeela, a cross-dresser too,
treats her female friend as ‘her property’. This documentary offers insights into the
expected gender roles of men and women in society.

Trainer’s notes

27
28 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
S
exuality, Gender
and the construction
of Masculinity and
Femininity
Objectives
Explore the differences between
sex and gender;
Understand the gendered nature of
sexual experiences;
Discuss the process of socialization
and identity formation;
Discuss the construction of the
stereotypes of masculinity and
femininity.

session three

29
 Guiding Notes
In the previous session, we recognized
how sex refers to our understanding of
the body and gender is a social relation of
power. Gender refers to how femininity and
masculinity are defined in a given socio-
historical context. It relates to the roles
women and men are assigned and the social
and cultural attributes associated with being
male or female. It must be remembered that
gender is not static—acquiring one’s gender
is a process which evolves throughout
one’s life. It is also a practice and a performance,
as analyzed by Butler (1993). Gender, she
said, is not what you ‘are’ – something innate
– but something that you ‘do’. (See Annexure
3.1). The process of acquiring one’s gender
is usually experienced as so absolute that
one’s gender is usually conceived to be a
central element of one’s subjectivity and
identity.
In all societies, men and women differ in
activities they undertake as well as in the
access to and control over resources. The
construction of gender is enacted through a
socialization process that is never complete.
The process is neither historically static nor
linear. In fact, it is a dynamic process as it is
influenced by multiple forces and structures.
It in turn influences other structures, such as
politics and religious practices, to name just
two. Through the process of gendering, the
minimal biological differences discussed in
Session 1 are turned into enormous social
differences leading to gender segregations
and fundamental gender inequalities. At the
same time, this socially differentiated gender
construction is perceived to be normal. For
example, men are supposed to be good with
tools and technologies, while women are soft
and gentle.
Gender is based on the binary division
between male and female that is constructed
30 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
in a hierarchical relation to each other.
Consequently, fluidity and plurality are not
accepted. Gender is also seen as static, and
therefore an individual is not supposed to
shift genders. In a binary division, the two
poles are in opposition to each other. Thus,
all women are seen to be more alike each
other than similar to men, and the other way
round. In binary structures, one pole is always
the more powerful: men are seen to be more
powerful than women, married women are
seen to be better than female sex workers,
white people are invested with more power
than Asians or Africans; Asians are seen to be
superior to Africans and so on.
However, gender does not operate in
isolation of other systems of domination
and subordination. These other systems
of hierarchy include class, caste, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, the urban-rural divide, age,
bodily dis-ability, religion, and ethnicity. All
these aspects of identity interact with gender.
Together, they constitute human beings—
social individuals with multiple identities.
Depending on one’s personal history and
historical conditions, one or more identities
may take precedence over others at any given
moment in time.
These differences are products of social
processes that are supported by the structure
of patriarchy in which men generally tend to
have greater options—more opportunities and
better resources. This socialization process
has not been smooth. In fact, it is full of conflict
and violence as it involves manipulation and
distribution of inequalities. In this scheme of
things, women are seen as the problematic
category while unequal power relationships
are not acknowledged.
Thus, gender relations comprise domination
and subordination. It is not only that men
and women are assigned different roles and
responsibility, they are also given differential
values (material and ideological) and visibility.
An important element is the sexual division
of labour.
All men profit from the so-called ‘patriarchal
dividend’, even though rich, white and
powerful men are obviously more privileged
than their poor black counterparts. Gender
does not only determine the men-women
relationship but also relationships between
men and men, women and women, and
between, for instance, the wife and the vamp.
Gendered dynamics also occur within same-
sex relations.
Gender privilege can be discerned among
homosexual people; men having sex with
men often have more economic opportunities
than women who have sexual relations with
other woman. In most societies, those who
are most discriminated against are masculine
lesbians and effeminate gay men.
Thus, sexuality is a gendered experience and
practice par excellence. Women are supposed
to be the passive partners, and men need to be
dominant, strong and have multiple partners.
Cultural, religious and political factors are
important intermediary aspects of gendered
relationships. Islam, for instance, constructs
women as active sexual agents, much more
so than Christianity. Hinduism is multifaceted
and includes many contradictory texts, visual
representations, worshiping symbols and
metaphors that are simultaneously sexually
liberating and oppressive for women.
The construction of masculinity and femininity
is culture specific. Neither femininity nor
masculinity is homogenous. Both constructs
have their respective ideals. The ideal of
femininity is chaste motherhood under male
control. Macho males, on the other hand, not
only control ‘their’ women and are socially,
politically and financially superior, they
also control subordinate males. Cultures
have particular constructs of hegemonic
masculinity. Contrasting patterns can be
called ‘protest masculinities’ (sissy boys or,
conversely, blue collar workers). Yet, although
certain masculinities are more dominant than
others, all men profit from the ‘patriarchal
dividend’: their actions are more valued, their
behaviour better accepted, and their range
of activities broader than women’s choices.
(Connell 1995)
In terms of social relations, gender is linked
to elements such as symbols, normative
concepts, political processes and identity.
Interestingly, the dictionary provides the
following words for masculine: male, manful,
manlike, manly, mannish, virile, bold, brave,
butch, gallant, hardy, macho, muscular,
powerful, Ramboesque, red blooded, resolute,
robust, stout-hearted, strapping, strong,
vigorous, well built. This list tells us what
our societies (Western and non-Western)
think of real men. In patriarchal ideology,
men and masculinity are superior to women
and femininity. Masculinity validates male
superiority and male domination; it naturalizes
masculinity, thus making it inevitable and
non-negotiable. Masculinity does not exist in
isolation from femininity. In a way, femininity
is negative masculinity, in that a woman
is what a man is not. In most societies,
masculinity and femininity are mirror images
of each other. However, the image and power
of one determines the image and power of
the other. Women can be considered ’inferior’
only if men are considered ‘superior’.
At a symbolic level, masculinity and femininity
are present in signs that are used to denote
all sorts of norms, qualities, virtues and vices.
Notions such as motherland/fatherland are
part of the symbolic representation of male-
female identity. Even attributes and qualities
such as reason are seen as masculine and
emotions as feminine; power as masculine
and powerlessness as feminine.
31
 Masculinities and femininities are multi-
layered phenomena.
Different kinds of masculinities are manifest
across class hierarchies—working-class,
bourgeois or intellectual masculinity may
be quite different to cowboy-masculinity.
Japanese masculinity may be different to
European or Indian masculinity; hegemonic
masculinity may be different to marginalized
masculinity. Hegemonic (all encompassing
leadership or dominance) masculinity
demands the submission of not only women,
but also of men who belong to subjugated or
‘protest’ masculinities.
This is why it is better to speak of masculinities
rather than one kind of masculinity.
The feminine and masculine are abstract
concepts, but are translated into qualities,
traits or behaviour patterns of biological men
and women. In every society, only certain
groups of men are privileged and only certain
forms of masculinity are dominant. In Western
societies, white heterosexual men and their
form of masculinity is dominant. Forms of
masculinity associated with a Muslim migrant
or a homosexual man are marginalized or
explicitly banned.
The concepts of masculinity and femininity
force both men and women to enhance
certain capacities/behavioural attributes at the
expense of others. The presence of only yin
or yang creates incomplete and imbalanced
personalities or actions. This is why Hinduism
has the concept of ardhnarishwar, (the half
male-half female body; see chapter 5). The
Western concept of androgyny, or male and
female merged in one, also defies gender
binaries. The sexuality of the female is
supposed to lie in her receptiveness: this
is beyond her open vagina. It extends to
the whole feminine persona as dependent,
passive, non aggressive and submissive.
32 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Since men see the sexual act as a power
game, women who refuse to respond or
submit to sexual advances sometimes face
horrible consequences. In India, there are
cases of men throwing acid on women who
reject them, or even killing with the thought,
“If I can’t have her, nobody else will”. Rape
of women too articulates the thought, “No
one says no to me.” Rape has been widely
used as a weapon in wars, holocausts and
communal riots. Warring groups use rape
in order to humiliate the other and establish
their strength and superiority over their
enemy, while declaring that men from the
enemy’s camps are effeminate and incapable
of defending their women. (See Annexure 3.2)
Maleness is equated with sexual performance
which in turn is equated with power. Such
power gives control over women and other
men. A man who cannot perform sexually is
called ‘impotent’, and therefore considered
weak, powerless and a non-male. According
to this yardstick, a man’s power/potency is
located in his sexual organ. Impotence in
a man is not just seen as a deficiency; it’s a
disgrace.
Men who have problems with the very
notion of hegemonic masculinity and cannot
live up to accepted notions of hegemonic
masculinity suffer emotionally and socially.
Boys and men also suffer from stereotypes
that exist in a patriarchal culture. Boys are
discouraged from being emotional, gentle
and caring, or from admitting to being weak
or fearful. Gentle boys are pushed around and
sexually exploited by stronger and macho
men. Excessive emphasis on virility, male
sexual prowess and performance leads to
tremendous insecurities and anxiety in men.
Men need to understand how masculinity
is related to their risk-taking behaviours,
especially in the context of STDs, drug abuse,
alcoholism, and other high-risk activities.
Such activities endanger not only the men what patriarchy does to women, it is equally
who engage in them but a large number of important to see its effect on the mind,
women too. Just as it is important to see psyches and behaviour of men.

The female soldier who became the king

Somewhere in Indonesia, there lived a very poor widow with her only daughter.
Although the woman worked hard, they had barely enough to eat. One day, the
daughter asked her mother to put all their money together and buy a piece of cloth.
Reluctantly, the mother obeyed. The daughter then instructed her mother to sew exactly
such a uniform as the king’s soldiers had. The daughter put on her uniform, asked her
mother to cut off her hair and went to the palace. She was enlisted and served the king
dutifully. Her courage was so outstanding that the king’s daughter saw the handsome
soldier and asked her father to marry him. The king consented and the marriage was
concluded. Some time later, the king asked whether his daughter was happy with her
husband. The princess nodded but added that she was surprised her husband had not
yet consummated the marriage. The king became enraged and sent his son–in-law on
a mission where he was sure to be killed. He had to go to a village of cannibals to get
from them the elixir of life they were said to possess. When he returned, he got lost and
became very hungry. He ate the rice that belonged to an old woman who cursed him:
‘Whoever has been a man so far will be a woman and whoever has been a woman will
turn into a man.’

The king was very surprised when he saw his son-in-law return and rewarded him
richly. Thereafter, the princess too became very happy. When the king died, his son-in-
law became the new king.

(From De mooiste Indonesische Mythen en Sagen, uitg Verba, , 2002, pp 125-130

Trainer’s notes

33
 Exercise

Exercise 1

Divide the group into pairs and give them questions on personal introduction
(Annexure 3.3).

Exercise 2

Give each participant a copy of the gender quiz and ask them to tick the appropriate
answer. At the end, in a plenary session, share their answers and see which one is
correct and why. (Annexure 3.4).

Exercise 3

Discuss the patriarchal dividend or the lack of it in the context of each participant.

Exercise 4

Organize a forum in which the following positions are argued.

a) One group maintains that the global women’s movement cannot advance without
challenging masculinity (and militarism).
b) The other group argues that peace and equality are general goals that should
be fought for by all social movements and that it is not necessary to highlight
masculinity.

Exercise 5

This exercise involves staging a role play on masculine and feminine qualities. Divide
the group into three or four subgroups, depending on the number of participants.
Ask them to depict some feminine and masculine qualities in the play. In the plenary,
participants present their plays while identifying masculine and feminine qualities as
society describes them.

34 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

 The facilitator, while consolidating the exercise, also initiates a discussion on how
these qualities have been forced and stereotyped. Also talk about how performativity
of these roles further reinforces the man-women divide.

Exercise 6

Divide the group into pairs. Each pair does a freeze of various power relationships
that exist in society.

In the plenary, the group explores the sources of power of those in powerful positions
as well as the vulnerabilities of the powerless. If time permits, another exercise can
be done to explore ways of bringing about change in these power binaries.

Trainer’s notes

35
36 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
S
exualities: Notions
of the Normal
Objectives
Explore the construction of
normative and non-normative
sexualities;
Understand the structures of
violence around non-normative
sexualities;
Comprehend the homophobia of
the state, society and the family,
and their impact.

session four

37
 Guiding Notes
Heteronormativity is the dominant and
generally accepted mode of expression of
sexuality. However, in various Asian cultures
and in earlier historical periods, sexual
ambiguity and multiplicity of gender identities
and practices was treated with respect. At
times, these identities were seen as signs of
spiritual power, such as the Ardhanarishvar*
figure. Traces of such respect can found today
in the figures of transgender priests such as the
Bissu in Sulawesi or in the performative arts,
as discussed in the next chapter. Yet again,
present day societies hardly tolerate gender
ambiguities, let alone sexual ambiguities. In
most societies, there are sharp differences
between the way biological females and
biological males are treated. It is amply clear
that the core of heteronormativity is formed
by sexual difference: that humanity can be
neatly and ‘naturally’ divided into biological
females and biological males. Normalisation
of heterosexuality forms the heart of
patriarchy.
The male-female divide is considered to be
a binary structure rather than a continuum.
The binary structure differentiates the so-
called ‘normal’ from the so-called ‘abnormal’
categories of sexual behaviour, particularly
among women. Most societies have lived
with the model of compulsory heterosexuality,
in a manner that is historically and culturally
contingent. Normative sexuality is generally
considered to be situated within heterosexual
relations such as marriage. Heterosexuality
as the norm is guarded by cultures, societal
norms, traditions, religion and even the
economy. The presence of systems and
institutions reveals the inherent weakness of
heterosexuality, while they also constantly
add strength to it. Heterosexuality even has
its own hierarchy, each with its own degree of
normativity. The heterosexual, married couple
38 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
occupies the highest position at the top, and
various forms of ‘abject’ categories lie at the
bottom. Depending on the cultural, political or
historical context, sex workers or masculine
lesbians may be at the bottom of this gliding
scale. Class and religion are also critical
factors that influence an individual or group’s
place in this hierarchy that is formed outside
the world of normative heterosexuality. Only
at the peril of social ostracism and deep
psychic conflicts can the unlivable territories
be occupied.
Socially and ideologically, heteronormativity
is enforced by the creation of categories of
abjection, of those who dwell outside of the
domain of the normative. Those who consider
themselves ‘normal’ feel they have to reaffirm
their sense of safety within society’s constricts
by continuously stressing that they are not
sexually lose ( such as prostitutes), are able
to attract and keep a man (not a divorcee),
and are feminine (not butch lesbians).
Thus, the institution of heterosexuality is
upheld as normal and natural. The ‘normal’
is constantly defined through processes of
reiteration and enforcement. This is done to
make people perform the ‘normal’ in order to
become or remain culturally intelligible. The
heterosexual marriage is an institutions that
polices social-sexual boundaries. People for
whom the prescribed ‘normal’ is not ‘natural’,
violent coercive methods may be used to make
them heterosexual (for instance, the use of
electric shocks or legal measures).Variations
on the theme of ‘normalcy’ are discursively
explained and medically operated away.
Within this binary model of heteronormativity,
fluidity and multiplicity are not accepted.
Not belonging to the heteronormative
category leads one to the categories of
silence and shame. This is the world of the
abject. Acceptance of divergence or plurality
is made impossible, while the normative is
glorified. Yet, the core issues of any intimate
relationship – love, trust, respect, mutuality,
sharing, consent, and protection – may or
may not exist in either of these two categories.
The codes of compulsory heterosexuality and
its hegemonic* status stifle the debate on
what intimate relationships between humans
should be like. The notion of ‘normal’ or the
‘natural’ needs to be redefined to exclude
violence, domination, marginalisation,
oppression, exclusion and other means of
coercion.
The assumption is that ‘normal’ sexual
behavior springs from nature and that has
nothing to do with culture. However, if
heterosexuality was so natural, why does it
require such strict control? The ideological
disciplining of heterosexuality is done via
societal institutions such as schools, families,
the media, education, religion, and the law.
Non-normative sexuality is considered as
amoral, sinful, insane or criminal. Such a
viewpoint has also created a hierarchical
division between natural/unnatural, public/
private, heterosexuality/homosexuality sex
(arbitrary).

Raised in Heterosexuality

After a long debate within the community of psychiatrists, the category of homosexuality
was taken out of the DSM IV ((Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders).
This manual is regularly updated by the American Psychiatric Association. Its definitions
are very influential. However, a new category – Gender Identity Disorder (GID) – was
introduced on the sly, This applies to children who demonstrate cross gender behaviour
(sissy boys or tomboyish girls). The argument is that these children are probably pre-
homosexual. Under this new category, boys and girls who demonstrate GID behaviour
which is considered dysfunctional (by parents, doctors, priests and so on) may be
treated in clinics, at the request of parents. Gay activists have argued that this may be
considered to be a form of ‘homosexual genocide’. Yet, proponents argue that parents
have the right to oversee the development of children and, therefore, nobody should
dictate terms if parents raise their children in a manner that maximizes the possibility
of a heterosexual outcome. (Zucker and Bradley, 1995)

The effort to normalise heterosexuality can What is Homophobia?

also be traced back to the processes of colonial
modernity and postcolonial development.
Imperialisms led to the imposition of a
hegemonic bourgeois* culture that created
homophobia* in societies where same sex
practices were institutionalized. It also led
to a bourgeois culture of female subjugation
as housewives. (Morgan and Wieringa 2005;
Wieringa 2007).
One of the most well-known examples of
rejection of the non-normative category
is homophobia or lesbophopbia—the fear
and dislike of homosexual men or women,
bisexual individuals, sex workers who provide
homosexual services. Homophobia is the
general term used for reactions of extreme
rage and fear for homosexuals. Homophobia
is based on strong stereotypes, such as
‘lesbian women are aggressive and man-

39
 haters’ or ‘homosexual men are feminine
and not masculine enough’. Homophobic
people interpret the hated individual as
the ‘other’, as ‘inferior’ and as ‘sexually
threatening.’ Homophobic people believe that
homosexuals disrupt the sexual and gender
order, supposedly established by what is
called natural law.
Homophobia takes different forms and
has arisen from many sources. It has been
fostered and supported by different societal
institutions, such as religion, law and the
family. It tends to break out with venom when
it poses a threat to the security of gender
roles, of religious doctrine, the State and
society or to the sexual safety or the health
of the individual seen as normal. Another
source of homophobia is the fear that the
social conduct of people engaged in same-sex
relations disrupts the social, legal, political,
ethical and moral order of society.
Homophobia expresses itself in multiple forms
at multiple sites. In fact, homophobia has
parallels with other forms of discrimination,
such as sexism, anti-Semitism*, phobia
against Islam, or the prejudice against people
of color and of lower classes.
In Indonesia, it is considered vital to belong
to a religion. Everybody has to mention
their religion on their identity cards; one has
to choose from the six accepted religions,
excluding traditional beliefs such as nature
or ancestor worship. As both Islam and
Christianity consider homosexuality to be a
sin, women engaging in same-sex relations
find themselves in a difficult corner. To be
considered a sinner and to be excluded from
the religion one deeply believes in is a heavy
burden. Some women just pray at home
(privately), in the hope that their God will
forgive them, while placing their trust on the
compassion that the holy books emphasize.
However, outside their private space, religious
teachers and the society at large denounces
their lives as sinful and accuses them of having
no religion. An alternative interpretation of
the story of the prophet Lut is provided (See
Annexure 4.1). This story (it appears in the
Torah, the Bible and the Qur’an) is generally
cited as the reason why monotheistic religions
reject same-sex sexuality.

The following are extracts from discussions that took place in the TOT workshop in Jakarta
during September 2006.

Working of Homophobia in Indonesia

A: I learnt from when I was very small, in my own family and at school, that the only
natural relationship, the one that didn’t carry sin, the true and right relationship, was
that between a man and a woman. So, from very early on I knew that if I were to
make a choice beyond this, I would commit a sin. I experienced this at school, and
also after I had left school, when I was working. And the same goes for the wider
environment. So where I live now for instance, I cannot be open about my relationship.
They notice of course that my looks and my behaviour are manly. Once the head of the
neighbourhood asked me:

“What is your religion?”

“You know that yourself,” I said, “It is on my identity card. I am a Christian.”

40 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

“How come you never pray and never go to a church?”
“Do I have to inform you, sir, whenever I pray?”

He continued, “How come you are not married at your age? And how come you
behaviour is so manly, and is it true that the woman you stay with is your elder sister?
And how come both of you are tomboys?”

Y: “Let me think….how come that only homosexuality is seen as the standard? Earlier,
we had positive laws and we only had the holy books. Those texts were interpreted by
men. Since God cannot be fully comprehended by mankind, we must interpret the holy
words. Men dominated the effort of interpreting God’s words, and the only women’s
voices we heard were of those that please men. This goes both for Christianity and
for Islam. In this way, the interests of men got prioritized and male authority became
fully established. So the only relationship between women and men that was accepted
was when women serve men. Whatever a man asks, a woman must be ready to give
it to him. So same-sex relations among women are seen as a grave threat to male
authority.

B. “Yes, thanks, but I still cannot grasp how far this injustice goes. At the moment
religious teachers go on and on and on about homosexuality. They keep shouting that
this is a very grave sin and that these people will go straight to hell. My daughter is in
the fifth form of primary school. She had a best friend and the two were inseparable.
But her mother and the teachers managed to separate them. They were considered to
be too close. So now that woman comes to me crying and says, ‘Be careful with that
child of yours or else you will have a daughter who is different…” And now, the new
regulations that stress that women must wear the jilbab (head scarf) have put a lot of
pressure on my friends who are tomboys. They cannot wear their tomboyish clothes
any more and are forced to wear a jilbab as well. Or they have to leave the city“.

S: “When we studied Fiqih, Islamic law, we never learnt about homosexuality. When we
were studying the issues of zina and adultery, one in our group asked, “But how about
a woman committing adultery with another women, or a man with another man?” Our
teacher just shook his head and muttered that this was not a good thing. The only story
we learnt was the one about the prophet Lut. But when we went to study the hadith (the
sayings and ways of the prophet), we found the Prophet had a very close friend, Abu
Hurairah, who never married, while all men were always proud of their wives. There are
other indications that he might have engaged in same-sex relations. Yet, the Prophet is
not known to have even warned him. So while the mainstream interpretation of Islam
is that they condemn homosexuality, there are also other traditions that seem to be
more tolerant, even the Prophet himself. The Sufi tradition too knows many prominent
poets who engaged in same sex relations.”

41
 The Stigma of Being a Widow
It is not just homosexual women who are
stigmatized for not following the male-
designed heterosexual norm. All women who
defy heterosexuality or are living without a
man are stigmatized, albeit in different ways.
It is important to realize that the underlying
reason has a common function: upholding the
normality of the heterosexual marriage. On
the surface, the stigma a widow experiences
is different from that of a sex worker or a
lesbian woman. In fact, ‘good’ widows or
divorced women try to take great care that
they are not seen as sexually loose or as
being too close with their women friends.
In this way, the various stigmas operate to
divide women who are situated differently.
(Sex workers too are stigmatized; more on
that in Session 6)
In Indonesia, widows and divorced women
(janda) are pressured to re-marry and as soon
as possible. It is better for them to become
the second wife of a man (even if he hardly
visits her), than to live on their own. It is not
only the pressure to re-marry that burdens
the Indonesian janda. Married women too
look at them with suspicion—will this janda
steal my husband? Single men on the other
hand (whether never married, divorced or
widowed) are pressured not to take a janda
as their wife. They are told to make a ‘better’
choice or a young, unmarried woman. Janda
thus find themselves isolated—married
women view them as husband snatchers.
Married (Muslim) men eye them in the hope
of finding a second wife, while unmarried
see them as sexual partners. Troubled with
double morality (that labels women who have
sex outside marriage as sluts while praises
unfaithful men for their sexual prowess),
many janda prefer to concentrate on their own
families and work, and avoid social contacts.
(See Annexure 4.2)
42 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Economic conditions make the situation of
jandas even worse, particularly when they
have to look after children. Generally, single
women are economically worse off than
single men or male-headed families of the
social groups they belong to; they are among
the poorest families in the country. Even when
men are supposed to pay alimony, divorced
women hardly have the means to do so. (See
Annexure 4.3)
Divorce and migration have significant gender
connotations. On the island of Lombok, there
are approximately 250,000 so-called janda
whose husbands work as migrant labourers in
Malaysia. Often, these men sever their contact
with their Indonesian wives. These women
are left to suffer the same stigma as the other
janda. However when and if, after many
years and without news from their husbands,
they engage in a relationship with a man,
they are sentenced and divorced officially. If
they want to remarry, they are looked down
upon. Young men prey upon them, for they
are considered ‘easy’. They are also available
cheaper. For a virgin, the bride price may be
10 million rupiah whereas a janda can only
be had for 500,000 rupiah.
On the other hand, when women migrate
to Saudia Arabia (as happens for instance
in Karawang on the island of Java), their
husbands often sign a temporary marriage
contract with another woman back home.
This contract is for the period that their first
wives are away. The wives send back their
money every month, which is spent on the
new temporary wife and building a house.
When the first wives come home, they are
economically independent. However, they
do not dare to confront their husbands when
they learn about his temporary wife who may
still be around. The stigma of being a janda
in Indonesia is so strong that women rather
remain unhappy and married than walk out
of a marriage. Even though women feel husband had to fulfill his biological needs.
betrayed, they justify the behaviour of their (TOT Jakarta, September, 2006).
husbands with the thought that their lonely

Trainer’s notes

43
 Exercise

Exercise 1

In small groups, list a number of abject categories and act out the abuse with
which they are confronted. Always select actors from a different category. Thus, a
heterosexual woman may act as a gay man, or a gay man may enact the suffering of
a widow.

Exercise 2

Ask each participant to think of three identities that define them in the context of
the society they belong to. Each writes down her identities and then share with the
larger group. This exercise brings out our multiple identities and their significant
interplay. Different identities give us different kinds of power and powerlessness.
The discussion can focus on vulnerabilities of our identities and the play of power
within each of us. There are no relationships where power is not inscribed within the
identity.

Exercise 3

Each participant is asked to complete the following sentence to relate her/his identity,

I AM NOT ………

Please ensure that participants do not mention any quality. For example, ‘ I am not a
singer’ is a quality/an attribute, but saying ‘I am not a disabled singer is an identity’.

This exercise can be used to see how the process of ‘othering’ takes place.
‘I am not a prostitute’; ‘I am not a homosexual’; ‘I am not white’; ‘I am not married’
and so on. These sentences will reveal the distance felt by the abject identity as well
as the feeling of being outside the norm. The facilitator can then lead a discussion
on what makes us different and how each difference in our identity creates distance,

44 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

prejudices and privileges. Society plays out set norms and the definition of a normal
human being definitely includes a normal sexual being. There is a strong link between
our prejudices and phobias.

Exercise 4

Discuss the hand out on the gliding scale of heteronormativity of Indonesia provided
in Annexure 4.4. This is just one example of how a gliding scale of normativity might
look like. Construct your own model, and discuss why a particular identity is ‘better’
than another.

Exercise 5

In smaller groups of five to six, discuss the handout on the European resolution
against homophobia provided in Annexure 4.5 and then draft a similar resolution for
your own national context.

Exercise 6

Discuss the Montreal Declaration provided in Annexure 4.6. Design a campaign in

your own context to stimulate discussion on the Declaration.

film screening

Title: Boy’s don’t cry

Director: Pierce Kimberly

Synopsis: The film is a true story about a girl called Teena Brandon who impersonates
as a boy. She calls herself Brandon Teena. Brandon is liked by his male friends who
think he is sporty and fun to ‘hang out’ with. His female friends find him sensitive,
caring and easy to relate to. Brandon falls in love with a girl and keeps the truth about
his gender a secret from her. All is well until he gets exposed .His identity is revealed
and the fact that he is actually a girl comes as a cruel shock to everyone. To punish
him, his male friends rape and torture him brutally. The police receive the story of
Teena’s rape with incredulity. They can hardly sympathize with a girl who dresses
and looks like a boy. She, in turn, gets raped a second time by the indignity imposed
on her by the jeering policeman. The end is even more tragic.

45
 Trainer’s notes

46 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

M
ultiple identities
and multiple
sexualities
Objectives
Grasp the concept of identity, its
formation and significance;
Understand the links between
sexual identity and multiple gender
identities;
Recognise and comprehend
systems of domination that
suppress multiple gender identities;
Explore various ways of living
multiple gender identities

session five

47
 Guiding Notes
Identities are the names given to the different
ways in which people position themselves and
get positioned against established norms and
ways of being in a society. They are shaped
by historical, contemporary and/or imminent
socio-cultural and economic narratives.
Identities are constructed through various
means. In many cases, they are laid upon us
by (or, ‘ascribed’) through the processes of
socialization practiced by families, religious
communities or the nation. Identities can also
be ‘achieved’ through a conscious affiliation
with ‘other’, dissimilar groups—non-
dominant religious or sexual minorities, or
any group that resists the dominant political
constellation. Voluntary identity formation
through, for example, political mobilization or
self-realisation, is seen as an act of assertion
against difference.
However, two key processes make an
individual conscious of her/his identity. First,
it could come about through realization
triggered by consciousness-building/raising.
Such an exercise makes individuals identify
with groups they have an affinity with. This
can typically occur in feminist or gay/lesbian
groups. Secondly, identities can also be
formed through political mobilization, often
seen among trade unions, during anti-
colonial movements, or anti-apartheid and
anti-globalisation struggles.
It is increasingly being acknowledged that
identities can be fluid, multiple and unstable.
Gender particularly is a flexible identity and
often free-floating. For example, the gender
identity of an individual may change over a
period of time. There is really a proliferation
of genders and therefore many identities
available to associate with. The other reality
is that the hegemonic hold of gender norms
48 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
does not allow people to step out of their
prescribed identity.
Besides, at various stages in one’s life, certain
aspects of one’s identity – such as religion,
class, race – may take precedence over
others. Many countries in Asia are pluralistic
where one has to grapple with multiple and
shifting identities. In India, for instance, the
cultural, linguistic or geographical identity
of individuals may be stronger than their
religious identity.
Identity relates to the membership of a
group or collectivity where rights, resources,
responsibilities and recognition are shared.
A major notion of identity is based on
citizenship. Identity, in terms of citizenship,
is seen as a process of asserting one’s rights
among an ever-widening circle of people. The
notion of individual citizenship emerged with
the Enlightenment, a historical movement
in Europe that advocated Reason to be the
primary basis of authority. (Enlightenment
is known to have strongly influenced the
French Declaration of the Rights of Man and
the Citizen). The first groups of citizens to
claim their rights were wealthy, white men.
Citizenship could only be afforded by those
who were placed in privileged positions vis-
à-vis their class and sex. For the unprivileged
masses, rights to citizenships were won after
a prolonged struggle. Through imperialism,
this Western notion of individual citizenship
(the individual is the bearer of rights) was
transported all over the globe and projected
as ‘the norm’.
On the one hand, this Western notion of
citizenship was exported through colonialism.
On the other hand, in an effort to divide and
rule, the subjugated people were pinned
down on community-based identities through
classification based on sex, race, religion or
other census categories. For example, the
Dutch rule in Indonesia created a kind of
apartheid state, dividing people into whites,
foreign orientals (Chinese) and natives, and
extending different rights to Christians and
Muslims.
In many non-Western societies, different
notions of citizenship and collective identity
(based on the membership of a group/
collectivity, household or community) were
ignored. The debate on non-Western values
that former prime minister of Malaysia,
Mahthir, promoted, often involves the
argument about the imposition of Western
notions of citizenship on Asian cultures. They
often draw out the traditional importance
of collective values as the basis of Asian
citizenship. In both cases, various forms of
patriarchal structures prevented women from
acquiring the same rights as men.
Thus, the history of acquiring citizenship
is a story of inclusion of those atop various
social and economic hierarchies. It is often
about exclusion of people such as women,
slaves, certain racial or religious groups. The
colonized people have in turn fought for (and
partly acquired) citizenship in their societies.
This holds true for the struggles for workers’
rights, voting rights of women fought for
by the suffragettes and for anti-apartheid
groups. Exclusion and inclusion are critical
criteria for identity formation. The ‘we’ of a
certain group can only be identified versus
‘they’ of the other group. The defining and
controlling of these imagined boundaries and
the ‘othering’ by a dominant group are thus
vital instruments to assert group identity. On
a global scale, ‘othering’ was created through
the notion that West stands for rationality,
while all that is non-Western is far from
reason and rationality.
In relation to Asian societies, Edward Said
(1978) termed this process as Orientalism.
Said thought of Orientalism as ‘a Western
style for dominating, restructuring, and
having authority over the Orient.’ Orientalism
is still prevalent, albeit in a different form—it
is not a more visible and aggressive ‘clash
of civilizations’ (Huntington, 1997). The
legitimation of the invasion of Iraq by the US
and other Western powers is another instance
of the ‘othering’ of ‘evil’ and the imposition of
Western dominance.
The earlier identity movements – labour
rights, the vote for women, and the beginning
of the second wave feminist movements
– were often based on the question of which
identity was primary. Solidarity to a group
was of primary concern. However, the
emphasis of postmodernist thinking on the
provisionality of truth has provided a new
angle to the issue. The many new identity-
based movements have drawn together
a diverse pool of patrons and supporters.
These individuals might not share common
primary identity characteristics, but rather
are a collective because of a certain political
issue. One could thus shift identity-based
battlefields, depending on which struggle
takes priority in the larger scheme of things
at a particular moment. For example, lesbians
could be seen rallying together against the
process of globalisation.
Identities are always imagined. They are
based on perceptions of sameness or
otherness. Just as communities are always
imagined (Anderson, 1983). Identities may
be imagined and socially constructed, but
this does not make them ephemeral. They are
real because they (a) define boundaries, (b)
become the basis for certain forms of power
and (c) offer privileges and/or discrimination.
They are both the sources of mobilisation as
well as the ground for violence, especially
when boundaries are transgressed.
49
 Identity Politics
Identity politics refers to organising people
around the ‘sameness of identity’ to get
recognition and entitlements. It may thus
form the basis for mobilization. Globally,
identity politics play a crucial role at the
global, national and local level. Over the past
few decades, a shift has been seen in identity
politics across the political North and South.
The progressive movements of the 1960s and
1970s were designed to end various forms
of discrimination (against women and other
minorities). Whereas currently, one can also
notice various conservative groups laying
stress upon ethnic, communal or religious
boundaries and identities. The control over
women’s bodies is a critical element in these
mobilizations. In India, religion has become
the basis of various violent clashes. There are
clear shifts in the nationalist ideologies of the
State. While earlier the national movements
were based on secular ideologies, today
there is greater emphasis on majoritarian,
ethnic, religious (fundamentalist), nationalist
ideologies which are ruthless in suppression
of sub-national movements.
In Indonesia, the process of regionalization
has brought with it an emphasis on ethnic and
religious identity where women’s behaviour
is seen as a critical element of patrolling
boundaries. Across the globe, racism,
xenophobia, polarization, and discrimination
of ethnic and religious minority groups are
being practiced. In Europe, there are heated
debates about minority groups having to
assimilate themselves into the majority, as
notably exemplified by the head scarf issue in
Holland and France.
The emergence of rightwing movements
has impacted the situation of women in all
these societies. Within this changing context,
women figure centrally and get more affected
50 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
than men. Women figure as the major
signifiers of ‘national’ or ‘group’ identities.
Symbolically, as women’s bodies also become
the site of growing violence and conflict.
Women as Signifiers
1. Women as signifiers of collectivity and
difference.
Women are considered to be the public
face of group identity. This is, for instance,
signified through dress codes. While men can
wear Western dresses, women have to dress
traditionally.
2. Women as ‘reproducers’ of members
of the group/ community/nation.
Women are denied control over their bodies.
Rather, they are projected as repositories of
honour of the community, to be jealously
guarded by men. In conflicts of this order,
violence against women takes gruesome
forms. Women’s breasts may be cut off or
the fetuses are culled out of wombs, as was
witnessed during the anti-Muslim carnage
in Gujarat, India, and in other conflicts.
The mass rape of ‘enemy women’ in wars
surrounding the partition of Yugoslavia is yet
another example.
3. Women as reproducers of collective
boundaries.
The case of Mukhtaran Mai from Multan,
Pakistan, demonstrates how a woman’s
body becomes a playground for ‘contending’
parties. She was gang raped by four men on
the order of community leaders because her
brother had a prohibited affair. Even though
the brother was transgressing the boundaries,
his sister was punished. Mukhtaran Mai
fought back and accused the leaders of her
village. In India, when a cross-caste couple
decides to marry, it is mostly the woman who
is killed (damned by the panchayat or village
council) or expelled from the village.
4. Women as the ideological reproducers
of collectivity and culture.
Women’s agency in relation to identity-
based politics can take a variety of forms.
At some moments, women might rebel and
transgress the ‘stated boundaries’ and put a
curb on the occurrence of ‘public violence’
that is unleashed against them to reinforce
the patriarchal supremacy. However, women
are not only victims; they may also be
agents of violence, for instance, mothers-
in-law versus their daughters-in-law. In
many fundamentalist groups, women play a
crucial role in supporting the ideology of the
particular religious formation.
Transgressing the Boundaries
of Gender and Sexual Identities
Beyond the boundaries of heteronormative
sexualities and bodies, a host of other
sexualities and gender identities can be
found. These include intersex, transgender or
transsexual persons, lesbian and gay people,
queer or bisexual identities and various forms
of WSW (women having sex with women) or
MSM (men having sex with men).
Some individuals resist their given sex and,
therefore, their gender, because of a clash
between what is taught to the mind and
what the body experiences. The body and its
behaviour are powerfully controlled by society
through its institutions. In fact, as mentioned
earlier, the societal mechanisms that control
sexuality are some of the fiercest among
those exerted by society on individuals.
During dialogues held on the topic, a question
figures often: how does a biological male
– obviously socialized as a male – desire to
be a woman? What may be the factors that
lead some people to go against the grain of
biology and even deep-seated socio-cultural
conditioning? The answer is that our bodies
speak. Sometimes, they speak differently from
the language of the mind, the one informed
by society and its ideologies. Many a times,
the body and the mind could say two different
things. This is what happens in the case of
some sexual minorities.
One of the techniques used to either
‘normalize’ intersex persons or help people
change their sex is Sex Reassignment Surgery
(SRS). This is a delicate issue as power rests
in the hands of the medical establishment that
often acts as the agent of hetero-patriarchal
forces in the society. Lobbying with the
medical community is, therefore, a vital and
crucial step to carry forward the debate on
SRS both for transsexual and for the intersex
community. The issue is a rather complex
imbroglio involving legal, ethical, economic
and cultural issues.
The Politics of Naming
As the discourse against the normative has
gained currency, many sexual minorities
have gradually come out. L, G, B, T, H, Q, etc.
are some of the many linear categories in any
polymorphous society. There are many other
sub-categories under these identities. The
debates about the names of various sexual
identities, the communities and political
alliances these names claim, and the space
that these names occupy in various human
rights and/or feminist fora, have continued
for a long time. The inclusiveness or
exclusiveness that some of these comm-
unities have displayed has varied from one
country to another and from one historical
period to another. These journeys of
naming, defining and claiming have not only
51
 matured but have redefined the terms of the
debate.
Naming and Customs of Sub-
cultures
There are many terms and labels that define
various communities within the ‘sexual
minority’. In India, the Hijra/Kinnar community
(see Nanda 1990) occupies a unique position.
Joining the Hijra community in India requires
Nirvana
A participant informed the group that the Hijra lingo comprises gentle and elevating
words. For example, castration is called nirvana (salvation in Hindi) and effeminate
hijras are referred to as ‘rooh zenana’ or a person whose spirit is feminine.
(National TOT Report, Khajuraho 2006, India)
The Hindu aspect of the hijra culture is closely
tied to the worship of Bahuchara Mata.
However, though Hijra customs are Islamic
in nature (for example, they do not work on
Fridays), conversion is not mandatory though
it is desired. Hijras also cross-dress publicly.
The various hierarchical categories in the
Hijra community are as follows:
1. Inter-sex: Those born as intersex occupy
the most powerful position in the Hijra
community. They are the decision-makers,
get the lion’s share of the money and earn a
lot of respect. However, intersex hijras are to
be found rather occasionally, since more often
than not, doctors perform sex reassignment
surgeries soon after the birth of intersex
children. (See Annexure 5.1)
2. Castrated or emasculated males: Biological
males who identify themselves as women
and wish to be part of the Hijra community
undergo castration or emasculation. Referred
to as the nirvans (or, those who have achieved
‘salvation’), these males belong to the second
rung in the hierarchy of the Hijra community.
52 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
the performance of a ritual called the chela
rasam. (‘Chela’ means ‘follower’ and ‘rasam’
refers to ‘ritual’). This is a sort of initiation
ceremony into the social and cultural set-up
of the Hijra community, where all younger
hijras become the followers of an older and
experienced hijra who is seen as the mother
and guru. In north India, Hjiras convert to
Islam and speak a corrupted version of Farsi.
This sacred castration ceremony allows them
entry into the community of the neither-male-
nor-female.
3. Non-castrated males: Such hijras have
male organs but could be transgender in
their sexual orientation. They choose to not
live as heterosexuals within the prescribed
norms of sexuality and gender binaries. They
escape their natural families and join the Hijra
community.
Kothis are men who are sexually attracted
to other men, and who see themselves as
‘women’ and adopt ‘feminine’ gender roles.
Most Kothis are poor, working class ‘men
who have sex with men’ or MSM. (MSM is
a diverse group in India of which Kothis are
a part.) However, the term MSM defies its
neat definition and carries within it a host
of sexual identities and behaviours. MSM
may not identify as gay, may not even see
themselves as bisexual, and yet are not
straight heterosexuals. Kothis are generally
doubly stigmatised because, despite being
biological males, they are sexually penetrated
and therefore not perceived as males. Kothis
could even be married to women and be part
of a heterosexual household.
Other sexual roles within the MSM community
in India include the giriyas/panthis who are
generally masculine, big-bodied males who
perform penetrative sex as sexual partners
of Hijras and Kothis. Gandus is another term
for MSM individuals who get penetrated.
Monetary transactions could govern such
relations.
Indonesia has a similar transgender comm-
unity of effeminate, cross-dressing men who
have sex with other men. They are usually
called banci or waria. Banci is a Javanese
word that was originally used both for cross-
dressing women as well as for men. Waria
is a newer term coined from the Indonesian
words wanita (woman) and ‘pria’ or man.
(See Koeswinarno 2004 and Oetomo 2001). In
some regions of Indonesia, such as East Java,
there has always been a moderate level of
tolerance towards the banci. In Surabaya, it is
even possible to get an identity card with the
gender mentioned as ‘waria’. However, the
present wave of Islamization that is sweeping
over Indonesia is further marginalizing such
individuals and their culture.
Queer is a political term with its origins in
North America. It is based on post-structuralist
ideas of identity as de-centered and unstable.
Largely coined to resist the normativity of
heterosexuality, the term has come to include
a range of sexual identities from lesbian
women, gay men, transgender person
and to intersex people who want to fight
heterosexuality’s claustrophobic agendas.
However, the range of its inclusiveness varies
from one queer community to another and
country to country as well. The term, in some
cultures, has helped people become proud
of their identity. A queer group in Delhi for
instance uses the term ‘queer’ while being
conscious of multiple sexualities and their
respective intricacies. On the other hand,
many women activists and feminists have
expressed their unease and discomfort with
the word (Wieringa and Blackwood 1999).
The linearity inherent in a name, especially
one that is meant to represent myriad
identities, can be dangerous. It is argued
that the term ‘queer’ completely invisibilises
the multiple and complex gender identities
and their specificities. Therefore, it ignores
the nuances of women’s subordination and
their struggles. In certain ways a parallel
can be drawn with the term ‘gender’ as it
may depoliticise the specificities of women’s
experiences, particularly women’s sexualities
(Wieringa 1998). It has also come to be seen
as an upper-class issue and movement, and
one that carries a rather North-imposed
terminology.
Transvestites are usually male cross-
dressers—heterosexual men who cross-dress
for sexual pleasure. They don’t necessarily
identify as gay. Female transvestites will
dress as a man and likewise may have sex
with a man or a woman. Most of them though
identify as ‘butch’ lesbians (Halberstam
1998).
Transsexuals are people who experience
inconsonance between their anatomical and
psychological sex and therefore get their
sex changed. However, both pre-operation
and post-operation people are referred to
as transsexuals. So, essentially, transgender
individuals who take the step of becoming the
gender they identify with, through a surgery,
also identify as transsexuals.
Bugis gender diversity. Most discussions
on gender and sexuality take place in a
context where only two sexes (male and
53
 female) and two gendered stereotypes are
recognized (femininity and masculinity). The
Bugis society of South Sulawesi provides an
example of gender multiplicity. There exist
both female women and masculine men, but
also three other gender categories—calalai,
calabai and bissu. Calalai are female-bodied
individuals who do not conform to feminine
gender expectations, and who may take
female women as their partners. Calabai are
male-bodied individuals who do not conform
to masculine gender expectation and whose
partners may be masculine men. The female
partners of calalai and the male partners of
the calabai do not in themselves form distinct
gender categories. Bissu are intersexed
priests, or priests who are supposed to be
intersexed. This gives empowers them to
mediate between humans and the spirit world
(Graham 2004).
Though these sexual behaviour models are
drawn from heterosexual relations, they
are suitably modified in an effort to bypass
the emotional/sexual dynamics that they
originally carry. It is important to note that
many of these identities can be/are fluid.

Ardhanarishvara (or Ardhanary in Indonesia)

A Hindu deity, whose name literally means ‘The Lord who is half woman’, represents
a transgendered being created by the union of Shiva (male) and Shakti (female).
Ardhanarishvara speaks to the totality that lies beyond duality. A quick glance over
the history of various Asian cultures is rather revealing. Ambiguities of sexual and
gender identities and their multiplicities were treated with respect, and, at times, even
invested with great spiritual power. The Ardhanarswar showcases the convergence of
the inseparable Shiva and Shakti, the male and the female. Shiva represents the static
primeval state, one without beginning and end. Shakti is the energy that creates life
movement. Fused into one, they symbolise the creative union of all active and passive
principles. Unfortunately though, these concepts are locked into high culture as utopian
ideas. Contemporary culture has mere traces of academic regard for such ideas such
as the transgender priests Bissu in Sulawesi, Indonesia. Present day societies hardly
tolerate gender ambiguities, let alone sexual ambiguities.

In Chinese Taoism this concept is symbolized by the coming together of Yin and Yang.
Like the Greek God Hermes, Ardhnarishvara is associated with communication. The
intermediate being often serves to mediate between women and men, mortals and
deities, and between other entities. For this reason Ardhnarishvara is said to dwell in
the chakra of the throat. In Tantra this chakra is also sometimes associated with oral
intercourse, linking the deity not only to androgyny but also to homoeroticism. In the
past, Ardhanarishvara was served by gender variant cross (or mixed) dressing priest.
In artistic depictions, Ardhnarishvara is typically shown with a female body as its left
side and the right half, male (Cassell 1997:67, see also Pande 2004).

54 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Lesbian Women: At the Outer
Fringe!
However, even within the sexual minority
community, many of the above mentioned
identities refer to biological males. This, it
is alleged, has helped them gain ground for
their collective action while lesbian women
had to struggle against their exclusion in the
debate for sexual minorities in countries such
as India. In Indonesia, lesbian groups are
becoming active particularly in association
with the women’s mass organization, KPI. Yet,
the male organizations have been more vocal.
This emphasis on male-bodied persons is
also reflected by the lack of terminology for
lesbian women and WSW within their own
community and in the larger sexual minority
community. In India, the one term that was
being used in Gujarat and Rajasthan was
‘babu’. Though it is a generic term for lesbian
women, a ‘babu’ usually is a ‘butch’ lesbian.
However, in India too, with the growing
visibility of women centered women, new
terminology is gradually emerging—hamjinsi,
hamsheera, sangini and so on. In Indonesia,
the word ‘lesbi’ usually refers to activists
fighting for sexual rights, such as in the KPI
and Ardhanary (lesbian group in Indonesia).
The older b/f community rather uses sentul/
kantil or cowok/cewek, for male-and-female
identifying WSW respectively. (See Annexure
5.2)
Within the lesbian subculture, the terms butch
and femme or their local variations are often
used to describe a person’s approximate
adherence to traditional masculine and
feminine gender roles. It has to be stressed
that this division refers more to the aesthetics
of the relationship. Since the butch partner
is always recognizable as a female-bodied
person, the couple is, by definition, subversive
of the dominant order.
However in Indonesia, through an intensive
process of self-reflection, some butch lesbians
are becoming feminists without giving up
their butch identities. The play with power
dynamics is not limited to b/f relationships.
They are also evident within lesbian, non-
butch/ femme lesbian relationships. Political,
feminist lesbians denounce and try to escape
heterosexuality’s oppressive modes and seek
equality in emotional and sexual expression.
Power struggles in the LGBT relationships, as
in any other emotional and sexual relationship,
must continuously be questioned, challenged
and addressed.
The butch seeks most pleasure in giving sexual
satisfaction to her femme partner though she
may switch roles as well. Yet another butch
category is that of the ‘stone butches’, who
do not want to be touched sexually. They give
pleasure, but do not seek it in return. Some of
them identify themselves as men trapped in
a woman’s body; in that sense they may also
identify as transgender or even transsexuals.
Until recently butch-femme lesbian women
in Indonesia were relatively visible. They
may live together openly as a husband-wife
couple. They could hide their sexuality behind
the apparent ‘normalcy’ of heterosexuality.
However, the paradox is that with the growing
visibility for the out-and-proud lesbian woman,
the space for the more invisible b/f women
has rapidly been shrinking in Indonesia. The
emergence of a discourse of sexual rights has
a negative side effect in that it produces a
homophobic backlash which may expose the
cover the traditional b/f couples had found.
(Wieringa 2004)
Speaking of contemporary India, lesbian
women find it very difficult to come out. The
first trauma is usually borne at the hands of
one’s immediate family. Setting up house in
most Indian cities with a lesbian partner is an
uphill task. Law enforcement agencies, by the
55
 definition of Section 377, do not acknowledge
lesbian sex. However, legal issues such as
buying property or taking up a loan in their
joint name are made next to impossible by a
system that only recognizes the heterosexual
relations as natural and right.
Traditionally though, things have been
different. There are stories about Sakhis or
‘friends’ in many parts of north India and
Nepal. Such friend-couples were known to
exchange vows, in the presence of a Hindu
priest in an elaborate ceremony. This could
be a friendship ritual that made them promise
love and allegiance to each other. It is not clear
whether sexualities were inscribed within
these friendships. Similarly, the mit tradition
in Nepal includes a temple ceremony where
two women promise to never share their
secrets with anyone else, as also commit
to take care of each other. Archives in West
Bengal too have a record of Shai patano
(Bangla for ‘making friends’). Two women
friends were said to give each other new
names, or words of endearment, and vow
to also take care of each others’ families. In
yet another ritual practiced in Northern India,
two women friends stand in flowing water
and exchange their sarees. An extinct ancient
custom, it is said to have celebrated female
friendship.’ (National TOT report, Khajuraho,
India; September 2006)

Intersex

Biologically, the differences between females and males are insignificant. And they
are even smaller in those babies who are diagnosed to have an intersex condition.
Intersexuality is a term for a broad range of phenomena. The diagnosis is done at birth
when it cannot be immediately reckoned whether the baby is a boy or a girl. Until
recently in the West, decisions were taken by the doctors based on a certain protocol
and the operation was performed. Either the tiny penis was cut to the size of a clitoris
and if thought necessary, a vagina was opened. Or, an operation was performed to
produce a boy but that was more difficult (‘it is easier to poke a hole than to construct
a pole’).

In some case an operation may be advisable, as the person born with an intersex
condition may be at a heightened risk of cancer. Recently the most common term
used is Disorder of Sexual Development. Recent protocols stress the importance of the
rights of people born with DSD and advocate until puberty, when gender identity can
be more confidently established, before sex reassignment may be undertaken.

56 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

 Exercise

Exercise 1

Divide the group into smaller sub-groups and give them a handout. (Annexure 5.3)
The group should hold a discussion to understand the process of identity formation in their
respective context.

Exercise 2
(Annexure 5.4)

Divide the participants into sub-groups. Each group discusses the following issues.

Mention examples of identity-based collectivities in your own context. (trade unions, women’s
groups, anti-colonial movements, anti-apartheid, environmental groups, reproductive rights
groups and so on).
In which identity-based collectivity did you participate, if any? Issues to be discussed include
the context and content of these identity-based movements and whether sexual identities
are included. As a sexual minority, elaborate on examples and experiences of inclusion and
exclusion.
Discuss examples of gender diversity in your own context and build a hierarchy of abject/
abnormal categories.

Exercise 3

Divide the participants into smaller groups. Each group becomes a ‘hated’ or marginalized
community. The other group members then heap all the stereotypes they can think of on this
group. Later, the stereotypes are discussed in relation to the message of superiority/inferiority
and inclusion/exclusion.

57
 film screening

Film: Gulabi Aina

Directed by Sridhar Rangayan

Synopsis: It pits two Indian drag queens against a westernized gay teenager in a battle to woo
a handsome hunk. It’s a clash of the East and West. Who will win? The drag queens, who are
expert in the art of seduction with their wit, innuendo and cunning or the young teenager who
is saucy, slutty and sly? Underneath the campy humorous exterior, the film is an exploration of
the Indian gay landscape and understanding of the deep, humanly tender bondings that exist
between drag queens in India who form unique, non-patriarchal families. Using the Bollywood
soap idiom of song, dance and drama and for the first time in the Indian drag queens’ very own
language, Hindi, the film also explores other veiled issues related to the Indian gay community:
the lurking threat of HIV/AIDS.

Trainer’s notes

58 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

B
ody Politics and
Pornography
Objectives
Understand the politics of women’s
bodies as an ideal construction;
Understand the workings of the
Madonna/whore split*
Establish the inter relatedness of
the global-local, and of the market
and the body as a source of profit
and consumption (the beauty
industry);
Understand the extent of state
control over women’s bodies: dress
codes, sexual norms, denial of rape
within marriage and so on
Discuss the debates on
pornography.

session six

59
 Guiding Notes
The female body is simultaneously a site
of power and vulnerability; a site of great
attention and tremendous fear, and a site of
worship and defilement. However, there is no
unmediated natural body outside the realm of
the social and the political.
Simone de Beauvoir’s* belief that women are
made and not born effectively delegitimized
biological determinism*. As per biological
determinism, women are by nature
nurturing, passive and weaker than men.
Foucault’s* work on the body, linking power
and sexuality has helped pave the way for
a constructivist* understanding of the body
(1978). As constructivists maintain, we cannot
know the ‘truth’ of our bodies, as knowing is
always mediated by science or society. Our
understanding of the body is shaped by
various practices of stratification and mani-
pulation of our bodies. The power relations
that underlay the construction of knowledge
basically work to ‘normalize’ bodies and sexual
behaviors. According to Foucault, power relies
on the eye, on an all-seeing gaze that is shaped
by various institutions. (Ibid) The male, on
the one hand, gazes at bodies, tames women
and makes them docile and submissive. On
the other, the male gaze reduces women into
simple objects for male consumption.
Yet, in spite of the attraction of constructivism,
popular thought is still thoroughly biologically
deterministic. In media, religion and other
institutions, women are reduced to being just
a body, biologically inferior and at the same
time decried for its defiling potential. Women
internalize this notion and aspire for that
standard set by multiple forces around them.
Feminism has from the start been deeply
concerned with the body, either in the pursuit
of intellectual equality, or as the site of the
essence of the female. (Shildrick and Price
1999:3)
60 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
‘The very fact that women are able in general to
menstruate, to develop another body unseen
within their own, to give birth, and to lactate
is enough to suggest a potentially dangerous
volatility that marks the female body as out
of control, beyond and set against therefore
of reason. In contrast to the apparent ordered
self containment of the male body, which
may then be safely taken for granted and
put out of mind, the female body demands
attention and invites regulation. The age
old relation between hysteria and the womb
(called hystera in Greek) is just one example
of how femininity itself becomes marked by
the notion of an inevitable irrationality.’ (Ibid)
They further elaborate how various systems
of domination mediate the construction of
the universal body, ‘ …that there are only
multiple bodies, marked not simply by sex,
but by an infinite array of differences--race,
class, sexuality, age, mobility status are those
commonly invoked, none of which is solely
determinate. In such a model, the universal
category of the body disappears, not as the
result of the disembodiment characteristic of
masculinist discourse, but in favour of a fluid
and open embodiment. At any given moment,
we are always marked corporeally in specific
ways, not as unchanging or unchangeable
fixture.’ (Ibid 1999: 6)
Patriarchal* institutions (such as marriage)
attempt to control women’s bodies and
particularly their sexuality. For women,
sexuality is still often associated with
procreation, while for men it is associated
with recreation. While women are associated
with bodily processes, nature and emotions,
men are supposed to be rational beings and
are associated with culture and the mind.
Chastity, virginity, shame and honour are
attached to women’s respect-ability, while
men are positioned as the guardians of
women’s honour. Thus, it can be said that
in traditional patriarchal societies, a man’s
honour lies between the legs of the women
in his family. Women’s bodies are also sites
for a nation’s or a region’s identity, its culture
and purity. Raping the enemy’s women has
been seen as the ultimate winning stroke.
Women raped in war crimes are often not
received by their families or communities, as
happened in Bangladesh after its liberation
war with Pakistan.
The Beauty Myth
(See Annexure 6.1)
While all of us have bodies, not all bodies
are considered equal. The myth of beauty
follows our bodies everywhere to the extent
that people with disabilities are considered
asexual. The notion of an ideal, beautiful
body controls every woman. This has a direct
impact on the way women attach (or reduce)
value to their own being.
The concept of women’s beauty and the
oppression that it causes to them is best
explored by Naomi Wolf in her first book, ‘The
Beauty Myth’. In this international bestseller,
she attacks the exploitation of women by the
fashion and beauty industries. ‘The more legal
and material hindrances women have broken
through, the more strictly and heavily and
cruelly images of female beauty have come
to weigh upon them.’ (Wolf, 1991: 1)
Wolf also states that the beauty myth is ‘…
not about women at all. It is about men and
power. The qualities that a given period calls
beautiful in women are merely symbols of
the female behaviour that period considers
desirable: the beauty myth is always actually
prescribing behaviour and not appearance.
Competition between women is part of the
myth so that women will be divided from one
another’. (Wolf, 1991:4)
Synnott states that women often chase
‘beautyism, and its attendant fascism, the
prejudice and discrimination in favour of the
beautiful and attractive (however defined)
and against the ugly and less attractive are
virtually institutionalized in our society and
are the last major bastion of inequity……’
(Synnott, 1993:100)
According to Dworkin, “Male sexual
domination is a material system with an
ideology and a metaphysic. The sexual
colonization of women’s bodies is a material
reality; men control the sexual and repro-
ductive uses of women’s bodies. The insti-
tution of control included law, marriage,
prostitution, pornography, health care,
the economy, the organized religion and
systematized physical aggression against
women, for instance, in rape and battery.”
( Dworkin, 1981:41)
Each body is unique, different, complete and
normal. The notion of normalcy, a standardised
body, is a construct of the dominant ideology.
Just as patriarchy creates the good and the
bad women, it has also created the notion
of an ideal desirable versus sub-normal,
asexual body. In addition, women’s bodies
are divided into parts—the public and the
private. While reproductive health is a public
issue, women’s sexual health is pushed into
the private realm. One is the secretive body
while the other can demand public attention.
Women’s gynecological and sexual health*,
therefore, has not been a priority for the health
care system. Shrouded in secrecy, women
seldom find a space to claim the legitimacy to
their gynecological needs.
The state controls women’s bodies in
innumerable ways such as by prescribing
dress codes, not recognizing marital rape,
and denying abortion laws. Thus, the
family, educational institutions as well as
institutionalized religions all reinforce body
codes whenever their institutional control is
61
 challenged. Alarming messages are sent out to
assert the control. For example, in New Delhi,
India, when pornographic SMSs were sent
around by school boys, the school authorities
imposed a strict dress code for girls, thus
disallowing the use of skirts in schools. It is at
such junctures that the debate on decent and
dignified women versus sexually provocative
women is crystallized.
The media representation of women is a major
site where women’s bodies get constructed
and deconstructed. The visuals of women’s
naked bodies are circulated to titillate and
covered to make them submit and surrender.
The good and the bad woman is recast in
her various forms. In fact, the present media
representation of women is schizophrenic
(the coexistence of opposing elements)—it
demands contradictory performance from the
body of the woman.
There are discourses (formal, lengthy
discussions on a subject that are either
written or spoken) as well as institutionalized
practices in which bodies are being homogen-
ized. Judith Butler provided the notion of
performativity to explain how the use of
body through acts, gestures, and process
of repetition produces an identity that is
standardized and stereotyped. This is done
by the media and the global beauty industry.
(Butler, 1993) …..
The beauty industry is a billion dollar business
and has a global dimension. The industry has
further solidified the sex-gender divide. There
are different creams, perfumes, shampoos for
women and men. In the name of choice and
glorification of the body and the postponement
of ageing process, the industry creates new
notions of an ideal body and an ideal face. It
sells body products to make women ‘fair and
lovely’, thus promoting racism, ageism and
notions of a normal undamaged body. It is
62 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
interesting to note here that women also use
makeup to hide their bruises and evidence of
sexual violence inside or outside the home.
A recent survey done in India indicated that
a large number of middle class women in the
beauty and film industry have been through
surgical procedures to stand up to the notion
of an ideal, attractive body.
Pornography*
The word pornography in ancient Greek
combined two words porne (whore) and
Graphos (writing, etching or drawing). In
short, it means ‘writing about whores’. The
whore was not regarded respectfully as she
was considered a sexual slave. In its historical
connotation, the word pornography meant
graphic depiction of women as vile horse.
(Dworkin, 1981)
One of the issues linked to body politics and the
representation of women is about obscenity
and censorship. Similar to the issue of sex
work, there is no one position on the issue.
Who can decide what is obscene and what is
pornographic? These are subjective opinions
and in a society that is morally hypocritical,
it is not possible to imagine that it will not
police the representation of women’s bodies
and sexualities.
Pornography, is a vital area of discourse and
differences, and is a contentious issue for
feminists globally as they have held divided
opinions about pornography. Some believe
that pornography, especially images depicting
violence against women or non-consensual
sex, are harmful as they lead to an increase in
violence against women.
Some feminists are totally against porno-
graphy. According to them, it violates the
very notion of a woman’s right over her body.
The sexual act is primarily in the service of
male desire. Any time a person becomes
an object, it becomes the first step towards
justifying violence against them. For instance,
a music album shows a woman saying ‘I am
black and blue from the Rolling Stones and I
love it’. The message imparted is that women
love to be beaten.
Those who argue against pornography cite
the following three reasons:
First, it encourages sexual violence and
rape against women.
Secondly, in its humiliation of women,
pornography in itself is a form of sexual
violence.
Thirdly, women are hurt and economically
and sexually exploited in the production of
pornography.
However, no study has proven a direct and
substantial link between pornography and
sexual violence against women.
Feminists arguing against pornography
reiterate that pornography restricts women’s
freedom rather than becoming a liberating
force. According to Morgan (1980:139),
“pornography is a theory and rape is the
practice.” Many researchers have indicated
that pornography decreases male sensitivity
to women’s legal rights, including the right
to withhold consent to sex. The opposition
to pornography by Western feminists such as
Catharine MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin is
well-known. They, along with other supporters,
proposed an anti-pornography legislation. It
should be noted that not all feminists who
objected to pornography supported a ban on
it. It was/is believed by some that regulation
or censorship is not the most effective way
to tackle pornography’s adverse effects; a ban
may cause more harm to women.
Other feminists uphold the right to freedom of
expression. They maintain that women have
sexual fantasies too and that there is nothing
wrong with pornography, if performed in
a consensual, non-exploitative way. They
claim that it is the ‘sex negativity’ of society
that inhibits women’s free expression of
their sexuality, and that pornography should
simply be considered as a possible source of
pleasure for some people, and a source of
income for others.
According to some feminists, any curb on
pornography would amount to ‘censorship’.
This obviously goes against the fundamental
principle of women’s right to freedom of
expression (including sexual expression)
and speech. Many feminist believe that
pornographic representation can be, in fact,
liberating. It is important to understand that
any anti-pornography position translates
itself into a pro-censorship stand and, thus,
gets caught in the debate on what constitutes
offensive, decent and morally appropriate.
Such a position also helps strengthen the
State’s control over ‘moral’ behaviour of its
subjects.
The pro-pornography group labeled the anti-
pornography feminists as moral and religious
conservatives who found pornography to be
obscene and corrupting for traditional family
and religious values. Some supporters of
pornography identified themselves as liberals
and defended the right of consenting adults
to publish and consume pornography in
private. They saw pornography as a liberating
space to challenge sexual conservatism vis-
à-vis femininity, female sexuality and sexual
rights for women.
However, even some of the feminists who are
committed to the freedom of women’s sexual
63
 expression and right to their bodies are
reluctant to accept the sexual depiction and
use of women’s body. Thus, pornography
poses a real dilemma for feminists and is
difficult to resolve as pornography is directly
linked to issues such as obscenity, immorality,
nudity, sexually explicit imagery. It should
be noted that all these terms are culture
specific.(Annexure 6.2)
In the United States, the pornography industry
is larger than the record and film industries
combined. In a time of widespread economic
impoverishment, it is growing. More and
more male consumers are eager to spend
greater amount of money on pornography,
that is depictions of women as vile whores.
Pornography is now carried by cable
television; it is marketed for home use in video
machines. The technology itself demands the
creation of more porneia to meet the market
that has been opened up by technology.
Real women are tied up, stretched, hanged,
fucked, gang-banged, whipped, beaten, while
begging for more.
The discussions in Indonesia on the Anti-
Pornography Draft Law present an interesting
case. The draft law was presented a few
years ago, and debates are still raging.
The initial issue was how ‘pornography’
could be defined. After all, there was also a
category called ‘porno action’ that included
masturbation. Rights protesters followed,
claiming that this draft law violated the
articles of freedom of expression and several
sections of CEDAW. The law also violates one
64 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
of the basic principles of the Indonesian state,
that is, its guarantee of cultural and religious
diversity. The law can be seen as an attempt
of hardliner Muslim groups to impose their
views on a pluralistic and, in some respects,
rather permissive society. Analysing the draft
law, it is clear that women’s bodies are seen
as the source of ‘evil’ and immorality, from
which presumably ‘innocent’ (Muslim) men
have to be shielded. Dress codes are imposed
only on women. Public expressions of
affection (holding hands and kissing) would
be banned, and ‘sensitive’ body parts, such
as bellies, thighs, breasts and (women’s)
hair should be banned from view. Artists,
particularly those who perform traditional
dance and music from Central and East Java
and Bali, spearheaded the protests.
In India, in spite of fierce debates and
demonstrations around the issue of sexual
representation/expression by progressive
groups including sexual rights and women’s
groups, the age old law the Indecent
Representation of Women (Prohibition)
Act,1986 (See Annexure 6.3), continues to be
in force. While the texture of sexual morality
is undergoing a fast track change, the
fundamentalist forces have become strident
in controlling the visual, verbal and artistic
content of representation. The country, in the
past decade, and increasingly in the recent
past, is witnessing militant attacks on freedom
of expression and sexual representation
by the self proclaiming custodian of ‘Indian
morality and decency’.
Trainer’s notes

65
 Exercise

Exercise 1

Ask the participants to draw their naked bodies, and mark out the parts of their bodies
that they like and dislike. Each person then holds the drawing and shares the reasons
behind their like/dislike.

The facilitator guides the discussion and helps to see how our dislike of our bodies
is influenced by the discourse of an ideal body and therefore influences our sense of
well being and confidence.

Exercise 2

Discuss how each one of us looks at our bodies? Consider the following questions for
a discussion in small groups.

1. How have you experienced the notion of a desirable, ideal body/face/complexion

and whether it created any pressures on you?

2. When have you felt the power of your body and in what ways did you experience
disempowerment and shame?

3. How have the notions of morality and the polluted body impacted you?

4. Have you or someone else around you has been called disabled? How does it
impact our psyche?

The group members write the salient features of their discussion on the chart paper
for the plenary session to be shared with the rest of the participants.

66 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Exercise 3

Divide the participants into small groups of 4 to 5 each. Provide each group with
sexually explicit images. Each group makes two collage: one that they think is
aesthetically beautiful and the other that causes discomfort. Discussions follow about
why certain images are problematic. They discuss the issues surrounding obscenity,
pornography and sexually explicit images within their cultural context.

Exercise 4

Divide the group into two sub-groups that sit in a circle. Put a life size chart paper in
the centre of both groups. Ask one of the participants to come and lie down on the
paper to make the outline of the body. One of the group members draws body parts
including our sexual parts and genitalia inside the outline of the body.

Two colour pens are chosen; each colour denoting pain and pleasure.
Every group member marks the parts of the body that give pleasure (with one colour)
and those that cause pain (with another colour). Participants can decide the colour
code.

Facilitators need to note that this exercise is best done late in the evening with a
flexible schedule as it may take some time for people to open up. Sometimes, talking
about painful body parts can be very intense for the group. The session has to be
conducted with a lot of sensitivity and care.

film screening

Film: Killing us softly

Directed by Sut Jhally

Synopsis: Jean Kilbourne has been analyzing the images of women in advertisements
from 1960s. According to her, women are still being killed softly by the way they are
portrayed in the media. Women learn how they should look and to know exactly what
it takes to look beautiful. This has led to anorexia and bulimia among women. In one
of the many National Surveys done in the US, 80% of 4th grade girls said that they
were on a diet! Advertising has turned women into sex objects/ consumers.
Feminists arguing against pornography reiterate that pornography restricts women’s
freedom rather than becoming a liberating force.
There is another kind of violence inflicted by advertising on women. All the qualities
labeled as feminine, such as compassion, cooperation, caring and so on, make
women internalize these qualities at the cost of their own self.

67
 Trainer’s notes

68 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

S
ex Work and the
Sex Industry
Objectives
To improve the social and judicial
position of female sex workers
To recognize the ‘whore fear’
in women, as part of their
internalized oppression.
To eliminate stigmatization which
ostracizes women in the sex
industry; and
To understand the major positions
around female sex work.

session seven

69
 Guiding Note
“Ah, when whores start telling the truth
and lifting the burden of these lies, we will
become so powerful”. (DelaCoste, Leigh and
Alexander 1987: 107)
In the recent past, sex workers have been the
subject of research for activists, academics
and others alike. The last two decades have
especially witnessed greater research on
sex workers and other marginalized sexual
identities, especially in the wake of the HIV/
AIDS pandemic with sex workers seen as its
vectors. This has been a double-edged field
of research as the stigmatized have become
recipients of reluctant charity while being
marginalized. In the process of ‘empowering’
sex workers, their many ‘other’ personal
and social identities have been submerged.
They have become objects of study rather
than the subjects of their multiple struggles.
Meanwhile, in the countries of the South,
sex workers have begun to organize
themselves to demand their rights as citizens
and workers.
Sex workers embody the total abuse and
abandonment of women. However, it is
not only the sex industry that objectifies
women but the entire patriarchal fabric that
sees women as the objects of consumption.
Sex industry is just one of its conspicuous
manifestations.
Sex work/prostitution is a patriarchal
institution and is the flip side of
heterosexual marriage.
While patriarchy produces the institution
of prostitution, it also divides women into
good, bad and perverse.
“For a long period in history women had only
three options for economic survival—getting
70 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
married, becoming a nun or becoming a
prostitute”.(Delacoste, Leigh and Alexander
1987).
Current debates on sex work range from
the issue of labeling (prostitution versus
sex work), rehabilitation to the rights of sex
workers. Some of the questions that are asked
during such debates are:
Can providing sex be seen as a legitimate
form of sexual labour?
Is sex work about the objectification of the
body and sexual exploitation, or do sex
workers also employ a form of agency?
Does sex work always mean a violation of
women’s body and women in general?
Does sex work only mean that women’s
bodies are trivialized or objectified?
The Sex Industry: Complex,
Complicated
The true and original meaning of the word
‘whore’ was ’lover’. However, today it has
turned into a stigmatized identity and any
woman who digresses from the accepted
behavioural norm is labeled a whore. From
pre-colonial through colonial times, from
imperialist rule to the present neo-liberal
and post colonial period, there have been
always various forms of sex work. The ancient
Greeks knew them as hetaerae, women who
played music, sang and recited poetry and
were the companions of upper class males.
They can be compared to the traditional
Japanese geisha, who also underwent
rigorous training in various art forms. In
India, there have been various forms of
temple prostitution, where temple maidens
provide sexual services to devout men. Men
in uniformed services (police and army, for
 The Courtesan in Mughal India

During the Mughal rule in India, the role of the courtesan was considered a dignified
choice for women of certain sub-cultures. British Victorian morality has erased many
indigenous sub-cultures which need to be highlighted at the current juncture. India had
the rich tradition of the tawaif (courtesan), a woman who was known for her singing
and dancing skills as well as poetry. The tawaifs were common in India during the
Mughal rule. They even taught the nobility etiquettes and social graces. In fact, the
word ‘whore’, a Western slang for a sex worker, traces its true root meaning to ‘lover
or one who desires’.

(Khajuraho National TOT, September 2006 )

example) have always used women to provide
sexual services to soldiers. The regulation of
sex work in colonial times has often been
linked to the provision of safe sexual services
to men in the army.
Throughout history, women (and some men)
have catered to the sexual needs of men
(and very few women) in various forms. This
should be seen in a wider context. Women
across civilizations have traditionally been
entertaining men in a variety of roles, both
sexual and asexual. Today too, there are a
range of sex workers—from streetwalkers to
high-class entertainers.
Prostitution has been seen as the upshot of a
rigidly hetero-patriarchal set up that privileges
monogamy and heterosexual marriage. While
patriarchy creates the need for sex workers
and the sex industry, it concomitantly labels
women into wife and the vamp. It is important
to note that while poverty is one of the many
other significant reasons why women become
a part of the sex trade, structural violence
such as rape and other forms of abuse within
their homes also push women into sex work.
Some women also exercise their agency
and choose to be sex workers. However,
the position of women in the sex industry is
fraught with danger and violence. A majority
of women who work as prostitutes risk legal,
social, physical, emotional and economic
abuse.
Sex work lies at the intersection of various
global power relations, in addition to
various forms of patriarchy and economic
imperialism. These forces – individually and
together – shape sexual agency and/or the
lack of it. These two binary positions - women
forced into prostitution versus women
choosing sex work - are not simplistic, and
therefore need to be looked at as complicated
and nuanced. Moreover, the contemporary
form of globalization has feminized poverty.
The assertion of patriarchy, especially in the
wake of various fundamentalist movements,
has increased violence against women and
reinforced women’s entry into prostitution.
The stigma of sex work is linked to other
marginalized sexualities who engage in sex
work. During the Jakarta TOT in September
2006, an Indonesian transgendered sex
worker said:
“Forced prostitution doesn’t have to mean
that there is somebody ordering you to
become a sex worker. The options may be so

71
 limited that you have no other recourse. For
instance, I am a waria and applied for a job in
a call center. The boss told me that I would
only be accepted if I changed my behaviour
and looks. That meant I had to cut my hair
and wear men’s clothing. I said, “I don’t have
to pick up the phone with my hair, do I? I don’t
work with my genitals either!” This happens
all the time. I have friends with a university
degree who can find no other job than to sell
themselves on the street.”
The need is to empower sex workers within
their location, without making judgments
about the work they do. They need to become a
collective force to run their own organizations
that could in turn challenge institutionalized
oppression. Human rights activists and
feminists need to form sustainable alliances
with sex workers to work together at the
intersections of their larger concerns.
The objective of the session is to restore the
dignity of sex work. The stigma suffered by
sex workers is the result of the same self-
internalised norm that not only monitors
women’s identity but of other marginalised
groups too, such as homosexuals. The
ideology and practice of ‘good’ and ‘bad’
woman needs to be fought. A parallel could
be drawn with Section 377 of the Indian
Penal Code. In India, homosexuals are not
considered normal or respectable. Yet,
mobilization of the homosexual community
has helped the cause. In the recent past, sex
workers have also organized themselves to
push for their demands. An alliance of sexual
minorities and feminist groups is therefore of
utmost importance.
Sex Work: Different
Perspectives
Women who are part of the sex industry in-
tegrally comprise the non-normative. Margin-
72 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
alised and stigmatized, abused and oppressed,
sex workers are some of the worst ‘offenders’
of the Norm. As far as global women’s move-
ments are concerned, three major positions
can be distinguished around sex work.
Ban on Sex Work and
Rehabilitation of Sex Workers
According to this position, sex work is
detrimental to human society and morality,
and should be banned.
This position is fraught with moralistic
undertones and projects sex work as immoral
and harmful for the fabric of societal norms
and values. It is reformist in nature and is
supported by the largest section of opinion
makers, particularly the State and some
sections of the women’s movement.
The argument for a ban on sex work, along
with the demand for the rehabilitation of
sex workers, has two contrary sides to it.
According to this position, on the one hand,
sex work should be considered illegal.
However, it is proposed to reform and
rehabilitate sex workers. Sex work is often
equated with trafficking of minor girls and
young women and is seen as against the
fundamental human rights of any individual.
It is also demeaning to the bodily integrity
of an individual. Some feminists too see sex
work as a form of violence against women.
To believe that a ban on sex work will counter
the HIV/AIDS epidemic is a fallacy supported
by the moralistic lobby. In fact the issue of
HIV/AIDS concerns the entire society and
should not be targeted at sex workers alone.
Rehabilitation exercises – brought about by
the same moralistic reformist tendencies
– have often not succeeded. It is extremely
important to challenge the notion of
rehabilitation. Sex workers themselves have
challenged this effort. Why do they need to be
reformed and rehabilitated? They argue that
they should be seen as part of a large pool of
self-employed women and therefore part of
the labour force.
Will the State rehabilitate domestic workers,
women who carry night soil or other exploited
and denigrated women? Those who are in
dire need of rehabilitation and State support
are ignored, while bureaucrats focus their
attention on communities they consider
immoral. However, there are no viable and
sustainable rehabilitation packages available
with the government. Besides, rehabilitation
has been practiced in a very patronising
manner. If at all, rehabilitation must be offered
as a choice and not be enforced upon certain
communities by moralist actors.
Legalization of Sex Work
The demand for legalization of sex work
stems from the understanding that sex
work should be seen as work and, therefore,
legalized to protect sex workers from further
harassment and stigma. The proponents
argue that legalization of sex work will offer
visibility to sex workers and their issues. It
will be possible then for sex workers to voice
their concerns. Since they are rightful citizens
of any nation, sex workers have the right to
social security, especially since their nature of
self-employed work is insecure. This position
assumes that after legalization, sex workers
will face less violence from various State
and non-State actors—the law enforcing
agencies, their immediate employers and
even clients. Economically too, they would
be able to contribute to the national coffers
or the GDP (Gross Domestic Produce) in the
form of taxes.
It is believed that as part of a legally sanctioned
labour force, sex workers would feel confident
about their status and that this will boost
their self esteem. They could then also gain
greater access to health care, education of
their children and old age pension.
Other feminists have critiqued this position on
the ground that this will, in fact, strengthen the
State and its various repressive institutions
such as the police, the legal authorities and
so on, instead of empowering women. As
a majority of sex workers come from very
poor, exploitative and abusive familial
backgrounds, they may lack literacy skills and
knowledge about the actual functioning of
the industry. Legalisation may make matters
worse for them. If legalization of marriage
has not ensured millions of women freedom
from coercion, violence and sexual slavery,
how can it be assumed that legalization of sex
work can liberate sex workers and improve
their condition? In fact, many women run
away from violent marriages and end up as
sex workers.
It is also clear that legalization does not
erase the stigma that has culturally been
associated with sex work. Legal changes do
not bring about change in the mind set. Since
sex work is so deeply associated with “fallen
women”, legalization may further reinforce
discrimination and ‘othering’. Legalization in
fact will lead to legal policing. The flip side
could be more regularization and thereby,
more corruption.
73
 Prostitution in Holland

In Holland, prostitution is fully legal. This means that sex workers pay taxes, get social
security and State protection. However, this applies only to women who are legal
residents and not to illegal migrants, who are pushed even further into the hands of
unscrupulous pimps. There is a division between relatively protected legal sex workers
and heavily exploited illegal immigrant women from Asia, Africa and Latin America
who are completely at the mercy of their owners. Thus, legalization has created
many other kinds of illegalities and exploitation. Drug-addicted women are abused
more as against the drug-free sex workers. Instead of pimps, police controls the legal
brothels; the pimps have become ever more dangerous and particularly exploit the
illegal prostitutes. Thus, only white and articulate sex workers are better protected,
while others have been pushed even further into misery. Another contentious issue
is that the ideology behind legalization reeks of moralistic undertones. The State uses
the legalization strategy to contain sex work, far from accepting it. Legalization also
privileges the State when it gets to be the decision-makers regarding who has the right
to practice sex work.

Decriminalization of Sex Work hopes to strengthen the bargaining power of

The demand for the decriminalization of
sex work and related activities has emerged
from within the group of sex workers and
feminist activists working with sex workers,
especially in India (DMSC (Durbar Mahila
Samanyay Committee), Calcutta, India).
Under this position, sex workers argue that
since they are part of the larger pool of the
labour force, their work does not need special
legal sanction. They demand to eliminate
all exploitative elements of the sex industry,
thus decriminalizing their work. In India,
for instance, sex workers proposed to set
up Self Regulatory Boards (SRB) with fair
representation of the State and the non-State
actors, including themselves. This strategy
sex workers and accrue them all labour rights
as due to them. The SRB also plan to work
towards the de-stigmatisation of sex work.
Within this position, the sex workers establish
a clear difference between trafficking and
consensual adult sex. It is the latter that
needs to be decriminalised. Decriminalisation
should ideally be followed by the removal of
moral stigma. However, stigma is a product
of patriarchal ideology and its erasure is a
very slow process. Sex work, per se, might
not be as horrifying for some, as much as the
stigma that comes attached to it. The need of
the hour is the creation of affirmative spaces
where sex workers can articulate their needs.

74 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

 From the Diary of a Feminist…

Even as we advocate and design strategies for better conditions for women in
prostitution (an urgent need), are we essentially reinforcing their exploitation (sexual
especially) or challenging it?

Secondly, to what extent does the normalization of prostitution maintain the patriarchal
status quo or really further women’s liberation?

Thirdly, to what extent does the re-formulation of prostitution as sex work help to make
prostitution a socially transformative institution for women or does it reinforce the
commodification of women ( is it a case of calling a rose by any other name) in a more
explicit capitalist mode?

I remember that when we left Dad and went to my grandparents’ place, we had no
money. The man next door offered Mum $500 if she would sleep with him. She didn’t
and he didn’t help us.

Is it that any time a woman lays down and has to spread her legs for money that all
women are hurt?

Future Strategies
Empowering sex workers with education
and vocational skills so as to help them
make decisions about their lives (without
moral judgments).
Affirmation of sex workers’ rights to
unqualified legitimacy and autonomy
to ensure women’s integrity as social
and sexual actors. It is important to
unconditionally accept women who have
made it their occupation to exchange sexual
services for monetary compensation.
Sex workers’ organizations be facilitated
to challenge the institutionalized and
industrialized injustices against them.
It is of mutual interest to build alliances
between the broader feminist and human
rights movements. This will help enhance
the collective bargaining and union power
to get protection under labour laws. These
alliances can unravel the intersectionality
of multiple oppressions of both sex workers
and of other marginalized groups.

75
 Exercise

Exercise 1

List all terms associated with sex work and discuss their underlying associations.

Exercise 2

In two groups, discuss the fear of being called a ‘whore’ and how it affects our entire
way of thinking and behaving in a very subtle way. Why do women feel offended
when they are called a whore or a slut?

Exercise 3

Divide participants in smaller groups and ask each of them to discuss the three
positions regarding sex work outlined above. It is important to analyse the positive
and the negative outcome of each position and then decide which position is most
acceptable. The objective is not to reach a consensus but to become aware of the
global and national discourse around the issue and our own sense of comfort/
discomfort with each position.

Exercise 4

Divide participants into three or four groups and give them each a story of a sex
worker (See Annexure 7.1 & 7.2)
After reading the story, they come together and share their responses.

Exercise 5

Divide the participants into three groups and give each group the following tasks:
a). Formulate a sex workers’ charter of rights.
b). Read the text of the Dance Bar Girl’s petition and comment. (See Annexure 7.3)
c). Analyse a relevant legal regulation on sex work and suggest a strategy to address
the sex workers’ rights.

76 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

 film screening

Film: Tales of the Night Fairies

Directed by Shohini Ghosh

Synopsis: Five sex workers–four women and one man–along with the filmmaker
embark on a journey of story telling. The film explores the power of collective
organising and resistance while reflecting upon contemporary debates around sex
work. The simultaneously expansive and labyrinthine city of Calcutta forms the
backdrop for the personal and musical journeys of story telling.

The film attempts to represent the struggles and aspirations of thousands of sex
workers who constitute the DMSC an initiative that emerged from the Shonagachi
HIV/AIDS Intervention project. A collective of men, women and transgendered sex
workers, DMSC demands decriminalisation of adult sex work and the right to form a
trade union.

Trainer’s notes

77
 Trainer’s notes

78 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

E
roticism, Fantasy and
the Right to Pleasure
Objectives
Establish the right to bodily
pleasure as legitimate;
Explore the body as a site
of creative possibilities and
expressions;
Understand the gendered nature of
sexual pleasure; and
Elaborate conditions in which
women can affirm positive sexual
pleasures and sexual creativity.

session eight

79
 Guiding Notes
“The tension between sexual danger and
sexual pleasure is a powerful one in women’s
lives. Sexuality is simultaneously a domain
of restriction, repression, and danger as well
as one of exploration, pleasure, and agency.
To focus only on pleasure and gratification
ignores the patriarchal structure in which
women live. Yet, to speak only of sexual
violence and oppression ignores women’s
experience with sexual agency and choice
and increases the terror and despair in which
women live.
The juxtaposition of pleasure and danger has
engaged the attention of feminist theorists
and activists in both the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries. It has definitely been an
ongoing part of the lives of individual women
who must weigh the pleasures of sexuality
against its cost in their daily calculations,
choices and acts. For some, the dangers of
sexual violence, brutality and coercion, in the
form of rape, forcible incest, and exploitation,
as well as everyday cruelty and humiliation
make the pleasure pale by comparison. For
others, the positive possibilities of sexual
explorations of the body, curiosity, intimacy,
sensuality, adventure, excitement, human
connection, basking in the infantile and non-
rational are not only worthwhile but help
them sustain. Such positions towards sexual
pleasure and danger are not fixed—a woman
could choose one different perspective on a
certain occasion in response to external and
internal events”. (Vance, 1984)
Patriarchy is built on the model of
heteronormativity (as discussed in earlier
chapters). The experience of sexual pleasure
is deeply gendered. Men are trained to
receive pleasure, whereas women’s sexual
pleasure is often denied. For men to actively
seek sexual pleasure is looked at in a positive
80 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
way (‘What a stud!’), while sexual prowess of
women is regarded as negative (‘She is a slut,
a tart’). Women’s pleasure is associated with
immorality since women are regarded as the
keepers of morality.
Women’s sexual morality is controlled to
secure social stability. Indeed, national
pride is seen to depend on women’s sexual
modesty. The control over women’s sexuality
then becomes the major tool of patriarchy
and the patriarchal State.
Major religions of the world support the
control of women’s sexuality. In Christianity,
women’s chastity is revered through the
‘immaculate conception’ of Virgin Mary.
Hinduism too has its notions of chastity in
the figure of Sita whose chastity had to be
proven upon the pyre, while her husband
Ram’s chastity during the long years of
their separation was never an issue. Islam
recognizes women’s powerful sexuality
and the Quran has several references to the
sexual bliss of couples (See Annexure 8.1). At
the same time, women are held responsible
for men’s lack of sexual control.
While sex can be empowering and beautiful,
many women live with sexual fear like an
extra skin. Each of us wears it differently,
depending on our class, sexual preference,
caste, bodily disability, rural/urban location
etc. Women experience sexuality as
dangerous, frightening, unexplored and
threatening, while seldom as exhilarating.
Women who claim the right to sexual pleasure
defy the norms of sexual morality. Discussing
women’s pleasure and arousal patterns is
important. Often women’s and men’s arousal
patterns differ. To affirm women’s sexual
power, it is important to discuss these different
patterns. There are probably also differences
among cultures, but not much research has
been done on it so far.
 The Sexual Kaleidoscope

“During the entire campaign, the world of the bar dancer, beyond these confines, lay
hidden from the feminist activists campaigning the cause and was carefully guarded.
Only now and then would it spill over more as a defiant statement. So while we were
exposed to one aspect of their lives with all its problems –of parenting, poverty, pain
and police harassment, we must admit that it was a partial projection, an incomplete
picture. We could not enter the other world in which they are constantly negotiating
their sexuality, the dizzy heights they scale while they dance draped in gorgeous
chiffons studded with sequences, oozing out female erotica and enticing their patrons
to part with a generous tip.” (Agnes 2006: 27)

Many of us become feminists because of our one’s sexual satisfaction, or reduce the pain
feelings about sex. Most of us have focused on of unsatisfactory encounters. It needs to be
that part of our sexuality which is victimized. emphasized that in the process of healing,
There are no spaces for women to express women can make an effort to clean the sexual
their rage about their sexual victimization. slate and begin afresh to claim the desire for
Since women have internalized that sex is what has been forbidden.
filthy, explicit sexual imagery shocks many
woman. Therefore, words like desire, passion,
craving, sexual needs and fantasies need to
Claiming Fantasies
be contextualized against our socialization as
Sexual scripts are often lived in fantasies.
women and men.
Everybody has erotic fantasies. It is often
difficult to express them, particularly for
The journey from erotica* as danger to erotica
women, as they are not supposed to be
as pleasure and comfort is a long journey.
sexually active. Such fantasies can be
Experiencing sex in varied ways can be the
triggered by childhood experiences or by
key to analyzing sexuality and desire, in a way
certain adult encounters. They may change
that unties the stubborn knots of heterosexist
over time, as one’s sexual history develops.
culture. People experience sex differently,
Erotic literature may help in stimulating those
feel differently when they do it (or not) and
fantasies.
want sex differently. Everybody also has her
The process of reclaiming pleasure and sexual
or his own sexual script. Each individual has
fulfillment is an extremely important aspect of
a certain sexual pattern regarding fantasy,
women’s lives. Women must learn to create a
spouse selection, arousal and orgasm. It is
positive relationship with their bodies in order
important for women to get to know their own
to be free of passivity and victim hood and for
sexual scripts. Often women’s sexual scripts
claiming sexual fantasy.
are mediated by their childhood experiences
or other (traumatic) encounters. Sometimes
The guiding principles are:
these scripts are detrimental to those who
Mutual consent;
embody them and may want to change them,
Mutual pleasure;
or at least redirect them in non-detrimental
Safety (from various STDs); and
ways. This is a difficult process. Awareness of
Joint responsibility (in relation to children).
one’s own sexual script can help one increase

81
 Exercise

Exercise 1

Participants are asked to write words and images that arouse them. To ensure
anonymity, they can fold the piece of paper and throw it into a basket. Then they pick
up one or two of these papers and read them out to others, but if possible segregate
them by the sex of the participants. It is great fun to guess in a group who has written
which images, not for accuracy but for sheer enjoyment.

Exercise 2

Map the erotic zones of the body. If the group consists of both women and men,
make single sex groups and compare the drawings.

Exercise 3

Describe sexual fantasies. Each participant writes her/his fantasy on a piece of paper
and then puts it into a common box. Participants then pick up any of the papers and
read out the fantasy for the entire group.

The facilitator follows it with a debate and discussion, emphasizing that sharing
fantasies can be a liberating experience. Sexual fantasies are not permanent as they
change with every partner and over time. They do not have to be politically correct.
It is vital is to discuss arousal patterns and sexual fantasies with oneself and one’s
partner.

Exercise 4

List activities/practices/behaviours considered amoral or moral, according to the

participants as well as the society. Then, compare this list with the existing legal
context of your country.

82 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Trainer’s notes

83
84 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
S
exualities, Law and
Sexual Rights
Objectives
Familiarize participants with major
international and national human/
sexual rights treaties/conventions/
agreements;
Acquaint participants with current
legal positions on the issue of
sexualities;
Develop an understanding of the
links between sexuality and the State,
including the education system,
judiciary, the police and the army.

session nine

85
 Guiding Notes
Legal mechanisms are critical regulatory
instruments in the arena of sexuality.
Various levels can distinctly be spotted.
Internationally, one of the most relevant
agreements are the UN Charter, the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and the CEDAW
(Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination Against Women) which are
binding to the member countries that have
ratified them. Various international consensus
treaties, such as those adopted at the major
UN-convened world conferences in the
1990s (Fourth World Conference on Women
in Beijing, the International Conference on
Population and Development) are built on
them. Nationally, laws must be in accordance
with the international documents a country
has ratified. Often, however, religious or other
motivations intervene.
Laws are the sediment of the long processes
of nation building. Colonialism, postcolonial
nationalist sentiments and religious
motivations have all had their impact and
still do so. Laws are, therefore, not neutral
instruments, but the objects of intense
discussions, particularly in the area of
sexualities. Legal struggles often take the form
of a fight for the legalization of a relation or
practice that was not allowed previously (such
as gay marriage) or the decriminalization of
certain practices, such as sex work or sodomy.
The prohibition of acts or practices deemed
detrimental is another form (such as marital
rape, pornography) of legal struggles around
the issue of sexuality.
The discourse of rights – human rights,
women’s rights or even sexual rights
– are important rallying points for both
consciousness raising and political activism.
Legal campaigns lie at the basis of wide
social movements, as was the case during
86 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
the struggle for legalization of abortion
in The Netherlands. Eventually, even
though abortion was only partly legalized,
the women’s movement had developed
enormously around this struggle and helped
achieve other wider goals.
However, even within important legal
struggles, there are several ambivalences and
contradictions related to a purely rights-based
approach (Wieringa 2004). An instrumentalist
approach to rights-based struggles may
ignore that once rights are achieved, they
may not always be implemented. This may
happen because the required simultaneous
change in social consciousness had not been
achieved. Thus, domestic violence laws do
not end domestic violence per se. They are
just critical tools in the hands of women and
men who fight against domestic violence and
may help victims of this form of violence.
Similarly, winning civil rights (such as the
vote for women or gay marriage) will not end
the discrimination of women and lesbians/
gays in other fields of society. As is the case in
South Africa, the destruction of the apartheid
did not end racism there.
Secondly, the struggle for rights may call
attention to people of certain minorities
who may not welcome that attention at all.
For instance, the growing visibility that the
struggle for lesbian and gay rights gives to
issues of same-sex sexuality may tear apart the
defences of heterosexual relations that could
be hidden behind layers of silence (Wieringa
2005). Friendships between women – deemed
innocuous so far – may be associated with
sexuality, once the word ‘lesbian’ comes into
the public realm. This does not mean that the
struggle for LGBT rights must be curtailed.
All we need to do is draw attention to a by-
product of the movement, in order to alert
rights-based groups of the need to take the
relevant issues into account.
Thirdly, the approach to human/women’s
sexual rights campaigns is somehow based
on the assumption that the body is stable.
The discourse too is generally framed within
the heterosexual, nuclear-family model.
Generally, the binary model of most societies
ignores inter-sex persons or the possibility
of trans-sexual changes. A good case is the
most progressive international consensus
document on sexuality and sexual health,
the document that emerged from the 1994
Population Conference in Cairo.
example, in India, communalism will be a
focus of the discussion. In Indonesia, special
attention needs to be paid to the process of
regionalization. The purpose of this session is
to discuss the minimum agenda for a sexual
rights campaign.
International Treaties
The following international legal instruments
are significant in building a national framework
of sexual rights.

However, it must be noted that the human
rights’ discourse is controlled and directed
by the United Nations (primarily the Northern
countries), thus homogenizing the rights’
discourse and praxis.
The objective in this session is to hold a
discussion on current issues of sexualities,
against the backdrop of international and
national human rights treaties/conventions/
agreements. You could ask the participants
to make presentations on existing laws for
homosexuality, sex work, the sex industry
and pornography. These laws should be
discussed in the framework of current
discourses on morality in your country and
its relationship to current political processes
(both national and international), such as
rising fundamentalisms.
Participants could draw upon examples from
their own respective country contexts, for
1. The 1945 Charter of the UN establishes
its objectives so as to foster international
peace and security; to promote social and
economic progress; and to define and
protect the rights and freedoms of every
individual regardless of race, sex, language
or religion.
2. In 1948, the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights was adopted by the UN;
crucial elements in the Declaration are the
right to education, freedom of thought,
conscience and religion, and the right to
social security.
3. Article 12 is particularly significant as it
stipulates that the State must protect
an individual against the violation of a
person’s integrity. Most national consti-
tutions contain a similar clause.
4. The next major step was the CEDAW
declaration adopted in 1979. This is a
binding declaration for all member States
that have ratified it.

Rights and Responsibilities: A Complete Package

A participant shared the case of a gay man who married just because he wanted a
child. He later left his wife and took the child to live with his partner. A long, painful
legal battle followed and the wife eventually got the custody of the child. The NGO
involved in the case worked for the rights of homosexuals as well as for women’s
rights. The case presents a double bind. It makes a good case to highlight the issue of
responsibility, while addressing rights.

87
 The following are some important sections
from the above-mentioned treaties/
declarations.
1. Paragraph 96, the Beijing PFA
“The human rights of women include their
right to have control over and decide freely
and responsibly on matters related to their
sexuality, including sexual and reproductive
health, free of coercion, discrimination and
violence. Equal relationships between women
and men in matters of sexual relations and
reproduction, including full respect for the
integrity of the person, require mutual respect,
consent and shared responsibility for sexual
behaviour and its consequences”.
2. The ICPD Platform of Action includes
a section on ‘satisfying and safe sex life’
in its definition of reproductive health:
Paragraph 7.2
“Reproductive health is a state of complete
physical, mental and social well-being and
not merely the absence of disease or infirmity,
in all matters relating to the reproductive
system and to its functions and processes.
Reproductive health therefore implies that
people are able to have a satisfying and safe
sex life and that they have the capability to
reproduce and the freedom to decide if,
when and how often to do so. It also includes
sexual health, the purpose of which is the
enhancement of life and personal relations,
and not merely counselling and care related
to reproduction and sexually transmitted
diseases”.
3. The UNGASS political declaration of
2001 on HIV/AIDS
Paragraph 30 of the Declaration states that
to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS, gender
inequality and gender-based violence must be
88 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
eradicated and that comprehensive education
on sexual and reproductive health should be
made available.
In spite of the above agreements and
treaties, national laws contain various forms
of discrimination. In general, they uphold
heteronormative and patriarchal relations.
This is visible in the prohibitions or various
stipulations, as also in the definitions of the
family (for example, the eldest male is usually
defined as the head of the household) or of
marriage. In the Philippines, for instance,
the definition of marriage (the spouses
should naturally belong to the opposite sex)
effectively excludes homosexual/transsexual
marriages.
Based on the above documents, various
groups have drafted their own sexual rights’
programmes. Listed below is the framework
produced by a group called Health,
Empowerment, Rights and Accountability
(HERA), a Working Group of the International
Women’s Health Coalition (IWHC).
The right to sexual pleasure without
the fear of infection, disease, unwanted
pregnancy or harm;
The right to sexual expression and the
right to make sexual decisions that are
consistent with one’s personal, ethical and
social values;
The right to sexual health care, information,
education and services;
The right to bodily integrity and the right
to choose if, when, how and with whom
to be sexually active and engage in sexual
relations with full consent;
The right to enter relationships, including
marriage, with full and free consent as
adults, and without coercion;
The right to privacy and confidentiality in
seeking sexual and reproductive health
care services; and
 The right to express one’s sexuality
without discrimination and independent
of reproduction.
Indonesia and Sexuality
Before the imposition of the Roman-Dutch
colonial and legal system, every ethnic group
had its own regulations in Indonesia. There
were a wide variety of kinship systems ranging
from the patrilinear Batak and Balinese to
the matrilinear Minangkabau. Some ethnic
groups – such as the majority Javanese
– were bilinear and recognised economic
property of women (such as land) and limited
voting rights for women. However, the 18th
and 19th century bourgeois Dutch law did not
recognise these rights.
In 1915, the Dutch imposed the Concord
Principle in Indonesia that was a decree that
formalised and institutionalised women’s legal
dependence on their husbands. Surprisingly,
that law included marital rape, even though
the lawmakers sought to prevent forced and
child marriages.
During the authoritarian New Order
government of President Suharto (1966-1998),
various laws were introduced to strengthen
the control of the State and husbands
over women’s sexuality and reproductive
capacities. The 1974 marriage law serves
as a classic example. It defined women as
dependent on their husbands and allowed
polygyny, albeit under strict conditions.
Indonesia’s present national criminal code
does not prohibit homosexuality. However, in
the process of regionalisation – which started
after the fall of the military dictatorship of
president Suharto in 1998 – several people
locate their regional identities in conservative
interpretations of Islam. They adopt regional
regulations that, in some aspects, deviate
from the national legislation. In the newly
adopted regional regulations of Lampung
and Palembang, for instance, homosexuality
is criminalized.
Likewise, prostitution is not criminalized at the
national level, only pimping is. Yet, recently
promulgated regional regulations of, for
instance, West Sumatra or Tangerang imply
that any woman who is out on the street at
night without a male relative is considered a
prostitute and is liable to be picked up by the
police.
In this way, although Indonesia has been
a secular State since 1945, Sharia laws
are slipping into the country through the
back door. Only in Aceh has Sharia law
been officially accepted. New Islam-based
regulations are surfacing everywhere. For
instance, in many regions, it has become
compulsory for candidates for important
positions – or in some cases even for children
– to enter secondary school, to be able to read
the Qur’an in Arabic.
The law on regional autonomy was signed in
2001. It allows local administration to issue
their own regulations or bylaws. Bylaws
promoting Sharia or Islamic law have been
issued by various regencies, including major
areas in Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi. These
bylaws are often based on conservative,
‘Arab’ versions of Islam which are alien to
Indonesia that has a much more moderate
history. Aceh is the only region where Sharia
is officially allowed. Although several bylaws
go against national laws, so far the national
government has been very reluctant to
address any such inconsistencies. Women’s
rights have particularly come under attack.
In Aceh, a militia group has been harassing
women for not wearing headscarves or for
being out at night without being accompanied
by a male relative.
89
 There are various laws in Indonesia which
are created on the assumption that women’s
bodies should serve men’s needs. The rape
law, for instance, excludes married women.
The health law defines men as the head of
households and recognizes only the one-
family form, that of the heterosexual family.
Contraceptive services are only provided to
married women. The marriage law stipulates
that polygyny is allowed if the wife is ill or has
no children or cannot fulfil her duties as wife.
This means that women are seen as providers
of sex (Katjasungkana and Wieringa 2003).
Debates on polygyny have been dividing the
women’s movement since 1928, when the first
Indonesian Women’s Congress was held.
India and Sexuality
Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (I.P.C.)
was first introduced into criminal legal codes
in 1860 by the British colonial state and
remains a law to date.
It specifically states: “Whoever voluntarily
has carnal intercourse against the order of
nature with any man, woman or animal, shall
be punished with imprisonment for life, or
with imprisonment of either description for a
term which may extend to ten years, and shall
also be liable to fine”.
Explanation: Penetration is sufficient to
constitute the carnal intercourse necessary to
the offence described in this section.
The struggle against Section 377 was started
way back in 1994 by the AIDS Bhedbhav
Virodhi Aandolan. In December 2001, Naz
Foundation (India) Trust filed a petition in
the Delhi High Court against Section 377 of
the Indian Penal Code, which criminalizes
“unnatural sex” acts, including homosexual
practices.
90 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
The primary motivation was that Section 377
hindered HIV/AIDS outreach work which is the
mission of Naz (India). Outreach workers and
service providers were frequently harassed
by police, extorted for money, and prevented
from delivering services to groups vulnerable
to HIV infections, particularly sexual and
gender minorities by exerting the threat of
Section 377.
Further, a petition against Section 377
presented the opportunity to advocate, on
behalf of the communities that they served,
especially men who have sex with men
(MSM), Kothis, and gay men. Due to the lacuna
in child sexual assault laws, the petition asks
for a “reading down” of Section 377 I.P.C. to
exclude adult, consensual, private, same-sex
sexual activity. The petition takes the position
that Section 377 violates fundamental
constitutional rights.
Since there is widespread discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation, it argued
that the law posed a threat to the right to
life, right to health and the right to privacy
of homosexuals in India. Under the alibi of
preventing child sexual abuse, guarding
public morality and defending Indian culture,
the issue has not been given its due.
However, a national platform, Voices Against
377, has been formed to continue the struggle
around the issue of sexual rights. Human
rights activists and others involved in the
fight against Section 377 have managed to
place the issue in mainstream media, in an
effort to draw attention and support from a
large section of society including intellectuals,
artists and the public at large. The fight has
become more consultative over the years.
The 2005 National Convention against
Section 377 held in Mumbai brought many
more heterosexual people who support the
struggle. A participant informed the group
that in Kolkata in June this year, a programme
called ‘Queering Justice’ was organized by
some local NGOs and human rights activists.
The mayor of Kolkata attended it and the
session was very invigorating. Such events
offer hope that at least the dialogue seems to
have begun.
The issue of handling Child Sexual Abuse
(CSA) too came up for discussion. If Section
377 disappears, how will CSA cases be
handled? The answer is that a better defined,
exclusive and stringent law on CSA has to
evolve simultaneously.
Among other things, the response of the Indian
Home Ministry, the Government of India,
stated that the Indian society is not ready to
accept legalised homosexual behaviour.
The Indian judiciary on other relevant
issues…
Under the pro-censorship forces within the
State, a law was formulated – the Indecent
Trainer’s notes
Representation of Women (Prohibition)
Act, 1986 – which prohibits ‘Indecent
representation of women through
advertisement, publications, writings,
paintings, figures or in any other manner’.
Even though feminists are fighting against
the law, there is, however, no unanimous
position.
Abortion under specific circumstances,
irrespective of the martial status, is legal
in India. It was passed as early as 1977.
Adult women require no permission from
anyone to decide to have an abortion,
neither the husband, partner or parents.
‘The Domestic Violence Bill’, a fairly
progressive law, was passed in 2006; it does
not recognize marital rape as a crime.
91
 Exercise

Exercise 1

Discuss, revise and adapt (in small groups) the above-mentioned HERA framework
to suit your own situation.

Exercise 2

Discuss different national/international legal frameworks and instruments, keeping

the following pointers in mind:
the underlying assumptions on gender;
whose interests are prioritized by law
the definition of the legal subject, and of what sex/gender;
the definition of the ‘normal’ family; and
where lies the burden of proof.

Exercise 3

Select one or more issues to build a campaign on sexual rights. First, map out the
State agencies associated with the issue. These may be religious or educational
institutes, family courts or particular ministries. Then, design strategies to deal with
each of the institutions mentioned.

92 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Trainer’s notes

93
94 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
S
exual Empowerment;
Strategising the
Personal and the Public
Objectives
Understand the concepts of sexual
power and sexual empowerment
Introduce various interpersonal
negotiating methods and skills, and their
relevance to issues related to sexual
empowerment;
Explore practices in society that violate
reproductive rights and sexual health,
and relate them to the instruments of
law (as discussed in Session 9).
Identify strategies for advocacy of
sexual rights and women’s sexual
empowerment at the local/regional
levels.

session ten

95
 Guiding Notes
Sexuality is one of the major sites of
power. Within the wide arena of sexual
relations, power operates through various
dimensions—ranging from the apparent to
the deepest, invisible and intangible levels.
Before discussing the possibilities of sexual
empowerment, it is important to comprehend
various dimensions of the concept of
power itself. Power is the motor that
creates, reproduces, sustains and changes
hierarchies. Power relations are pervasive.
They operate not only as the power exercised
by the State, but also in intimate relations
such as those dealt within this Manual. Power
relations manifest themselves at various
levels of human existence in acts of speech
and written material, as also in institutions
(such as family, religion, and so on) and other
discursive formations. They can also be seen
at work at the level of daily practices.
From this perspective, three aspects of power
and power relations can be distinguished.
First, power can be oppressive (consider
military or patriarchal power). However,
power can also be empowering, for example
the forms of power that counter women’s
(sexual) oppression and hegemonic
masculinity (Connell 1995) that women’s
and queer movements and organizations
worldwide exercise. Thirdly, power can be
a creative force not only in the field of arts
and culture, but also through the realization
of one’s individual potential, including sexual
fantasies. The processes of empowerment
for both women and men are related to all
three dimensions: exposing the oppressors
of the existing gender relations, critically
challenging them, and creatively shaping
different social relations.
Yet, another way of looking at power is to
consider its mode of visibility. Lukes’ (1986)
96 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
theory on the three dimensions of power
is relevant here (quoted in Wieringa 2006).
The first dimension he highlights refers to
processes that are manifest in visible
confrontations: the ‘power to’ effect changes.
This kind of power can be exercised through
the use of force or, conversely, through
rebellion against oppression. The second
dimension relates to ‘power over’—processes
by which one group manages to suppress
certain conflicts and prevent their being
discussed. They are not even put on the
agenda. Usually, this kind of power operates
within certain biases and assumptions
that effectively serve to deny the validity
of specific concerns or interests. Women’s
inability to speak out about experiences of
sexual oppression may be an example. Power
imbalances at this latent level are recognized
by women and experienced as injustice.
However, women are powerless and cannot
do much about it.
Writing of the third dimension of power,
Lukes pointed at those invisible processes
that are present when the ‘real interests’ of
certain groups of people are being denied.
Structures and the ideologies that govern
the marginalized have an in-built mechanism
that does not allow them to see their own
oppression. This occurs when oppression is
seen as ‘natural and unchangeable or because
they are valued as divinely ordained and
beneficial’. This naturalisation of oppression
is generally accepted and seldom contested.
It is, therefore, not even experienced as
inequality. For instance, male superiority in
sexual matters and the resultant obligation
women feel to serve their male partner’s
sexual needs (Wieringa 2006).
This level is the most difficult to reach as it is
ingrained deeply in the psyches of both women
and men. Often, it is strongly supported by
various institutions, such as legal structures,
educational and religious institutions and the
media. This is where power masquerades
not only as silence (and as acquiescence) but
also in the glorification of women’s suffering.
A major difficulty here is to determine what
women’s ‘real interests’ are. Wide cultural,
political and psychological differences exist.
For the purpose of this Manual (women’s
sexual empowerment), it is suggested that
CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of
Discrimination Against Women) and the other
international Declarations and consensus
documents dealt with in the previous sessions
can be assumed to represent women’s ‘real
interests’.
Women’s Empowerment
In relation to the concept of women’s
empowerment, it is important to distinguish
between two aspects. In the first place,
women’s empowerment as a field of
operation, its dimensions, its linkages, as
well as its intersections with other areas of
power relations, such as those of race/
ethnicity, religion and class, heterosexuality,
disability etc.
Second, women’s empowerment can be seen
as a process whereby the following elements
are crucial steps: awareness/consciousness,
choice/alternatives, resources, voice, agency
and participation. This dimension of women’s
empowerment is linked to enhancing women’s
ability to make choices that matter to them in
their lives, both ‘strategic life choices’ that
Kabeer (1999) discusses and choices related
to daily life (Wieringa 2006).
To empower women sexually, they need to
claim the expression of their sexuality on
their own terms. Women need to engage
in sexual relations that are free of force and
based on the principles of mutual pleasure
and responsibility.
Women’s Empowerment as a
Process
While it is possible to consider the
interconnections between various spheres
and levels in which women’s sexual
disempowerment is acted out, awareness
of these issues does not directly lead to the
process of empowering women. Women’s
empowerment is not a linear process.
Increased visibility of inequalities in sexual
and gender relations or even challenging
patriarchal norms may not directly lead
to women’s sexual empowerment. The
motivation to change existing sexual
and gender relations depends on many
factors related to women’s subjectivities,
personal histories and the perceived costs/
risks of transformation. In line with the
complexities sketched above regarding the
concept of power, all aspects of the process
of empowerment have different dynamic
moments. The distance between women’s
individual sexual empowerment to their
collective empowerment involves various
steps vis-à-vis women’s movements and
organizations to policy interventions.
The first aspect is the issue of awareness and
consciousness. Awareness usually surfaces
first at the conspicuous level of power relations
where women’s sexual subordination
is most clearly experienced. Yet, many
factors determine whether an awareness
of sexual oppression can be translated into
agency. These factors range from education,
information to the existence of alternatives,
political conditions to subjective factors such
as confidence and self-esteem.
A second moment in the process of women’s
empowerment is the existence of alternatives.
Women may be aware of the conditions of
their oppression but if they see no viable
alternatives (such as shelters), they can only
97
 turn their anger inwards into frustration
and bitterness or into (quasi-religious/
philosophical) acceptance of suffering.
Women’s capability to make meaningful
decisions over critical areas of their lives
depends (to a large extent) on alternative
ways of life.
To make the process of women’s sexual
empowerment a success, women must
have access to resources. Resources
can be of different kinds, starting from
sufficient budget allocations by the State to
be able to implement suggested policies.
Social resources refer to (sexual) health, or
various forms of information and training
(management, accounting, leadership
skills, gender training and so on). A critical
dimension is that women must have clear
knowledge about the working of their own
bodies and of methods to prevent unwanted
pregnancies while engaging in safe sex. There
are also other critical material resources such
as access to office space. The knowledge of
legal instruments and the potential to make
use of them is essential too.
An important element in the process of
women’s empowerment is women’s voice.
This voice allows them to discuss their
grievances in the public and political arena,
and to find a legitimate base to resolve
such grievances. Ideally, women should be
accepted as full and equal partners at all
levels where decisions are made about their
lives. This effectively means that there are
very few concerns in social and political life
that do not affect women’s existence.
A next step in the process of women’s
empowerment is for women to acquire
agency, that they start acting on their own
behalf. Agency may imply meaningful and
purposeful intervention or the construction of
something new. This ‘new’ thing may be at
98 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
the personal level, for example, a girl’s fight
to be educated, to seek information on sexual
health, or resist a marriage she doesn’t want.
Agency also works at the collective level—
women setting up their own group/collective
to fight for women’s sexual rights or to carry
out research. However, agency may not
always lead to such positive outcomes. In
situations where women accept the norm of
sexual and gender regimes (that construct
men as inherently superior), women’s agency
may be turned against their own interests.
This happens when women turn sexual
oppression into glorification of suffering; or
when it negatively affects other women who
are in hierarchies of a different order (age,
class, ethnicity and so on) inferior to them.
They may, for instance, accept limitations
on their mobility or social contacts in order
to be perceived as ‘good women’, and force
others (daughters) to do so likewise. Agency
starts with critical reflection and may involve
resistance, bargaining, manipulation or even
deception, if overt resistance is perceived to
be too dangerous.
A first step in the process of women’s
sexual empowerment is the realization that
women have rights. The dignity of women
as sexual citizens of a civil society must be
restored. This also means that the whore-
madonna split (as discussed earlier) must be
challenged. In short, women’s rights include
both formal rights – as contained in laws and
policies – and the right to question oppressive
ideological formations. Thus, apart from
the general sexual rights discussed in the
previous session, these include:
right to sexual health education
right to care and health services
right to elimination of all forms of sexual
abuse and violence, including domestic
violence and abuse, sexual harassment
and sexual mutilation;
 right to the elimination of discrimination
against women in the context of marriage
and outside it;
right to accurate, non-judgmental, non-
moralistic knowledge about sex and
sexualities; and
the right to challenge pervasive sexual
taboos, stigma and coercion
Sexual empowerment is based on the
following principles
Realize that women have rights;
The dignity of women as sexual citizens of
civil society must be restored.
Women have to be able to express their
sexuality on their own terms;
They must be fully informed of all issues
related to sexual health and sexual
pleasure;
All sexual relations should be based on
consent;
Sexual relations should be conducted in
a responsible manner (not inflict illness,
take responsibility for conception etc.)
Knowledge of own body and sexuality;
Creation of self-esteem by subverting
patriarchal notions of femininities and
masculinities;
Knowledge of safe sex methods;
Acquisition of negotiating skills based
on responsibility for sexual health and
pleasure;
Access to resources;
Acquire confidence to raise their issues in
the public arena to eventually resolve their
grievances; and
Be treated as equals
A major aspect of women’s sexual
empowerment is increasing women’s self-
esteem, both in relation to wider psychological
issues and to their sexuality. Earlier
discussions in this manual on the historicity
of traditional notions of femininity (kodrat
wanita, women’s passivity) and masculinity
are useful here. The realization that what
was constructed earlier can be undone has a
rather empowering effect. It is also relevant
to discuss who ‘profits’ from patriarchy (the
‘patriarchal dividend’) while stressing upon
cultural, historical and religious notions of
respect, love and care.
Thus, responsibility, consent, information,
safety and pleasure are linked. If women know
their bodies, they will be able to negotiate the
sexual practices they want. Yet, very often
women’s sexual relations are fraught with
the opposite—the unknown and danger.
( See Annexure 10.1)
This document carries a guide to sexual health.
The guide can be used both for information
purposes and to help women negotiate safe
and pleasurable sex.
The purpose of interpersonal negotiation
skills is to create an environment where
responsibility and mutual pleasure can be
discussed and negotiated openly. Effective
communication is only possible if the
following principles are adhered to:
Speak in order to be understood;
Listen actively and acknowledge what is
being said;
Make emotions explicit and acknowledge
them as legitimate
Besides turning personal and interpersonal
techniques of sexual empowerment, it is also
important to boost community strategies for
women’s empowerment. Effective community
strategies have to involve community
leaders and other strategic partners. Focused
strategies must be used to address specific
subgroups such as the groups discussed in
this manual (sex workers, widowed/divorced
women and Lesbian). Members of these sub-
99
 groups have to be part of the strategies; peer
group education often works best. The group
must attempt to get their work reported
by the media in a manner that does not
sensationalize it. Activists should not expect
quick results because the kind of change
needed for collective sexual empowerment is
massive. Therefore, it is bound to be gradual
and will occur over a long period of time. It
might be useful to have a local university or
a health department establish monitoring
techniques to ascertain behavioural change.
For women to realize their sexual rights, it
is important to build alliances, based on ties
of affinity. The allies must be identified for
mobilization around certain issues, such as
women’s groups or queer organizations. To
do so, common interests must be identified
with people, groups or networks whose
primary political agendas are different but
are willing to uphold women’s demands for
sexual empowerment. Thus, solidarity can be
built on common sites of struggle. Differences
in various groups must be recognized and
affinity on specific issues must not become an
iron grid that dissolves the unique contribution
of different actors.
It is also possible to build alliances within
queer communities at a more personal level,
as they share many aspects of the oppression
of sexually marginalized women. Through
these alliances, a common platform of
struggles can be built, while their identities and
practices can be made visible. Particularly the
experiences of marginalization, animalization
and abjectification can be shared. This may
help women to see through common elements
of the creation of ‘abject’ categories and to
turn shame and prejudice into pride and self-
esteem. Sexually marginalized women need
to be acknowledged as survivors and the
enormous costs of that survival should form
a basis of pride. After all, the fact that they
100 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
have not succumbed, but somehow achieved
some sort of autonomy. Sharing those
struggles towards autonomy can be highly
empowering.
Specific Forms of
Empowerment
Apart from the general demands outlined
above, the various groups (lesbians, sex
workers and widowed/divorced women) have
identified different needs to address their
specific form of sexual marginalization. In
general, they all feel stigmatized in relation to
the dominant heteronormative model. They
demand an end to the discrimination they are
faced with and require respect for diversity
in general and for gender/sex multiplicity in
particular. They want their share of human
rights and respect and want to be seen as
sexual citizens. Their stories also clearly
indicate that heterosexual marriages are not
the best and the only solution to their issues.
They want the right to claim, build their own
lives and to express their own ways of seeking
sexual gratification.
The sex workers interviewed demanded
that they:
not be seen only as commodities but as
human beings;
be given access to health care services;
have the right to be organized;
work without interference of state agencies;
and
get protection from violence of clients and
pimps.
The widowed/divorced women demanded
the right to:
bring up their own children;
admit their children in educational
institutions;
 be seen as the head of their families;
property;
get housing, health care and welfare
services; and
sexual pleasure/relations.
Lesbian women demanded that:
their way of life not be seen as illness or
sin;
they have the right to establish their own
support groups;
they have the right to live with dignity with
their own chosen partner;
they have access to partnership and co-
parenting rights.
they have the right to own joint property
and other assets
they have the right to choose their
profession without any prejudice
However, effective communication strategies
by themselves will not be as useful as those
that have the involvement of community
support groups and other strategic partners.
Trainer’s notes
To make this possible, the following indicators
can be useful:
Focused strategies for specific subgroups,
such as the groups discussed in this
manual. Members of those subgroups
have to be involved.
Peer group education often helps.
Media coverage, without sensationalism,
is needed.
Behavioural changes at the societal
level to be monitored, in cooperation
with a research groups, women’s studies
department, sexual rights groups etc.
It is important to build affinity-based
alliances. Affinity may not on political
agendas but on common demands for
women’s sexual empowerment. Women’s
groups and queer communities share
many aspects of the oppression of sexually
marginalized women.
Alliances can help create a common
platform of struggles to make visible
identities and practices.
101
 Exercise

The following exercises are meant to stimulate participants into speaking about
their sexual experiences, both of danger and of pleasure; to make the participants
understand the many kinds of ‘dangers’ associated with sexuality and their prevalence.
It is also meant to stimulate participants to use fantasy as a tool towards enlarging
sexual pleasure.

Exercise 1

Participants are divided in several groups (the number of groups depends on the
number of participants, groups of around 4-5 are best). Each group focuses on one
particular dangerous practice, or one group at risk. Group members then discuss the
gendered dimensions of power relevant to that practice/group. Examples are: waria,
gigolo’s, hijra, kothi, partners of clients of sex workers, female genital mutilation, its
methods and consequences, ethnic communities in which group sex is practised,
dry sex (in which herbs or other ingredients are used to make the vagina as tight as
possible) etc.

Exercise 2

Participants are handed two sets of coloured cards. On each card, they write one or
more sentences or a word to indicate their worst (dangerous) sexual experience and
an erotic fantasy. The colour of the card chosen for each of the situations must reflect
danger and pleasure respectively. The trainer should collect the cards with total
anonymity. The cards describing dangers and those describing pleasures should be
discussed separately. Either the facilitator or a volunteer reads them aloud and then
writes them down on the flip chart.

102 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Exercise 3

Create short skits on any of the following (or other) situations. Take care that the
principles of communication are adhered to.

1. Date rape. (Boyfriend takes a (younger) woman out for dinner. He expects sex in
return and tries to force her).
2. Teacher/boss demands sex in return for higher grade/job security.
3. Wife suspects her husband is cheating on her. She wants to practice safe sex.
4. Woman wants a child from her partner. She wants both to be tested.
5. A woman is diagnosed HIV-positive. Reactions from her friends.
6. A mother realizes that her daughter has a boyfriend. She wants to educate her on
safe and responsible sexual behaviour.
7. A mother realizes that her son has a girlfriend. She wants to educate him on safe
and responsible sexual behaviour.

Exercise 4

Each participant is asked to write (on cards) the worst sexual experience she has had.
After this is done, participants form groups of five each, share their cards and discuss
the causes of their experiences.

Exercise 5

Divide the participants in two groups and discuss the following.

Elaborate on reasons why women engage in sex:

out of duty
for economic reasons
for procreation
to ‘keep’ a lover/husband
to gain respectability
for ones own pleasure

Discuss in the plenary: when is engaging in sex is liberating and when is it

disempowerning?

103
 Exercise 6

To acquire the capacity for assertive, non-aggressive and non-passive negotiation,

the following skills are needed:

name body parts and sexual practices in your own language;

use skills to express feelings in an open way.

In smaller groups participants stand in a circle and each one completes the following
sentences:

I am worried that…
I am sad because…
I would be more happy if…

With the help of these and similar expressions, partners can communicate their
feelings. It can not be assumed that one’s partner automatically knows one’s feelings,
particularly when there are certain cultural assumptions. Women’s readiness for
sexual intercourse is one such assumption. The foundation of such acknowledgement
is mutual respect for one another’s feelings. This is not only a basic human right, but
is also in line with religious teachings. Negotations (in relation to sexual intercourse)
can take place before the couple is having sex, while they are having sex and after
having sex.

Exercise 7

For community purposes, the following are strategies for advocacy. Participants can
be asked to:

Make a study of all national or regional regulations that impede the rights of
sexually marginalized groups;
Conduct life story interviews and publish these stories;
Support particular cases in which the rights of sexually marginalized women are
violated;
Make fact sheets on sexual right and other relevant information
Plan training with relevant groups (women’s groups, schools, community centres)
and make use of case studies and fact sheets.

104 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Trainer’s notes

105
106 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
 List of films

S1
Title: Antonia’s Line
Directed by: Marlene Gorris’

S2
Title : Who Can Speak of Men?
Directed by: Ambarein Al Qadar

S4
Title : Boy’s Don’t Cry
Directed by: Pierce Kimberly

S-5
Title : Gulabi Aina
Directed by: Sridhar Rangayan

S6
Title : Killing Us Softly
Directed by: Sut Jhally

S7
Title : Tales of the Night Fairies
Directed by: Shohini Ghosh

107
 Glossary

INTRODUCTION

Abject. The meaning of this word in the dictionary is ‘the state of being cast off’. The abject
is neither the object nor the subject. In contemporary critical theory, it is used to describe
marginalized groups such as women, sex workers, and so on.

Agency is an individual’s ability to cause change; to be an agent. For example, patriarchy takes
away women’s agency to act in their interest.

Feminisms refers to the various kinds of feminist belief systems found within the movement,
largely centered in the West. There are liberal feminists, radical feminists, eco-feminists and
so on. Even in Asia, feminists have initiated various social, cultural and political movements,
theories and moral philosophies that are concerned with their respective cultural, political and
economic practices and inequalities that discriminate against women. Feminists disagree over
the sources of inequality, ways to attain equality, and so on.

Heteronormativity fuses the two words heterosexual and normative. It refers to social, familial
or legal institutions and their rules that prescribe the heterosexual as the norm. The term is
widely used in queer theory. It is based on the belief that human beings fall into two distinct
and complementary categories of the male and female; that sexual and marital relations are
normal only when between people of different sexes; and that each sex has roles in life that
should be based on biology.

Normative refers to the norms of human society or the ‘ought to do’ that is prescribed for men
and especially women. Women are told by others what is good for them and they therefore
ought to follow.

108 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Sexuality encompasses sexual knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, values and behaviors of
individuals. It is an integral part of the personality of every human being. Sexuality develops
through the interaction between the individual and social structures; it is influenced by ethical,
spiritual, cultural and moral factors. Its various dimensions involve anatomy, physiology and
biochemistry of the sexual response system; identity, orientation, roles and personality; and
thoughts, emotions, and relationships.

Sexual rights are universal human rights based on the inherent freedom, dignity and equality
of all human beings. Sexual rights include the right to bodily integrity; the right to sexual
autonomy; the rights to voluntary sexual relationships; the right to freedom from all forms of
discrimination, violence or coercion; the right to sexual privacy; the right to sexual pleasure;
the right to express one’s sexuality; the right to information and to comprehensive sexuality
education; and the right to a full range of voluntary, accessible sexual and reproductive health
services.

Session 1

Sociogram is a visual representation of social links that a person has. It can be drawn on
the basis of many different criteria: social relations, identity affiliations, channels of influence,
lines of communication etc. The diagram represents the pattern of individual relationships in a
group, usually expressed in terms of the identity each person associates with.

Session 4

Ardhanarishvar is a Hindu diety with half-male (Shiva) and half-female (Shakti) body. This
represents the synthesis of masculine and feminine energies. The Ardhanari form also illustrates
how the female principle of God, Shakti, is inseparable from the male principle of God, Shiva.

Anti-Semitism refers to discrimination, hostility or prejudice directed at Jews as a religious,

racial, or ethnic group.

Bourgeois generally refers to the middle classes, as an approximate equivalent; traditionally

the word was used for the trading/merchant class. In capitalist societies, the term often refers
to the owning and ruling classes.

Hegemony is the dominance of one group over others where the former dictates its terms.
Cultural hegemony can be well noticed in the control of culture, patterns of thought and
behaviour by a certain class/community and so on.

Homophobia is the irrational fear of or hatred towards homosexuals, generally practiced by

heterosexuals.

109
 Session 6

Biological determinism refers to the belief that human behaviour and values are shaped
by biological characteristics such as genes, and not by other social factors such as family,
community etc.

Constructivism is a theory of learning that states that it is the learner who interacts with
objects and events, and thereby constructs his/her own conceptualizations and solutions to
problems.  It encourages the autonomy and initiative of the learner.

Foucault, Michel (1926-1984) was a French historian and philosopher, associated with the
structuralist and post-structuralist movements. He has had wide influence not only on
philosophy but also in a wide range of humanistic and social scientific disciplines. He is
particularly known for his work on the prison system and the history of sexuality. His work
concerning power, the relationship between power and knowledge and ‘discourse’ in relation
to the history of Western thought, has been widely discussed and applied.

Madonna/whore split refers to the cultural conditioning that divides women into good and
bad. The good women marry, produce babies and serve their families; while the bad women
enjoy sex with their partners, who might not be their husbands and do not conform to other
codes of conduct laid for women.

Pornography is Greek for ‘writing about prostitutes’. In popular use, it refers to sexually explicit
pictures, writing, or other material that is designed to cause sexual arousal.

Patriarchy refers to a social system where the family, community, or society is governed by
men. Patriarchy therefore connotes that women and children are controlled by men. It carries
its own value system that denigrates women as sexual objects and inferiors to men.

Sexual health is the ability to express one’s sexuality, free from the risk of sexually transmitted
infections, unwanted pregnancy, coercion, violence and discrimination. It means being able
to have an informed, pleasurable and safe sex life, based on a positive approach to human
sexuality and mutual respect in sexual relations. Sexual health strengthens self-esteem and
self-determination, and enhances communication and relationship with others.

Simone de Beauvoir. A French author and philosopher (1908–1986), she is best known for her
1949 treatise The Second Sex. It presented detailed historical analysis of women’s oppression
and is seen as a classic in feminist literature even today.

110 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

 Session 8

Erotica (from the Greek word Eros or “love”) refers to works of art (literature, photography, film,
sculpture and painting) that deal largely with erotically stimulating or arousing descriptions.
Erotica is a modern word used to describe the portrayal of the human anatomy and sexuality
with high-art aspirations, differentiating such work from commercial pornography.

The distinction between erotica and pornography

This distinction is difficult, if not impossible. Promoters of each of the two forms contend that
their work is harmless. In a nutshell, erotica refers to sexually arousing material that aspires to
artistic or scientific merit, whereas pornography aims to titillate with explicit portrayal of the
sexual act, with little or no artistic value. Supporters of pornography find the stance of erotica-
patrons – that erotica is merely aesthetic – pretentious and flawed.

However, there are grey areas between the two forms of art: where does art begin and mere
sexual titillation end; can the two always be mutually exclusive? The debate has been on for
decades but the common understanding of the each of these art forms is as stated above.

111
 References

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Agnes, Flavia, 2006, “State Control and Sexual Morality – The Case of the Bar Dancers of
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Anderson, Benedict, 1983, ‘Imagined Communities’. London: Verso.

Andrea, Dworkin, 1981,’Pornography’. London :Women’s Press.

Bhaiya, Abha and Sen, Menon Kalyani, 1989, ‘Feminist training: percepts and practices’. New
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Butler, Judith, 1993, ‘Bodies that Matter: On the discursive Limits of “Sex”. New York
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Cassell’s Encyclopedia of Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit, 1997. London.

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Dean, Jodi, 1996, “Struggling for Recognition: Identity Politics and Democracy”. In: Solidarity
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Koeswinarno, 2004, ‘Hidup sebagai waria (Living as a waria)’. Yogyakarta: LKIS.

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Morgan &Wieringa, Saskia E., 2005, ‘Tommy Boys, Lesbian Men and Ancestral Wives’.
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113
 Said, Edward W., 1978, ‘Orientalism; Western Conceptions of the Orient’. London: Penguin.

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114 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Trainer’s notes

115
116 MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
A
A ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Annexure

A
A ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
 Content

Session number pg

A.1 Traveling and Transgendered Deities Introduction A6

1.1 Sociogram session 1 A12
2.1 Bhima, the Kite Runner session 2 A13
2.2 Durga as Slayer of the Demon A16
3.1 Queering the Family Pitch session 3 A17
3.2 The 1965 Events In Indonesia A29
3.3 Personal Introduction A37
3.4 Handout on Sex & Gender A38
4.1 The Story of Lut session 4 A39
4.2 Nadira: Profile of a Widow A40
4.3 Navigating Divorce/Widowhood in Jakarta A44
4.4 Gliding Scale of Heteronormativity A47
4.5 Homophobia in Europe A48
4.6 Declaration of Montreal A51
5.1 Intersex: What if it’s (Sort of) a Boy and (Sort of) a Girl? session 5 A61
5.2 Esmeray: Story of a Transgender A69
5.3 Ayesha: Profile of a Lesbian Woman A72
5.4 Handout on Identity Formation and Politics A78
6.1 The body: a polemic session 6 A79
6.2 Feminism and Censorship in the West A80
6.3 The Indecent Representation of Women(Prohibition) Bill A85
7.1 Sex Work in a Massage Parlour session 7 A89
7.2 Hemali: Profile of a Sex Worker A92
7.3 State Control and Sexual Morality A96
8.1 Lee a Muslim Female Husband session 8 A113
10.1 Guide to Sexual Health and Safe Sex session 10 A117

A
 Introduction
A.1
Traveling and
Transgendered Deities
By Saskia Wieringa
T here are various cases of deities who
move in realms which are not limited
to the binary female/male division. An
interesting example is Avalokiteshvara, alias
GuanYin alias Kannon, who travelled all
over Asia and changed her/his gender and/
or sex both in between these travels and on
location itself.. I came across manifestations
of this deity during my own travels, in both
India (Avalokiteshvara), Singapore (Guan
Yin), China (Guan Yin and her alter ego
Miao Shan), Indonesia (Avalokiteshvara) and
Japan (Kannon). Below a short exploration
of the various meaning this god/goddess has
or had.
I became first interested in Guan Yin when
I learnt that this Buddhist Goddess of
Compassion was the protector deity of the
anti-marriage sisterhoods in Guangdong,
in southern China, often called the ‘Golden
Orchid Associations’. These sisterhoods
consisted of silk workers, who enjoyed
economic independence so they could
afford to live outside of the strict patriarchal
heterosexual marriages of other Chinese
A ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
women. They vowed never to marry and if
already married off during infancy, not to
consummate the marriage (as proof they
had to return after the marriage ceremony
with their clothes intact into which they had
been tightly sown). Life in these sisterhoods
offered women not only respite from the
dependence of heterosexual marriages, but
also the possibility of a religious career or
political status, not open to heterosexually
married women. When two sisters became
attached to each other and wanted to engage
in a marriage bond they performed similar
ceremonies (such as hairdressing) as those
performed by heterosexual couples. The Guan
Yin temples serving them were staffed by
abbesses and nuns who were called vegetarian
sisters, vegetarian thus meaning no meat and
no men. These sisterhoods, which consisted
for over 100 years, were labelled ‘feudal’ by
Mao’s victorious Red Army and prohibited.
The nuns were dispersed all over Asia, from
Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, Hong Kong and
Taiwan. (Honig 1985, Topley 1975)
During my frequent trips to Singapore at
the beginning of the 1980s. I traced such a
vegetarian temple. Below are some abstracts
of the account I wrote of those meetings:
During my first visit in 1983 I contacted some
researchers at the university and learnt that:
‘…many Chinese women had immigrated in
the 1920s and ‘30s. They were silk workers
who had been involved in the anti-marriage
campaigns, and who lived in sisterhoods,
where they supported each other until they
died. They earned their living with their
profession and had no plans of ever marrying.’
They told me that those sisterhoods no longer
existed.
But I had already found out myself that
there were still sisterhoods called Sam Shui
women, who worked in construction. They
were recognizable by their red scarves. I
also knew that there were sisterhoods of sex
workers, so-called butterfly gangs. The gang
women were highly trained and much-feared
knife fighters who protected the workers.
Later that year I went again, this time I was
accompanied by a Chinese sociologist, V,
from Singapore, whom I had met earlier, at a
conference for anthropologists in Vancouver.
“I told her that I had looked for sisterhoods in
this city-state the last time I visited, but that it
had been in vain.
‘Oh, but they actually do exist, it’s just that
nobody talks about them,’ she said. ‘They are
seen as a thing of the past, but they are well
rooted in Chinese society. If you really want
to meet these women, I can help you. My aunt
is the abbess of a vegetarian sisterhood.’
The next day we set off I her blue Volvo. My
colleague informed me that:
‘[The temple we will visit is] a Hakka temple.
My great-aunt is the abbess of the group.
[Unfortunately she is travelling now].
Sometimes my great-aunt refers to herself
with masculine pronouns, but she has
never shown any signs that she wants to be
anything other than the woman she is. The
other sisters also sometimes use masculine
terms when they talk to her or about her.
There are two reasons for this. In the first
Introduction
place my great-aunt would like to be reborn
as a man, since living like a man does have
major advantages, so you might as well
announce it well in advance. Furthermore
she is heading a fairly complex household.
Usually men head households like this; so the
masculine term of address is used to signal
the deference enjoyed by men running such
households.’
‘I heard about the worldly sisters, the Sam
Shui construction workers and the butterfly
gangs. Do you know how those women live?’
‘It is the same as with the religious groups,
the women help each other when they are
unemployed or ill. They pay and arrange
each other’s funerals, which is very important
because we worship our ancestors. There
is also a sisterhood of domestic servants,
the black and white amahs, recognizable
by their white coats and black pants. All the
women in these sisterhoods earn their own
living. Sometimes they live alone, but often
they form a kongsi so that they can live
together and support each other. Almost all
have children, either children of their own or
adopted children, to take care of them when
they are old and to honor them after their
death.
The women in these worldly sisterhoods
are not vegetarian, but they do not want to
get married anymore - if they ever did - just
like the religious vegetarian aunts. Some
don’t because they do not want heterosexual
contacts, and others because they do not
wish to accept the loss of independence that
comes with marriage. For them it is not so
much a relationship with a man that they
dislike, but everything that a marriage entails:
submission to in-laws, social control, giving
up their economic independence. Moreover,
marrying is not the only way to get children.
A
 What is important is to have a child, you don’t
have to give birth to one. Prostitutes usually
have their own children, and the women in
the other sisterhoods who have been married
before do too. The rest tries to adopt a child.
The members of the butterfly gangs are usually
older prostitutes who protect their younger
colleagues. So they work without pimps. They
spitefully call such men: “someone who eats
rice from slippers.”
When my great-aunt was a novice at the
vegetarian temple, she and her girlfriend,
who was also a novice then, would hug each
other publicly. And people said: “Oh what
sexy nuns they are!”. V. is smiling. ‘Now they
are both abbesses of their own temples.’
And then, after a slight hesitation: ‘Do you
know the Cantonese expression for women
who make love to each other?’
‘No, tell me.’
‘Grinding bean curd.’
We are met at the temple by a vegetarian
aunt, who after serving us fruits and soft
drinks, told us:
‘Vegetarian aunt used to have a difficult
life. Her family grew cotton and the women
used to spin and weave it. When she found
out how women had to live after they got
married, she decided that this would never
happen to her. She had two distant cousins
who led vegetarian lives and she found that
much more desirable than the way women
lived around her. One was my great-aunt,
the other her friend who is now the abbess of
Johore. It wasn’t just the social and economic
consequences of marriage that scared her.
She also didn’t want to lead a heterosexual
life. She was much more interested in living
exclusively with women. After she and the
other three women had obtained permission
to leave China, she didn’t dare to set off
right away. My great-aunt wrote that they
A ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
could just go with a captain, but they were
scared that they would be sold as prostitutes
or concubines. After two years their permit
had expired, and they had not yet found an
opportunity to leave. Then the current abbess
of Johore, my great-aunt’s lover, asked
permission for them once more, and this time
she decided to pick them up and bring them.’
In February of the next year I am again in
Singapore. ‘The day after my arrival we go to
the temple where vegetarian great-aunt, back
from her trip to China, is expecting us. We are
taken right to the reception room behind the
Guan Yin altar, where we are received with
peanuts, sunflower seeds, vegetarian krupuk,
candy and orange juice.
Vegetarian great-aunt is quickly coming down
the stairs right behind us. We get up and
greet her respectfully. She has a strong, pear-
shaped face and smooth tanned cheeks. Her
eyes show the wrinkles from laughter, she
has a beautiful, sweet mouth. She is wearing
dark blue cotton pants and a light blue silk
buttoned up jacket in a floral pattern with
three-quarter length sleeves. Around her right
wrist she wears a light green jade bracelet
and a matching ring on her ring finger.
After we have honored Guan Yin with incense
sticks, she proposes to show me the house.
The vegetarian aunts and the adopted
daughters sleep on the first floor. There are
boxes with food and temple supplies, such
as incense. Vegetarian great-aunt has her
bed on the top floor, right next to that of
her lover, the abbess of Johore. The abbess
of Johore is eighty-three years old so she
doesn’t come to visit vegetarian great-aunt
very often anymore. The trip is getting too
tiring for her. There are a few pictures on the
wall showing vegetarian great-aunt and the
abbess when they were young. Vegetarian
great-aunt is a strong, handsome woman
who is looking at the camera in a confident,
intelligent way. The abbess of Johore is quiet
and more contemplative. There is a statue
of the goddess of meditation in the front
room, to which vegetarian great-aunt often
withdraws.
Before we start our meal I tell a little about
the Guan Yin temples I visited in Jakarta.
The name Guan Yin is hardly ever used
anymore, though, instead they are called
Avalokiteshvara.
‘Ah,’ V. says right away. ‘That is the name
of Guan Yin in her male transformation.
‘Yes,’ confirms vegetarian great-aunt,
‘Avalokiteshvara is the name of one of the
most important bodhisattvas in Mahayana
Buddhism. These bodhisattvas are usually
men who have already reached nirvana state,
but who haven’t entered yet because if they
do they can no longer do anything for us
ordinary mortals who are not quite there yet.
As far as that is concerned, the Buddha is of
no use to us because he is too perfect to be
reached. He is completely above the worries
and needs of our limited earthly life.
In China Guan Yin has kept her original
female form. She is probably based on a
much older goddess. For us the divine is not
something abstract, not something distant,
not something beyond the reach of humans.
It is humanity in a higher form. Everyone has
something of the divine inside her or him and
is capable of reaching nirvana in principle.
The only difference is that the immortals,
such as Guan Yin, have reached the top of
humanity and therefore the top of divinity as
well.’ (abridged and translated from Dutch,
Wieringa 1987, 47 - 78 )’
Guan Yin is believed to be able to transform
herself at will to the male Avalokiteshvara,
the saviour bodhisattva vegetarian great-
aunt refers to. In her female form she is the
companion of Amida Buddha. The older
Introduction
Chinese goddess vegetarian great-aunt
mentions is probably Miao Shan, who rejected
marriage and entered into a Buddhist convent.
Conner e.a. (1997) write that the unwelcome
attention of the monks caused Miao Shan
much disillusionment, upon which she was
carried to the heavens on a rainbow (232).
Ann and Myers Imel (1993) give a slightly
different version:
Miao Shan was the daughter of King Miao
Tohoan. Having only daughters, the king
found them suitable husbands, so that they
might produce an heir to the throne. Miao-
Shan refused to marry, preferring to dedicate
herself to becoming a Buddha. Her father
tried persuasion, and then cruelty, to change
her mind. When she still refused, he ordered
her decapitation. Her body was carried off by
a deity who appeared in the form of a tiger.
She visited hell where she set free some of
the damned. On he return , Buddha gave her
a divine peach that would provide her with
food and drink and give her eternal life…She
became the “saviour of Men” and refused
to enter paradise until all humans could also
enter. (119)”
Buddhism entered Japan from China in
the 6th century AD. Guan Yin came to be
known as Kannon and is today one of the
most important deities. When Buddhism
spread in Japan around the 10th and 11th
centuries AD the Buddhist clergy became
almost completely masculinized. Japanese
Buddhism became strongly concerned with
upholding the social system and preserving
peace. Buddhist teachings were stressed that
upheld that women could only find salvation
by either renouncing worldly life, through
dedicated motherhood, for instance of monks,
or through the metamorphosis through rebirth
into a man (Haruko in Wieringa forthcoming).
The present day dominant interpretation of
Kannon is masculine. Thus between the age
A
 when the deity entered Japan and today s/he
has gone though various transformations,
remnants of which survive to this day. Her/his
androgynous, haunting beauty is displayed
in major temples all over the country. She
entered the country in the manifestation of the
white-clad ‘Goddess of Mercy’. Transformed
into Kannon she performed similar functions
as she originally did in China (Paul, quoted
in Wieringa forthcoming). In spite of her
female origin and her generally androgynous
appearance she is usually referred to as male
by Japan’s Buddhist clergy. When a professor
at one of Kyoto’s universities discussed the
female origin of Kannon with a Buddhist head
monk he vehemently denied this: ‘no no no,
maybe his phallus is not visible, but he has
a big one tucked away under his robe!’ he
exclaimed.
In a fourteenth century tale Kannon is linked to
male same-sex practices. A certain Japanese
Buddhist monk was a passionate worshipper
of Kannon. As he was very lonely, he was
rewarded for his faith by the bodhisattva
with a young male lover, a manifestation
of Kannon. S/he appeared to the monk as a
beautiful young man, dressed in a lavender
kimono and playing a flute. They spent three
loving years together, after which Kannon
returned to her/his abode in the heavens
(Conner e.a. in Wieringa forthcoming).
There are still traces of Kannon’s gender
ambiguity. For instance in Kamakura’s
Hasedera Kannon temple. In the main hall
of this Hasekannon temple an impressive
Kannon of elusive beauty is standing. On her/
A10 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
his right side there is a painting in which s/
he is portrayed in a more or less masculine
posture, with thousand arms. On her/his right
side a female form is represented, that of
Sarasvati (Benten in its manifestation in Japan,
a popular fertility goddess) with a sun at the
background. The parallel locations of these
panels suggests that Kannon is associated
both with masculinity and with femininity, as
represented by Benten. In one of the minor
halls a wooden statue of a lying, nude Benten,
in an auto-erotic pose is found, in the midst of
Buddhist sages and other deities, and beside
a huge prayer-wheel.
Thus Japan’s major Buddhist deity, Kannon,
originally arrived in a female form. Buddhist
clergy however masculinized her. Yet
they cannot erase the omnipresence of
androgynous, beautiful statues of this god/
dess in which her/his femininity is clearly
perceivable. Kannon is often seen as the
Madonna of East Asia, second only in popular
esteem to the Amitabha Buddha (Cotterell in
Wieringa forthcoming). Kannon combines
both ‘feminine’ qualities such as mercy and
compassion and enormous powers that the
clergy associates with masculinity.
Thus Avalokitshvara/GuanYin/Kannon trans-
cends gender/sex binaries but is again and
again pinned down to an established sex/
gender pattern. In her most powerful feminine
form she is able to protect the anti-marriages
sisterhoods, but masculinised as Kannon s/
he is used to shore up the claims to power of
Japan’s mighty patriarchal monks.
 References

Introduction
Ann, Martha and Dorothy Myers Imel, 1993, Goddesses in World Mythology; a Biographical
Dictionary. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Conner, Randy P, David Hatfield Sparks and Mariya Sparks, 1997, Cassell’s Encyclopedia of
Queer Myth, Symbol and Spirit. London: Cassell.

Honig, Emily, 1985, Burning Incense, Pledging Sisterhood: Communities of Women Workers
in the Shanghai Cotton Mills, 1919-1949, in: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society,
vol. 10, no. 4.

Topley, Marjorie, 1975, Marriage Resistance in Rural Kwangtung, in: Margery Wolf and Roxane
Witke, eds, Women in Chinese Society, Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Wieringa, Saskia, 1987, Uw Toegenegen Dora D., (Yours sincerely Dora D) Amsterdam: Furie.

Wieringa, Saskia E., forthcoming, Silence, Sin and the System Women’s Same Sex Practices
in Japan. In Saskia E. Wieringa, Evelyn Blackwood and Abha Bhaiya, eds, Women’s Same Sex
Experiences in a Globalizing Asia. Palgrave McMillan.

A11
 Session 1

1.1
Sociogram
For this Sociogram, participants can be asked to form groups based on their
individual identies:

People who think they are human beings;

Those who believe they are male, female, any other (groups to be formed on the
basis of sexual identities);

Those who believe they are man, woman any other (gendered identities);

How many believe they are considered ‘normal’, ‘abnormal’ by the family/
society;

Groups to be formed on the basis of religion/caste/ethnic/class identities;

People who are single/married/coupled;

Those who live with their partners;

People with children: within marriage or outside it;

Those who think marriage is important/essential;

How many work professionally on the issue of sexuality; and

How many can talk about issues of sexualities at home/workplace.

A12 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT


2.1 2.1
BHIMA, The kite runner
By Saskia Wieringa
B hima welcomes us warmly into his
small, neat ground floor apartment
in Amsterdam. I am accompanied for this
interview by Ge Meulmeester, a staff member
of the Amsterdam women’s archives I direct,
and himself a transgender. I haven’t seen
Bhima for some years and complement him
on his apparently good health. Proudly he
shows us around, pointing out the paintings
he himself made. He offers us tea, and a plate
of petits fours. Bhima is dressed in a dark
brown and blue striped men’s shirt and light
brown trousers. His waving hair is combed
back and is balding. His face is clean shaven.
All in all he gives the distinct impression of a
courteous, slightly corpulent gentleman. Only
his delicate hands betray that he was born as
the daughter of an East Javanese woman of
high descent and her Indian husband, in 1948.
His town of origin was Jakarta but he spent
the first years of his life in Delhi.
I met him for the first time in hospital in
Jakarta, in 1982, when I brought him tapes
that carried the loving words of his Eurasian
partner in Holland. His lover was the sister
of an ex-lover of mine. He had just had his
second operation, the removal of both his
Session 2
Session 2
ovaries and his womb, so that never again, as
he explained, he could be startled by a dark
spot in his trousers. Some years prior to that
he had had his breasts removed.
He still used his maiden name then, Rita, only
later he insisted on the male name that he is
now known by. Bhima is a pseudonym for the
purpose of this interview. He chose this name
as he used to identify as Bhima, as a kid.
When all his friends in the street would play
out the stories of the Indian epics such as the
Mahabharata and the Ramayana, girls would
want to play the roles of Sita, the abducted
wife of Ram, or Srikhandi, the warrior wife of
Arjuna, one of the five Pandava brothers, the
heroes of the Mahabharata. Rita would always
choose to be Arjuna’s invincible warrior
brother, Bhima, with his long thumbnail and
his proud, indomitable character.
Bhima is talkative, happy to share his life story
with us, and often accompanies his words with
broad gestures. At several times during the
long evening we talk, he gets up and acts out
a dialogue. During the tea breaks he slips out,
into his garden, to smoke. He is mindful that
Dutch people may not like others smoking in
A13
 front of them, but like most Indonesian men
he himself smokes.
As he remembers, the first signs of rebellion
against the dictates of his body were at the
age of three. His mother made him wear a
frock at his birthday party which he deeply
resented. Bhima gets up to get a photo
album and shows a picture of a pouting child.
His mother used to tell him that he protested
vehemently. From then onwards he gradually
became aware that he doesn’t have a little
willie as the other boys have and cannot stand
up peeing the same way they do.
When he started attending school he was
forced to wear the skirt of his school uniform
but he always had knickerbockers underneath
them. Once out of the school gate he would
quickly stuff his skirt into those knickerbockers
and run off to his friends in the same street
where he lived, once more a boy. He thus
lived a double life, ostensibly a girl at school,
forced to participate in girls’ games, as the
boys wouldn’t accept him in their soccer team
and a boy in the streets and at home. Says
Bhima: “I was forced to act the role of a girl,
it felt strange.”
The boys in the street generally accepted him
as one of them. But when it really mattered
they insisted on their prerogatives. Bhima
remembers vividly the time they were playing
a game of kites. Two older boys were having
a kite contest, trying to cut the string of each
other’s kite. As usual the smaller boys would
run after the kite that had been cut loose. It
would become the property of the boy who had
found the loose kite first. Once the game was
over and one kite was flying away forlornly,
Rita started running after it, as the other boys
did. After a wild chase he came upon it first
and clutched it triumphantly against his chest.
1 Banci is the Indonesian term for transgender, which is traditionally used both for persons with a female and a
male body. At present it is mainly used for persons with a male body.
A14 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
The other boys who had chased after the kite
surrounded him threateningly and started
shoving and kicking him.
“Hey, why do you do that?” Rita asked. “It is
my kite, I found it first.”
“Get out,” the other boys shouted, “you
cannot have that kite. You are a girl, a banci.1
This is a boys’ game, that kite belongs to us.”
Crying Rita held on to his legitimate property.
He was liberated by a neighbour, who told the
boys to let him alone. Rita ran home and hid
into bed, with his torn kite.
Around the age of 8 or 9 years he started
to discover his feelings for girls. Bhima was
confused. Why did he love girls so much
better than boys? A neighbouring boy had a
sister whom Bhima was much attracted to.
He used to go there often to play and beg for
a farewell kiss on his cheeks from the sister.
After a few months he became bold and asked
for a kiss on his lips. The sister of his friend
pushed him away:
“Are you mad Rita? That is abnormal
Only men and women kiss each other on
the lips!”
Ashamed and rejected Rita ran off to cry in his
bed once more.
He kept being confronted by people calling
him abnormal. Why? He often thought. I
never hurt anybody. I am always honest, I
help people as much as I can. How can they
call me abnormal?
He got his first girlfriend, Sandra, in junior
high school. She accepted him as he was,
but when they made love he would keep his
t-shirt and underwear on. At that time he still
wore women’s underwear. He would write
little notes to himself, reflecting for instance
on why he loved girls so much. He once
gave one of those notes to Sandra, who lost
it at home. Her mother read it and started
to spy on them. Once she climbed on top of
the bathtub and peered through a small top
window into the bedroom where they were
making love. Her mother then realized that
these two innocent-looking girls were in fact
lovers and she prohibited the relationship.
She sent her daughter to another school, a
catholic one, to separate them. Undeterred
Sandra and Bhima kept meeting each other,
after school hours, outside of the house.
During this relationship, that lasted for 8 years,
Bhima started dreaming about being operated
to get the body he felt he should have. At that
time such an operation was not possible in
Jakarta. So he would need a lot of money to
go abroad. When he heard of somebody who
had been operated in China, his determination
grew. But he had little money. As he refused
to wear a skirt any longer after he had left high
school, he could not enter into university. His
mother had bought him a small car and he
worked as a driver escorting hostesses to and
from a nightclub.
In 1976 he started taking hormones. By then
the first Indonesian gender team had formed
and he had immediately enlisted. After the
intake they realised he was serious and he
could go on for the obligatory 20 sessions with
a psychologist. Having completed those he
was eager to move on with the first operation.
However, the doctors hesitated when they
saw on his identity card that he was a Muslim.
They feared the wrath of conservative clerics.
Bhima was desperate.
“Listen, I have come this far! I have saved
up for this, sold my car, relatives have
contributed, how can you do this to me? Tell
me what other religion I should take up and I
will immediately get my identity card changed.
I have never even been inside a mosque.
I don’t care about any institutionalised
religion.” However the doctors advised him to
get a letter of recommendation from a noted
Muslim scholar.
Undaunted Bhima made an appointment
with a progressive woman psychologist who
had been trained in Egypt and who often
gave liberal advice on Muslim issues on the
radio. He managed to make her write a letter
Session 2
to take to the well-known Muslim scholar
Prof. Hamka. Letter in hand Bhima presented
himself at the gate of Prof. Hamka’s house
where he was let in by the great scholar
himself. Bhima pleaded his case, upon which
Prof. Hamka opened the qur’an and pointed
to a passage which read that when you are ill
you must make all attempts to heal yourself.
“Are you ill?” Hamka asked.
Bhima nodded vehemently.
“Fine, so then tell them that the qur’an
advises to heal your illness.”
“It is better, sir,” Bhima suggested, “that you
write that down for them.”
With that letter Bhima had no problem to be
accepted for the first operation, in which his
breasts were removed. Before the doctors put
him on the operating table, however, they
asked him to pose nakedly, for their files, so
they said. Bhima experienced that as very
humiliating, but complied with the request.
The second operation was performed in 1982.
By then Bhima had changed considerably. If
before 1976 Bhima was a dashing, rather
androgynous looking youth, by the early
1980s, his face had become more square. With
his moustache and beard he really looked very
masculine. At the back of his picture album
he has stuck a series of portraits of himself in
which his progress into full masculinity can
be seen from year to year. After his womb
and uterus were also removed he never was
surprised by signs of menstruation again,
though he says he is still haunted by that in
his dreams.
A15
 Bhima had met Irene, the elder sister of my
friend, while on senior high school. Although
he still had his relationship with Sandra, they
started an affair, which ended after a few
months when Irene’s family moved to The
Netherlands, following the nationalisation
of Shell, where her father worked, by the
Indonesian government. Irene’s mother
intercepted their letters so they lost contact.
They only got to know each other again when
Irene’s younger sister presented herself on
Bhima’s doorstep, with a lesbian badge for
him. Indignantly Bhima refused, as he was not
a lesbian. Irene’s sister had already realised
that, noting the change in Bhima from their
school days.
As both Irene and Bhima had just ended their
respective relationships, they were free to
explore their old love again. After an intensive
correspondence Irene came to Jakarta and
they fell deeply in love again. However, Irene
couldn’t find employment and had to leave
the country again when her visum expired.
She invited Bhima to join her in Holland.
After 3 years Irene dumped Bhima and told
him to get back to Jakarta. Indignant, Bhima
refused and decided to prove that he could
very well survive on his own in Holland. He
2.2
Durga as slayer of the demon
D urga is a Hindu goddess depicted
primarily as a woman warrior. She is also
associated with Devi, Kali and other goddesses
(in Bali, as Rangda). Durga is both beautiful
and terrifying. She is also known as the
goddess of wisdom. Durga’s faithful include
gender variant males (Cassell 126/7).When the
gods were attacked by the monster-demon
Mahisha, neither Vishnu nor Shiva could
A16 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
was still thinking of getting his third operation,
the fabrication of a penis from his own skin
from either the thigh or stomach. However,
by that time his health had deteriorated.
He was finally diagnosed as having kidney
stones and operated on. Via his network of
transsexuals in Holland he learnt of the risks
of this new penis. Although it would allow
him to pee standing up, the risk of frequent
and painful blockages has so far prevented
him from attempting it.
My last question regards his health. When I last
saw him, he didn’t look too good. Laughing
Bhima ensures me that all is well now, after
his stones have been largely removed. He
only regrets that the hormones he is taking
cause him to get bald. Otherwise he is fine. He
has a passport saying he is a man, everybody
accepts him as such. He has a house, a small
but stable income and a circle of friends. He
split up with his last girlfriend a few years ago
but is hopeful that he will once again get a
relationship. And that future partner will once
again be a heterosexual woman.
“For,” he says, “they have all gotten male
lovers after me. So that proves that they are
heterosexual women and that I am a man.”
(Amsterdam interview, held 17 October 2006)
prevail against it. Thus, they combined their
energies, sakti, creating Durga. With eighteen
arms, she set out to battle and conquered the
terrifying monster. Thus, the gods in the time
of their need had surrendered to her every
weapon and power. She became known as
the all-comprehending One.
(Cassell 1997:67)
 Session 3

3.1

Session 3
Queering the Family Pitch:
Sexual and Textual Preferences in Indian Fiction
- “The Little Magazine”, Nov-Dec 2000, Article: Sohini Ghosh

T he social diversity of contemporary life

notwithstanding, we live in a culture
where normative family arrangements
far outweigh non normative familial
preferences. Just as it is impossible to think
of sexuality without considering gender,
it is difficult to speak of normative familial
arrangements without presupposing the
role of heterosexuality. The family remains
a strongly-gendered institution that shapes
and influences the process of gendering by
its everyday performance. Despite feminist
interventions, public discourse around ‘family
values’ continues to carry powerful myths
about harmony; accord, safety, integration,
individual and collective fulfillment
Moreover, it is the family that ‘normalises’
heterosexuality through its everyday per-
formance and allows it to masquerade
as immutable, natural and innate. If the
assumed objective of the hetero-normative
family is to produce, reproduce and represent
heterosexuality through its everyday lived
experiences, how does it engage with non-
hetero-normative or queer sexuality? In
exploring the intersection between queer
sexuality and the family, the paper attempts
to understand how both negotiate, contour
and finally ‘queer’ each other.1
In 1998, Deepa Mehta’s film Fire, about the
lesbian relation­ship between two sisters-in-
law in an urban, middleclass house­hold in
Delhi, created a furore.2 Activists of the Hindu
Right stormed and vandalised cinema halls
where the film was being screened. Clearly,
their outrage had to do with Fire’s challenge
to the twin foundations of the Hindu family:
marriage and hetero­sexuality.

1 � I will use the word ‘queer’ instead of gay and lesbian. The terms gay and les­bian imply binary polarities between
men and women and between hetero and homosexuality as being mutually exclusive. The term queer does not
presuppose naturalised sex-gender binaries. I will use gay and lesbian to refer only to specif­ic same-sex relationships
between men and women respectively.
2 � See ‘From the Frying Pan to the Fire: Dismantled Myths and Deviant Women’, Journal of the Inter-University
Center for Humanities and Social Science, Vol. V, No. 2, Winter 1998, Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla.

A17
 This article attempts to trace the architectural
ancestors of Fire and map the ‘queering’ of
the family space through three literary texts:
Lihaf (The Quilt), Terhi Lakir (The Crooked
Line) by Ismat Chugtai and Naya Gharvas
(A New Domesticity) by Vijay­dan Dheta. In
discussing Naya Gharvas I will recall another
visionary text, Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya
Sakhawatt Hossain. Lihaf and Terhi Lakir
were written in Urdu while Naya Gharvas was
writ­ten in Rajasthani and later translated into
Hindi. The paper attempts to understand how
queer love – in this case lesbian relationships
– negotiates the seemingly heterosexual
family space in order to explore the limits of
‘otherness’. The three lit­erary texts chosen
for this paper emerge from three distinct gen­
res of narrative practice. Lihaf is a short story
that deploys elliptical tropes of suggestion,
wit and irony combined with a sense of the
grotesque. Written in the tradition of the
Bildungsroman Terhi Lakir is a detailed and
realist narrative about the life of its central
female protagonist. Naya Gharvas, on the
other hand, is a phan­tasmic folk narrative
where tropes of realism meld effortlessly
with the fabulist.
In the popular imagination Lihaf (1941)3 is
the most visible story depicting a lesbian
relationship. Claims of ‘visibility’ and
invisibility are complex and have as much to
do with the absence of images as with a lack
of interpretive practices. The public attention
that Lihaf received had much to do with the
controver­sy that followed the publication of
the story in 1942. Charged with obscenity,
Ismat Chugtai had to face trial in Lahore. The
trial lasted for two years and was dismissed
when the court could not establish any clear
3 � I have based my reading of Lihaf by Ismat Chugtai on The Quilt and Other Stories, trans. Tahira Naqvi & Syeda.
S. Hameed, Kali for Women, 1990. 1 have occasion­ally referred to Syed Sirajuddin’s translation from Modern Indian
Literature: Poems and Short Stories, Department of English, University of Delhi, OUP, 1999.
4 The Crooked Line trans. Tahira Nagvi, Kali for Women, 1995.
A18 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
evidence of ‘obscenity,’ in the story. Perhaps
it was due to the highly publicised court case
that Lihaf has been more visible as a lesbian
text than Terhi Lakir (1943), which also depicts
lesbian love and desire.4 In fact, Terhi Lakir
deals with rela­tionships between women in
greater depth and detail even though it is only
a small part of the novel.
Terhi Lakir traces the birth and life of
Shaman, who is the tenth and youngest child
in a middle-class Muslim family. Grow­ing
up either ignored or rejected in a large joint
family; Shaman becomes a rebellious and
temperamental young girl who develops
a deep attachment to her wet nurse and
older sister, Manjhubi. She suffers intense
rejection and loneliness when Manjhubi
gets married. Her despair and longing for
her sister manifests itself as a passionate
craving for her physical touch. Returning to
her maternal home, Manjhubi decides to give
Shaman a bath. “Come here, you miserable
child! What have you done to yourself in just
these few days?” asks Manjhubi as she gives
her a sound thrash­ing. The “attention-laden
smacks” that accompany Manjhubi’s cleaning
and scrubbing of Shaman quenches “a
bunting thirst” in both siblings. The reunion
is short-lived as Manjhubi soon gets busy
with her own life and children.
After finishing school, Shaman leaves for
college and finds herself in an all-women
college. Here, she attracts the attention of one
Rasul Fatima, for whom she feels nothing but
revulsion. But Rasul Fatima, who is hopelessly
in love with Shaman, writes: “Goddess of my
heart’s temple... ah... why are you angry, with
your devotee? How long will you be vexed
with me? If you hate me so much then strangle
me with your beautiful hands. What a spell
you have woven! Let me fall at your feet
and beg forgive­ness.” The letter is signed
by “Rasul Fatima, the worshipper of your
beauty”. The meek but persistent advances
made by the ever-servile Rasul Fatima only
serve to alienate the object of her devotion.
In a fit of mean-spiritedness, Shaman
punishes her by locking her up all night in the
prayer room. Next morning, Rasul Fatima is
discovered in the prayer room burning with
fever and in a state of coma. Despite the ill-
treatment, she refuses to name the culprit.
The incident leaves its sinister traces in
Shaman’s con­sciousness. She is reminded of
the common belief that “if you kill a serpent,
its mate seeks vengeance”. She consoles
herself by reasoning that “after Rasul Fatima
was gone, there was no female serpent to be
afraid of”.
Eventually, the avenging mate appears, as it
were. Very soon Shaman herself falls deeply
in love with Najma, another college friend.
Najma looks delicate, as though “she didn’t
have a solid bone in her body” and if one were
to try and hold her “she would slip through
like a boiled egg”.
Through a succession of vignettes, Chugtai
describes in detail Shaman’s sensual and
tactile obsession with Najma. One day, a
corner of Najma’s dupatta falls on Sharman’s
arm. When she removes the dupatta from her
arm, she immediately- feels sorry, as if she
had tossed out some “very precious object
from her lap”. She prayed “Najma would fling
her dupatta in the same impish manner...”
On another occasion, Shaman is drawn to
Najma’s koti (jacket) hanging in the room.
As she tiptoes toward the koti her heart beats
so rapidly that she thinks it will explode. As
a “mes­merising whiff” enters her nose, she
begins to feel dizzy. Unfortunately, Najma
is in love with Saadat, who happens to be
Shaman’s roommate.
The closest that the two women get to each
other is during a fancy-dress show when
Shaman wears a man’s suit and Najma
dresses as a washerwoman. But to the
lovelorn Shaman, the wash­erwoman looks
like the beautiful, legendary queen Padmini
and she cannot help but stare at her. Najma
too blushes and says, “She looks just like a
boy”. Najma grasps Shaman’s hands and it
all seems like a dream. More than anyone
Session 3
else, Najma is most impressed with Shaman’s
clothes and she spends the evening teas­
ing and flirting with her as Saadat becomes
increasingly jealous. During dinner, an
excited Shaman can hardly eat as Najma
keeps up a playful chatter. Najma’s anklets
and earrings keep getting unclasped and
Shaman is required to fix them. This tactile
and sensual proximity thrills the shy Shaman.
For that moment, the attraction is reciprocal
as Najma too is drawn to her cross-dressed
admirer. Unfortunately, the happiness is
short-lived. The evening ends unhappily for
Shaman as Najma is reunited with a jealous
Saadat. Shaman watches the ecstatic couple
standing with their arms around each other’s
waist, singing in perfect harmony. “Both were
totally absorbed in each other, far away from
the rest of the world.”
The codes of romantic narrative conventions
like gazing, touching, fantasising, romance
and courtship that consistently mark the
erotic attraction in Terbi Lakir is almost
completely absent in Lihaf. The child
protagonist and narrator states at the
outset that she is “not about to relate a
romantic incident sur­rounding [her] own
quilt” as she does not believe that there is
“much romance associated with it”. She
says she prefers the blan­ket which, “though
less comfortable, is preferable because it does
A19
 not cast such terrifying shadows, quivering
on the wall”.
Thereafter unfolds a story of a sexual
relationship that is devoid of romance and
marked by sexual physicality. Having failed
to distract her husband from his young boy
lovers, Begum Jan begins to satisfy her
sexual desires with Rabbo, the massage
woman. Of course, the facts are never stated
directly. In fact it is the ambiguity of the narra­
tive voice that heightens the sexual tension
in the story. Rabbo’s entry into Begum Jan’s
life is described with seeming inno­cence. It
seems Rabbo entered Begum Jan’s life “just
as she was starting to go under”. However,
Rabbo’s entry marks a turn for the former­ly
despondent Begun Jan, whose” emaciated
body” suddenly begins to fill out. Her checks
become rosy and beauty seemed to glow
though every pore of her body. Having
described this sudden and marked change
in Begum Jan, the author offers a disarming
explanation: “It was a special oil massage
that brought about the change in Begun
Jan. Begging your pardon, you will not find
the recipe for this oil in the most exclusive
or expensive magazine!” Clearly, the oil
massage is sex in disguise. The seeming
innocence is an arti­fice. The author tells
all while saying nothing. If the massage is
indeed sex, then the story is an elaborate
and tantalising detailing of Begum Jan and
Rabbo’s sex life.
“Rabbo had no other household duties.
Perched on a four­poster bed, she was always
massaging Begum Jan’s head, feet or some
other part of her anatomy... as if this daily
massage were not enough, on the days she
bathed this ritual extended to two hours!
Scented oils and unguents were massaged
into her shining skin... Usually, Rabbo was
the only one allowed inside the sanc­tum.
Other servants, muttering their disapproval,
A20 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
handed over various necessities at the
closed door.”
At other times, the massage-standing-in-for-
sex idea is more explicit. The narrator writes:
“The fact of the matter was that Begun Jan
was afflicted with a perpetual itch. Numerous
oils and lotions had been tried, but the itch
was there to stay. Hakims and doctors stated:
It is nothing, the skin is clear. But if the disease
is located beneath the skin, it’s a different
matter... These doctors are mad! Rabbo used
to say with a meaningful smile while gazing
dreamily at Begun Jan. `May your enemies be
afflicted with skin disease! It’s your hot blood
that causes all the trouble’.”
By positioning the author as an adult,
then a child, Chugtai creates a double
and simultaneous narrative voice. A dual
narra­tive that knows and yet pretends not to
know. The narrator who is both child-adult
and insider-outsider leaves the narrative
poised precariously between silence and
eloquence, visibility and invisi­bility, expose
and subterfuge. This straddling of multiple
thresh­olds could make Lihaf seem to be a
feminist joke. But such a reading is somewhat
complicated, though not entirely displaced,
by the narrator’s deep ambivalence regarding
Rabbo and Begum Jan’s sexual involvement.
The narrator’s ambivalence about Begum
Jan and Rabbo’s relationship is marked
by the alternating feelings of comfort and
discomfort that the child feels in the inner
quarters of the house­hold and her interaction
with the two lovers. Clearly, the narrator is
in love with Begum Jan herself. She writes:
“How I loved her looks. I wanted to sit by
her side for hours, adoring her like a humble
devotee. Her complexion was fair, without a
trace of rud­diness. Her black hair was also
drenched in oil. I had never seen her parting
crooked, or a single hair out of place. Her eyes
were black, and carefully plucked eyebrows
stretched over them like a couple of perfect
bows! Her eyes were slightly taut, eyelids
heavy and eyelashes thick. The most amazing
and attractive part of her face was her lips.
Usually dyed in lipstick, her upper lip had a dis­
tinct line of down. Her temples were covered
with long hair. Sometimes her face became
transformed before my adoring gaze, as if it
were the face of a young boy:”5
The narrator’s adoration for Begun Jan
manifests itself in her gazing at Begum Jan like
a “humble devotee”. This romantic engage-
ment is ruptured by Begum Jan’s tactile
sexuality. The con­flict between romance and
sexuality could be seen to determine much of
the ambivalence that runs through the body
of the story. Later, many readers would be
disturbed by the same conflict. Were Begum
Jan to be in love with Rabbo, the narrator
might have been less ambivalent. Conse-
quently, the narrator’s discom­fort around the
body and corporeality gets articulated through
the suggestions that Rabbo and Begum Jan
have too much sex. “Someone other than
Begum Jan receiving such a quantity of human
touching, what would the consequences be?”
asks the nar­rator. “Speaking for myself, I can
say that if someone touched me continuously
like this, I would certainly rot.” Later she
writes, “Imagining the friction caused by this
prolonged rubbing made me slightly sick.”
This fearfulness informs the narrative telling
of these childhood recollections. In fact, the
adult narrator’s child­hood memories are trig-
gered by the rather sinister spectacle of the
quilt throwing fearful shadows on the wall
– like the swaying of an elephant. Sexuality
here is not affirmative, but almost stalk­ing,
predatory and insatiable.
5 � S Syed Sirajuddin translates this line as: “Sometimes, watching her face you had the queer feeling that you were
looking at the face of a young boy.”
Rabbo, more than Begum Jan, seems to
embody this transgressive and devouring
sexuality: “Rabbo! She was as black as Begum
Jan was white, like burnt iron ore! Her face
was lightly marked with small pox, her body
solidly packed: small, dexterous hands, a tight
little paunch and full lips, slightly swollen,
which were always moist. A strange and
bother­some odour emanated from her body.
Those puffy hands were quick as lightening,
now at her waist, now her lips, now kneading
her thighs and dashing towards her ankles.
Whenever I sat down with Begum Jan, my
Session 3
eyes were riveted to those roving hands.”
Rabbo is the archetypal unruly working class
woman occu­pying a transgressive female
body – too dark, too rough, too masculine
and too sexual. Her robust physicality seems
indicative of a body and sexuality that seems
out of control. The sight of Begum Jan and
Rabbo making love under the quilt looks like
“an elephant was struggling beneath it”.
The sound of their lovemak­ing resembles
“sounds of a cat slobbering in the saucer”.
The ambivalence of the child narrator’s own
feelings about Begum Jan is heightened
when Rabbo disappears on an errand and an
innocuous back-scratching exercise between
Begum Jan and the child begin to acquire
sexual overtones. Impelled by romantic
devotion and the promise of bribes, the child-
narrator inadvertently proceeds to arouse
Begum Jan. To the child’s hor­ror, she realises
that the `unthinking and mechanical scratching’
has resulted in her stroking not Begum Jan’s
back but her breasts. As Begum Jan struggles
to hold her close, she escapes: “To this day,
whenever I think of what she looked like, I
get nervous. Her eyelids became heavy, her
upper lip darkened and, despite the cold, her
A21
 nose and eyes were covered with tiny beads
of perspi­ration. She was clutching me like a
clay doll. I started feeling nau­seated against
her warm body. She seemed possessed.
What could I do? I was neither able to cry nor
scream! In a while she became limp. Her face
turned pale and frightening, she started to
take deep breaths I figured she was about to
die, so I ran outside.”
The child narrator’s first encounter with
Begum Jan’s sexual appetite is unnerving
–almost frightening. The indeterminate
and uncertain threshold between sexual
experience and sexual abuse destabilises both
an entirely – serious or humorous reading of
the situation. The uncertainty and irony of the
situation consoli­dates the ambivalent strain
of the narrative. Perhaps, it is for this reason
that Lihaf despite its daring to engage with a
lesbian theme, has been read as a deeply
homophobic text.6 For queer readers,
Lihaf presents some obvious problems.
By making an easy slide from consensual
sexual engagement to what almost verges
on sexual abuse the narration momentarily
abandons its earlier playfulness and adopts
an uncomfortable, even sinister overtone.
The discomfort is heightened by the child
narrator’s rel­ative powerlessness and
legitimate anxieties: “How I wished Amma
would return. Begum Jan had become such
a terrifying entity that I spent my days in the
company of household servants. I was too
scared to step into her bedroom. What could I
have said to anyone? That I was afraid of Begum
Jan? Begum Jan who loved me so dearly?”
In the penultimate moment of the story the
narrative ambi­guity heightens the sexual
suspense of the story. The dual voice holds
6 � See author’s introduction to Ismat Chugtai in Same-Sex Love in India: readings from Literature and History, ed.
Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai; St. Martin’s Press, 2000.
7 The Dilemma and Other stories, by Vijaydan Dheta, trans. Ruth Vanita; ed. Madhu Kishwar, Manushi Prakashan,
1997. ‘Naya Gharvas’ was first published in Hindi in 1979. It seems the Rajasthani original was published in the
early 1970s.
A22 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
out a simultaneous promise; those who have
no idea what’s happening under the quilt
will finally be told and those who do know
will receive some confirmation. Tonight, the
narrator will turn on the fight and solve the
mystery of the swaying quilt. She writes,
“The elephant started fluttering once again,
as if about to squat. Smack, gush, slobber
– someone was enjoying a feast. Suddenly,
I understood what was going on”. This is the
caesura the hiatus where the readers wait with
bated breath. One more time, the author turns
the joke on the readers through her delib­erate
and playful misreading. “Begum Jan had not
eaten a thing all day and Rabbo, the witch
was a known glutton. They were pol­ishing
off some goodies under the quilt, for sure.”
The return to this playfulness considerably
reduces the tension created by the narrator’s
uneasy sexual encounter with Begun Jan. The
quilt starts to billow once more. This time the
narrator turns the light on and the elephant
somersaults. The climactic moment of see­ing
has arrived but so has the closure of the story.
In its famous closing lines, the author writes:
“What I saw when the quilt was lifted, I will
never tell anyone, not even if they give me a
lakh of rupees.”
Taken together, Terhi Lakir and Lihaf could
seem to repre­sent a certain mind and body
dichotomy. It is not till Vijaydan Dheta’s
Naya Gharvas that romance and sexuality
are conflated to create the affirmative and
subversive lesbian text.7 Naya Gharvas is not
content to just ‘queer’ the family space and
subvert instim­tionalised heterosexuality; it
makes a poetic appeal for the radical altering
of both family and community.
Vijaydan Dheta inaugurates his short story by
rupturing dominant notions of familial love
and affection and uncovering layers of deceit
and treachery that underlie the ‘natural’ hetero­
normative family. Two moneylenders, who
are also friends, decide to have their children
marry even before they are born. When the
children are born, both turn out to be girls.
Blinded by his pledge and greed for dowry;
one Seth refuses to divulge or acknowledge
that his son is actually a daughter. He brings
them up like a boy and has her wear men’s
clothing. When the time for marriage draws
near, the Seth’s wife begs him to confront
the situation: “How can you shut your
eyes to reality like this?” Determined to
construct a seemingly ‘natural’ heterosexual
family, the Seth argues: “When men go out
on business for eight or ten years, their wives,
if they are sensible women, wait patiently.
When women are married to incapable men,
somehow they still the desire of their wombs.
After all, a child widow also lives out her fife,
doesn’t she? A girl has to endure whatever is
in her fate.”
When the distraught Sethani persists in
dissuading him, the Seth rudely reminds
her that she herself was born of a low-caste
man because everybody knew she had an
incapable father. The daughter herself walks
into the marriage innocently imagining that
her manliness was secure in her men’s
clothing and sixteen­-foot-long turban.
When a friend tells her that she is actually a
girl she says: “Even if I had been a woman
instead of a man, I would not have refused
this marriage. After all, a marriage is a union
of two hearts. If the hearts of two women
unite, why should they not get married?”
From the start the relationship of the two
women is described through tropes of
romantic convention. When the two babies
are con­ceived, we are told, “while still in
the womb, the two children were linked
together”. During the wedding cer­emony
“two soft hands” are join­ed as a current runs
“like light­ning through their bodies” and
“two strangers” are “joined together for life”.
When, at night, the couple are left alone, the
groom lifts the veil to see his bride: “Here was
a veri­table moon hidden behind the veil.” The
groom says, “I had heard so much about your
beauty but I never dreamt and hoped for such
perfection.” The bride replies: “You are no
less beauti­ful. My beauty is nothing before
yours.” So overcome by beauty are the
Session 3
newlyweds that they spend two entire nights
just gazing at each other.
When he feels hot, the groom opens his
shirt-front and the bride discovers that her
husband is really a woman. The moment of
revelation is marked through metaphors of
sight and vision. Having seen her ‘husband’s’
bane chest, the bride swoons. The groom’s
illusion is finally broken. She realises that
“the demon of illusion is able to render a
person blind and deaf. He neither sees nor
hears. He sees only that shadow cast on the
screen of illusion which he wishes to see.
Truth loses its meaning and purpose. After
so many years now, her eyes began to throb
with eagerness to see the naked truth”. She
rouses her partner in swoon with the words:
“Open your eyes. I am rid of my illusion.”
The reinvention of the two women begins
with the bride re­clothing her partner with the
clothes of a woman. “From today,” she says,
“your name is Beeja and mine is Teeja. How
blessed we are that fortune has brought us
together.” Having confronted the hostility of
their family and community, Teeja and Beeja
leave the village to begin a new life together.
“We two will now seek free­dom together,”
Beeja had said. As Teeja and Beeja leave the
vil­lage they escape the claustrophobia of their
earlier life.
A23
 “The beauty of this earth lay before them,
limitless, stretching out in every direction.
For the fast time these beloved daugh­ters of
nature met with nature. Leaping like does,
they climbed a hill. Mad with joy, they chased
each other to the highest peak and began to
whirl round and round, holding hands...
Rain fell in torrents. The air vibrated as
though with drumbeats of joy. Flashing around
them, the lightning throbbed with eagerness
to see the beauty of the two friends.” Wiping
Beeja’s face, Teeja said, “The lightning is
thirsting to meet us. Perhaps its thirst cannot
be quenched through these veiling clothes.”
Beeja answered: “What use have we for veils?
Why keep the poor lightning thirsty?”
As the blouses fell open, the lightning
flashed. As if it too, hid­den in clouds, had
been thirsting for centuries. The glimpse of
this lotus pain quenched its thirst. Once more,
joyful drum­beats burst forth. Like ladybirds,
the two stood, embracing, lost to the world,
longing to mingle with one another, drinking
nec­tar from each other’s lips.Like the clouds,
they discharged their passion and slackened
their embrace. The inanimate life of the
mountain was infused with new meaning, and
a new glow dissolved into the lightning. “
The nature imagery deployed to describe
Teeja and Beeja’s fast sexual encounter
reverses the notion of same-sex love as
being ‘unnatural’ or ‘against nature’. In fact,
it is Teeja and Beeja’s fearless venturing into
the haunted tank that ultimately leads them
into a fabulous utopia. Here, they meet their
invisible protector, the chief­tain of the ghosts.
They discover that it is actually this invisible
mentor who had ensured their safe exit from
the village. When Teeja and Beeja realise
that the ghost chieftain had seen them make
love, they are embarrassed. The chieftain
puts them at ease by saying that since they
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were not too shy to make love before the
light­ning, why should they feel shy in front
of him? He proceeds to cre­ate a paradise,
a plentiful utopia for Teeja and Beeja: a
palace where every need is met and all
desires fulfilled.
In my reading, there are two significant
narrative moments in the story. First, the
entry of the ghost chieftain and second,
Beeja’s ‘crossing over’ to become a man. The
appearance of the ghost chieftain heralds
the utopian imaginary within the story.
Realism, both of plot and as a constellation
of narrative strate­gies, is dismantled to
make way for a textual terrain that is
shaped by the phantasmic universe of fable
and folklore. The utopian new world of
Teeja and Beeja stands in complete contrast
to their earlier life in the village. Their
brief and unhappy return to the vil­lage is
depicted through a series of staccato, almost
truncated sentences, suggesting limitations,
restrictions, confinement and most
importantly, the tyranny of binaries that so
critically determine gender roles in society.
The tyranny of having to choose either one
or the other.
“The same encirclement of walls and barriers.
The same huts and roofs. Each with its own
limits and boundaries. Each with its own
fire and smoke. The squabbles of thine and
mine. Heaps of rubbish lying here and there.
Amid all the squabbling to secure peace
and happiness, bankruptcy showed its face.
Worries and anxieties over children. Stinking
baby clothes. Filth everywhere. Conflicts and
quarrels in every house.”
In contrast, the utopian world of Teeja-Beeja
and the ghosts are marked by laughter, light,
playfulness, openness, colour, plen­ty, trees,
birds, animals and a simultaneous attraction
for sameness and difference. The attraction
for sameness is articulated through Teeja and
Beeja’s love for each other and celebrated
through their rapturous sexual encounters.
“At dawn, when they came out of the palace
and saw the sun rise, they felt as though it
were rising from the pure petals between
their thighs. Ever since that night, the sun had
forsaken its former dwelling and has begun to
rise from this new, abode, whence it rises from
even today. All the joys of the world throbbed
with eagerness to dwell in the bed of that
palace. The thirst of the whole universe was
encompassed in that one thirst of theirs.”
The ghost chieftain reinforces this notion
when he says, “But you are one fife and being
– in fact even less than one at the moment
of physical union.” Meanwhile, the ghost
chieftain him­self marks the departure from
sameness. I shall return later to this.
In its imaginative leap and dating, Naya
Gharvas recalls Sul­tana’s Dream, perhaps the
earliest feminist utopian fiction to be written
in India. First published in 1905, Rokeya
Sakhawatt Hossain’s (1880-1932) witty and
engaging short story is about the author’s
phantasmic journey through Ladyland: a
country where women have removed war
and aggression, used science for peace and
productivity and relegated men to the mardana
or ‘reverse pur­dah’8. Humorous and satirical,
Ladyland does not expel men but divests them
of all power and privilege. Here men, who are
not considered competent to do any skilled
work, manage the kitchen and raise children,
much like the women in Rokeya’s contempo­
rary India. As Roushan Jahan writes, “It is as
8 � Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1880-1932) was born into an elite family in a village that is now in Bangladesh. She
was a writer, journalist, essayist and an activist for women’s education and rights. A courageously self-conscious
feminist, she has been an influential persona for feminists in Bangladesh.
9 � See Sultana’s Dream and Selections from the Secluded Ones by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain, ed. and trans.
Roushan Jahan, The Feminist Press, New York, 1988.
if the omnipotent author is punishing men
in an ideal world, according to the laws of
poetic justice, for their criminal oppression of
women in the real world.”9 Just as Sultana’s
Dream att­acks sexism and women’s oppres­
sion, Naya Gharvas attacks both sexism and
heterosexism in contemporary soci­ety. By
locating utopia in the future or at least in
another world’, both stories implicitly evoke
the dystopian horrors of the ‘present’. Utopian
fiction, therefore, enables a critique of the
present while simultaneously envisioning an
empowering future.
Session 3
Unlike Terbi Lakir and Lihaf, the two pieces
of utopian fic­tion are not content to subvert
the system from within by making visible the
contradictions within marriage and family:
Both Sul-tana’s Dream and Naya Gharvas
dream of a more thoroughgoing restructuring
of social arrangements. For precisely this
reason, both works are likely to raise at least
two major concerns. That of being ‘man-
hating’ and effecting nothing more than a
simple reversal or ‘mirror-image’.
The troubling moment in Naya Gharvas
occurs when, with the help of the ghost
chieftain, Beeja decides to become a man
in an attempt to undo the wrong that was
done to Teeja. As soon as she changes into
a man, Beeja becomes a tyrant and acquires
the same oppressive characteristics as the
men in her native village. This could be read
as a puzzling moment in the story. Beeja’s
body and mind transformation into a brutish
and insecure man could be seen to legitimise
a ‘biology as destiny’ position. How­ever,
another reading of this crossover is possible.
A25
 The mind-­body crossover can be seen as a
severe indictment of biologically sanctioned
social hierarchies where the possibilities and
limita­tions of the body determine power and
privilege. Interestingly, Beeja’s transformation
into a tyrant happens only with the change of
the body and not when she grows up cross-
dressed like a boy. It would appear that it is
the material body and not social mark­ings that
make a critical difference. It is the knowledge
of the body with its social power that seems
to be at the heart of Beeja’s psychological
transformation.
The act of lovemaking de-generates into a
power struggle when “a new knowledge
gradually begins to draw on the husband’s
mind that a man is stronger than a woman.
In fact, a frail woman is of no account at all
in the face of man’s unlimited strength. A
man is indeed tremendously powerful.” The
husband’s metamorphosis into a tyrant is
accompanied by his deep distrust of both Teeja
and the ghost. He begins to act and sound like
the same men who had been threatened and
humiliat­ed by the “new domesticity”. The
‘anti-men’ tone could well be seen to continue
at the end when in changing Beeja back to a
woman he destroys her womb so that “the
filthy seed of man” is “burnt up forever”. The
ghost chieftain also decrees that the “creature
named man dare not venture within a distance
of twen­ty-four and twenty-four, a total of eight
miles around the place.”
To avoid the reductive interpretation that
the stories arc ‘man-hating’, it is important
to understand that all utopian fiction is
allegorical. Furthermore, both Sultana’s
Dream and Naya Gharvas suggest utopian
possibilities through a reconfiguring and
re-artic­ulation of masculinity. In Sultana’s
Dream, Rokeya successfully dis­places
masculinity from men and femininity from
women. When Sultana, the narrator, walks
down the women-only streets of Ladyland
for the first time, she realises that she is the
object of much mirth. She asks her companion
and escort Sister Sara the reason for this and
is told that, “The women say you look very
mannish”. Much to Sultana’s astonishment,
Sister Sara explains that the women find her
“mannish” because she is “timid and shy like
men”. By extricating femininity from women
and divesting men of masculinity, Hossain is
able to rupture the normative sex and gender
associations. Similarly, the rest of the story is
an exer­cise in reconfiguring the relationship
between gender and sex.10
In Naya Gharvas masculinity, becomes
re-articulated through the figure of the

10 Both Sultana ‘s Dream’ and ‘Naya Gharavas’ attack the notion that men are superior because they are of
superior strength or bigger build. While, Dandheta critiques this notion through the transformation of Beeja into an
egotistical and tyrannical man, Rokeya effects the same through a logical sequence of argu­ments. When Sultana
is unable to understand the logic of men being secluded and kept indoors, Sister Sara says, “But dear Sultana,
how unfair to shut in the women and let loose the men.” Sultana then asks whether it was not safer for women to
remain indoors as they were “naturally weak”. Sister reasons that it is not safe for women as long as men roam the
streets just as it was unsafe for everyone “when a wild animal enters the marker place” or “some lunatics escape
from the asylum and start harming people and animals.” Would it not be better to keep the troublemakers locked
up, instead of their victims? As a matter of fact,” retorts Sister Sara, “in your country, this very thing is done! Men,
who do or at least are capable of doing no end of mischief, are let loose and the inno­cent women are shut up in
the zenana, How can you trust those untrained men out of doors?” Here, Rokeya looks at gender as a discursive
site of power, then proceeds to uncover how notions of male supremacy are embedded in myths around physical
strength. Explaining their own complicity in being ‘shut up’ by stating that the situation could nor be helped, as men
are “stronger than women”. To this Sister Sara replies, “A lion is stronger than a man, but it does not enable him
to dominate the human race.”

A26 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

ghost the ‘reinvented man’ of the story.
The ghosts live on the margins of human
society in opposition and resistance to the
“black deeds of dishonest humans”. The
het­erosexual male seems to be the ghost’s
primary adversary. Hand­ing over the palace
to Teeja and Beeja, the chieftain says, “You
can live here without fear... Women can come
here, but the shadow of man will not be able
to cast a sharp glance at you.” Yet, the
ghost is a man himself; albeit a man with
a difference. He is a “dazzling white man”
who looks as though he is “moulded from
The re-articulation of masculinity similarly
makes impossible an unproblematic mirror
image of marriage and family.11 The inversion
here is not mimetic but effected through a
gender bend­ing that displaces the fixities
of being male and female: masculine and
feminine. Therefore, the inversion itself
complicates and re­configures the fixed
binaries that hetero-normative marriages
strive to privilege. With the re-articulation of
gender, the ‘mirror image’ must inevitably be
a queer one.

moon­light”. Being a ghost and thereby having
transcended his body, he is ‘ungendered’ and
unmarked by biology. He is the rearticulated
man who holds out a vision for a utopian
and egalitarian future. Teeja tells him that he
is “the immortal flame which the visionary
sees in the future”. The heterosexual men in
Teeja and Beeja’s native village stand trapped
within the body and its attendant social
privileges. In contradistinction, the ghost is
able to reinvent himself precisely because he
is able to transcend his body. Hav­ing forsaken
the petty and material privileges of the
heterosexual male body, the ghost embodies
mental and intellectual faculties whose
powers are infinitely superior. Besides, not
all men are excluded from Teeja and Beeja’s
palace. The significant inclusion, at the very
end, is the narrator himself who, “on Teeja’s
express invitation”, saw the “wonderful
palace with [his] own eyes” and wrote the
story “at Teeja’s dictation”.
Session 3
In Lihaf and Terhi Lakir, the space for queer
relationships is markedly distinct. Ruth Vanita
points out that in twentieth centu­ry literature,
pre-marital college life had emerged as a
major site for the representation of
homosexuality.12 Just as the girl’s hostel is
a temporary residence, so too her lesbian
experience can be seen as a temporary,
phase en route to the inevitable destination
of domesticity and heterosexuality. Lihaf,
on the other hand, sub­verts the ‘inevitable
destination’, so to speak. It acts out female
sexual transgressiveness within the institutions
of marriage and heterosexuality. Lihaf is
about unabashedly female, transgressive
sexuality lived and practiced within the
inner sanctum of the home. By choosing a
working-class woman as her sexual partner,
Begum Jan not only disobeys marriage and
heterosexuality but also transgresses class
and social boundaries. In Terhi Lakir, same-
­sex attraction, though powerfully depicted,

11 � See ‘Homophobic Fiction/Homoerotic Advertising: The Discourse of Options in Twentieth Century India; by Ruth
Vanita, forthcoming, Routledge, 2000.
12 � This anxiety often finds expression in the ‘lived’ world around us when two women (or two men) decide to
get married. The crudely homophobic response dubs the phenomenon as ‘unnatural’ and therefore undesired.
But often, gay pos­itive people also raise objections wondering whether same-sex marriages are unproblematic
appropriation of a problematic institution. The concern is often as to whether queer people are being queer enough.
The trouble here is with the exportation that queer people must remain queer, therefore better and more polit­ically
conscious, than straight couples. Second, it assumes that an unproblematic inversion is possible. A same-sex social
arrangement is inherently decentralising ‘unproblematic inversion’ in its drastic re-arrangement of gender and
sexual roles. However, this does necessarily make it inherently more progressive or egalitarian.

A27
 remains coded in romantic convention and
restricted to the adolescent ‘growing-up
years’. Moreover, in the course of the novel,
the protagonist moves surely and inevitably
toward heterosexuality with her same-sex
cravings left unrequited. The resolution of
Lihaf sug­gests no such inevitable journey
toward heterosexuality.13 Last seen, the
women were in bed making love. Unlike Terhi
Lakir, where the college hostel provides an all
women subversive space outside the family,
Lihaf poses a greater threat to normative
familial relations because it chooses as
its site of subversion the very heart of the
(seemingly) heterosexual family.
Traditionally, women’s sexual spaces have
been perceived to be far more threatening
than women’s romantic spaces, even though
the lines between the two have never been
distinct. There­fore, despite the ambivalence
surrounding lesbianism, Lihaf’s deviancy is
far greater than that of Terhi Lakir. Much like
the child narrator of the story, many readers
of Lihaf, including several contemporaries of
Chugtai, were troubled by the non-romantic
sexuality depicted in the story. For instance,
Patrus Bukhari writes: ‘The story loses its
value because its centre of gravity ceases to
be a matter of the heart and shifts to physical
activity. At the beginning of the story, one
hopes that the psychological intrica­cies
of Begum Jan’s mind will be expounded;
then, one expects that her interest lies in
the emotional state of the girl narrating the
story. Instead the story takes an entirely
different turn and sets its sights on the
movement under the quilt. The result is that
the reader finds himself unwittingly among
those spectators who sit on their haunches
along the roadside to witness the spectacle of
animals mating.”14
The deviancy in Lihaf is particularly
disconcerting for the homophobic reader/
onlooker, because the erotic emerges
through an easy slide from the homo-social.
Here, the quotidian homo-social act of a
woman massaging another woman’s body
metamorphoses into sexually charged activity.
Therefore, the pro­scribed and prescriptive
space, originally designed to regulate
women’s sexual autonomy, transforms into a
domain of sexual danger, much like the quilt
that billows like an elephant and casts fearful
shadows on the wall. But its transgression
notwithstand­ing, the sexual spaces of Begun
Jan and Rabbo remain isolated from the
rest of the family and community. What
happens under the quilt will always remain
a mystery and Begum Jan’s secret sex life
will continue with its charade of ambivalent
homo-sociality.
Naya Gharvas makes several significant
departures both in content and deployment
of narrative strategies. Here, institutions of
marriage and the family are not covertly
subverted but overtly restructured. It is a
utopian ‘coming-out’ narrative in which
the ruse of heterosexuality is determinedly
discarded. Since the reconfiguration of social
arrangements that Vijaydan Dheta posits can
hardly be effected through ‘social realism’ he
skillfully uses the tropes of fable and folklore
to create a phantasmic and utopian text.

13 � Ismat Chugtai’s own ambivalence about the propriety and legitimacy of les­bianism is evident from the extra-
textual closure she attempts to provide the story of Lihaf. Chugtai, in her autobiography, had hoped that some
“bold young man” would rescue Begum Jan from the “clutches of the witch Rabbo”. Years later, when Chugtai met
the Begum she was happy to know that she had been trained to another man and was now the mother of a son.
14 � ‘Something About Ismat Chugtai’, by Patrus Bukhari, trans. Usha Nagpal, Ismat: Her Life and Times, ed. Sukrita
Paul Kumar & Sadique, Katha 2000.

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The re-ordering of society seems contingent
upon altering its integral core, that is, the
institution of the heterosexual family. In
contradistinction to the hetero-normative
family, the nets social arrangement dispenses
with procreation as its primary organising
principle. Herein lies Vijaydan Dheta’s most
radical assault on the normativities of the
sex-gender system. Heterosexuality is
denatu­ralised by uncovering the layers of
subterranean manipulations, treachery and
deceit that are deployed for its biological and
social reproduction. It is only when Teeja and
Beeja are able to transcend the procreative
compulsions of a hetero-normative universe
that they are able to attain utopian happiness.
3.2
THE 1965 EVENTS IN INDONESIA:
A Campaign of Sexual Slander
Saskia E. Wieringa
I n 1965 a military putsch in Jakarta wiped
out the country’s top brass. Afterwards a
campaign of sexual slander was launched in
which members of the communist women’s
organization, Gerwani, were accused of
having killed and castrated the generals. A
genocide followed: over a million people were
massacred. Thereafter the power of the then
president Soekarno was so weakened that he
could be forced to give over the presidency
to the general behibd the mass murders,
Soeharto. In this article I give the background
to the putsch and the campaign of slander.
Background to the putsch
By mid-1965 tensions in Indonesian society
were reaching a climax. In the countryside
the actions of the Farmers’ Front, which
demanded the rapid implementation of
The return to the utopia of reinvented men
and woman must therefore be marked by
a destruction of Teeja’s womb. In a radical
inversion, expressed through textual and
metaphoric devices, nature celebrates the
love that has historically been called ‘against
nature’.
To this end, Naya Gharvas embodies a truly
queer vision as it is able to envision a society
where intimate and social relations among
consenting adults are sustained without
being regulated either by genital-anatomical
Session 3
differences or the social and power hierarchies
that are ascribed to them.
the recently introduced land reform laws,
had thoroughly disturbed social relations.
Rising levels of inflation caused increasing
poverty. The relationship between the army
leaders and conservative religious, mainly
Muslim, groups and the communist party of
Indonesia, PKI became increasingly tense,
with President Soekarno leaning more than
ever towards the PKI side. Only the nation’s
leader seemed able to keep the competing
factions together. The PKI was particularly
worried that the President might not be able
to protect them much longer in view of the
six murder attempts which had been made
on him already (May 1978). Rumours of his
illness therefore caused great unrest.
In this tense situation several middle-ranking
officers of the Army, led by Colonel Untung,
staged a military putsch. They wanted, so they
A29
 testified later, to protect the President against
plans of an alleged Council of Generals,
which, so they had come to believe, intended
to overthrow Soekarno on Army Day, October
5 (Latief 2000). Also, they were discontented
with the corrupt and decadent lifestyle of some
of those Generals, in particular Yani (Crouch
1978). The plans of the officers were discussed
in several meetings of the PKI politbureau,
during which some limited support was
promised to the plotters (Mortimer 1974).
During the putsch six generals and one
lieutenant were killed and their bodies were
thrown into a deep well known as Lubang
Buaya (Crocodile Hole), at a training field for
volunteers of the Malaysia campaign, which
had been mostly used by volunteers of the
PKI-affiliated youth organization and Gerwani.
This field lay on the grounds of the military
airport, Halim. Other groups of volunteers
trained on other fields.
Before the day was out General Soeharto’s
forces had managed to cajole and threaten
half of the rebel forces into submission
(Crouch 1978). In the meantime President
Soekarno had decided not to appoint General
Soeharto, who was next in line to replace
the murdered Chief of Staff, General Yani,
possibly because he considered him too
‘strong-willed’ (Anderson and McVey 1971).
Instead he appointed a junior General,
Pranoto Reksosamudro. Soeharto ignored
the orders of his President. He issued his
own radio announcement that he had taken
over the army leadership to restore security
and order (Crouch 1978: 132). Two weeks
later Soekarno was compelled to replace
Pranoto by Soeharto. Thereafter followed
the propaganda campaign, the massacre and
mass detainment.
Broadly speaking there are three inter-
pretations of the events in October 1965
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which marked the end of the ‘Old Order’. The
army version is that the PKI was the dalang
(puppeteer) behind the coup, through its
Special Bureau. The fullest account of the
army view is given by Notosutanto and Saleh
(1968). The PKI on the other hand maintained
initially that it was purely an intra-military
affair. This version was supported abroad
by a paper circulated since 1966 authored by
two social scientists from Cornell University,
Anderson and McVey. A third interpretation
is that Soeharto and possibly the CIA were
behind a conspiracy to break the power of
the PKI. Holtzappel (1979), Scott (1985) and
Wertheim (1979, 1991) have elaborated this
view. This interpretation stresses the class
aspects of both the coup and the propaganda
campaign which followed it, pointing out that
most victims fell in the areas where peasant
unrest had been heaviest.
I suggest another interpretation, an elabora-
tion of the interpretation that sees the putsch
as a mainly intra-military affair – albeit with
very limited support from some members of
the PKI politbureau. I maintain Soeharto played
a critical role not only in the putsch itself, but
particularly in the subsequent ‘real’ coup, the
taking over of the power from the legitimate
nation’s leader, President Soekarno. Soeharto
has shown himself to be both a ruthless and
very ambitious man and a person able to wait
patiently for the right moment to strike. The
information he had received (Latief 2000) may
have convinced him that the coup was so
clumsily planned, with so little actual support
that it would be too risky to support it, while it
could very easily be put down. He would then
come out as the great saviour of the nation
and Soekarno would have had no other choice
than to appoint him Chief of Staff. The start
of the propaganda campaign which formed
this second, ‘real’ coup may have been
when Soekarno appointed a junior officer to
Army Chief instead, which humiliated and
enraged Soeharto and made him realize that
his only access to power lay in the removal
of President Soekarno. And that in order to
replace the President, his most powerful
support group at the time, the Communists,
had to be destroyed (Wieringa 1999).
The ‘Real’ Coup: Demonizing
Communist Women
Based on my research in the early 1980s my
reconstruction of what actually happened at
Lubang Buaya is the following: some seventy
women, most of them young girls from the
youth organization, others from the trade
union and the farmers’ front, and a few
Gerwani members, including some wives of
soldiers, were assembled at Lubang Buaya
for the anti-Malaysia Campaign. The plotters
made use of this circumstance. Gerwani as
an organization was left out of the plans.
What happened then? What about the wild
accusations which were later hurled at them,
of ‘naked, sexual dancing’, of having ‘severed
the penises of the generals’, and of having their
‘eyes gouged out’? How did the generals die
(Anderson 1987)? In the morning of October
1st the girls and women were sleeping heavily
when they were woken up by shouts. It was
still dark outside and they were all frightened.
They ran to the open space where they saw
a group of soldiers dragging the kidnapped
generals. The soldiers hit the generals and
finally they were shot and thrown into the
well. The soldiers were enraged, they even
rained bullets on them when they were
already dead.
Afterwards the army media started circulating
stories about dancing and sexual perversions,
and cutting off penises. In fact the army
went to great length to construct the stories
they decided to circulate. Witnesses were
‘quoted’ in the papers, photographs were
shown. There were television broadcasts and
radio programmes on the horrors said to be
committed at Lubang Buaya. How did the
military go about that? The girls were horribly
tortured, sexually molested, gang raped and
then forced to say ‘yes’ to anything their
torturers wanted them to testify. A volunteer
at Lubang Buaya told me that she was �������
forced
to undress and to dance naked in front of her
torturers while they took pictures (Wieringa
1999). The campaign had a slow start. While
the autopsy results had become available to
the authorities, they were not made public.
The autopsy demonstrated that the wounds
Session 3
found on the bodies of the killed generals and
lieutenant were either gunshots, or resulted
from heavy, dull traumas, possibly caused by
clubbing with the butts of guns or the damage
likely to occur from a fall into a 10-metre well.
All the genitals were intact, all eyes were in
their proper sockets, and there were no traces
of cuts with razors. As General Soeharto
himself had ordered the report to be prepared
it is unlikely that he had not been informed of
its results before the burial (Anderson 1987).
The Berita Yuddha of 11 October 1965
reported on the condition of the bodies of
the Generals which were found in the well.
Contrary to what the autopsy revealed, the
paper wrote that ‘eyes had been gouged out,
and of some Generals the genitals had been
cut off’. Other reports tell of women dancing
nakedly and of young women committing
sexual acts with the generals. Spurred on by
the army the campaign got underway; the
slogans of students and other groups who
were demonstrating against the PKI and
Soekarno included Gerwani Tjabol (Gerwani
Whores), Gantung Gerwani (Hang Gerwani)
and Ganjang Gerwani (Crush Gerwani).
Islamic leaders joined the chorus. The
Muhammadiyah declared that the ‘exter-
mination of the Gestapu/PKI and the Nekolim
(neo-olonialist forces) is an obligatory
A31
 religious duty’ (Boland 1982:146). This call
for a holy war was subsequently echoed
by many Muslim leaders, who justified the
killings as ‘the will of Allah’ (see also Cribb
1990 and Schwarz 1994). More lurid reports
followed implicating Gerwani members as
having prostituted themselves routinely for
PKI leaders on the instigation of PKI chairman
Aidit.
It is striking that after these ‘confessions’
none of the women who had been present at
Lubang Buaya and who had been detained
were ever brought to court. In December the
campaign lost its vigour. Most of the killing in
Java had been done, although in Bali the worst
killing took place in the second two weeks of
December 1965 ( Robinson 1995 and 1996).
Creation of Disorder
The significance of the campaign of sexual
slander against Gerwani lies in the deliberate
manipulation of the collective cultural and
religious conscience of the Indonesian
population on which Soeharto built his road
to power. Soeharto himself wrote explicitly
that ‘a mental transition’ was required in a
pamphlet that appeared a year after the putsch
(Soeharto 1966). Because of Soekarno’s great
popularity and the large following of the PKI
it was not an easy task to eliminate the PKI
and shove aside President Soeharto. Another
reason to go slowly and to first prepare the
required ‘mental transition’ is put forward by
Soeharto himself in his autobiography (1991).
He explains that a military coup would have
been much faster, but that that might have
entailed the danger of a counter-coup. It
seems that a climate of disorder deliberately
was created exploiting the deep anxieties of
a population which was already badly shaken
by the political and socio-economic tensions
of the period. This disorder struck chords with
the fear of the uncontrolled sexual powers of
A32 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
women, a religiously-inspired apprehension
that women’s disobedience will endanger
the entire social system, Hindu notions of all-
female maniacal crowds and the male horror
of castration. Assisted by the army, and
especially the troops of Sarwo Edhie (Crouch
1978; Robinson 1995), Islamic youth groups
were the major killers, assisted in some
places, especially in Bali, by members of
the conservative wing of the PNI. As Utrecht
reports, Hindu Balinese saw the killing
of people associated with the PKI ‘as the
fulfillment of a religious obligation to purify
the land’ (Robinson 1995:300). Robinson
argues that the killings in Bali were spurred
by a campaign mounted by the local military
and police authorities.
Sexual Politics and the New
Order of President Soeharto
In March 1966 General Soeharto knew the
time was ripe for him to wrest power from
President Soekarno’s hands. Since then the
New Order state has for over thirty years
waged a war of sexual imagining - posing
the government against ‘communist whores’,
a campaign aimed at presenting the Army
under General Soeharto as the virile saviours
of a nation on the brink of destruction. Long
after the PKI had been destroyed in one of
the bloodiest transitions to power in modern
times, the spectre of communism, especially
as animated by its women, was still called up to
justify the harsh repression of any democratic
anti-government forces in the country. As
Enloe wrote ‘nationalism has typically sprung
from masculinized memory, masculinized
humiliation and masculinized hope’ (1990: 45).
Masculine memories, hopes and humiliations
often centre around women’s sexuality. The
‘own’ women’s chastity has to be defined and
protected, while the ‘other’ women are either
constructed as objects of rape or they are
disciplined in other ways.
Sexual politics thus underlie the construction
of national states, such as the New Order
regime. Sexual politics deal with the moral,
sexual, symbolic, cultural and political codes
in which individuals, families and the nation
are linked and with the interplay between
sexed and gendered bodies and the socio-
political realm. In Indonesia the putsch of 1
October 1965 started a bitter struggle in which
the military version of family life and state
power prevailed over another patriarchal
force, the Communist Party. In the process the
communist ‘revolutionary’ family was wiped
out and the military family form, built on an
excessively masculine power obsessed with
control and women’s submission became
the dominant one. Women were no longer
defined as comrades in the revolutionary
struggle, but as submissive wives and devoted
mothers. General Soeharto became the super-
patriarch, as Father of the Development family
he wanted his New Order state to be.
Thus the change form Soekarno’s Old Order
state to Soeharto’s New Order state not
only an inter-military conflict, it was also a
fratricidal struggle, a clash of masculinities.
Both sides had their own version of the ideal
family. The PKI had built a hybrid construct
called the ‘Manipol’ family, composed of
Soekarnoist and socialist rhetoric. The word
‘Manipol’ comes from Manifesto Politik,
Soekarno’s 1959 independence day speech.
Women in these Manipol families supported
their men as revolutionary fighters for a bright
socialist future, while struggling along in their
own women’s organization, Gerwani, which
also claimed a role in the national political
arena. They combined political, socialist
and nationalist activities with their duties
in the household. Soeharto’s Development
State consisted of families in which women
were first of all loyal wives, and educators of
children. They were responsible for the strict
obedience of the family as a whole to the
patriarchal, authoritarian national ideology
Soeharto imposed on the nation (Wieringa
1985). For this project women’s sexuality had
to be controlled and women’s organizations
had to be set up in order to police women
themselves in the required obedience. The
legitimacy of the New Order state thus rested
on the measure of control it exercised both
over its ‘own’ women, as well as over the
‘abject’ communist women and the ‘enemy’
men who were portrayed as being responsible
for the ‘perverse’, ‘inhuman’, ‘primitive’
behaviour of ‘their’ women. These abjected
Session 3
women were so powerless that even after
they have been released they could be used
as sexual slaves. �����������������������������
All through Soeharto’s reign
the PKI was associated with these two words:
penghianat, ‘traitor’ and biadab, ‘primitive’,
‘pagan’. The PKI was thus excluded from the
nation and even from human culture as such.
The regime tried to keep the memory of the
fantasy it had created itself alive by building
an enormous museum, called ‘Museum
Penghianatan (Betrayal) PKI on the site where
the generals were murdered. It contains huge
murals of photographs, composed of pictures
taken, amongst other places, at Lubang Buaya.
Strikingly enough the pictures of the bodies
of the generals, terrible enough as they are,
show no signs of razor blade cuts, and there
are no bloody patches on the place where the
castrations should have taken place. All the
crotches, as far as visible, are intact.
The monument on the same site is called
‘Monumen Pancasila Sakti (sacred) Lubang
Buaya’. It is a huge semi-circular construction
in front of a pillar and a statue of the Garuda,
the national bird. Statues of the slain generals
and lieutenant in a vigorous attitude, and in
full military attire are placed on a platform.
Below them the history of Indonesia since
1945 according to Soeharto is presented in
a mural. It is here that the full ideological
A33
 weight of the way the New Order regime was
built on the subordination of women and the
manipulation of sexual symbols becomes
clear. The centre part of the mural is devoted
to the events at Lubang Buaya. The generals
are being clubbed and thrown into the well.
They are surrounded by representations of
women. To the left three women are standing.
One of them is dressed in a very sexual
way and argues defiantly with a man. Both
of them are ugly. Beside her two dancing
women are arranged, one of whom with a
wreath of flowers (representing the so-called
‘Dance of the Fragrant Flowers’). Above the
well one woman is portrayed, leaning against
a tree. She is clad in uniform trousers and a
very sexual blouse, which clearly reveals her
full breasts. A knife hangs on her belt. Her
posture again is defiant. More to the right
the scene is dominated by the overpowering
figure of General Soeharto. Under his left
arm two women are standing, heads down,
attitude demure, one of them is carrying
a baby. The figure of General Soeharto
has intervened and turned those defiant,
seductive, dangerous and castrating women
into the very symbols of obedience and
motherhood. The last scene shows the all-
powerful General and President Soeharto in
front of what is presumably a courtroom. The
absolute military and legal power is his (see
also Leclerc 1991). An example of the control
over women’s sexuality that the New Order
state since then has enacted is a government
decree of 1983, which deals with the sexual
conduct of government workers and which in
practice gives men much more leeway than it
gives women.
Conclusion
The central element of the ideological fury
unleashed around women’s involvement in
the murders of Lubang Buaya is that Gerwani
in its ‘communist’, ‘perverted’ madness had
A34 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
the major hand in torturing and killing the
generals, dancing naked, cutting off their
penises. The truth as I see it is that women
members from the PKI youth organization,
Pemuda Rakyat, and Gerwani had indeed
been assembled at the training camp.
Gerwani as an organization however was
not involved and the accusations of sexual
debauchery are totally unfounded. The clash
of masculinities, that formed the core of the
internecine struggle between a patriarchal
army and a differently patriarchal communist
party, was played out over women’s
bodies. As the male, militarized honour was
constructed as being defamed by communist
women, and as Gerwani’s rebellious women
were demonized, the control over women’s
sexuality became a matter of prime national
concern. As the army was victorious, a
militarized masculinity obsessed with control
over abject forms of masculinity became
the hegemonic ideological force in the New
Order state. The femininity that went with
that model entailed a return to a conservative
kodrat wanita, a return to the meek, obedient
Sumbadra. Those women who had been
branded as ‘communist’ or who had somehow
been caught up in the cruel aftermath of the
‘events of 1965’ were tainted as abject and
their suffering continued.
One of the most striking elements of these
dark pages of Indonesian history is the
mystery that still clouds the ‘events of 1965’.
The role of General Soeharto has still not been
fully revealed, for instance. More important
for the women who speak to us from the
following pages is the answer to the question
who was the dalang of the second coup? Who
invented those stories of rape and castration?
The extent of the genocide has never been
revealed either. Nor is there a monument for
the victims.
 Bibliography

Anderson, Ben, 1987, How Did the Generals Die? Indonesia no. 43 pp 109-35.

Anderson, Benedict R., and Ruth T. McVey, 1971, A Preliminary Analysis of the October 1, 1965,
Coup in Indonesia, Ithaca: Modern Indonesia Project Cornell University, Interim Report.

Boland, B.J., 1982, The Struggle of Islam in Modern Indonesia, The Hague: Nijhoff.

Cribb, Robert (ed.) 1990, The Indonesian Killings of 1965-1966. Clayton: Monash University
Centre of Southeast Asian Studies.

Session 3
Crouch, Harold, 1978, The Army and Politics in Indonesia, Ithaca and London: Cornell University
Press.

Enloe, Cynthia, 1990, Bananas, Bases and Beaches: Making Feminist Sense of International
Politics.London: Pandora.

Holzappel, C., 1979, ‘The 30 September Movement: A Political Movement of the Armed Forces
or an Intelligence Operation? in: Journal of Contemporary Asia, 9(2), pp 216-239.

Latief. Kolonel Abdul, 2000, Soeharto Terlibal G 30 S. Jakarta: Institut Studi Arus Informasi.

Leclerc, Jacques, 1991, Sang et Volupté A Lobang Buaya, ECIMS, mimeo 11 p.

Mortimer, Rex, 1974, Indonesian Communism under Soekarno, Ideology and Politics, 1959-
1965, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Nugroho Notosutanto and Ismael Saleh, 1968, The Coup Attempt of the ‘September 30
Movement’ in Indonesia, Djakarta.

Robinson, Geoffrey, 1995, The Dark Side of Paradise; Political Violence in Bali, Ithaca: Cornell
University Press.

Robinson, Geoffrey, 1996, The Post-Coup Massacre in Bali, Daniel S. Lev and Ruth McVey (eds)
Making Indonesia, Essays on Modern Indonesia in Honor of George McT. Kahin, Ithaca: Cornell
University Southeast Asia Program, pp 118-144.

Schwarz, Adam, 1994, A Nation in Waiting, Indonesia in the 1990s, St Leonards: Allen &
Unwin.

Scott, Peter Dale, 1985, The United States and the Overthrow of Soekarno, Pacific Affairs,
Summer, pp 237-64.

A35
 Soeharto, 1966, Setahun Penghianatan GESTAPU/PKI, Setahun Lobang Buaya, Jakarta: Jajasan
Lembaga Penjelidikan Islam pp I-V.

Soeharto, 1991, My Thoughts, Words and Deeds: Autobiography as told to Dwipuayana and
Kamadhan K.H.( transl.) Sumadi Mutiah Lestiono, Jakarta: Citra Lamtoro Gung Persada.

Wertheim, W.F., 1979, Whose Plot? - New Light on the 1965 Events, Journal of Contemporary
Asia, Vol. 9, No. 2. pp 197-216.

Wertheim, W.F., 1991, Indonesië in 1965: Wanneer gaan de Archieven open? Derde Wereld Jrg.
9., nr. 5, Feb. pp 33-56.

Wieringa, Saskia, 1985, The Perfumed Nightmare, Some Notes on the Indonesian Women’s
Movement, The Hague: Institute of Social Studies Working Paper, 46p.

Wieringa, Saskia E., 1999, Penghancuran Gerapan Perempuan di Indonesia. Jakarta: Garba
Budaya and Kalyanamitra.

Wieringa, Saskia Eleonora, 2003a, The Birth of the New Order State in Indonesia: Sexual Politics
and Nationalism. In: Journal of Women’s History, pp 70 -92.

Wieringa, Saskia E, 2003b Lubang Buaya, Jakarta: Metafor.

A36 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

 3.3
Personal Introduction

Q. When did you for the first time realize that you are a boy/girl? How was that
experience?

Session 3
Q. If you were to be born again, would you like to be a boy or a girl? And explain why?

Q. Which of your qualities are feminine/ masculine?

Q. Is the relationship between your mother and father equal?

A37
 3.4
HANDOUT ON SEX & GENDER
sex gender

1) Women are better care-takers of children than men

2) Hair on man’s body is natural but women should not
have them

3) Women are born to be good nurses

4) Women breastfeed children and look after them

5) Postmortem is only done by men as women are too soft
for the job

6) Boys are taller than girls

7) Men are soldiers because they are brave and physically strong

8) Women fall sick more often than men, but more men access
health care

9) Girls cry very easily while boys are emotionally strong

10) Men’s voice breaks at puberty

11) Women menstruate and have to follow taboos

12) Women by nature are soft, sacrificing and can bear suffering

13) First nightfall of an adolescent boy.

14) Women do 67% of the world’s work yet their earnings amount to
only 10% of the world’s income

15) Boss makes sexual advances to a young married man

16) In most Asian countries, taxi drivers are men

A38 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT


4.1
The story of Lut
T he story of the Prophet Lut (or Lot) and
the destruction of the cities of Sodom
and Gomorrah is told in both the Torah, the
Bible and the Qur’an. It is generally believed
that this story means that God meant to
punish homosexuals particularly because
they engaged in anal intercourse, hence
called sodomy. However, a careful reading of
the original Arabic text of the Qur’an reveals
many more layers,. For instance the Muslim
scholar Daayiee, member of the Al-Fatiha
Foundation, offers the following analysis:
One of the main tenets of the Bible and
the Qur’an is that God found idol worship
abhorrent. Sodom and Gomorra were cities
rife with idol worship particularly of Allat and
Eizah. Allat is a pre-Islamic gender variant
goddess, a deity of love and war. Her faithful
would circle the Ka’aba. The cities were
considered so wicked, that Lut and his family
were considered to be the only decent people.
Lut tried to steer the people away from idol
worship and the sexual practices associated
with it but his warnings were not heeded. God
then sent angels to destroy the cities.
But what exactly were the perversions
that the people of Sodom and Gomorrah
Session 4
committed? Daayiee contends that the Arabic
Session 4
words which were translated into the English
‘lewd practices’ does not include the Arabic
word for ‘lutee’, sodomy. Instead the people
were condemned because they were prey
to their passions, including obscenities,
unreasonableness, adultery, the use of
alcohol, prostitution, fornication, vile deed
and abomination. In those days there were
various religious practices in Arabia including
the worship of trees, animals, phallic images
and mother goddesses. From his analysis
Daayiee contends that the major sin the
people of Sodom committed was the worship
of phallic images. This ancient phallic worship
was closely related to the cult of mother
goddesses, via heterosexual rituals. The
seed was implanted into the (mother) earth
via copulation, ensuring not only procreation
but also fertility and abundance of the next
harvest. Studying closely the original
Arabic texts Daayiee finds not reference to
anal penetration in the various places in the
Qur’an where this story is told. He concludes
that only through implication and allegory
the association of the evil deeds the people of
Sodom and Gomorrah committed in the eyes
of God could be associated with sodomy, ie
homosexual anal intercourse as the only cause
A39
 of the destruction of the cities. If sodomy was
implicated, it was only in the context of a long
list of evil deeds, the most evil of all being
the continued practice of idol worship. Thus
the people of Sodom and Gomorrah rather
invited the angels who had come to redress
the situation or warn the people of their evil
ways, to participate in their polytheistic rituals
rather than having sex with them.
It is likely that the people of Sodom and
Gomorrah also knew temple prostitution.
Which was common in the are and in that
time. The prostitutes might either be women
or castrated males. This form of prostitution
is always linked to fertility rituals. The Qur’an,
not only condemned polytheism but also
adultery, in all forms, be it heterosexual or
4.2
Nadira : Profile of a Widow
Profile by Abha Bhaiya
Name: Nadira
Place of Birth: a small village in the
state of Bihar (India)
Age : 37
Religion: Islam
Class: working class
Education: Illiterate
Occupation: Domestic Worker
Martial status: Widow
No. of Interviews: 2
As Nadira walked in, the environment just
got lifted. Somehow I felt I can talk to this
woman. She was wearing a lovely dark Rosa
( something between red and purple) dress,
her round, black eyes lively and alert. She had
put kohl in her eyes and wore blue studded
earrings. There was a very light feel about
her, as if she was about to take off, fly away.
I could not believe that she was 37, a mother
A40 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
homosexual. From the Arabic text it is clear
that Allah denounced both practices. However,
temple prostitution as a ritual practice, is very
far from the present-day connotation of MSM
as a sexual identity.
The people of Sodom and Gomorrah were
thus destroyed because they lacked in
spiritual awareness because they practiced
various forms of idol worship and engaged
in pagan rituals including sexual promiscuity,
such as adultery, prostitution and possibly
sodomy, but for the last activity there is no
conclusive evidence in he original Arabic
text. Besides that they were also robbers and
highwaymen.
4.2
of seven children, about to get her 18 years
old daughter married. We moved to a quieter
place, sat on the floor. I looked at her intently.
She blushed with a smile, like a little girl. We
felt comfortable with each other.
Nadira got married at the age of 14 to a
man who was 16 years older than her. She
has eight children. Her husband died a year
back of tuber culosis of the lungs. He used
to drink a lot and left the course of medicine
incomplete.
He was a painter and used to work on
contract, painting buildings. According to
Nadira, he was a very skilled worker. However
towards the end, he stopped working and
the household slid down to below poverty
line. She started looking for work and
found domestic work in four houses. She
also does sewing and stitching to make two
ends meet.
Her childhood memories are very painful.
Nadira eyes filled up as she described the
situation at home. “My father never worked
regularly. He was involved with one of my
aunts and used to run away to Calcutta and not
return for days. We were five children, none
of us could go to school. Mother brought us
up doing stitching work. Often there was not
enough food in the house.
She decided to come to Delhi and brought
all of us here. Since her sister was here,
she thought she might be able to find more
paying work. We squatted and built a small
hut. Mother became friends with a man and
he helped us in illegally occupying the space.
Later my father also joined us. My mother
has not known any happiness in her life. Even
her daughter in law does not get along with
her and has thrown her out of the house.
My mother often stayed without food. I used
to get very angry with my father. I do no t
understand why only women have to suffer”.
Her own marriage was not an event of her
choice.
“ I went to my in laws place at the age of 14.
My meher(contractual money that a husband
has to pay to his wife , if he ever divorced
her) was fixed for Rs.5000/-. My mother fixed
up the marriage in a hurry. My husband was
much older, but I could do nothing about it as
I had no say in the matter. In those days girls
seldom talked. Who would have listen to me
anyway?”
We began to joke about sex as that’s what
the marriage is about.
She blushed and looked at me hesitatingly.
The first night is not something to share,
as I gently persisted, “oh, I felt very scared.
I was sitting on the bed. He was on a chair.
He kept asking me to write off the promised
meher. (This is a common practice among
Muslims in the South Asia region). He did
not touch me till very early morning as I did
not agree to his demand. This is the only
security women have. We call it a suhag raat
(The first night of sexual intimacy between
husband and wife)”. Nadira spoke with so
many emotions in her voice- fear, excitement,
shame, amusement- “what a night god has
created. It is like passing through a test, a
moment swinging between life and death.
You die a million times”.
As a practice, husband and wife are given
Session 4
sweets and milk by the women to the newly
wedded couple. The assumption being they
need strength to perform the sexual act.
Nadira could not eat anything. “ who can , a
women is so terrified”.
“Yes the sheet was full of blood and there was
so much pain. You cannot stop a man once
he gets sexually aroused. I got pregnant on
the same night and delivered a child within
eight months of my marriage”. Nadira’s sister
in law spread the rumour that she brought
the pregnancy with her and the child was
not of her husband. Her husband became
very suspicious. There was a lot of conflict.
However, her mother in law saved her from
public scruitiny by making it public that she
had seen the blood smeared sheet on the first
night of their wedding.
Nadira once again reiterated that it was her
legitimate child from her husband. However,
when she got married she knew so little
about sex and sexuality. No one had talked
to her. She started menstruating just before
her marriage. She used to believe that a
child comes out from the stomach and not
the vagina. According to her, television has
A41
 become a guru on sexuality. She stills feels
shy talking about it but her children talk so
openly about everything.
She continued her line of story. Her husband
was a very nice man. “He never allowed me
to go out. He said he would never eat from
the earnings of a woman. He never beat me”.
She also shared how she misses him. Her
life has become very hard. She misses him
most in the night as she often dreams of him
touching her.
When I asked how did she came to know of
her husband.
“I used to run a paan shop (betle nut shop)
to help my mother to augment the family
income. Her husband saw her there and
resolved to marry”. Nadira knows that she is
good looking and attractive.
All her eight children were born at home. A
very good mid wife delivered her children.
Except for one, all deliveries were normal and
without any difficulties. During this difficult
delivery, a Hindu healer performed some
magic and she came out like a fish. At home
she is still called ganga (a very Hindu name
for a Muslim child).
During our next meeting, we talked about
her present hardships. She works in four
households and gets approximately $50
per month. Nadira dislike this work. “I feel
embarrassed telling people that I clean
utensils and wash other peoples clothes and
plates. At times tears roll down my cheeks as
I am washing in those homes. No, she was
never subjected to sexual violence. However,
after her husband’s death, she just gave up
the veil “ how can I work with a burka (veil).
I need to do so much work and run from one
place to another. I feel exhausted but this is
my fate. My two boys are useless and do
A42 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
nothing. How do I bring up children on
my own?”
But what about your other needs? Don’t you
miss a companion? I asked.
‘Not really’ was the prompt answer.
I persued, “you are so young and attractive,
what about your physical needs”? Do you
have no other friend?
Some how she felt she could trust me. “To
be honest, my husband was not sexually
so active. Only once in a while he asked me
for sex. He was old and sick. I need it more.
Sometimes my body used to get very excited
and hot with passion. Even I would ask him to
come near me. Sometimes I got an orgasm
but often I felt dissatisfied”. Nadira shared
her sense of loneliness in the night!
I asked Nadira whether she has a boy friend?
She gave a mischievous smile ‘how do you
know? she asked. ‘Just by looking at you’. I
admitted “It is so natural for us to have these
feelings and desires”.
“Yes I have been involved with Arif for the
last four years. He used to say ‘ I am living
because of you. You are my life’. But then
he got involved with another girl. This hurts
me a lot. He still comes to meet me but there
is a distance. When you like someone you
want to spend time with that person, you want
him to take you out to a park, for a movie.
He does nothing of this sort. But I cannot
forget him”.
I further asked her how it all started?
“He used to come to my house often and we
used to talk. One night he came drunk and
just lay down next to me. We had sex. It was
sudden but we were ready and it was intense.
No, I was not worried about getting pregnant
as I have got myself operated. I do not want to
marry. I just want a friend someone intimate
and close to me. Who will share everything
with me. I miss Arif. He sits very deep inside
my heart. He still loves me but does not take
care of me”.
In response to my question as to how did she
enjoy being with him sexually, she replied
very honestly
“Since we had no space, immediately after
the act he would leave in a hurry. It was not
satisfying”.
“Did you not have any other relationship?”
“While my husband was alive, I also got
involved with a friend but I think he did some
magic on me. This caused lot of tension as I
felt I was under his spell. My husband got very
angry and left the city taking all children with
him. We had a short physical relationship but
then I had to make a choice.
My husband used to beat me and abuse
me. He would challenge me to get married
to another man”. The death of my husband
did not make any difference. I was always
inside the house, no entertainment, no
knowledge of the outside world. I was like a
caged bird.
In order to know what she thought of widow
remarriage, she was clear and articulate
“In our religion, there is no restriction on
remarriage we are not treated like a Hindu
widows. After all a woman needs a physical
relationship. If my mother had been alive, she
would have got me married. All my life I have
craved for happiness. Once I marry off two-
three of my children, I will set up a home with
a man. But I need a good man otherwise how
will I live through my old age”.
Even my mother would ask me to put lipstic,
before I stepped out of the house. I love henna.
Yes I know I am beautiful, I like my face, my
body. There was pride in her voice. She was
confident and sure of herself.
I wondered how married women commented
about Nadira’s you being a widow and still
so open?
Nadira’s reply was prompt “They sre not
going to help me with the struggle of my
life and after all I have a full house. Except
him everything else is there- my children,
relatives, friends”.
Session 4
Yes, Nadira has a very close friend. She
cherishes the photograph that they took of
themselves together. They share everything
about their lives- But they are not able to
meet each other regularly. Nadira finds no
time from her heavy schedule. When I asked
her whether she had heard of relationship
between two women or two men, her
response was interesting. She had heard of
two men but not of women. ‘How can women
make love and have sex’ she was amused
and laughed loudly. We had a long discussion
on the issue as she wanted to how that was
possible.
Nadira talked about how her body gets tense
sexually. When I asked her whether she
masturbates, she was again a bit surprised,
as she had neither heard about it nor ever
thought of it. She shared how there is no
space in the house and she also feels shy.
We agreed that everyone has physical needs.
In fact, she asked about one of our common
friends who has not allowed her husband to
come near her for more than ten years. Nadira
quipped, “do you think she lives without sex?
I do not believe her”.
A43
 In the end I asked her as to what is her dream
for future?
With a smile she said, “I want a smart, young,
good looking man. I do not feel attracted to
men of my own age. I am hungry for love. I
want a man who would love me the most. I
love loafing around but none of my lovers are
like me. Lets look for a smart man, one for
you and one for me”. We just could not stop
laughing.

4.3
NAVIGATING DIVORCE/WIDOWHOOD IN JAKARTA;
THE STORY OF DIANA
Researcher: Widjayanti Mulyono Santoso Editor: Saskia Wieringa

I n Indonesia the word for widow and divorced

woman is the same, janda; sometimes it is
specified, janda mati for widow (mati means
death) and janda cerai for a divorced woman.
Diana is a divorced woman of 37 years old.
She has one son, lives in Jakarta and works
as a secretary for a humanitarian NGO. She
is a modern, bright woman determined
to make a good living for herself and her
son. She follows night classes at a
polytechnical school in order to get a better
paying job once she graduates. She is very
aware of her status as a janda and takes
great care to guard her reputation. This is
not easy, even for a woman like herself,
who works in the most progressive circles of
Indonesian society.
marry in the Islamic way, with the use of a
fake ‘wali’ (substitute for her father).1 She is
convinced he used ‘pelet’ (love magic) to get
his way.2 This is the more remarkable as he is
from Arabic ancestry, who usually consider
such practices un-Islamic.
“Everyone said that I was being ‘wush-wush’,
being blinded by him. In fact I didn’t even
like him.”After five months the power of the
‘wush-wush’ began to fade and she began
to realize what kind of man she had actually
married.“He would get angry when I would
come home late. He said that I had committed
adultery when he saw me being hugged by a
male colleague in a group photo. He forbade
me to go to a male physician.”

Her first love died just before they were
married. She was devastated at the time
and still prays for him regularly. The man
she eventually married she hardly knew at
the time. She was barely introduced to him
by a friend when they decided to elope and
Diana began to feel very uncomfortable.
She herself is from a santri background,
though she never wears the head veil.3 She
resisted his attempt to subordinate her by
imposing oppressive Muslim values on her.
He would scold her in front of their guests,

1 ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
Indonesia doesn’t have a system of marriage by civil registration. All marriages are religious. Which is why
interreligious marriages are usually registered abroad and then legalized in Indonesia. Religious officials issue the
surat nikah, the marriage certificate. In some places those officials follow the regulations strictly, in other places it
is easier to get the required certificate.
2 The belief in and the use of pelet is widespread in Indonesia, particularly among syncretist Muslims, who mix
Islam with traces of older religions. There are many dukun (traditional healers) who are believed to have the power
and knowledge to cast spells over people
3 Santri are religious scholars, related to a pesantren, a Qur’anic school.

A44 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

citing her ‘loose’ behaviour if she came home
late from work. Or he would lock her our of
their bedroom. When she became pregnant,
initially she wanted an abortion. But her
husband furiously objected.
“’…he thought I would be more submissive if
I would get a child.”
Diana’s mother supported her when she
decided to file for a divorce. But her friends
from the women’s movement she was
working for at that moment advised against
it. They felt that she was a crazy child (cah
gendeng) to ask for a divorce.
“They said that that was a bad choice. People
always think very negatively about divorced
women. And how did I think I would manage
financially?”
Diana indeed has financial worries. Her own
family doesn’t support her. It is no use to
ask for alimony form her husband, for
although she would be entitled to it, it would
be too costly and cumbersome to try to make
him pay.
From that moment on she decides to live
for her son. But financial worries are not her
only problem. The school friends of her son
constantly asked him about his father. In
the end he said that his father had made the
pilgrimage to Mecca and was now away in
Sumatera. That silenced his interrogators.
Diana has a strong faith. Her Allah is forgiving
and she feels very close to her God. Her
mother taught her to read the Qur’an and
how to dress properly, though, as stated
above, she has never worn the veil. She has
also noticed many times that things she felt
or said eventually happened, so she is afraid
to speak openly about her feelings these
days. However the Muslim community she
belongs to is not very supportive of their little
family. The Qur’an clearly teaches to give
alms to orphans on certain occasions, such
as Idul Adha, but the Qur’anic study group in
their neighbourhood has never given them
anything, though they do give to other (half)
orphans.
“I never got anything during Idul Adha. What
kind of Islam is that?”They don’t mind so
much the meat that is passing them by, but
rather their exclusion from the community.
Her son regularly attends Qur’anic practice.
She has to constantly guard her reputation.
She is hurt by the many songs about widows
which portray the bad character and loose
morals of janda. It took her a year before she
got used to the fact that people will constantly
Session 4
gossip about her status as janda. At her school
she does not disclose her status, but in the
community where she lives and at her work
people know. She is conscious about the fact
that she is seen as a sex object and decided
that for her her work and her responsibilities
as a parent are quite enough to compensate
for her sexual desires. She adamantly refuses
to become some man’s secondary wife and
instead goes out regularly with friends for
lunch, dinner or the movies.
Her social life is rather constricted. She is
conscious of what other janda do to keep
their reputation.
“A janda may become the secondary wife…
but they are usually neglected by their
husband. He may come home to them once
every two weeks or so. But these janda are
proud, for they now have a married status,
though only as a secondary wife.. However
they are then free to go about, for society
knows they are married. I cannot do that,
my reputation as a single patent is at stake.
I become very angry at this hypocritical
situation. How come society doesn’t see this
as a problem?”
A45
 Having a husband solves the major problem
of a janda, that she is seen to be single.
Married she is no longer considered loose and
available, or a threat to other married women.
Diana is not so much against remarriage
as such but she wants it to happen through
her own choice. She had a boyfriend, a
colleague from the humanitarian NGO where
she worked. They kept the growing affection
secret. He was a smart man, and thoughtful of
her reputation. However, he was a womanizer
and she found out he had another girlfriend
as well. Fearful of being called a flirt who stole
other women’s boyfriends, she arranged a
meeting with the three of them. Her boyfriend
was furious at being found out and that was
the end of it. Diana was sad, but didn’t want
to be toyed with. Anyway, she feels it is not
very likely she will soon meet her life partner
(jodoh) as she and a friend of hers who also
has a ‘sixth sense’ believe that her former
husband still works his ‘wush wush’ on her
so that any relationship she may develop with
a man will fail. She has already gone to a very
‘clever’ person to break the spell but that will
probably still take some time.
Other than this unsatisfactory affair Diana
keeps very much to herself. When she gets
home late she always uses the motorcycle
drivers from her own neighbourhood. When
they go out with colleagues for seminars or
the like and they spend the night somewhere,
she is very careful never to give her room
number to any of the men. When she gets
visitors she makes them sit on the front porch,
in full view of her neighbours. She lives in a
rather conservative neighbourhood of mainly
Betawi people (original inhabitants of Jakarta).
She will never invite them inside the house
and close the curtains. Yet she is in general
an open and friendly person eager to have
company. She is aware that her colleagues
may consider her to be a bit too talkative and
open for a janda, too aggressive.
A46 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Any friendship has its potential problems.
She cannot be seen to be too close with older
men, as they usually have wives and children.
The wife may get nervous, as janda have
the reputation to steal other men’s wives.
If she as a single parent would meet such
a man, everybody would immediately get
suspicious, for everybody opines that life as
a single woman is very hard. She would be
seen as available to the advances of her male
friend, or even as preying upon him. The man
himself would think that she should be easier
to get than a woman who has never been
married.
“I am afraid he would just like me because I
am a single parent. I am sure they would have
all sorts of sexual fantasies. Sometimes I am
angry when they approach me and tell them
to leave me.”
It would be ideal if she would find a man who
is single as well. But being single for a man
has quite a different connotation:“I always
think that as a single mother I should find
another single man. But there is a risk…most
of the time our society blames a single man
for striking up a relationship with a janda,
especially when she has a child. His family
will consider him unlucky because they expect
that he will find a young girl.”
It is not easy for Diana to engage with the other
women in her neighbourhood either. Wives
will always consider janda a threat to their
families. “I once went to look for a woman in
her own house. I asked her husband where
she was. Then I heard her saying that I am
a bad girl, a whore. I got angry and told her
husband to shut his wife up and to tell her to
mind her own business. Whatever I do is my
own business with God. No need to give that
kind of shit to me.”
Diana is in many ways remarkable woman.
As a janda she refuses the easy way out to
become somebody’s secondary wife. She
wants love and trust. She only experienced
that with her fiancée. She feels the mockery
and distrust of society very keenly. Yet she
opts for the hard way, working and studying
4.4
Gliding scale of heteronormativity
I n all countries the division between so-
called ‘normal’ and so-called ‘non-normal-
sexual practices and identities is diffuse. Class,
religion and ethnicity are mediating factors.
Due to certain socio-historical processes,
such as globalization and the rising tide
of fundamentalisms shift occur. Thus this
dividing line is shifting and at all times
unstable. Thus this gliding scale of
heteronormativity will be different for
various countries, classes , ethnic groups and
religions, and it will vary according to
historical period Yet there are also some
constant factors. Every society ‘knows’ which
categories are ‘normal’ or ‘abject’ and this
fluctuating and unstable division has great
consequences.
In Indonesia the participants of the
research and advocacy project drew up the
following rough division on gliding scale of
heteronormativity. On top is the most ‘normal’
form of sexual identity, at the bottom end the
most abjected one:
Heterosexually married obedient wife in a
monogamous family
Heterosexually married powerful wife in a
monogamous family
Heterosexually married first wife in a
polygnous family
Heterosexually married second etc wife in
a polygynous family
in order to get a better job to be able to
provide for her son. In the meantime she
has to guard her reputation and to curb her
natural friendliness.
Heroine widow, of a martyr in the struggle
for national liberation
‘Good’ widow, old and not active sexually
‘Bad’ widow, young and sexually active
‘Good’ divorced or deserted woman, not
sexually active
Session 4
‘Bad’ divorced or deserted woman, young
and sexually active
This category can be ‘saved’ through
heterosexual marriage, even if it is as a
secondary wife Lesbian ‘feminine’ woman
who is seen as the victim of a butch woman
Masculine lesbian, seen as the seductress,
sometimes classified as ‘professional’
lesbian.
The ‘feminine’ lesbian can be saved through
heterosexual marriage, the butch lesbian is
seen beyond redemption and scorned for
assuming male prerogatives.
Mistress of rich man, sometimes with a
contract
High class call girl
Massage girl
Street prostitute
These women can be ‘saved’ through
rehabilitation or preferably heterosexual
marriage.
The scale of heteronormativity keeps women
in competition with each other, as only through
liaison with a man can they be ‘uplifted’.
A47
 Exercise
Discuss the hierarchy of particular ‘normal’
and ‘non normal’ sexual identities in your
own context. Give the local terms
Discuss the mediating factors, age,
religion, ethnicity, class.
Discuss the different reactions the various
categories evoke.
Likewise there is a gliding scale of sexual
activities. In most countries this looks
approximately as follows, but again here
the order will vary:
Heterosexual intercourse with man on top
Heterosexual intercourse with women on top
Male masturbation
Oral sex performed on a man
Female masturbation
Oral sex performed upon a woman
Heterosexual anal penetration of the
woman
P6_TA-PROV(2006)0018
4.5
Homophobia in Europe
European Parliament Resolution on Homophobia in Europe
The European Parliament,
having regard to international and
European human rights obligations, such
as those contained in the UN conventions
on human rights and in the European
Convention on Human Rights and
Fundamental Freedoms,
having regard to provisions of EU law
on human rights, notably to the Charter
of fundamental rights of the European
Union , as well as to Articles 6 and 7 of
the Treaty on European Union1,
1 OJ C 364, 18.12.2000, p. 1.
2 OJ L 180, 19.7.2000, p. 22.
A48 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Soft consensual heterosexual sm (such as
bondage, spanking)
Hard core consensual sm (such as
whipping)
Heterosexual rape
Men having sex with men (MSM) (here again
the order is from soft, consensual, to hard
core SM)
Women having sex with women (WSW)
Soft consensual vanilla sex such as rubbing,
mutual masturbation
Butch-femme role playing
Soft consensual sm
Hard consensual sm
Exercise
Discuss the various sexual practices and try
to classify them in the order in which they
appear in your context.
having regard to Article 13 of the Treaty
establishing the European Community,
which invests the Community with the
power to adopt measures to combat
discrimination based, inter alia, on sexual
orientation, and to promote the principle
of equality,
having regard to Council Directives
2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing
the principle of equal treatment between
persons irrespective of racial or ethnic
origin2 and 2000/78/EC of 27 November
2000 establishing a general framework
 for equal treatment in employment and
occupation3 , which prohibit direct or
indirect discrimination on grounds of
racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief,
disability, age or sexual orientation,
having regard to paragraph 1 of Article 21
of the Charter of fundamental rights, which
prohibits ‘[a]ny discrimination based on
any ground such as sex, race, colour,
ethnic or social origin, genetic features,
language, religion or belief, political or any
other opinion, membership of a national
minority, property, birth, disability, age or
sexual orientation’,
having regard to Rule 103(4) of its Rules
of Procedure,
A. whereas homophobia can be defined
as an irrational fear of and aversion
to homosexuality and to lesbian, gay,
bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people
based on prejudice and similar to racism,
xenophobia, anti-semitism and sexism,
B. whereas homophobia manifests itself in
the private and public spheres in different
forms, such as hate speech and incitement
to discrimination, ridicule and verbal,
psychological and physical violence,
persecution and murder, discrimination
in violation of the principle of equality and
unjustified and unreasonable limitations
of rights, which are often hidden behind
justifications based on public order,
religious freedom and the right to
conscientious objection,
C. whereas a series of worrying events
has recently taken place in a number of
Member States, as widely reported by the
press and NGOs, ranging from banning
gay pride or equality marches to the
use by leading politicians and religious
3 OJ L 303, 2.12.2000, p. 16.
leaders of inflammatory or threatening
language or hate speech, failure by police
to provide adequate protection or even
breaking up peaceful demonstrations,
violent demonstrations by homophobic
groups, and the introduction of changes
to constitutions explicitly to prohibit
same-sex unions,
D. whereas at the same time a positive,
democratic and tolerant reaction has
been shown in some cases by the general
public, civil society and local and regional
authorities that have demonstrated against
homophobia, as well as by the redressing
by judicial systems of the most striking
and illegal forms of discrimination,
Session 4
E. whereas same-sex partners in some
Member States do not enjoy all of the
rights and protections enjoyed by married
opposite sex partners and consequently
suffer discrimination and disadvantage,
F. whereas at the same time more countries
in Europe are moving towards ensuring
equal opportunities, inclusion and
respect, and provide protection against
discrimination on grounds of sexual
orientation, gender expression and
gender identity, and recognition of same-
sex families;
G. whereas the Commission has declared
its commitment to ensuring respect for
human rights and fundamental freedoms
in the EU, and has set up a group of
Commissioners responsible for human
rights,
H. whereas not all Member States have
introduced in their legal systems measures
to protect the rights of LGBT people, as
A49
 required by Directives 2000/43/EC and
2000/78/EC, and not all Member States are
fighting discrimination based on sexual
orientation nor promoting equality,
I. whereas further action is needed at
EU and national levels to eradicate
homophobia and promote a culture of
freedom, tolerance and equality among
citizens and in legal systems,
1. Strongly condemns any discrimination
on the basis of sexual orientation;
2. Calls on Member States to ensure
that LGBT people are protected from
homophobic hate speech and violence
and ensure that same-sex partners enjoy
the same respect, dignity and protection
as the rest of society;
3. Urges Member States and the Commission
firmly to condemn homophobic hate
speech or incitement to hatred and
violence, and to ensure that freedom of
demonstration – guaranteed by all human
rights treaties - is respected in practice;
4. Calls on the Commission to ensure that
discrimination on the basis of sexual
orientation in all sectors is prohibited
by completing the anti-discrimination
package based on Article 13 of the Treaty
either by proposing new directives or by
proposing a general framework covering
all grounds of discrimination and all
sectors;
5. Urges Member States and the Commission
to step up the fight against homophobia
through education, such as campaigns
against homophobia in schools, in
universities and in the media, as well
4� Texts adopted, P6_TA(2005)0489.
A50 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
as through administrative, judicial and
legislative means;
6. Reiterates its position in relation to the
proposal for a decision on the European
Year of Equal Opportunities for All that the
Commission must ensure that all forms of
discrimination referred to in Article 13 of
the Treaty and in Article 2 of the proposal
are addressed and dealt with equally, as
stated in the Parliament’s position on the
proposal4, and reminds the Commission
of its promise to monitor closely this
matter and to report to Parliament;
7. Urges the Commission to ensure that
all Member States have transposed and
are correctly implementing Directive
2000/78/EC and to start infringement
proceedings against those Member
States that fail to do so; in addition,
calls on the Commission to ensure that
the annual report on the protection of
fundamental rights in the EU includes full
and comprehensive information on the
incidence of homophobic hate crimes and
violence in Member States;
8. Urges the Commission to come up with
a proposal for a directive on protection
against discrimination on the basis of
all the grounds mentioned in Article 13
of the Treaty, having the same scope as
Directive 2000/43/EC;
9. Urges the Commission to consider the use
of criminal penalties in cases of violation
of directives based on Article 13 of the
Treaty;
10. Calls on all Member States to take any other
action they deem appropriate in the fight
against homophobia and discrimination
 on grounds of sexual orientation and to
promote and implement the principle
of equality in their societies and legal
systems;
11. Urges Member States to enact legislation
to end discrimination faced by same-
sex partners in the areas of inheritance,
property arrangements, tenancies,
pensions, tax, social security etc.;
12. Welcomes recent steps taken in several
Member States to improve the position of
LGBT people and resolves to organise a
seminar for the exchange of good practice
on 17 May 2006 (International Day against
Homophobia);
4.6
Declaration of Montréal
Preamble
‘All human beings are born free and equal in
dignity and rights’. This famous first sentence
of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
adopted almost sixty years ago by the General
Assembly of the United Nations, still contains
in a nutshell our political agenda, as lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual,
transitioned and intersexual persons.
The world has gradually accepted that
individual human beings have different sexes,
racial or ethnic origins, and religions, and that
these differences must be respected and not
be used as reasons for discrimination. But
most countries still do not accept two other
aspects of human diversity: that people have
different sexual orientations and different
gender identities; that two women or two
men can fall in love with each other; and
5 OJ
����������������������������
C 166 E, 7.7.2005, p. 58.
13. Reiterates its request that the Commission
put forward proposals guaranteeing
freedom of movement for Union citizens
and their family members and registered
partners of either gender, as referred to
in Parliament’s recommendation of 14
October 2004 on the future of the area of
freedom, security and justice5;
14. Calls on the Member States concerned
finally to accord full recognition to
homosexuals as targets and victims of
the Nazi regime;
15. Instructs its President to forward this
resolution to the Commission, to the
governments of the Member States and
Session 4
to the accession and candidate countries.
that a person’s identity, as female or male or
neither, is not always determined by the type
of body into which they were born.
Refusal to accept and respect these differences
means that oppression of LGBT people is still
a daily reality in most parts of the world. In
some countries, discrimination and violence
against LGBT people are getting worse. But
more and more, brave individuals and groups
are standing up for LGBT human rights
in every region of the world. In particular,
LGBT individuals and groups in Asia, Africa,
Latin America and Eastern Europe no longer
accept prejudice and discrimination, and are
becoming increasingly impatient to achieve
freedom and equality. But progress is very
uneven and is not automatic. Worldwide, we
are seeing advances and setbacks.
Progress in realizing LGBT human rights
A51
 demands multi-layered change in all parts
of the world: rights must be secured,
laws changed, new policies designed and
implemented, and institutional practices
adapted. LGBT individuals and groups are the
prime agents of change. But we will only win
if we enlist others as allies in our struggle.
The purpose of this declaration is to list and
explain the changes that we need, and build
an agenda for global action.
1. Essential Rights
A first demand is to safeguard and protect
the most basic rights of LGBT people, rights
which are well established and not legally
controversial.
(a) Protection against state and private
violence
Nine countries punish homosexuality
with the death penalty – a human rights
violation in itself, regardless of the reason
for imposing the sentence.
Extrajudicially, we witness in many
countries torture and other violence
against – and sometimes killings of LGBT
individuals simply because they are
lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.
These hate crimes are committed by
private actors (with the active help or
passive condonation of public officials,
as at some pride marches), or by police,
soldiers and other public officials
themselves.. These hate crimes against
LGBTindividuals are a subject of growing
concern; many states are failing in their
obligation to protect LGBTpersons from
this violence.
In many parts of the world, LGBT
individuals are still forced to marry a
person of the opposite sex against their
A52 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
will, and risk heavy penalties (including
violence and death at the hands of
members of their families) if they try
to escape such arrangements. Forced
marriages are indisputably a human
rights violation that must be combated.
Intersexual individuals experience a
particular form of violence, in the form
of genital mutilation resulting from
unnecessary post-birth surgery designed
to make them conform to a rigid binary
model of physical sex characteristics.
(b) Freedom of expression, assembly
and association
In a number of countries, LGBT human rights
groups and courageous LGBT individuals
see their rights to free expression, assembly
and association blocked by hostile public
authorities. Pride marches are denied permits,
journalists are jailed, clubs are closed, and
NGOs are refused registration. Without the
essential right of LGBT non-governmental
organisations to carry on their work, free of
repressive and discriminatory restrictions, it
can become impossible to campaign for the
reform of discriminatory laws LGBT activists
are entitled to protection and support,
and to express themselves without fear of
recrimination, just like other human rights
defenders.
(c) Freedom to engage in (private,
consensual, adult) same-sex sexual
activity
Seventy-five countries – over one third of
the countries in the world – still have laws
in place criminalizing same-sex sexual
acts between consenting adults. Acts that
harm nobody. Under international human
rights standards, this violates the right to
privacy, as recognised by the UN Human
 Rights Committee in its Toonen decision
in 1994, and is also discrimination: a
refusal to recognise the equal dignity and
worth of LGBT individuals. Even where
such laws are not enforced in practice,
they stigmatise, perpetuate prejudices,
encourage blackmail and intimidation,
and serve as justifications for other forms
of discrimination.
We urge the international community
to put pressure on the governments of
countries that keep violating the essential
human rights of LGBT people.
We demand an immediate end to use of
the death penalty worldwide–especially
for the so called “crime” of same-sex
sexual activity between consenting adults.
We demand that national governments
and international organisations develop
and implement effective policies to
prevent, investigate and punish hate
crimes based on sexual orientation or
gender identity.
We demand that genital surgery on
intersexual persons be prohibited unless
they are old enough to understand it and
consent to it.
We demand that international organiza-
tions (at the global and regional levels)
systematically monitor the human rights
situation of LGBT people and widely
publicize their findings.
We call on the international community
to protect and give political and financial
support to LGBT human rights defenders
and organizations, in particular in those
countries of the world where LGBT
persons still have to fear for their lives or
their safety on a daily basis.
We demand that national governments
and international organisations make
their international development aid
conditional on real progress concerning
respect for human rights, including the
human rights of LGBT people.
We demand the repeal of all laws
criminalizing private, consensual, adult,
same-sex sexual activity.
2. Global Issues
A world where LGBT human rights are
systematically violated, is a world where
nobody can feel safe and free. ‘All human rights
are universal, indivisible and interdependent
Session 4
and interrelated’ (World Conference on
Human Rights,Vienna,1993).
LGBT identities or practices have existed
and continue to exist in every culture
and corner of the world; they are simply
part of the human condition. Fighting
ignorance and prejudice remains our first
priority. More information about LGBT
persons, and more openness on the part
of LGBT persons (when this can be done
safely), are conditions for further progress to
be made.
We therefore call for the preparation of a
world-wide information campaign.
We ask the organizers of the International
Conference on LGBT Human Rights at the
2nd World Outgames in Copenhagen in
2009 to launch such a campaign.
We demand the support of like-minded
NGOs and sympathetic governments
in the preparation and running of the
campaign.
LGBT people do not live on an island, but
form part of all societies, and rightly expect
A53
 that their situations and their demands will
be taken into account in formulating all public
policies. Accordingly, LGBT human rights
must be mainstreamed into global debates
about social and political issues. This can only
be achieved if the international LGBT human
rights movement takes part in wider struggles,
such as the fight for development and fair
trade, worldwide social and economic rights,
and international peace and stability. LGBT
human rights may seem a far cry in a those
parts of the world where coping with poverty
and violence top the daily agenda. Working to
overcome these problems, however, should
include working for better living conditions
for LGBT individuals.
One crucial global issue is the HIV/AIDS
pandemic. “Halt and begin to reverse
the spread of HIV/AIDS.” That is UN
Development Goal number 6, with a target
date of 2015, endorsed by 189 Heads of State
and Government in 2000. This goal can only
be reached by deploying a human-rights-
based approach that includes the human
rights of LGBT individuals. Criminalizing
sexual activity between men, and banning
freedom of expression for LGBT groups, still
common practices in some countries, have a
directly detrimental effect on the prevention
of HIV/AIDS. Access to information, adequate
health services, and the elimination of
violence and discrimination are crucial
for both the prevention and treatment of
HIV/AIDS.
We urge governments to stop thwarting
LGBT groups which spread information on
the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS
among LGBT individuals, but instead to
make it their own responsibility to include
LGBT people in their fight against HIV/
AIDS.
We urge donor countries and inter-
national institutions to step up their aid
A54 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
programmes for the prevention of HIV/
AIDS, and work with local LGBT health
groups to ensure that LGBT people are
included in these programmes.
We demand the removal of morality-
based restrictions on HIV/AIDS education,
prevention and treatment campaigns,
including restrictions on promoting the
use of condoms.
Another global issue is asylum. Our primary
goal is to work for a safe environment in every
country, so that LGBT people do not need to
leave their countries because of fear for their
lives. But every nation has an obligation to
grant asylum to persons persecuted on the
basis of their race, religion, political opinion
and the like. LGBT persons who have a well-
founded fear of persecution, by state or non-
state actors, based on their sexual orientation
or gender identity, must find similar protection
within the framework of the 1951 Geneva
Refugee Convention. A growing number of
countries explicitly interpret this Convention
in this way. And so does the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees. We think
that more countries should follow their
example.
We demand that national governments
explicitly recognize in their national laws
and practices a right to asylum based on a
well-founded fear of persecution because
of sexual orientation or gender identity.
We demand that the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees step up his
actions to convince national governments
to implement the Guidelines on Gender-
related Persecution, adopted in 2002.
A third global issue: migration. The world is
getting smaller and smaller; more and more
people travel the world, make friends, and
meet lovers who sometimes become partners.
But most countries deny to bi-national same-
sex couples the right of one partner to
sponsor the other for immigration, which
different-sex married couples take for granted.
Even same-sex couples who have a marriage
certificate or a registered partnership,
recognized by the country of origin of one of
the partners, cannot be sure of their status
when they move somewhere else.
We demand of our respective national
governments residence rights for our
partners from abroad under the same
conditions as different-sex married
couples, without discrimination based
on sex, sexual orientation or gender
identity.
We demand that international treaties
on these matters be reformed and grant
same-sex couples the same rights as
different-sex married couples.
The United Nations has so far been unwilling
or unable to recognize that LGBT rights
are human rights, and fully incorporate
LGBT issues into its human rights work.
Some specific UN treaty bodies and special
rapporteurs have taken LGBT rights into
account. But in 2005, the UN Commission
on Human Rights refused for the third time
to decide on a general resolution on ‘Human
Rights and Sexual Orientation’, first tabled
by Brazil in 2003. And in 2006, the Economic
and Social Council of the UN for the third
time refused to grant consultative status
to ILGA – the International Lesbian and
Gay Association – as in 1992, in 1994 (when
the consultative status granted in 1993 was
suspended) and in 2002.
We will continue knocking on the door of the
United Nations. We do not accept that a world
organisation can be closed to a specific part
of the Earth’s population, and can decide that
it does not want to deal with their issues.
We therefore urge governments to put
LGBT human rights on the agenda of the
new UN Human Rights Council, and to
work for the adoption of a text, that will
give a mandate to the Council and to
other UN bodies to deal with LGBT human
rights as a normal part of their work.
We demand that ILGA and other LGBT
organisations be granted the place they
deserve among the many other NGOs that
are entitled to consult with the Human
Rights Council.
Session 4
We urge the Human Rights Committee
and other UN treaty bodies to integrate
the systematic monitoring of LGBT human
rights into their work.
We call upon lawyers, human rights
institutions, and NGOs to continue
studying which human rights of LGBT
individuals are protected by existing
international human rights treaties, and
whether there are any gaps in the protection
these treaties provide. This could lead
to a discussion of the potential benefits
of a UN Convention on the Elimination
of all forms of Sexual Orientation
and Gender Identity Discrimination
(CESOGID).
We urge all UN Special Procedures to
address LGBT human rights issues within
their relevant mandates.
3. The Diverse Lgbt Community
Our demand that the heterosexual, non-
transgender majority respect our human
rights and our diversity does not stop at our
own doorstep. We must also work to build an
A55
 LGBT community that is open to all, and offers
fair chances to everyone, regardless of their
sex, race, religion, disability, age, economic
status or other similar characteristic.
We must fight discrimination within our own
ranks. We cannot tolerate sexism and racism
inside our movement. We are Muslims,
Christians, Jews, non-believers, Buddhists,
Hindus, Sikhs, and humanists. Among us,
we have every form of disability, members
of every age group, and members of every
social and economic class.
The growing visibility and activism of LGBT
groups in the Global South must be taken into
account. We must work as hard as we can to
make it possible for LGBT activists from Asia,
Africa, Latin America and Eastern Europe to
participate in the global LGBT human rights
movement on an equal footing. Our long-
term goal, as resources permit, should be
much more proportionate representation
of the Global South at international LGBT
conferences. We must remember that 88%
of LGBT people live in Asia, Africa, Latin
America and Eastern Europe.
The unequal position of women inside the
our movement reflects the still unequal
power relations between womenand men in
the world as a whole. Despite all the progress
made over the last few decades, women are
still le deuxième sexe, and lesbian women are
no exception. We must therefore seek more co-
operation with the women’s movement, and
stress our common ground. The commonality
is our right to control our own bodies and to
choose how we live our own lives. Our joint
goal is to challenge the rigidity of the fixed
roles allocated to women and men, and the
dominance of heterosexual male norms and
interests. This joint goal is not something
marginal, but is part of the core business of
the LGBT human rights movement.
A56 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Transgender, transsexual, transitioned and
intersexual individuals have become a more
and more visible part of our movement, and
have seen some of their demands taken on
board. Non-transgender lesbian, gay and
bisexual persons will have to recognise
that questioning the meaning of sex, and
challenging rigid gender roles, are in fact two
sides of the same coin. Transgender issues
therefore should be considered as part and
parcel of our common struggle for equality
and dignity.
We recommend that international LGBT
organisations expand their pools of
candidates for leadership positions by
offering training courses, information
seminars and the like to new – female,
male or transgender - activists from
Asia, Africa, Latin America and Eastern
Europe.
We ask the organizers of the International
Conference on LGBT Human Rights at
the 2nd World Outgames in Copenhagen
in 2009 to make an extra effort to realise
an equal participation of women and
men, to maximise participation from
the Global South and from ethnic and
cultural minorities, and to ensure full
inclusion of transgender people and
issues.
We would also like to see at that conference
more workshops on the role of women
inside and outside our movement, and on
increasing co-operation with the women’s
movement.
4. Participation in Society
(a) General
In many countries, the fight against
discriminatory rules and practices, started
more than fifty years ago, has brought
success. We are proud of the victories of the
international LGBT human rights movement.
As such we count:
the elimination of homosexuality from
the official list of psychiatric diseases;
the long list of countries that have
abolished discriminatory criminal laws;
new constitutional equality clauses that
explicitly mention sexual orientation;
the growing number of countries, states,
provinces, territories, counties or cities
that have outlawed discrimination on
the basis of sexual orientation or gender
identity;
the still small, but growing, number of
countries that have opened up legal
marriage to same-sex couples;
the more substantial increase in the
number of countries that recognize
registered same-sex partnerships;
the increasing openness of LGBT people
in public life in many countries, so that
openly LGBT artists or politicians, for
example, are no longer so unusual;
the changes in public opinion that make
it possible for LGBT individuals to be
themselves and live their lives as they
wish, without fear; and
the growing number of public and private
institutions, including human rights
organisations, trade unions and other
NGOs, that make it their responsibility to
integrate the protection of LGBT human
rights into their daily work
BUT, …
These successes are only part of the story,
and are valid for only a small part of the
world. Much work still needs to be done.
Over time, all sectors of society must be
scrutinized for existing rules and practices
that still hinder the free, open and equal
participation of LGBT individuals. Among
these sectors, specific priorities for action
must be decided by the LGBT human rights
movement in each country, depending on
their local circumstances.
We demand that all governments develop
and implement a comprehensive policy
against sexual orientation and gender
identity discrimination in all sectors of
society. This should preferably be done
within the framework of an overall anti-
discrimination policy designed to tackle
all forms of discrimination in all spheres of
life on all grounds - but without sweeping
LGBT issues under the carpet.
We demand that such an anti-
discrimination policy focus on both legal
Session 4
equality, ending second-class treatment
by the state, as well as on social equality,
fighting discrimination and prejudice
throughout society, including on the part
of private parties.
We demand that national parliaments
hold their respective governments
accountable; guaranteeing the rights of
all citizens, including LGBT citizens.
We demand that LGBT experts and
organization be involved in the planning
and execution of such policies and that
the effects be properly monitored;
We demand that LGBT human rights
issues be mainstreamed in overall
governmental policy-making. This means
that, before decisions are taken, the effects
of policy proposals on the situation of
LGBT individuals must be identified and
taken into account.
We urge international LGBT organi-
sations to
continue to monitor national policy-
making on LGBT issues,
A57
 design comparable indicators of
progress and improve their databases
documenting legislation and practices
in different countries around the
world.
distribute information on best
practices.
(b) By Sector
Fair chances in employment or business
are essential for LGBT individuals to be
economically independent, maintain self-
esteem, and lead a fulfilling and productive
life. Sexual orientation or gender identity
discrimination in the workplace must be
combated by all parties concerned, working
together on the basis of well-designed
programmes, that are properly monitored.
We therefore endorse the Plans of Action
adopted yesterday by the “Workers Out!”
and “Out for Business!” conferences
and will support the activities they have
planned for the future.
We demand that governments and
public institution set a good example, by
eliminating discrimination against their
LGBT employees, and promoting their
equality and safety in the workplace.
LGBT people are not isolated individuals. We
fall in love, and establish relationships and
families – however configured. For many of
us, these relationships and families are the
most important parts of our lives. Unless
they are legally recognized, our rights to
equality and dignity cannot be fully secured.
Indeed, many countries are willing to grant us
equality in every area of our lives except in
relation to our relationships and families, to
ensure that our relationships and families are
stigmatized as inferior. As a matter of simple
equality, same-sex couples are entitled to the
full range of relationship options available
A58 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
to different-sex couples, including marriage
for those who choose it. Similarly, LGBT
individuals and same-sex couples who are
parents, or wish to become parents, are
entitled to equal rights, and to equal access to
the full range of parenting options available
to heterosexual individuals and different sex
couples, including adoption, fostering, and
use of medically assisted procreation. Doing
justice to the changing realities of family
life also entails recognizing and granting
equal rights to non-marital relationships,
and extending this option to all couples,
without discrimination based on sex, sexual
orientation or gender identity.
We therefore demand that all governments
that have not yet done so reform family
law in order to reflect the growing
diversity of family life,
by opening-up legal marriage to same-
sex couples,
introducing similar partnership rights for
all unmarried couples, and
ensuring equal access for all to every
option for parenthood.
Education, the media, health care, and religion
are social institutions of crucial importance to
the success or failure of the struggle for LGBT
human rights. Each has its own role to play
and its own contribution to make.
We demand that the competent (national
or local) government authorities in charge
of education policies, including school
boards
include lessons on LGBT human rights in
the school curriculum; and
take action to combat intimidation
and violence against LGBT pupils and
teachers.
We demand that the mainstream media
contribute to breaking down stereotypes,
 and promote a realistic visibility of LGBT
people.
We demand that health care facilities and
individual health care providers be open to
the special health needs of LGBT people,
flight prejudice, and supply relevant
information on a non-discriminatory
basis.
We demand that governments permit
all medical treatment necessary for
gender reassignment, that they fund
such treatment to the same extent that
their resources permit them to fund other
medically necessary treatment, and that
they amend their legislation so as to
permit a transgender person to change
their legal sex to the one that corresponds
to their gender identity.
We urge religious institutions and non-
confessional organisations to put into
practice the principles of tolerance and
equality towards LGBT individuals among
their own ranks, and to contribute to the
fight for LGBT human rights in the world
at large.
5. Creating Social Change
The legal, political and social changes that
will bring LGBT individuals equal rights
do not serve our interests only. In a society
where some people are oppressed, nobody
can be free and equal. Bringing about the
changes we want must therefore be the result
of the combined efforts of the LGBT human
rights movement and other groups and
organisations, which share our vision and our
goals.
We call on LGBT organizations to continue
their fight for LGBT human rights in all
countries, as well as at the international
level, by
mobilizing their rank and file, enlarging
their constituencies and broadening their
bases of financial support;
promoting better cooperation,
coordination and solidarity among the
LGBT communities within countries, and
throughout the world;
making more LGBT and non-LGBT
individuals aware of the need of further
global action, and invoking their sense of
solidarity;
building strategic alliances and co-
operation between different organisations
and institutions inside and outside of the
LGBT human rights movement;
strengthening their knowledge and
Session 4
expertise and making their actions more
professional;
encouraging LGBT cultural activities, so
as to show a living reality and use culture
to get the message of LGBT equality
across.
We call on trade unions, professional
organisations and NGOs working
for human rights and social welfare
to participate in our fight against
discrimination, to lend us their support,
and to share resources.
We call on national and international
companies to grant equal opportunities
to their LGBT workers, cater for the needs
of their LGBT customers, and meet their
social responsibility by supporting the
global fight for LGBT human rights.
We call on leaders of sport around the
world to create safe spaces for the LGBT
community to participate openly and
fully, without discrimination of any kind.
We call on religious institutions and non-
confessional organisations to help their
LGBT members to overcome traditional
A59
 prejudices and fight homophobia among
their own ranks and in the outside world.
We call on funders to ensure that funding
programmes support NGOs in working
towards legal and social equality for LGBT
people, by advancing all of the objectives
set out in this Declaration.
We call on national governments to protect
the rights and promote the interests and
well-being of all their citizens, including
their LGBT citizens.
We call on the international community
to include LGBT human rights in the
international human rights agenda, and
A60 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
to support and protect LGBT human rights
defenders.
And – last but not least – we call on all
countries in the world, and on the United
Nations, to recognise and promote
the 17th of May of each year as the
International Day against Homophobia.
These are our demands. It will take
tremendous courage, great personal sacrifice,
and countless hours of hard work by many
thousands of LGBT activists and friends of the
global LGBT community. But our goal, equal
rights for every LGBT person in every country
of the world, can be and will be achieved.

5.1
What if It’s (Sort of) a Boy and (Sort of) a Girl?
By Elizabeth Weil
Published: September 24, 2006
When Brian Sullivan — the baby who would
before age 2 become Bonnie Sullivan and 36
years later become Cheryl Chase — was born
in New Jersey on Aug. 14, 1956, doctors kept
his mother, a Catholic housewife, sedated for
three days until they could decide what to
tell her. Sullivan was born with ambiguous
genitals, or as Chase now describes them,
with genitals that looked “like a little
parkerhouse roll with a cleft in the middle and
a little nubbin forward.” Sullivan lived as a
boy for 18 months, until doctors at Columbia-
Presbyterian Medical Center in Manhattan
performed exploratory surgery, found a
uterus and ovotestes (gonads containing both
ovarian and testicular tissue) and told the
Sullivans they’d made a mistake: Brian, a true
hermaphrodite in the medical terminology of
the day, was actually a girl. Brian was renamed
Bonnie, her “nubbin” (which was either a
small penis or a large clitoris) was entirely
removed and doctors counseled the family
to throw away all pictures of Brian, move to
a new town and get on with their lives. The
Sullivans did that as best they could. They
eventually relocated, had three more children
Session 5
and didn’t speak of the circumstances around
their eldest child’s birth for many years. As
Session 5
Chase told me recently, “The doctors promised
my parents if they did that” — shielded her
from her medical history — “that I’d grow up
normal, happy, heterosexual and give them
grandchildren.”
Catherine Opie for The New
York Times
Sullivan spent most of her childhood and
young-adult life extremely unhappy, feeling
different from her peers though unsure how.
Around age 10, her parents told her that she
had had an operation to remove a very large
clitoris. They didn’t tell her what a clitoris
was but said that now things were fine. At
19, filled with rage and feeling suicidal, she
started trying to access her medical records
and finally succeeded when she was 22. As
a means of recovery, she threw herself into
her work. She graduated from M.I.T. with a
degree in math and then went on to study
Japanese at Harvard. Soon after, she moved
to Japan and helped found a successful tech
A61
 company, assuming she’d work really hard
for now and be happy later. At 35, realizing
that being happy later was not going to
happen, she flew to Florida with a list of
questions to ask her mother, to whom she
was never close. According to Chase’s notes
from that conversation (both of her parents
have since died), her mother maintained
that the clitoridectomy had not impacted her
daughter’s life. “When you came home,”
Cathleen Sullivan told Chase about her
return from the hospital after surgery, “there
seemed to be no effect at all. Oh, yes, wait a
minute. Yes, there was one thing. You stopped
speaking. I guess you didn’t speak for about
six months. Then one day you started talking
again. You had known quite a lot of words at
17 months, but you forgot them all.”
After that conversation, Chase, an extremely
ambitious, focused and analytical individual,
decided it was time to heal herself, and she
gave herself a year. As part of that project,
she moved to San Francisco and started
calling and writing to doctors, academics
and gender activists — anybody who might
have something concrete to say about the
predicament of being born part male, part
female, or who might be able to tell her why
it had been necessary to have her clitoris
removed and if she’d be able to get any sexual
function back. Along the way, in 1993, Sullivan
called Anne Fausto-Sterling, a professor of
biology and gender studies at Brown, who had
published several papers on intersex (the term
that has come to replace “hermaphrodite”)
and who was about to publish an article in a
magazine called The Sciences. Sullivan wrote
a letter that was published in the next issue
calling for people with intersex conditions to
get in touch with her, and she signed it Cheryl
Chase, the Intersex Society of North America,
though neither a person named Cheryl Chase
nor an organization called the Intersex Society
of North America yet existed.
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Thirteen years later, Chase, as Sullivan began
calling herself, is now known throughout the
urology and endocrinology establishment as
a passionate advocate for the rights of those
born with ambiguous genitals, and she has
succeeded in stirring a contentious debate
among those doctors over how intersex
babies should be treated. At the heart of
the controversy is the question of whether
intersex children should have surgery to
make their genitals look more normal. Chase
has talked to thousands of doctors and others
in the medical profession, making the case
that being born intersex should not be treated
as shameful and require early surgery. In
doing so, she has assembled an impressive
intellectual arsenal, drawing on everything
from the Nuremberg Code and its prohibition
against experimental medical procedures
without patient consent to the concept of
“monster ethics” — the idea that we perform
questionable medical procedures on certain
patients, like intersex people and conjoined
twins, when we consider those patients to be
less than human. Reports on the frequency
of intersex births vary widely: Chase claims
1 in 2,000; more conservative estimates from
experts put it at 1 in 4,500. Whatever the
case, intersex is roughly as common as cystic
fibrosis, and while the outcome of the debate
Chase has stirred is directly pertinent to a
limited number of families, her arguments
force all of us to confront some basic issues
about sexual identity, birth anomalies and
what rights parents have in physically shaping
their kids. Will a child grow up to enjoy a
better life if he or she is saved from the trials
of maturing in a funny-looking body? Or will
that child be better off if he or she is loved
and accepted, at least at home, exactly as he
or she is?
The old protocol for dealing with an intersex
birth, the protocol Chase was subjected to as
a child, was based on the belief that children
should be saved from the anguish of looking
weird, or of even knowing they were born
looking weird. This would come to be known as
the “optimal gender of rearing” protocol and
was put forth by John Money, a psychologist
who in 1965 founded the Johns Hopkins
Gender Identity Clinic, which specializes
in transgender surgery. Money’s protocol
guided doctors to perform genital surgery on
intersex babies and then discourage families
from discussing the child’s ambiguity, for fear
that the child would grow up questioning his
or her sexual identity.
This protocol held for 40 years, until Chase
began agitating against it in the mid-1990’s.
For a dozen years, she chipped away at
its logical underpinnings, and last month
Money’s protocol officially fell. The journal
Pediatrics published a paper signed by 50
international experts, primarily doctors but
including Chase, titled “Consensus Statement
on the Management of Intersex Disorders.”
The consensus promotes the traditional idea
that every child should be assigned a gender
as soon as possible after birth, and that this
should be done by doctors examining the
baby’s genes, hormones, genitalia, internal
organs (via ultrasound), electrolytes, gonads
and urine. These doctors then make their best
guess as to whether that child will want to
live his or her adult life as a man or a woman.
Where the consensus departs from tradition
is that it also instructs doctors to discourage
families from rushing into surgery. The
paper is a bit vague on this point; it doesn’t
directly tell doctors not to operate but does
state that no good scientific studies prove
infant cosmetic genital surgery improves
quality of life.
Chase says she believes that every child
should be assigned a gender at birth but that
the assignment should not be “surgically
reinforced” and that parents and doctors
should remain open to the idea that they may
have assigned the wrong sex. She contends
that the most important thing is for a child
to feel loved by her parents, despite her
difference. An operation, she says, should not
be done to assuage parental embarrassment
or anxiety; it should be chosen, if it is chosen
at all, by an intersex individual who is old
enough to make her own decision and give
proper consent.
The consensus is a major victory for Chase.
Yet making progress from here may prove
extremely difficult. Chase now must take her
arguments not just to medical professionals
but also to parents of intersex children,
almost all of whom will be feeling intensely
stressed and almost none of whom will have
considered the complexity of raising an
intersex child. One doctor, who didn’t want
to be named, put her chances of persuading
Session 5
parents not to choose surgery for their
intersex children at “honestly, zero.” From
the parents’ perspective, the argument for
surgery is almost impervious to reason. As one
mother of an intersex girl wrote on a message
board: “How can anyone possibly think that
a child can grow up and feel confident of her
sexuality looking down at her genitals that
look like a penis? Come on.”
One day last spring, Chase traveled from her
home in Sonoma County, Calif., to Chicago to
tell her story to a group of genetic counselors
and to distribute the Intersex Society’s latest
handbooks, one for medical professionals
and one for parents. On this morning,
Chase, who is 50, has short white hair,
fashionable glasses, intelligent eyes and a
strong build, was wearing a wide-necked
sweater meant to fall off her shoulders,
exposing a black bra. She lives as a woman
and as a lesbian, and while she imagines she
doesn’t look or feel exactly as other women
do — for instance, she can’t find any gloves
A63
 made for women that fit — she has no desire
to be a man.
Chase had been invited to speak by Rebecca
Burr, a genetic counselor who several years
ago found herself dealing with a 26-year-
old woman who’d never menstruated, knew
she’d had multiple operations as a child but
didn’t know that she was intersex. Burr felt
ill prepared to handle the case and tracked
down the Intersex Society. In Chicago, Chase
stood in front of 30 members of the Genetic
Task Force of Illinois, telling them about the
parkerhouse roll, the trashing of her baby
pictures, the hospital stay at age 8, when
she was told doctors would be helping her
stomachaches but when she really had the
testicular part of her gonads removed.
When Chase began her activism, more than
a decade ago, few doctors were open to her
ideas about the way intersex babies should
be treated. “When I first started doing this, it
took some extreme kinds of conversation to
get people to listen up,” she told me. She also
organized a picket of a pediatric convention;
she sneaked into medical conferences and
buttonholed attendees. In 2000, however, the
esteemed Lawson Wilkins Pediatric Endocrine
Society finally invited her to speak, and since
then Chase’s technique has evolved. She now
receives and solicits speaking engagements
from groups of all kinds. She addresses
nurses’ associations, doctors, medical
students, anybody who will listen.
Among the Intersex Society’s primary goals
is ending the shame and secrecy surrounding
being intersex, and toward that end, upon
founding the society in 1996, Chase organized
an intersex retreat. She wanted to help people,
herself included, become more comfortable
speaking openly about their condition. So she
invited the 62 intersex people she had made
contact with for a weekend at her farm in
A64 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Sonoma. Eleven came. Chase made a raw and
moving documentary of their time together,
titled “Hermaphrodites Speak!” Ten people
directly address the camera. Nine tell stories
of surgery and lives nearly wrecked. One man
refers to himself as a monster.
Another says she’s “damaged goods.” One
person, however, did not have an operation,
and she alone looks fit and confident, sitting
with great posture and seeming at home in
her body. She grew up in a Catholic family,
and when she first saw another naked
woman up close, at age 12, her initial thought
was, What’s wrong with her? She modeled
her sexuality on Grace Jones and David
Bowie. Her story, though just one account,
is consistent with the findings of Sarah
Creighton and Catherine Minto, two London
gynecologists. The two have reported, albeit
with small samples, that genital surgery is
likely to have a negative impact on sexual
function and quality of life.
In the last several years, the Intersex Society
has formed an active speakers’ bureau, and
at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, after
Chase addressed the genetic counselors, a
young woman stood up to speak. A 20-year-
old DePaul student, she was very pretty, in a
chunky necklace, floral shirt and hiphugger
jeans. “I found out last year I was intersex; I
was in my freshman women’s studies class,”
the young woman, who asked not to be
identified in this article, said. Her professor was
lecturing about various intersex conditions
and started describing the symptoms — “No
periods, can’t have children, ambiguous
genitals. I called my mom, and I said: ‘What’s
it called? What do I have?’ ” It turned out she
has partial-androgen-insensitivity syndrome,
a phenomenon in which fetuses with male
chromosomes (XY) can’t properly metabolize
male hormones and are born looking mostly
like girls. “When she said the name I threw
the phone across the room and started crying.
I cried for like a week.”
A few weeks after hearing this news, at the
urging of Lynnell Stephani Long, a member
of society’s speakers’ bureau who happened
to be giving a talk around that time to the
women’s studies class, the young woman
retrieved her medical records from Chicago
Children’s Hospital. “They photocopied them
for me and I got them hot,” she told the group
of counselors. “The first page said ‘pseudo
male hermaphrodite.’ Just the words ‘male’
and ‘hermaphrodite’ made me want to throw
up.” Chase has since lobbied doctors to stop
using the word “hermaphrodite.” Intersex,
she contends, is a medical condition, not an
identity, and the consensus suggests using
the term “disorders of sex development.”
The young woman continued speaking, her
story raw and captivating. “I grew up a girl.
I was always a tomboy, I wrestled, I played
softball. I had bladder problems when I was
a kid, and when I went in to have my urethra
fixed” — at age 3 — “they decided to give me
a vaginoplasty and also a clitoridectomy,”
that is, surgically reshape the vagina and
reduce the size of her clitoris. “When I finally
learned all this, I spent a lot of time staring
in the mirror” — she pressed her hands flat
against her cheeks and stretched her skin of
her face back toward her ears — “going: ‘Do
I look like a boy? Do I look like a boy?’ Now I
think being intersex is pretty weird but kind of
sweet. I just wish someone had given me the
tools to be able to talk about it.”
Chase’s position — that cosmetic genital
operations on intersex children should be
stopped and that children should be made
to feel loved and accepted in their unusual
bodies — is still considered radical. Most
people believe, reflexively, that irregular-
looking genitals would be extremely difficult
to live with — for a child on a sports team,
for an adult seeking love and sex — so why
not try to make them look more normal?
Katrina Karkazis, a medical anthropologist at
the Center for Biomedical Ethics at Stanford,
interviewed 19 clinicians and researchers
of various specialties who treat intersex
individuals, 15 intersex adults and 15 parents
of intersex children, and she found that a
majority of the doctors and parents felt surgery
was a good idea. “We chose surgery for my
daughter mainly because we did not want her
to grow up questioning her sexual identity,”
one mother explained about her baby, who
was born with congenital adrenal hyperplasia,
a genetic defect of the adrenal glands that
causes girls’ genitals to appear masculinized
at birth. “We felt that she should look like a
female, so we chose the clitoroplasty and the
vaginoplasty. We felt that she would have a
better self-image if she did not have a ‘phallic
Session 5
structure’ and ‘scrotum.’ ”
Within the medical community, Chase has been
successful in tempering the explicitness with
which people publicly make this argument.
As Chase has explained innumerable times,
intersex babies are not having difficulty with
sexual identity or self-image. The parents are,
and parental anxiety about the appearance
of a child’s genitals should be treated with
counseling, not with surgery to the child.
When I met Melvin Grumbach, one of the
doctors who cared for Chase as an infant
and who went on to become one of the most
respected pediatric endocrinologists in the
country, he’d clearly heard Chase’s line of
reasoning many times. He participated in
forming the consensus, and he also signed it.
He knew what he was supposed to say. “We
say, ‘Don’t do surgery unless it’s necessary,
unless it’s important,’ ” he told me in early
summer in his office at the University of
California in San Francisco, where he’s now an
emeritus professor. “But I think if the external
A65
 genitals are really masculinized, you work it
out with the family. I mean, good grief. What
about the parents? The parents are raising the
child. Don’t they have some say?”
A debate has emerged in recent years
concerning if and when parents and doctors
should medically shape children. Should
very short children be treated with growth
hormone and surgery? Should children have
multiple cosmetic operations to try to erase
all traces of a cleft lip? In these instances,
no studies have shown that these medical
interventions improve children’s quality of life.
The same is true for operations on intersex
children, though in truth, few well-controlled
studies exist that prove much of anything, in
part because the success of these treatments
cannot be meaningfully assessed for at least
20 years, and by then most patients are lost
to follow-up.
Among the arguments against genital surgery
is the fact that sexual identity does not derive
solely, or perhaps even primarily, from a
person’s genitals. As Eric Vilain, professor
of human genetics, pediatrics and urology at
U.C.L.A., has shown, many genetic markers
go into making a person male or female, and
those markers affect many parts of the body.
In studies of mice, he has found 54 genes that
work differently in male and female brains
just 10 days after conception. In humans,
we’ve all been taught, and we’d like to believe,
that being male or female is as a simple as
having XY or XX chromosomes, but it is not.
Even the International Olympic Committee
acknowledged this when it suspended its
practice of mandatory chromosomal testing
for female athletes in 2000, reflecting current
medical understanding that a female who
tests positive for a Y chromosome can still be
a woman. (Chase is XX, and the reason for
her intersex condition has never been fully
understood.)
A66 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Vilain has a clinic devoted to treating disorders
of sex development, where he sees 40 to 50
new intersex patients a year. When he first
left the lab and started seeing patients, he
said he couldn’t believe that surgeons were
performing genital reconstructions with so
little data. “To me it was shocking, because
where I come from, molecular genetics, we’re
under extreme scrutiny,” Vilain told me on
the phone in July. “If you want to show that
a molecule causes something, you have to
show it with a bunch of excruciatingly painful
controls. And here I was looking at a lot of
surgeons who were saying, ‘We think it’s
good to do genital surgery early on because
the children are doing better.’ So each time I
would ask, ‘What’s the evidence that they’re
doing better?’ And in fact the answer is there’s
no real evidence. Then I’d ask: ‘What does it
mean doing better? How do you measure
it? Are you talking quality of life, or quality
of sex life?’ And there was never any
convincing answer.”
Other surgeons contend that not intervening
presents its own risks. “There haven’t
been any studies that would support doing
nothing,” says Larry Baskin, Grumbach’s
protégé and current chief of pediatric urology
at the University of California, San Francisco.
“That would be an experiment: don’t do
anything and see what happens when the
kid’s a teenager. That could be good, and
that could also be worse than trying some
intervention.” In Baskin’s view, being intersex
is a congenital anomaly that deserves to be
corrected like any other. “If you have a child
born with a cleft lip or cleft palate or an extra
digit or a webbed neck, I don’t know any
family that wouldn’t want that repaired,” he
told me. “Who would say, ‘You know what,
let’s wait until Johnny is 20 years old and let
him decide’? You probably get those fund-
raising postcards from the Smile Train all the
time. I can’t send those out, because you can’t
put pictures of penises on postcards. But if
you could, I think I’d be able to raise a lot of
money.”
Still, Baskin acknowledges that intersex is
different: genital surgery has the potential
to diminish sexual function, and how do
parents weigh that risk? Doubtless, surgical
techniques have improved since Chase’s
clitoridectomy — Baskin describes the old
operations as being “like bloodletting,” when
doctors were only able to excise the clitoris,
not try and reduce it. Now, he says, “We
have a pretty good handle on where all the
nerves are.” But whom are these operations
serving? Do parents have a right to take
chances with a child’s future sexual function?
And are we more willing to risk the sexual
futures of intersex kids? The vast majority of
adults — parents and doctors included — find
intersex bodies, especially sexualized intersex
bodies, unsettling. Karkazis, the medical
anthropologist, heard from clinicians she
interviewed of numerous cases of parents who
initially decided against surgery but changed
their minds when their children started to
explore their own sex organs, often around
the age of 2. “Masturbation in little girls with
clitoromegaly” — abnormal enlargement of
the clitoris — “is a situation I’ve encountered
quite a few times, and that’s actually pushed
many parents toward surgical intervention,”
one doctor told Karkazis. “The little girl
was masturbating, and the parents just fell
apart and were back in the office the next
week for surgery.”
Chase says that her own mother’s discomfort
with and ignorance about sexuality
contributed to the decision to have Chase’s
clitoris amputated. When Chase flew from
Japan to Florida to discuss her childhood
with her mother, she also quizzed her mother
about sex. “No, I don’t know what human
genitals look like, exactly,” Chase’s mother
told her. “I have never looked at myself, and
I never looked closely at my children. The
doctor said your clitoris had to go. Mine never
meant anything to me, so I didn’t think it was
wrong to remove yours.”
Chase claims she wasn’t even a social human
being before age 35, when she started
trying to recover from being “extremely
pathologically shy and withdrawn.” She has
built her personality alongside her activism,
both growing steadily more refined over the
years. As we traveled from Chicago to New
Jersey, where Chase was to address the New
Jersey Psychological Association, she told
me she was working very hard on presenting
herself as “extremely moderate.”
To do this, Chase has been honing her
arguments about who has the right to do what
to other people’s bodies. Those arguments
Session 5
first took shape in 1998, when Chase wrote an
amicus brief to the constitutional court of the
country of Colombia. At the time, Colombia
was considering the ethical and human rights
implications of genital surgery, as it pertained
to a case of a 6-year-old boy with a micropenis
and the question of whether his penis should
be reduced to the size of a clitoris, his testes
removed and a vagina constructed out of a
piece of his ileum. Medical convention has
traditionally held that the phallic structure
must be at least 2.5 centimeters long on baby
boys and shorter than 1 centimeter for girls.
And since it’s easier to surgically construct
a vagina than to make a penis, children with
anatomies that fell in the middle were almost
always raised as girls.
Building on work on the Colombia case, in
2004, Chase and the Intersex Society were
involved in persuading the San Francisco
Human Rights Commission to hold a
hearing and address the question of medical
procedures on intersex infants in the United
A67
 States. Over the course of three hours, dozens
of intersex people and parents of intersex
people testified. When it came time to ratify
the report, Chase addressed the commission.
“What the Human Rights Commission has
done. . .is to recognize me as a human being,”
she said. “You’ve stated. . .that just because
I was born looking in a way that bothered
other people doesn’t mean that I should be
excluded from human rights protections that
are afforded to other people.”
This is the one time Chase was seen crying in
public. “She lost it crying, and I thought, What
a perfect time to lose it,” Chase’s friend Alice
Dreger, a bioethicist and medical historian at
Northwestern University who writes about
intersex and conjoined twins, told me. “I’ve
never seen her cry in public since. She’s
damaged in a way that she doesn’t get very
emotional.”
One of Chase’s closest allies is William
Reiner, a University of Oklahoma urologist
who retrained as a child psychiatrist to better
understand his intersex patients. Reiner, like
Chase, says he thinks that a child transitioning
from his or her initially assigned gender to the
opposite gender should not necessarily be
viewed as a medical failure. A baby who was
born with a penis-size clitoris who had that
penis removed and a vagina constructed out
of a piece of her intestine but who ended up
wanting to live as a man — that’s a failure. Yet
transitioning from one sex to another, says
Reiner, is something a child can often handle.
Transitioning, Reiner maintains, is much more
difficult for parents than for children, because
parents have large and complex psychological
and social landscapes, while children have
relatively small and simple ones. Reiner told
me about a family he worked with in which
a mother told her 7-year-old daughter that
she was actually born a boy. “And within an
hour the child had chosen a boy name and
A68 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
announced he was a boy.” Reiner continued:
“The youngest child that I’ve had that
spontaneously changed sexes was 4ð. This
was one of the most assertive human beings
I’ve met in my life. She cut off all of her hair
one afternoon while Mom was at work.”
When asked to explain, the child said proudly,
“Mom, I’ve been telling you: I’m a boy, and
boys have short hair, so I cut off my hair.”
Over the same period that the Intersex
Society became effective, Chase’s personal
life bloomed. Chase married Robin Mathias,
her partner of five years, in 2004, when gay
marriage was legal in San Francisco, and the
two live on a hobby farm in Sonoma. In recent
years, Chase has also made some important
professional connections, like David Sandberg,
a psychologist at the University of Michigan
whose work has been instrumental in raising
questions about treating children with very
short stature with growth hormone and who
has now turned his attention to intersex.
Sandberg joined Chase for her presentation
to the New Jersey Psychological Association,
and afterward they talked late into the night.
Both Chase and Sandberg say that the first
few days of an intersex child’s life can set a
tone within a family that persists for many
years. Both say that medical professionals,
right from the start, should behave as they
would with any healthy baby and encourage
parents to do the same — name the child, fall
in love and bond. “If we don’t care for the
parents early on,” Sandberg said as we all sat
around Chase’s hotel room, “we might lose
the battles in terms of creating circumstances
for a happy life for this child, and perhaps
sacrifice the quality of life for siblings too.”
The next morning, Chase came down to
breakfast reading “On Becoming a Person,”
a book by the psychologist Carl Rogers. Her
goal of appearing mainstream while publicly
discussing fused labia and unusual gonads
seems, at times, unattainable. Few would
argue that her current message — that doctors
and families should not rush into surgery — is
nothing if not prudent. Nonetheless, her long-
term goal remains the eradication of infant
genital surgery for the sole purpose of altering
appearance, and this continues to sound
outlandish to many medical professionals
and to most of the general public as well.
Over coffee, Sandberg told Chase that he, too,
could not yet join her in taking the position
that cosmetic genital surgery on infants is
always wrong, and Chase was trying hard to
understand why.
“But is there ever a good reason for reducing
the size of a clitoris?” Chase pressed
Sandberg.“If the parent cannot tolerate it,”
Sandberg replied.
Chase paused, struggling to empathize with a
mother unable to raise a child because of the
size of that child’s clitoris. Chase has spent
her adult life explaining why such a position
is unethical. The logic she has constructed
is nearly unassailable. Yet for most of us,
Chase’s thinking is emotionally difficult to
embrace. For starters, we tend not to be very
rational when it comes to our children and to
our genitals. Complicating matters, in treating
5.2
ESMERAY: A WOMAN’S SOUL TRAPPED IN A MAN’S BODY
Kamla Bhasin
S he is tall. Particularly tall for a woman.
Broad shouldered, well built and perhaps
just a wee bit flabby. Face a bit rough.
Shoulder length hair, tied at the back but flock
of hair covering the left part of her forehead.
Hanging earrings, a simple necklace. Loose
dress with spaghetti shoulders, i.e. sleeves
shoulders uncovered. Big, expressive eyes.
intersex, as opposed to, say, a heart condition,
what feels best for the parent in the short term
may not turn out to be what is best for the
child over time. Finally, parents feel entitled
to make decisions based on the (sometimes
false) sense that they know what’s right for
their families, and the reality is that in the case
of intersex children, the right treatment for
one child, or even the majority of children, will
not be the right treatment for all. Even Sarah
Creighton, one of the London gynecologists
who reported that intersex patients who have
not had surgical procedures tend to fare better,
has noted that no treatment is guaranteed or
even likely to make the lives of those babies
born intersex pain-free. “These are not all
happy people, either,” she has said. “Some
of them have isolated, difficult lives. Some
of the surgery patients are fine, and some of
them are not, and it’s very hard to separate all
the things out.”
Session 5
Over time, the public may grow to accept
Chase’s idea that we, as families and
neighbors, have an obligation to shed our
own biases and accept bodies that are neither
neatly male nor neatly female. Or maybe we
will not get there, and our discomfort with
ambiguity will never fade.
Very feminine mannerisms, coy, friendly and
a big, heavy, ‘male’ voice. Had I seen her in
public in India I wouldn’t have been able to
describe her so well, because I wouldn’t have
dared to look at her for so long. I would have
avoided eye contact. Out of fear. You don’t
want a “lafda” with a “Hijda”. This is what I
would have called her (in my mind), a HIJDA.
A69
 I would have called her this without knowing
anything about her and I would have been
fearful to find out more from her.
 
An Activist on Multiple Issues
However…here I was with Esmeray in a
workshop. She was a participant, me a
resource person; she a Turkish citizen from
a Kurdish background (I quickly learnt to be
politically correct, otherwise I would have
called her Turkish, which she is not) me an
Indian. Esmeray was representing two feminist
groups, Amargi and Lamda. Amargi means
freedom and going towards the mother. This
organisation was created to bring together
women from different identities, particularly
women from “excluded’ groups who are
often the “other’. Amargi conducts research,
organises seminars, joins other groups to do
advocacy on rights, peace, democracy etc. It
also brings out a very impressive quarterly
magazine with highly analytical articles and
excellent photos and illustrations.
Esmeray also works with LAMDA, an
organization of and working with LGBT.
(Don’t tell me you don’t know what LGBT
is!! It is lesbians, gays, bi-sexual and trans
sexual, transgender and transvestite) Lamda
runs a hotline, provides psychological and
legal counseling, organizes workshops and
seminars. Others, who have known Esmeray
for many years, told me that she is well
respected as an activist and a feminist in and
around Istanbul.
Esmeray is a transvestite. I can tell you what
that is only because I looked up dictionaries.
I hope what I know is still politically correct.
A transvestite is a person who cross dresses
(i.e. a man dressing up as a woman or a
woman dressing up as a man. Esmeray is a
biological man who dresses like a woman).
Esmeray was given the name Mehmet, a local
A70 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
version of Mohammad. To suit her feelings,
she dropped this male name and took on the
name Esmeray, which means black moon,
she said with a glint in her eyes.
Every Where the “Other”
Without feeling sorry for herself, being bitter
or aggressive, Esmeray says she is the “other”
in so many of her identities. She is Kurdish,
which according to the Kurds is an oppressed
minority. She is working class, so exploited
and poor. She had one superior identity,
(male) which she gave up and became a
woman; she is a transvestite and technically
a homosexual. By the last description I mean,
because she is a biological man and has love
relationships with men, she is technically
a homosexual. However, she feels she is a
total heterosexual, because she is actually
a woman and she loves men. On top of all
these, she has also been a sex-worker.
Esmeray has thus experienced many forms of
discrimination and violence. She has however
refused to accept these discriminations as
the given, as irremovable. This is why she
is deeply political and actively involved in a
number of struggles – Kurdish, working class,
LGBT, feminist, democratic, anti war etc.
 
Incredible Sensitivity and
Sense of Humour
As I did not know Turkish and most participants
did not speak English, we had simultaneous
interpretation during the workshop. I found
Esmeray listening very carefully and looking
at me with her big eyes. Every intervention
she made was meaningful and often she
got a spontaneous applause for what she
said and how she said it. She had a deep
understanding, particularly of patriarchy,
masculinity, heterosexualism etc.
During breaks she generated a lot of laughter
and herself laughed heartily in her heavy
voice. I suppose she needs a big sense of
humour to survive and to deal with all her
difficulties. As I also laugh heartily and quite
loudly, pretty quickly we became laughing
partners. Fortunately laughing together did
not require translation. During breaks Esmeray
and I started interacting with each other with
the help of an English and Turkish speaking
friend. Having established a good rapport
with her, after three days I asked her if she
could spend an evening with me to educate
me about “people like herself”. She agreed
willingly and so did Esin, a very sensitive
young woman who often translated for us.
 
My First Close Encounter
With a Transvestite
I was quite amazed and ashamed that for
60 long years I had not had a one to one
interaction with a transvestite, trans sexual
or transgender person. It showed how insular
our lives are. In fact, I have felt this many times
in my life, especially when our son developed
cerebral palsy and he was termed spastic. I
was 34 years old and I had not known any
person with C.P or spasticity. Soon I was
to know it all, often in a painful way. It was
then that I realized how many scientific terms
like spastic, idiot, and moron were used as
abuses. The same is true of terms like hijdas,
transvestites. These conditions are all seen as
“curses” and those with these conditions as
‘cursed’
Esmeray, Esin and I sat after dinner on the roof.
The sun was just setting. The green hills in
the distance looked calm. The sky and clouds
were multi colored and they kept changing
colors. Later on, the moon spread its silver
around us. To feel warm we huddled together
and Esmeray smoked. She apologized for
smoking too much and explained that talking
about her life was not easy, even though she
did it willingly and happily.
As we had enough time and I had no
‘predetermined questionnaire’, we chatted
with ease. It was neither an investigation
nor an interview. It was a heart to heart talk
between two people who wanted to get to
know each other.
 
Total Mismatch Between
Body and Soul
For as long as she remembers, Esmeray felt
uncomfortable in her male body. She did not
feel at home in it, because with that body
came so many expectations about “male”
attitude, behaviour, language etc. Ever since
her birth she felt like a girl and identified with
girls and women. She does not think her
feelings were caused by an incident or bad
Session 5
or aggressive behaviour by a man or men
in general. “I was born knowing and feeling
I was a woman and nothing but a woman”
she said. Even the privileges attached with
“boyhood” or “manhood” didn’t make her
change her mind.
Esmeray remembers that when she was about
four years old she was bathing with her sister.
For the first time she noticed the difference
in their genitals. She asked why their genitals
were different when they both were girls. Her
mother once again tried to tell her she was not
a girl. She was a boy and her sister was a girl.
No amount of telling by any one helped her,
Esmeray said. In her heart and her soul she
was a girl and she behaved like that whenever
and wherever she could. Because of fear of
hostility Esmeray adjusted her behavior in the
presence of most people.
She said the men in her family and around
her were particularly hostile to her feelings
and expressions. Her father and brothers
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 had no understanding for her. Her mother
and sisters were not hostile but they were
helpless to be helpful. Like all other boys
Esmeray was circumcised in a ceremonial
way. She felt no more a boy even after this
rite of passage.
Around the age of 13 she accompanied other
boys for ‘donkey sex’. What is that I asked? She
said most boys there have their first sexual
experience with an animal and it is normally a
donkey. Esmeray held the head of the donkey
while boy after boy had a go at it. She felt no
desire to do this strange ritual she said. On
that day, however, she felt the first stirrings
of sexual arousal when she was close to an
older male cousin. “Did the cousin feel the
same towards her?” I asked. “No”, she said.
However he did teach her masturbation. The
same cousin had violent sex with her, which
she later realized was rape. Because of this
and similar experiences Esmeray has strong
dislike for male attitudes to sexuality and a
great deal of understanding for the sexual and
other violence women face in society. Having
lived with both men and women Esmeray
seems to know both the worlds quite well.
She however has little respect for men. She
firmly believes, for example, that men cannot
be feminists.
Because of financial reasons Esmeray had to
discontinue her studies. She also had to earn
a living. She was also finding it more and
more difficult to live like a man. To be true to
her feelings she now had to live and be like a
woman. As she could not do this while living
at home, she moved out. She went and found
places where “people like her” hung out. It
was not easy and it was violent. Men were
violent towards her. Although she did not like
the idea of sex work she felt it was the easiest
way to earn money. She worked as a sex
worker for a while but gave it up later. She did
not like doing it. Esmeray has trained herself
A72 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
as a cook. This is her main profession and
she does it when desperate. These days she
is trying to make a living by selling feminist
magazines. She lives very simply, she said,
hence does not need too much money to
survive.
Hormonal Therapy and
Surgery to Change Sex
Esmeray says when she started dressing as
a woman, she felt compelled to change her
“male” body to be closer to her “feminine”
soul. She started taking hormonal therapy
about 16 years ago to develop her breasts and
to reduce her body hair. She is now saving
money to get the surgery done to change her
sex. She knows the risks and high expense
involved in the surgery but feels she has to
do this “final act” to be a “complete” woman.
“But isn’t being a woman a matter of how you
feel and not your body”, I asked. “Yes it is,
but I hate this penis. It has to go, at all costs”
I realized I could not understand Esmeray’s
compulsions and dilemmas.
Ever since Esmeray started dressing as a
woman and left her home she has not seen
her father or brothers. They wouldn’t see her.
“If my father saw me like this he would kill
me or die himself” she said with tremendous
sadness. However, she does meet her
nephews and nieces, many of whom are part
of Kurdish organisations.
Although many of us in this group had
met a transvestite for the first time, we had
completely accepted Esmeray as a woman
and as a part of our group. Esmeray feels
completely at home with women and can
spend hours dying her hair, removing her
body hair, polishing her nails with other
women. Getting to know Esmeray has been
a humbling experience. Her courage, political
commitment, optimism, sense of humour,
sensitivity, in the face of such huge odds
makes me feel small.
After a week at the workshop, when I hugged
everyone good-bye and sat in the car to leave,
I saw Esmeray with a water jug, spilling water
behind the car, as it moved. My Turkish
friends in the car explained that this ritual was
to wish a safe journey. “Literally it means, go
smoothly as water and come back smoothly”
I felt a lump in my throat and moisture in my
5.3
Ayesha: Profile of A Lesbian WomAn
Profile By Ambarien Al Qadar
Name: Ayesha
Age: 27 years
Place of Birth: New Delhi
Class: Lower middle
Religion: Islam
Education: Senior Secondary (12th Std)
Occupation: Multiple
It’s difficult to define Ayesha’s occupation.
She runs a vocational center for women,
manages a taxi service between Delhi and
Najafgarh, is setting up a school and aspires
to be a politician. It’s equally difficult to write
about Ayesha in words- a mysteriously joyous
spirit who is friendly and aloof in the same
moment. Her partner, Aneesa, also belongs
to a lower middle class family that lives in the
same neighborhood. For the last many years
they’ve been working together. Ayesha and
Aneesa have been together since childhood.
They began as very close friends and over the
years, the relationship has changed. Both the
families silently accepted their togetherness
till now, never knowing exactly what this
relationship meant. Aneesa’s family now
wants her to marry a man settled in Qatar.
eyes, as I waved at Esmeray. She is no more
the “other”. She is my friend.
Kamla Bhasin, is a feminist writer and
gender trainer. Presently she is the Advisor
to SANGAT, a South Asian initiative and
a member of Jagori, women’s training
and documentation centre based in
New Delhi, India.
For more information contact:
<kamla@sangatsouthasia.org>
They say that Aneesa will never get such a
good offer. Aneesa says to them, how can
Session 5
she marry a man she has never met. But
deep down she can’t imagine a life without
Ayesha.
Growing Up in the Nook and
Corners:
Ayesha was born the third youngest in a
lower class Muslim family in Delhi. Her father
used to run a small plumbing shop and her
mother used to manage the home full of six
children. Childhood was fun…full of running
in the innumerable galis (narrow bylanes) of
her mohalla (neighborhood). The financial
condition of the family remained tough all
along. Things are beginning to improve
with Ayesha working and contributing to the
family income. The home exudes warmth.
The entire family gets together for dinner and
everybody eats out of the same plate sitting
on the ground around a dastar-e-khan (a cloth
spread used to lay food; typical of Muslim
households).
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 Ayesha’s family is very fond of her and
she’s the favourite aunt of her innumerable
nieces and nephews. On Sunday evenings,
when Ayesha is at her home, the whole
family sits together to watch TV and chat.
Aneesa’s presence is unquestioned. But the
relationship has to be consciously projected
as that between friends. At Ayesha’s home,
I noticed Aneesa referred to her as ‘Ayesha
m’am’. And while doing so, her eyes lit up in
a special way.
“ Since childhood I used to feel this crazy
energy about myself. I never liked sitting at
home and playing with dolls like my other
sisters did. I always made more friends
with boys and playing hide and seek in the
afternoon was what I loved most. We used
to just slip into the various nook and corners
of the gali and run as if there was never to
be any other day. The hide and seek game
was much more than what it actually meant
and all of us were very aware of this. While
other boys used to pull their pants off and
share secrets with their friends in the half-
built, un-plastered houses that were coming
up in our neighborhood, I always felt out of
place. I used to feel very scared when they
used to approach me because I knew I was
not like them. I needed girl friends to share
my secrets!”
“ Perhaps my father was expecting a male
child when my mother was pregnant with
me. He always treated me like one as long as
I was a child. I always had close crop hair and
used to wear clothes that no longer fitted my
elder brothers. As soon as I reached puberty,
my father started behaving very oddly with
me. A certain distance was slowly settling in.
I had become so used to sitting in his lap and
eating. But suddenly it was no longer proper.
I felt bad. My mother explained it as normal
for fathers to avoid physical intimacy with
growing daughters. I shouted and screamed
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about having been brought up like a boy. The
sight of my father with my brothers…sitting
and stroking their hair troubled me. For the
last few months, my father has been asking
my mother to talk to me about marriage. I
told her that I’m not cut out for it. My mother
never broached the topic again. And though
my father has been getting insistent about
it, my mother has chosen to be silent. As for
myself, I’m too happy being with Aneesa. I
don’t need to think about any other man or
woman.”
“ I grew up with a strong sense of my not
being like other women. Somewhere I felt that
a little bit of me was like a man…that’s not to
say that I felt less like a woman…perhaps I
felt like a woman in my own way! What was
beautiful about it was that I was at peace with
it. It came naturally to me. Now, I consciously
wear a pathan-suit (knee length shirt with collar
worn over pajamas’ a typically masculine
attire) with a jacket.” Aneesa was sitting next
to Ayesha and they were holding hands as we
talked. They looked at each other and smiled.
“ Now I wear what Aneesa likes. And she likes
me in this attire. So I wear this”
Love and Longing:
Aneesa and Ayesha used to go to the same
school in the neighborhood. “ There was
something about Aneesa that used to distract
me. Something used to flutter inside me
at her sight. The day I did not see her in
school…I used to feel tensed and uneasy.
Those were the days when we had not started
talking. It continued till we came to class 10.
I was constantly thinking about Aneesa and
wondered what was happening to me. I was
confused…how could the idea of falling in
love with a woman appear normal to a 16
yr old? I used to sit up for entire nights and
think about this. But then I decided to talk to
Aneesa…I had to muster the courage to do so
because I feared rejection. I decided to ask her
to be my friend.”
“ When I approached Aneesa that morning
in school …I was fearing the end of it all. I
asked her to stay back after assembly, as I
wanted to talk to her. She blushed and didn’t
say anything. On talking to her…she said that
that was all I was so tensed about? She had
also wanted to be my friend but didn’t know
how to approach me because I was always
with boys.” Aneesa started visiting Ayesha’s
home and they spent a lot of time together.
They sat and prepared for exams together
through the night.
“The next two years were pure bliss. School
got over and Aneesa wanted to study ahead.
My heart and mind was somewhere else. The
financial condition of my family was bad and
I wanted to do something. Anyways, I was not
meant for the world of books. So Aneesa took
up college and I started to think about what to
do. Those were tough times but Aneesa was
always there to reassure me. I began falling
in love with her…if love was a feeling to be
completely for each other …it was here…
between her and me. She was silently aware
of the fact that we could not live without each
other. That though I was an extremely strong
person on the outside…in front of her I was
totally defenseless and vulnerable. Aneesa
added to my strength and determination.”
“ We used to be together all the time. I used
to wait for Aneesa’s classes to get over and
then we would go out…restaurant, watch a
movie…just be together. Her friends used to
say that I was her boyfriend. Silently, I enjoyed
such jokes...but still I could not talk to Aneesa
very openly about our relationship. She never
used to mind when I used to touch her. It was
the way our relationship was. We held hands
while walking...for a long time everything
was fine but then people started giving us
strange looks. It never worried me because I
knew I had the gut to give it into their faces
the moment any of them uttered a word. Also
because I look so masculine, nobody dared
say anything to us.”
Is She a Man or a Woman? -
the Eternal Puzzle:
“ We used to be together till 8 or 9 in the
night and then I used to drop her at her
home. Though her family would’ve objected
to Aneesa’s returning this late otherwise,
with me they felt safe. They felt that I was
quite bold and manly. While I was walking
home one night after seeing off Aneesa, two
men on a motorbike started following me. It
was dark and I felt a bit nervous. They sang
songs and kept cracking lewd jokes. I did not
pay any heed to them till they said…yaar ye
mard hai ki aurat (is she a man or a woman?)
Session 5
I looked back and said that only their sister
could discover that. That’s not for them to
know! They looked so shocked. The bike just
sped away and though I see them in my gali
at times, they do their best to avoid any eye
contact with me.”
“ I have these strange obsessions- to be
photographed dressed up like film stars.
Aneesa says that I resemble Govinda (a famous
Bollywood actor). So we went to a photo-
studio. I wore black trousers and a red shirt
with dark glasses- all Govinda style. Aneesa
guided me in posing like Govinda and that was
fun.” As Aneesa pulled out the photo album
from the cupboard, a pack of them slipped
out and fell on the ground. Each photograph
had a story to tell- the innumerable holidays,
birthdays, family get togethers, marriages, Eid
dinners and Iftaar parties they had celebrated
together. Aneesa glanced through them and
neatly stacked it back. She pulled out the
Govinda-style photograph and all of us burst
into peals of laughter. Ayesha had chosen a
A75
 background full of pink bougainvillea flowers
for her picture. With her right leg balanced on
a stool and the index finger balanced against
the tilt of her head, she looked quite a star.
The Gaze:
“ Whenever I get time, we go out on holidays.
Aneesa is with me when we’re working as
well. But being away from our homes …being
together…gives a very different feeling. We
feel as if we’re in our own home. Usually we
take an overnight bus to the hills and tell our
families that we’re going on a work related
trip. In the bus, Aneesa usually sleeps with
her head resting on my shoulder and holding
my hand. The co-passengers give us a really
confused look because most of the times
these buses are full of honeymoon couples.
On one such trip, the bus halted for dinner
and we chose to get down last. I was holding
Aneesa in my arms when a passenger walked
in. Aneesa started screaming as if she had
this really terrible headache and I were just
comforting her. We also asked the man if he
had any medicine for headaches and in the
hotel room we laughed endlessly over what
we’d done! ”
“ My relationship with Aneesa began as a
deep friendship and we got very close to each
other over the years. I’ve known her for the
last 13 years …and our relationship has also
changed. How it became physical ...I really
don’t know but I know that it stemmed out of
our need to connect more wholly to the other.
I had rented a small apartment from where I
was beginning to work towards setting up the
vocational training center. We were working
together and at times we used to spend the
night together there. I guess the fact that we
had that space to ourselves brought physical
intimacy between us. It was difficult for me
to talk about it to Aneesa even after having a
very sure sense that she loved me. She used
A76 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
to cook for me in the small kitchen we had put
in that apartment cum office. We had dinner
and were just chatting about this and that…I
was looking at her and just kept looking. She
sensed something in my eyes and looked
away. I held her and said that looking away
was never going to be the end between us.
We’ve looked away for a long time…we’ve
denied ourselves enough. Aneesa was very
shy and she was blushing red. Perhaps she
was also confused as to how we’d do ‘it’. But
I just made her feel very comfortable. I also
had no clue what would happen physically
between us…but we just listened to each
other’s bodies. Giving pleasure to Aneesa
gives me pleasure. It’s the same with her.
We make sure that we don’t give a sense of
being ‘used’ for the pleasure of other. We
really laugh a lot after we make love. We lie
together and recollect odd episodes from
our lives…like the bus incident…such things
provide ample food for crazy laughter.”
What is Sex?
Ayesha had spoken about the fact that she
felt like a man and a woman simultaneously. I
asked her if it determined the contours of her
relationship in any way? Was she more of the
man in the relationship? Who took initiative
and how? Aneesa and Ayesha looked at each
other and laughed. “ I would not say that I’m
the man in the relationship. I’m a mix of both
and that has kept us together. We’re different
people at different times. For me, Aneesa’s
pleasure is most important. We speak very
openly about it between us and any one can
take the initiative. But I like when Aneesa
cares for me…cooks for ma and I watch
TV…we’re like a family then.” the model of
the heterosexual relationship is ruptured in
the very moment it is appropriated. “ What
is most wonderful between us that we are
familiar with each other’s bodies. I know
what will give pleasure to Ayesha. It can be
touching, caressing…doing a lot of things
men don’t think I sex! I want to ask them what
is sex? I think sex happens when your body
feels aroused…you are satisfied there is a
sense of fulfillment.” Aneesa says.
“ I really never got the time to think if there were
more women like us. My world begins and
ends with Aneesa. But now with television...
etc…people are beginning to understand
words like lesbians. Aneesa came across the
word for the first time in a magazine perhaps
and she told me about it. Anyways, I’m least
bothered. But it makes things more difficult
for us. Because people only hear or read these
words. Without meeting women who love
women, they form opinions about them… as if
they’re diseased etc…etc… moreover; talking
specifically about our relationship…I feel the
emotional bond is above all. That’s why we
never watch films like Fire and Girlfriend. I
feel those stories are too far from our lives.
Aneesa only reads newspaper reviews of
them and that’s it.”
Family and Pressure:
“ Two years back, Aneesa’s cousin introduced
her family to his friend who was working in
Qatar. One evening, as she was getting ready
to see me, her mother asked her to get dressed
in a bright red salwar-kameez. The instruction
was to look her best. Usually Aneesa loves
wearing make-up…so the mother no special
instructions there! (Laughs). Aneesa called
me up and she sounded very upset. She could
sense that it was a suitor for her. Her sisters
had been married off in a similar manner…
they had never even briefly known the person
they were getting married to. I felt so helpless.
There was nothing I could do if her family
forced her to get married- the thought struck
me. More than that I was aware of Aneesa’s
pain and helplessness. We kept in touch
over phone the entire evening. Aneesa wept
several times and said that she could not live
without me.”
The boy’s family liked Aneesa. Aneesa’s family
has been pressing her to get married since
then. Their explanations are endless…how
will her two younger sisters get married? What
will happen if she crosses the ‘marriageable’
age? Who will be there to look after her? The
fact that Aneesa does not want a marriage
with that man…or any man…doesn’t make
any sense to them.
The Road Ahead:
“ One day Aneesa said that she’d rather
commit suicide than leaving me. I really want
to do something but all seems so difficult. We
don’t want to run away either. We just want to
continue with our lives as it was turning out
to be. I’m also very attached to my mother.
It’s difficult to choose at the moment. Apart
Session 5
from our families, we really don’t have friends
who’ll stand by us; or the money to see our
decision through. ”
“ I’ve never felt guilty because I love a woman.
Deep down I’m a believer and never feel that
there’s a conflict between my faith and me.
For me, Islam has never been an issue. I’ve
heard that same sex relationships are sinful
in Islam…but I’ve never felt like believing any
of that. I want to live with Aneesa and that’s
from where my happiness comes. Her pain
hurts me. She’s been very hard to postpone
this marriage. But how long will her family
listen to her? We’ll have to think of a way
out and on second thoughts running away
might be the only option left to us…difficult
though it seems. I want to give every possible
happiness to Aneesa. I want a family with
her…a home to which we return after a
tiring day...a kitchen where Aneesa cooks
the most lovely dinners…if we could have or
adopt children…if all of us could watch TV
together…that’s what I want.
A77
 5.4
Handout on identity formation and Politics

1. How is the process of identity construction taking place?

2. What is considered essential?

3. Who is taking the lead, who follows, and why?

4. Where is the power within a group--who defines it, who controls it, who disciplines, what
are the sanctions, who is recognised, and who resists?

5. What kind of arguments are presented by the contesting parties?

6. What demands are made and who benefits?

7. Review issues related to recognition, resources and inclusion.

8. How are opponents viewed?

9. What role are women playing and how are they viewed and treated?

A78 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT


6.1
The body – a Polemic
By Sunila Abeyskera
(Source: Options 36; July, 2006)
So, what is it about my body that makes me
a feminist?
I am a feminist because I understand how
easily I could be trapped within my body, and
I resist!
I am a feminist because I believe that biology
is not women’s destiny. So I refuse to bow
down to social dictates about how I should
use my reproductive and maternal options
and I am not afraid of my sexuality.
I am a feminist because I recall from the
predatory male gaze and feel assaulted when
a man brushes against me in an un-crowded
bus. So I encourage other women to organize
against violence against women in all places.
I am a feminist because I resist attempts by the
media and popular culture to ascribe for me a
Session 6
norm of ‘beauty’ and the ‘attractive body’. So
I am not a slave to my hairdresser.
How do you use your body?
Session 6
How much do you spend organizing about
the way your body should look after watching
a few music video or reading Femina or
Cosmopolitan?
How much weight do you assign to giving
pleasure over getting pleasure?
How often do you comment on other women’s
dress codes and decide what is “decent” and
what is “vulgar”?
Do you tell your daughter she can’t use her
limbs to climb trees because she’s a GIRL?
A79
 6.2
Feminism and censorship in the West
By Brinda Bose
Source : Gender and Cencorship, 2006, Women Unlimited, New Delhi
If there ever was a quintessential
postfeminist issue, pornography
is it. 1
It is fairly de rigueur in the West today to claim
that the age of feminism (however that
may be defined) is past. It is more difficult
the world over, though, to lay the ghosts of
the varied issues that feminist movements
were constructed upon. Pornography-or
the representation in the media of sexually
explicit images-has been a persistently
troublesome one for feminists, simply
because it has created serious divisions
within the ranks of those otherwise
radically committed to the protection
of the rights of women everywhere.
‘Patriarchal society has traditionally seen
pornography as potentially exploitative of
women, exposing and using their bodies
for the sexual titillation of the public, and
therefore to be condemned. However,
a woman’s right not to be exploited,
degraded and demeaned by the sexual
use of her body is counteracted by her
right to consensually expose her body in
whatever way she deems fit, as also by
her-and everyone else’s-right to freedom of
speech, expression and representation that
is guaranteed by democratic constitutions
all over the world. Feminism, indeed,
has been hard put to locate the specific
dilemma that pornography represents,
because any intervention for the purpose
of protecting the possibly-exploited bodies
1 Tanya Modleski. Feminism Without Women: Culture and Criticism in a ‘Postfeminisnst Age’. New Yok: Routledge,
1991. 135.
2 Julienne Dickey and Gail Chester.(eds) ‘Introduction’, Feminism and Cencorship: The Current Debate. Dorset, UK:
Prism Press, 1988. 1.
A80 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
of women must necessarily contend with
the problems of censorship, in that it
restricts freedom of speech and expression,
invests an inordinate amount of power in
the censor (which is often the state with
a specific political agenda of its own) and
can never come to a true consensus about
what is actually obscene since it is such a
culturally variable term.
Within feminist debates on representation
and rights, the issue of censorship has
proved to be a black hole. As identified in
the West, the debate may be framed in the
following terms: ‘Why is the problem of
censorship important to us as feminists?
Should feminists have a different
perspective on censorship from other
groups of radical people? What, indeed,
do we mean by censorship? For some
women this pertains to state censorship
alone; for some it denotes the silencing of
oppositional voices in a variety of ways; for
others it represents an acceptable method
of controlling material that is offensive,
degrading and possibly dangerous. For all,
it is a question riven with dilemmas and
potential conflict2.
The central dilemma of censorship for
feminists clearly rests on 1 the (perhaps
potential) conflict between the question
of freedom of speech, expression and
representation on the one hand and the
possibility/threat/reality of exploitation on
the other. If censorship could be viewed
only as a patriarchal construct-as a silencing
agent employed by the state-then feminism,
a movement dedicated to protecting the
rights of a less powerful group in society,
would have been able, presumably, to
take a less ambiguous position on the
dilemma. However, because freedom of
expression in the representation of women
also arouses apprehensions about the
exploitation of women through obscenity
and pornography, some feminists feel the
requirement for some kind of censorship.
Others believe that pornographic represen-
tations cannot cause oppression and can,
in fact, be liberating. The questions that
this brings us to are simply, as Julienne
Dickey and Gail Chester voice them, ‘Are
we seeking some kind of unity of opinion?
Should we be? Can we assume that women
have a commonality of interest? Is there one
position which is more “rational”, more
“liberated,”? Or should we be seeking a
way to accommodate our differences?’ 3
Framing theories of representation
and censorship: desire and pleasure,
private and public, oppression and
agency
Fredric Jameson’s famous theory of the
logic of consumer capitalism is intimately
linked, of course, to contexts of desire: what
does the consumer want? How much, how
often, how desperately? How much is s/he
willing to pay for what s/he wants? By logical
progression, it is not difficult, perhaps, to
deduce that the representation of images in
the media is necessarily intricately linked to
such economies, what one desires to see/
hear/watch and what one is concomitantly
prepared to ‘pay’ for such imaging. In the
3 IBID. 1-2
4 Mary Ann doane. ‘The Economy of Desire: The Economy of Desire: The commodity Form in/of the cinema’ in
Movies and Mass Culture.(ed). John Belton. London: Athlone Press, 1996/99. 124-132.
context of the gendered image-and/or, the
imaging of gender-the question becomes
particularly fraught with patriarchal
tensions. Mary Ann Doane has drawn upon
the work of Jameson, Luce lrigaray and
Laura Mulvey to come to some pertinent
conclusions about ‘the connections
between commodity and culture, spectacle
and spectator, male and female. Tracing
a process by which the female ‘spectator-
consumer’ is programmed to bear a male
gaze and endorse the commodification of
her body parts, Doane identifies her body
as ‘the stake of late capitalism’, and asks,
‘Whose gaze is ultimately addressed?’ and,
‘Who profits?’ 4
The feminist answer to both, presumably,
is ‘the male’. Post-Mulvey (1975/1989),
it ,has become a commonplace in film
theory to evoke the concept of the female
object/subject dilemma, and the notion of
the woman spectator who has internalised
the male gaze and thus bought into a
patriarchal commodification of her body.
To move the debate further into the
Session 6
realm of censorship, one would have to
apprehend a question not only of the
desiring gaze and its subject! object, but
also of the rather more complicated and
vexed area of representations that infringe
upon matters (personal and/or public),
considered degrading and exploitative. In
the sexual context, such a gaze-that sees
what it perhaps should not within the
framework of social acceptability-may be
identified as, in Norman K. Denzin’s term,
‘the voyeur’s gaze’. However, given that
voyeurism is essentially determined to be
a private enterprise, any representation
that is processed (scripted, filmed, edited,
marketed) in the public arena then defies the
A81
 very context in which a voyeur exists, and
daringly attempts to re-sell the commodity
in a new-perhaps more socially­ acceptable-
garb. The instrument of censorship intends
to intervene at this very juncture, by
allegedly separating the acceptable from
the degrading! exploitative, by moulding
the public gaze so that it distinguishes
between what the censor considers
appropriate and that which it discards as
unacceptable.
Denzin has usefully summed up the
problems inherent to the· classic Mulvey
formula of the cinematic gaze, a landmark
though it undoubtedly has been in feminist
film theory5. Ultimately, according to
Denzin, A gaze is not simply voyeuristic. It
is regulated, has a trajectory, and evokes
emotions and conduct which are differentially
reciprocated, and erotic. A gaze may be active,
or passive, direct, or indirect and indifferent.
It will always be engendered, reflecting a
masculine and feminine perspective. A gaze
may be a gaze of power and domination ... It
may be investigative, medical, or psychiatric.
It may be erotic or non-erotic, or both. 6
Denzin stresses that neither the gaze nor
the object of it possesses pre-determined
characteristics, but reflects the contexts in
which they are framed.
It may be said that the moment at which
the erotic gaze slides into the voyeuristic
mode-regulated by a particular ‘structure
of meanings’ and ‘the context in which it
is framed’-is also the moment at which
the public/private dichotomy enters the
playing arena. What was termed erotic/
beautiful/sexual is now also-possibly-
5 ������������������
Norman K Denzin. The Cinematic Society: The Voyeur’s Gaze. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage 1995.
6 Ibid. 48
7 Nicola Lacey. ‘Theory into Practice? Pornogrphy and the public/Private Dichotomy’ in Unspeakable Subjects:
Feminist Essay in Legal and Social Theory. Oxford: Hart Publishing, 1998. 88-89.
A82 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
obscene and pornographic. Nicola Lacey
has constructed what she calls a ‘feminist
critique of individualism’ in which she
attacks the protection of pornography
through liberal thought which plays
on the private/ public dichotomy and
subverts it for its own use. Lacey believes
that feminist criticism of this process is
essentially empowering, and necessarily
must be developed into legislative praxis,
though she concedes that such ‘feminist’
legislation as had been introduced in the
United States, for example, in the 1980s,
came with its own set of problems. Lacey
finds the construction of pornography both
as private sexual enterprise and a matter
of public right to free expression at the
same time, as claimed in liberal analysis,
troubling7.
In the public sphere, it has been crucial
to feminist politics as a movement to
attempt to translate theory into practice
by proposing legislative reform to control
the dissemination of ‘pornographic’ or
‘obscene’ material in the media that it
considers degrading to women. However,
theoretical polarisation has also effectively
transformed into a polarisation between
feminist activist groups that are either anti­
pornography or anti-censorship: clearly,
the definitions of ‘pornography’ and
‘censorship’ diverge considerably in each
context.
Censorship legislation in the West:
questions for the feminist movement(s)
in the United States and Britain
In what is obviously a critique of the anti-
pornography movement within feminism,
Ann Brooks has summed up its limitations
as a simple binary model which reads all
pornography as reflective of transgressive
male sexuality that will end in violence
against women; according to Brooks this
model neither differentiates between the
impact of such divisions as race, class,
ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation
nor escapes from assumptions about
women as passive victims, denied of any
opportunity for resistance. She labels it
a ‘pro-censorship movement’, seeking to
authorise the state with greater powers to
intervene in issues of sexuality and identity,
and contrasts it to the ‘anti-anti-pornography
position’ that distinguishes between
pornography and erotica and establishes
multiple cultural spaces for the proliferation
of sexual representations and their
reception8.
Feminists who argue for civil legislation to
control pornography believe that this would
invest power of control in women rather
than in the state; this call for civil legislation
is based upon the ordinances drawn up by
abuse; it thereby celebrates, promotes,
authorises, and legitimises them. More
generally it eroticises the dominance and
submission that is the dynamic common to
them all. It makes hierarchy sexy ... Through
this process pornography constructs what a
woman is as what men want from sex ...
The content of pornography is one thing ... What
pornography does goes beyond its content: it
eroticises hierarchy, it sexualises inequality. It
makes dominance and submission into sex.
Inequality is its central dynamic ... 10
It is fairly easy to comprehend how this
argument translates into a pro-censorship
stance, the question of gender inequality
coupling with that of civil (women’s)
rights. Dworkin and MacKinnon drafted an
ordinance11 based on this understanding
of pornography as a practice of sex
discrimination and a violation of women’s
civil rights, which aspired to ‘guarantee
women’s rights consistent with the First
Amendment by making visible a conflict of
rights between the equality guaranteed to all
women and what, in some legal sense, is now

American feminists Andrea Dworkin and
Catharine MacKinnon. In her definitive study,
Pornography: Men Possessing Women9, Dworkin
presents a sexual theory of gender inequality of
which pornography is a constitutive practice:
the process by which pornography produces
its meaning is the same process by which
gender inequality/male supremacy become
socially real. According to MacKinnon,
Pornography sexualises rape, battery,
harassment, prostitution, and child sexual
Session 6
the freedom of the pornographers ...12 While
Dworkin and MacKinnon’s pornography-
censorship activism has had a huge impact
and following in the United States, there has
also been a great deal of resistance to, and
criticism of, its principal tenets. This critique
has been comprehensively summed up in a
brief written on behalf of the Feminist Anti-
Censorship Taskforce (FACT), co-signed by
the Women’s Legal Defense Fund (WLDF)
and 80 individual feminists. This document
forthrightly condemns the Ordinance’s

8 Ann Brooks. Postfeminisms: Feminism, Cultural Theory and Cultural Forms. London and New York: Routledge,
1997. 206.
9 The Women’s Press, 1981
10 �����������������������������������������������������������������������
Catharine A. MacKinnon. ‘Pornography, Civil Rights, and Speech’ (from Feminism Unmodified, 1987) in Sex,
Morality and the Law.(eds) Lori Gruen and George E. Panichas. New York and London: Routledge, 1997. 186-7.
11 Known widely as the Indiana Ordinance, it prohibited any ‘ production, sale, exhibition, or distribution’ whatever
of the material it defined as pornographic
12. MacKinnon Supra note 17, 189.

A83
 ‘unconstitutional vagueness’ and propensity
to ‘discriminate’ on the basis of sex, thereby
reinforcing sexist stereotypes, and concludes
that in order to reject the notion that women are
fragile, passive and in need of constitutional
protection against sexually explicit speech, the
Ordinance has to be roundly denounced.13
As is clearly evident from these confrontationist
positions, there has been very little consensus
amongst feminist activists in the United States
on the issues of pornography/ obscenity/
sexually explicit materials and speech. In
England, most of the relevant debates have
centred on the Obscene Publications Act that
had first come into existence in 1857, and then
re-constituted significantly a century later, in
1959. According to the 1959 Act, books with
literary, scientific, artistic or educational
importance were exempt from conviction
for obscenity; such a provision assured a
sense of security to those who believed that
censorship threatened individual freedom
of expression by providing a weapon of
control to the state. In 1986,. however,
the proceedings of the English House of
Commons recorded an important moment in
the history of censorship in the country. Clare
Short, MP, during a debate concerning the
amendment of the Obscene Publications Act
1959, declared her intention to introduce a bill
banning ‘girlie’ pictures-known popularly as
the ‘Page 3’ image­in the tabloid newspapers,
seeking to deal with women’s degradation in
the media through censorship. Though the
Bill eventually failed at its second reading, it
unleashed a storm of reaction from women
all across the country, and shaped Short as
something of a feminist icon.
13 Excerpted from Nan D. Hunter and Sylvia A. Law, ‘ Breif Amici Curiae of Feminist Anti-Censorship Taskforce, et
al., in American Booksellers Association vs. Hudnut’ in Sex, Morality and the Law. (eds.) Lori Gruen and George E.
Panichas. New York and London: Routledge, 1997. 202-209.
14 Pratibha Parmar. ‘Rage and Desire: Confronting Pornography’ in Dickey and Chester. Dorset, UK: Prism Press,
1988. 123
A84 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Pratibha Parmar, feminist activist working
for the rights of British women marginalised
by race, class and sexual orientation, has
addressed another problem that assails both
American and British societies today, that of
dealing with multiculturalism:
The majority of pornography is about
the public depiction of sexual imagery of
women, which is created, controlled and
consumed by men and is one manifestation
of women’s oppression ... It is an agenda
which sees women as a class oppressed
first and foremost by a universal patriarchy,
unmediated by race, class or history ... But
... this sisterhood of all women assumes that
there are no significant differences between
women, compared with the similarities of
our experiences of pornography. I find such
an analysis both Eurocentric and nationalist.
It is also insulting in its simplicity ... They
also make no attempt to explore how women
may be affected differently by pornography
because of their different subjectivities.’ 14
Awareness of these differences has grown
consistently within the various divergent
forms and shapes that the feminist movement
has taken in Britain and elsewhere, the
complicated debate on pornography
becoming only one of the many contentious
issues in debate. As Carol Smart points out,
In Britain there is a sense that there is a
closure of options for subversive sexualities.
Some of this perceived closure relates
to feminist campaigns such as those on
pornography in which it is feared that legal
censorship will become an acceptable mode
of regulating the issue ... In the field of law
feminist work has to be especially careful in
that in identifying problematic practices or
even harmful practices, invoking the law may
merely introduce a new set of problems rather
6.3
The Indecent Representation of Women
(Prohibition) Bill, 1986
Statement of Objects and
Reasons
The law relating to obscenity in this country
is codified in Sections 292, 293 and 294
of the Indian Penal Code. In spite of these
provisions, there is a growing body of indecent
representation of women or references
to women in publications, particularly
advertisements, etc. which have the effect
of denigrating women and are derogatory
to women. Though there may be no specific
intention, these advertisements, publications,
etc. have an effect of depraving or corrupting
persons. It is, therefore, felt necessary to have
a separate legislation to effectively prohibit the
indecent representation of women through
advertisement, books, pamphlets, etc.
The salient features of the Bill are:
(a) Indecent representation of women has
been defined to mean the depiction in
any manner of the figure of a woman, her
form or body or any part thereof in such a
way as to have the effect of being indecent
or of being derogatory to or denigrating
women or is likely to deprave, corrupt or
injure the public morality, of any person of
any class or age group, notwithstanding
that persons in any other class or age
group may be similarly affected.
15 Carol Smart, ‘ Law, Feminism and Sexuality: From Essence to Ethics?’, in Law, Crime and Sexuality: Essay in
Feminism. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage, 1995. 120-121.
than solutions. The struggle between anti-
pornography feminists and anti-censorship
feminists articulates these difficulties well 15.
(b) It is proposed to prohibit all advertisements,
publications, etc. which contain indecent
representation of women in any form.
(c) It has also been proposed to prohibit
selling, distribution, circulation of any
books, pamphlets etc. containing indecent
representation of women.
(d) Offence under the Act, are made
punishable w.ith imprisonment of either
description for a term extending to two
years and fine extending to two thousand
rupees on first conviction. Second and
subsequent convictions will attract a
higher punishment.
The Bill seeks to achieve the
aforesaid objects.
Session 6
Margaret Alva, New Delhi, 13 August 1986.
As introduced in Rajya Sabha, 20 August
1986. Bill No. XXVIII of 1986.
A bill to prohibit indecent representation
of women through advertisements or in
publications, writings, paintings,. figures, or
in any other manner and for matter connected
therewith or incidental thereto. Be it enacted
by Parliament in the Thirty-seventh Year of
the Republic of India as follows:
I. Short title, extent and commencement:
(1) This Act may be called the Indecent
Representation of Women (Prohibition)
A85
 Act, 1986.
(2) It extends to the whole of India, except the
State of Jammu and Kashmir.
(3) It shall come into force on such date as the
Central Government may, by notification
in the Official Gazette, appoints.
2. Definitions:
In this Act, unless the context otherwise
requires:
(a) ‘advertisement’ includes notice, circular,
label, wrapper or other document and also
includes any visible representation made
by means of any light, sound, smoke or
gas;
(b) ‘distribution’ includes distribution byway
of samples whether free or otherwise;
(c) ‘indecent representation of women’ means
the depiction in any manner of the figure
of a woman, her form or body or any part
thereof in such a way as to have the effect
of being indecent or of being derogatory or
denigrating women or is likely to deprave,
corrupt or injure the public morality or
morals of any person or persons of any
class or group notwithstanding that
persons in any other class or group may
not be similarly affected;
(d) ‘label’ means any written, marked,
stamped, or graphic matter, affixed to or
appearing upon any package;
(e) ‘package’ includes a box, carton, tin, or
other container;
(f) ‘prescribed’ means prescribed by rules
made under this Act.
3. Prohibition of advertisements containing
indecent representation of women
No person shall publish or cause to be
published, or arrange or take part in the
publication or exhibition of any advertisement
which contains indecent representation of
women in any form.
A86 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
4. Prohibition of publication or sending by
post of books, pamphlets etc. containing
indecent representation of women
No person shall produce or cause to be
produced, sell, let to hire, distribute or
send by post any book, pamphlet, paper,
slide, film, drawing, painting, photograph,
representation or figure which contains
indecent representation of women in any
form. Provided that nothing in this section
shall apply to-
(a) any book, pamphlet, paper, slide,
film, writing, painting, photograph,
representation, or figure--
(i) the publication of which is proved to be
justified as being for the public good on the
ground that such book, pamphlet, paper,
slide, film, writing, painting, drawing,
photograph, representation or figure is
in the interest of science, literature, art
or learning or other objects of general
concern; or
(ii) which is kept or used bona fide for
religious purpose; (b) any representation,
sculpture, engraved, painted, or otherwise
represented on or in-
(i) any ancient monument within the
meaning of the Ancient Monument and
Archaeological Sites and Remains Act,
1958 (24 of 1958); or
(ii) any temple, or on any car used for the
conveyance of idols, or kept or used for
any religious purpose; .
(c) any film in respect of which the provisions
of Part II of the Cinematograph Act, 1952
(37 of 1952).will be applicable
5. Powers to enter and search
(1) Subject to such rules as may be prescribed,
any Gazetted Officer authorised by the State
Government may, within the local limits
of the area for which he is so authorised:
(a) enter and search at all reasonable times,
with such assistance, if any, as he considers
necessary, any place in which he has
reason to believe that an offence under
this Act has been or is being committed;
(b) seize any advertisement or any book,
pamphlet, paper, slide, writing, drawing,
painting, photograph, representation or
figure which he has reason to believe
contravenes any of the provisions of
this Act;
(c) examine any record, register, document
or any other material object found in any
place mentioned in clause (a) and seize the
same ifhe has reason to believe that it may
furnish evidence of the commission of an
offence punishable under this Act;
- provided that no entry under this sub-
section shall be made into a private
dwelling house without a warrant;
- provided further that the power
of seizure under this clause may be
exercised in respect of any document,
article or thing which contains any such
advertisement, including the contents, if
any, of such document, article or thing if
the advertisement cannot be separated by
reason of its being embossed or otherwise
from such document, article or thing
without affecting the integrity, utility or
saleable value thereof.
(2) The provision of the Code of Criminal
Procedure, 1973 (2 of 1974) shall so far
as may be, apply to any search or seizure
under this Act as they apply to any search
or seizure made under the authority of a
warrant issued under section 94 of the
said Code.
(3) Where any person seizes anythirig under
clause (b) or clause (c) of sub-section (1),
he shall as soon as may be, inform the
nearest Magistrate and take his orders as
to the custody thereof.
6. Penalty
Any person who contravenes the provision of
section 3 or section 4 shall be punished on
first conviction with imprisonment of either
description for a term which may extend to
two years, and with fine which may extend
to two thousand rupees, and in the event
of a second or subsequent conviction with
imprisonment for a term of not less than six
months but which may extend to five years
and also with a fine not less than ten thousand
rupees but which may extend to one lakh
rupees.
7. Offences by companies
(1) Where an offence under this Act has been
committed by a company, every person,
who at the time the offence was committed,
was in charge of and was responsible to, the
company, for the conduct of the business
of the company, as well as the company,
shall be deemed to be guilty of the offence
and shall be liable to be proceeded against
and punished accordingly.
Session 6
Provided that nothing contained in this
sub-section shall render any such person
liable to any punishment, ifhe proves that
the offence was committed without his
knowledge or that he had exercised all
due diligence to prevent the commission
of such offence.
(2) Notwithstanding anything contained
insub-section (1), where any offence under
this Act has been committed by a company
and it is proved that the offence has been
committed with the consent or connivance
of, or is atttibutable to any neglect on the
part of any director, manager, secretary or
other officer of the company, such director,
manager, secretary or other officer shall
be proceeded against and punished
accordingly.
A87
 Explanation-For the purpose of this section:
(a) ‘company’ means any body corporate
and includes a firm or other association of
individuals; and
(b) ‘director’ in relation to a firm, means a
partner in the firm.
8. Offence to be cognisable and bailable
(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in
the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, an
offence punishable under this Act shall be
bailable.
(2) An offence punishable under this Act shall
be cognisable.
9. Protection of action taken in good faith
No suit, prosecution or other legal proceeding
shall lie against the Central Government or
any State Government or any officer of the
Central or any State Government for anything
which is in good faith done or intended to be.
done under this Act.
10. Power to make rules
(1) The Central Government may, by
notification in the Official Gazette, make
rules to carry out the provisions of this
Act.
(2) In particular and without prejudice to the
generality of the foregoing power, such
rules may provide for all or any of the
following matters, namely:
(a) the manner in which the seizure of
advertisements or other articles shall
be made, and the manner in which the
seizure list shall be prepared and delivered
to the person from whose custody any
advertisement or other article has been
seized;
A88 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
(b) any other matter which is required to be
or may be prescribed. (3) Every rule made
under this Act, shall be laid as soon as may
be after it is made, before each House of
Parliament, while it is in session for a total
period of 30 days which may be comprised
in one session or in two or more successive
sessions, and if, before the expiry of the
session immediately following the session
or the successive sessions aforesaid, both
Houses agree in making any modification
in the rule or both Houses agree that the
rule should not be made, the rule shall
thereafter have effect only in such modified
form or be of no effect, as the case may be,
so, however, that any such modification or
annulment shall be without prejudice to
the validity of anything previously done
under that rule.
Memorandum Regarding
Delegated Legislation
Clause 10 of the Bill seeks to empower
the Central Government to make rules for
carrying out the provisions of the Act. The
matters in respect of which rules may be
made relate to the manner in which seizure of
advertisements or other articles shall be made,
and the manner in which the seizure list shall
be prepared and delivered to the person from
whose custody any advertisement or other
matter has been seized or any other article,
which is required to be, or may be prescribed
by rules under the Act.
The matters in respect of which powers are
proposed to be delegated to the Central
Government under the provisions of the Bill
pertain to matters of administrative detail
or procedure. The delegation of legislative
power is, therefore, of a normal character.
 Session 7

7.1
SEX WORK IN A MASSAGE PARLOUR; THE STORY OF WINA.
Researcher: Endah Sulistyowati
Edited by Saskia Wieringa

Wina comes across as an assertive, talkative
and attractive young woman. She has a clear
purpose in life and is not ashamed of her
profession. For 2,5 years prior to the interviews
she has been working in a massage parlour,
giving ‘plus plus service’. That is she provides
sexual services to those clients who demand
that. She has a boyfriend, Seto, whom she
intends to marry. Together they work hard to
save enough money to set up a shop. Only
financial duties towards his wife and children1.
He sent his eldest born to nursing school. As
many women from her town, she left home
to work as a migrant worker, in Taiwan. There
she got into a relationship with a Philippino
man and she had an abortion. She finished
her contract as a nurse in an elderly home and
went back to Jakarta. There she got work in a
massage parlour. She found the cost of living
in Jakarta so high that besides her regular job

occasionally, particularly when religion or
the regulation of sex work is discussed, it
becomes apparent that the way she earns her
living also gives rise to insecurities.
Wina hails from Indramayu, a town in West
Java which is known for providing sex
workers. Her father is a government employee.
Although he is a womanizer and has had
numerous girls friends Wina feels he has been
a good father to her. He never neglected his
Session 7
she started to provide sexual services as well.
Only in this way can she pay for the schooling
of her younger siblings, pay the rent in the
small room she rents and save something.
She goes home every three months. Her
family knows she works in a massage
parlour but nobody speaks openly about the
possibility that she may be providing more
intimate services. So far nobody has openly
asked her about it and she hasn’t felt obliged
to tell it. When her sister, Rita, who also works

1�����������������������������������������������������������
The term uses for womanizer is setia, an abbreviation of selingkuh tiada akhir, meaning cheating endlessly.
���������������������������������������������������������
This is a very ironical pun, for setia means actually ‘loyal’

A89
 as a therapist, suggested to their mother that
Wina is engaged in sex work, mum told her
to mind her own business. So Wina is quite
secure that as long as she supports her family
nobody will mind her doing sex work.
It wasn’t hard for her to start doing sex work.
As a regular therapist her salary was so small
she hardly could survive. After getting by
on her meagre salary as a regular therapist
for about one year she shifted to a massage
parlour where ‘plus plus services’ were
offered.
“Maybe if I had started right away working
is a sex massage parlour, I would have felt
shaky. As I had already worked for about one
year in a different massage parlour, without
providing sexual services, I was not afraid.
Maybe I would have felt more afraid if I would
not be paid (laughing)…”
Wine and her friends follow the 246 pattern.
For a hand job they charge 200.000 rupiah,
for a blow job 400.000 and for intercourse the
client has to pay 600.000 rupiah.2 However
is the customer wants to flaunt his wealth
he gets charged more. The same goes for
clients who want to spend more time than the
regular double session, that is 90 minutes.
Compare this to her income as a regular
massage girl, where she gets between 5 and
7.000 rupiah per session. Wina also has a
regular customer, a rich civil servant from
outside of Jakarta.
Wina knows very well that Islam considers
her occupation as haram, forbidden. She
acknowledgers that she commits many sins in
the eyes of religious people, included herself.
She would like to stick to the regular 5 times
of praying per day, but her work doesn’t make
2��������������������������������
�������������������������������
One US dollar is about rs 9.000
A90 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
that easy. One can only pray if one is ritually
clean, that is after one has taken a bath and
washed one’s hair after sexual intercourse.
So if she has 10 clients a day, she will have
to wash her hair 10 times. In the face of such
obstacles she usually manages to pray only
once a day.
“Frankly speaking, from the religious
standpoint, I am a sinner. But as a Muslim
myself, I still fulfil my obligation, and pray
regularly (giggling). My boyfriend says we
have to pray but we don’t have to worry
all the time whether our prayers will be
received by Allah. We just have to fulfil our
obligations. Except, that is impossible in the
workplace. If I have to take a bath so many
times a day I will get cold. Yet our relationship
with Allah has to be maintained, just as we
have to keep up our relationship with other
people... If women who are wearing the veil
disparage us... Well, they shouldn’t pretend
they are the holiest persons on earth just
because they are wearing a veil.. But according
to me this is the business of Allah. This kind
of job may be very wrong. We cannot ignore
religion. Maybe we are the nastiest and dirtiest
persons on earth, but we are not atheists, we
still have a chance to go to heaven. The issue
is whether our prayers will be received, and
that only Allah determines. But I won’t do this
my whole life. I have a plan to quit and ask
Allah forgiveness.”
Seto, Wina’s boyfriend, supports her work. He
reminds her that it is not up to human beings
to determine whether or not Allah will receive
our prayers. As long as a person is not murtad
(change one’s religion) heaven is still open.
Seto also has two jobs, he works as a night
guard and during the day transports people
at the back of his motorbike (ojek). Wina is
happy he is a responsible man, hard working,
not easily jealous and not possessive. He
doesn’t look down on her for her work and he
doesn’t squander her money. They have been
together for one year and plan to get married.
At the moment Wina cannot leave her job at
the parlour, because she will have to pay a
hefty fine. So they discussed and both agreed
that it would be better for her to honour the
contract. Both are working hard to save up for
their dream to have a shop. This way they
hope to earn enough money to buy a house,
a car and provide their future children with a
good education.
“I want to marry the man I love and have kids
with him. I want to lead a proper life, not
luxurious, but enough to live on comfortably.
We would like to open a mini market under
a franchise arrangement, or maybe a gas
station.”
The first time Wina had sex was when she
was 17 years old and still a school girl. She
doesn’t have a pleasant memory of that
occasion. Only in Taiwan she learnt how to enjoy
sex, and she experimented with several men.
For her sex is not the most important thing in
her relationship with Seto: that is the love and
care they both share for each other. She
will satisfy him when he feels like it but for
her orgasm is not the ultimate goal. She has
sex so often, and she also gets orgasms in
her work, with her clients, when they are slow
in ejaculating or when she feels attracted
to them. But she regularly fakes orgasms
too, to please her clients. She also regularly
masturbates when she feels like having an
orgasm. But Seto is the only one she loves
and with him she shares the emotional sides
of love making and he is the only one she
kisses on the lips. With Seto she has been
trying several sexual positions but she has
always refused to have anal sex. Seto never
asked for it, but some of her customers did.
As an employee of a massage parlour Wina
works in a relatively safe environment. She is
never forced to provide sexual services and the
owner puts clients who misbehave on a black
list. But Wina is aware that street sex workers
are in a much more vulnerable position. She
has no clue about their and her legal situation
but she does know that on the streets women
are an easy prey for the police, street bullies,
and their own clients. Particularly if a sex
workers is caught by the police and paraded
on tv she will have a hard time. First of all
there is the violence by the police themselves,
then there is the humiliation of her face
being shown on tv nationwide. Therefore
Wina advocates that the government provides
special locations for sex workers, and a clinic
they can go to for regular check ups without
harassment. Wina is bitter when it comes to
clients and pimps, who never get subjected
to the kind of treatment sex workers get from
Session 7
the police.
Concludes Wina:
“We sex workers are also human beings with
feelings who have to fight hard to survive.
How come that the only place the government
provides for us is the jail?”
A91
 7.2
Hemali: Profile of Sex Worker
Profile by Abha Bhaiya
Name - Hemali
Age - 29
Born - In a small village in Nepal
Education - Class Third
Religion - Hindu
Social economic background - Peasant
family
Martial status - Single
No. of children - 1
No. of Interviews - 3
Regardless of their actual sexual activity and
history, sexual experience and availability
are assumed more readily of such marked
women.(The prostitution Prism-Gail Pheterson
Amsterdam University Press: Amsterdam 1996, pg 69)
It was a real coincident that I met Hemali. I
was looking for a woman called Nafeesa. I
came to know about Nafeesa from a friend
working in an HIV-AIDS organization. Nafeesa
lived in one of the brothels of the Red Light
areas. As I was climbing the steps, I found a
young woman sitting at the landing. In front of
her was a man with a basket of bangles. She
looked excited and fully absorbed in selecting
the bangles. Suddenly she looked up and as
our eyes met, we both smiled at each other.
‘Who are you looking for’, she asked.
I told her I wanted to meet Nafeesa. She gave a
blank look. There was no Nafeesa in the house
she lived in. She saw the disappointment on
my face and asked me to go in and look for
myself. It was not that I did not believe her but
wondered how and where to look for Nafeesa.
In the meanwhile she stood up from near the
bangle vendor, she had a few bangles in her
A92 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
hand and as she was going in, she asked me
to come in. I suddenly felt a bit relieved.
I nudged myself ‘why don’t you talk to this
woman? But will she talk? She does not
know me… there is no harm in asking her.’
The dialogue just carried on inside my mind.
Suddenly someone called out Hemali. She
responded so I knew her name.
As I went in, I saw a lot of women and the place
seemed so packed and noisy. I wondered
about the commotion. Hemali looked at me
and said ‘everyone is getting their share of
Condoms’. ‘What about you?’ I asked. She
pulled out a small plastic bag from inside
her blouse and we laughed. She asked me to
go inside.
Inside there was a bigger open room with
small cubicles at one end and a semi open
verandah facing the street. The floor of the
central room outside the cubicles was kind
of a public activity area. Two kids were
playing with some broken toys; in a corner
a woman was sitting with a mirror combing
her hair. She gradually started putting on her
makeup. In the corner of the room there was
a door. I realized later that it was the brothel
owner’s room.
Sonali pointed to one of the kids and said
“that is my daughter.” She was well dressed
and did not look malnourished either. Sonali
told me that she was little less than two years
old and her name was Usha. I found this
an appropriate moment to ask her whether
I could interview her. I told her about the
research, that I was now familiar to this area.
She wondered still as to how it would help to
talk to her. She asked me whether I was going
to write about her in a newspaper. It was
not easy to explain the difference between a
newspaper and a book- after all I was going
to write. She was not convinced that it would
help her in any way. I told her about all other
women who we had interviewed.
In the mean while, a client arrived. It was
Sonali’s turn. She asked me to leave but I told
her I would wait. She left hurriedly for the
cubicle. I sat there watching the kids and tried
to make friends with them. I had some sweets
in my bag and that helped.
The Following Story Unfolded in the
Next Three Interviews
Sonali was married at the age of 14 to man
who was a trader. He used to walk through the
remote villages to sell bed sheets and other
materials. He once asked Sonali’s mother
whether she was looking for a groom for her
daughter. This was a long drawn interaction
between them over a few months. Sonali was
unaware of the transactions. However, she
noticed that he was coming more regularly
to her village. Before she knew, her father
fixed her marriage to this strange man. The
day she left the village is still very fresh in her
memory. She remembered how she cried all
through the journey. We just sat next to each
other without saying much, just being.
He brought her to a town in the plains and took
her to a small room inside a narrow lane. She
was raped that night. She knew nothing about
sex. She hated his smell, his body, his organ.
It was too big and ugly. She bled a lot as he
had sex with her three times that night. Her
entire body was sore. This became a routine.
He would lock her up during the day and
return in the night. It was just that room with
a small corner used for cooking and bathing
place. She remembers days of hunger pain.
Where could she run away to? She became
pregnant twice but had a miscarriage. Second
time he took her to a government hospital as
she was bleeding a lot.
She somehow did not want to talk that day.
She was also in a hurry to wash clothes and
cook something for her daughter and herself.
During the next visit, I asked her whether she
was in touch with her family. Yes, she was.
In fact, her sister had also come away and
was working in another town as a sex worker.
Gradually during the course of these years
(after 5 years), she established contact with
her family and went back to fight with her
father. He had already died. The family was in
a bad way. She brought her sister along.
Hemali somehow managed to get out of that
house as he went out of town to sell goods
once. She took a train that was going to
Dehradun- a small town in the foothills of
Himalayas and that’s when she got into the
sex trade. She did not say more about the
way she got to know about it.
The experience of sex was no different. She
remembers that when she was first sent with
Session 7
a client into the room, she got frightened
when he grabbed her breasts. Throughout
the act, she kept her eyes closed as she could
only see that husband of hers. It was in this
brothel that she learnt about HIV/AIDs and the
use of condoms to protect them from getting
infection. Once a man asked her to suck his
penis and she refused. She got to know a lot
about sex, about different kind of clients with
different demands. She also developed some
regular clients. One of them would bring her
flowers. Once he came with a bottle of rum
and insisted that she also drinks. She refused
to serve and the brothel owner had to mediate.
He continued coming and they developed a
A93
 more regular relationship. Once she planned
to run away with him but was caught as one
of the sex workers informed the ‘madam’. It is
there that she watched blue films. Those were
fun hours as many of them sat together and
laughed as they watched scene after scene.
She gradually got used to drinking.
Is there a difference in the experience of sex
with a customer and a more regular visitor?
Hemali first could not answer but then she
said,“ you wait for both- one for money and
for love. The regular one also brings things to
eat, or a small gift”. One of them had given
her a necklace. What she likes most is to go
out with the man. But that she can only do
during the day as madam does not allow any
outing in the night. However, none of these
relationships lasts. Once again, I probe into
her experience of sex with a client and a more
regular partner.
Hemali shared the difference-“ the man who
comes just for you, spends lots of time after
the act, he asks for different kinds of pleasure
like kissing or holding him tight, sometime
teases”. It was evident that she was thinking
of someone specific, of someone who was
special for her.
‘How did she come to Delhi’?
One day, along with a sex worker, they
escaped from the brothel. They went to see
a film and after that sat in a small hotel to
plan to come to Delhi. She was very scared
as it was the second time she was planning
to escape. “Suppose my ex-husband finds
me or the madam sends a pimp to bring us
back”. They were both from Nepal. They
were told that in Delhi Nepali girls are in
demand and that they can earn more. Hemali
and her friend, both were very fair and men
demanded such girls. They were also young.
A94 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
The sex industry has a huge premium on
young and fair girls. She left her sister behind.
She was sure that once she settles down,
she will find a way of getting her sister there.
It was a difficult journey. She can still hear
her own heart beat.
They arrived early morning. It was strange
that the rickshaw man immediately knew
where to take them. This is something that I
observed every time I went to a red light area.
No one made a pass at us. These women were
no different except most of them were poor.
Whenever I sat with them it was like sitting
with a group of women in a village or in a
slum, with same concerns, same emotions
and feelings as any other group of poor
women. It was difficult to discern the markers
of their identity.
To provide services to a customer was so
mundane and without any glamour. So often
the entire act does not even last for more than
3 to 5 minutes. Often I watched the coming
and going of customers, as if they had come
for some immunization. They went in and out
with sex workers following each one of them
with a soiled condom in her hand. Sometimes
I saw her covering her nose with her sari/or
scarf, going straight to the tap washing her
hands few times after throwing condom in a
bin. This visual imagery has never changed in
any of the brothels I have visited, in Calcutta,
Mumbai or Delhi. I found out that there is a
fixed rate for these short sex encounters.
However, the ‘madam’ used her discretion.
What kind of customer does Hemali like?
She had no clear answer. Most customers she
does not even interact with. In fact, she may
not even recognize him if he ever came again.
However when they go down to the street and
entice a man, the memory is a bit more vivid
as they watch them carefully. It is only when a
man shows more interest, engages in talking,
comes repeatedly and asks for her specifically
that gradually a bond gets established.
When I asked her about her daughter Usha,
I get to know that she is her first child. She
has had four abortions/miscarriage. Does she
know the father? She evaded the issue in the
beginning of our interview. One day as I was
sitting there waiting for Sonali who had gone
to get some medicine. A man walked in and
made himself comfortable. It was clear that
he was familiar with the place. One of the
women told him that Sonali will be back in a
while. Thus, I knew that we were waiting for
the same woman.
Sonali introduced me to him. He was an auto
rickshaw driver. As we started talking, I got
to know that they have known each other
for more than two years. Satyapal is not a
client. However, the relationship has no fixed
motif. He comes as and when he chooses.
Sometimes when he comes in the evening,
between her customers Sonali cooks and
eats with him and Usha. It was obvious that
he was Usha’s father. Sex workers often do
not use condoms when they are with a man
with whom they are sexually and emotionally
involved. Satyapal is married and has his
family in a village in Uttar Pradesh, one of the
northern states.
Sonali was clear that she cannot depend on
him. She also came to know that he visit other
sex workers and they have had fights over it.
However, he is someone who has been a more
permanent feature of her life. In response to
my question, Sonali was clear that for the
admission of her child she would give her
name and not of the father. She added, “no
one would believe me if I said he was the
father. That is why I did not even tell you”.
She was worried about Usha’s future.
I picked up the issue of jealousy. If she continued
to entertain clients, why did she object to
satyapal going to other sex workers?
She felt it was not the same. Serving clients
is her Dhandha( work/job) while she had no
relationship other than with Satyapal. She
seemed to be in lot of pain and turmoil. The
overall insecurity of life was palpable in my
interaction with her. It was clear that the most
women lived their lives on a kind of daily
basis, taking things as they came. Similarly
the fear of police raid also looms large.
Does she think it would help to legalize sex
work?
Her cryptic answer was “ Our life will not
change. Today here, tomorrow somewhere
else, that’s how we live. I have no real family
as I have lost touch with my sister”. Sonali has
no real friend either except Satyapal but that
relationship is also insecure and uncertain.
What is her dream for herself?
Session 7
“I want a house of my own and a man who
will take care of me and my daughter”, I
know I cannot work after sometime---people
demand young girls. But I do not want to go
back to the village. “Can Sarkar(government)
not give us land?”
This is a dream of every poor women,
especially single women.
A95
 7.3
State Control and Sexual Morality:
­The Case of the Bar Dancers of Mumbai
Flavia Agnes Majlis, Mumbai
Yale University, Workshop on Life and Law in South Asia, May 11-12,2006
i. Historical Ruling
Let me begin this essay on a positive note
- the historical Bombay High Court ruling
which upheld the dancers right to dance
in bars and earn a living1. It was a moral
booster for the pro-dancer lobby which had
been fighting an uphill battle against extreme
odds, countering the norms of the middle
class Maharashtrian sexual morality. For last
several months it seemed that the ground
was steadily slipping from under our feet and
we were left with only a slender hope of the
judiciary deciding in our favour. Since the
ban was crouched in a language of cleansing
the city of sex and sleaze our hopes were
indeed slender, considering that our courts
are known for their Victorian ‘stiff upper lip’
moral sensibilities. But when we had all but
given up hopes, the High Court ruling came
as a bolt out of the blue or rather a ray of
hope for the lowly bar dancer who lives at the
margins and our stand was vindicated.
The judgement striking down the dance bar
ban as unconstitutional. was pronounced on
l2th April, 2006 to a packed court room by
a Division Bench comprising of Justices F.I.
Rebello and Mrs. Roshan Dalvi and made
national headlines. The concerned statute,
an amendment to the Bombay Police Act,
1951, was passed by both Houses of the
Maharashtra State legislature in July, 2005 and
the ban had come into effect on 15th August,
1 Writ Petition ~o. 2450/2005 - Indian Hotel & Restaurants Asssociation (AHAR) and others VS. State of Maharashtra
and others.
A96 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
2005 to coincide with the independence day
celebrations. The decision to ban dance
performance was part of a drive to cleanse the
State of immorality. But the statute exempted
hotels with three stars or above as well as
gymkhanas and clubs so that they could hold
such performances to ‘promote culture’ and
‘boost tourism’. As the State celebrated the
independence day, an estimated 75,000 girls,
mainly from the lower economic strata, lost
their means of livelihood.
Soon thereafter, Petitions were filed in
the Bombay High Court challenging the
constitutionality of the Act by three different
segments - the bar owners associations, the
bargirls union and social organizations. After
months of legal battle, finally, the High Court
struck down the ban as unconstitutional on
the following two grounds:
the exemption (given to certain categories
of hotels as well as clubs etc.) has
no reasonable nexus to the aims and
objects which the statute is supposed
to achieve and hence it is arbitrary and
violative of Article 14 of the Constitution
of India (the clause of equality and non-
discrimination);
it violates the fundamental freedom of the
bar owners and the bar dancers to practice
a occupation or profession and is violative
of Article 19 (I)(g) of the Constitution.
Regarding the exemption given to starred
hotels, gymkhanas, clubs etc. the Court
held as follows: “ ... the financial capacity
of an individual to pay or his social status
is repugnant to what the founding fathers
believed when they enacted Article 14 and
enshrined the immortal words. that the State
shall not discriminate.”
But if this was the only ground of violation
of fundamental rights, then the provision
granting exemption to a certain category
of establishments, which is contained in
a separate section i.e. Section 33B2 of the
amended statute, could easily have been
struck down and the ban could have been
retained and made uniformly applicable to
all establishments to remedy the Act of its
discriminatory aspect But the fact that the
judgement goes much beyond this and deals
elaborately with yet another fundamental
right seemed to have missed the media
attention.
The Court struck down the dance bar ban
on the ground that it violates fundamental
freedom guaranteed under Article 19(I)(g)
of the Constitution. This is a significant
development and nearly half the pages of
the extensive 257 page judgment deals with
presence in the place of public entertainment
being derogatory, as long as they do not
dance. The State’s case for prohibiting
dance in dance bars is, that it is dancing
which arouses the physical lust amongst the
customers present. There is no arousing of
lust when women serve the customers liquor
or beer in the eating house, but that happens
only when the women start dancing ..... The
right to dance has been recognized by the
Apex Court as part of the fundamental right
of speech and expression. If that be so, it will
be open to a citizen to commercially benefit
from the exercise of the fundamental right.
This could be by a bar owner having dance
performance or by bar dancers themselves
using their creative talent to carry on an
occupation or profession. In other words
using their skill to make a living... 4
While contextualising the High Court ruling,
the essay attempts to locate the bar dancer
within a larger framework of state policies
and entertainment industry of the colonial
and post-colonial period and examine the
hypocritical and contradictory moral postures
of the state administration and the politics
of police raids in recent times. Of particular
interest are the concerns of morality and
obscenity which surround the bar dancers,

this concern. “Are our fundamental rights so
fickle that a citizen has to dance to the State’s
tune”, was the caustic comment3. Further the
court held:
“The State does not find it offensive to the
morals or dignity of women and / or their
Session 7
the construction of their sexuality by social
organizations supporting and opposing the
ban, and their own agency in negotiating
their sexuality in an industry confined within
the traditional binaries of a male patron and
the female seductress. It also traces my own
journey into the world of sexual erotica and

2 As per the amended statute, the concerned Section, i.e. Section 33B of the Bombay Police Act, 1951 is worded
as follows: “Nothing in section 33A shall apply to the holding of a dance performance in a drama theatre, cinema
theatre and auditorium or sport club or gymkhana where entry is restricted to its members only or a three starred
or above hotel or in any other establishment or class of establishment. Which having regarding to (a) the tourism
activities in the State or (b) cultural activities, the State Government may by special or general order, specify in this
behalf.”
3��������������������
Para 61 at page 163
4 para 68 at page 183

A97
 dwells upon the personal challenges it posed
to my notions of sexual morality.
ii. Entertainment Industry and
Liquor Policy
The female dancer / entertainer has been an
integral part of the city’s thriving nightlife.
The Bombay that never sleeps. The city is
hailed as the crowning glory of the nation’s
entertainment industry. Her history is also
linked to the migrant workers who were
brought in to build this city.
From the time when the East India Company
developed Mumbai as a port and built a fort
in the seventeenth century, Bombay has been
a city of migrants. Migrant workers have
flocked the city for over three hundred years
in search of livelihood. And with the workers
have come the entertainers.
The traders, the sailors, the dockworkers, the
construction labour and the mill hands - all
needed to be ‘entertained’. So the government
marked areas for entertainment called ‘play
houses’ which are referred to in the local
parlance even today as ‘peela house’ areas.
Folk theatre, dance and music performances
and, later, silent movie theatres all grew
around the ‘play houses’ and so did the sex
trade. Hence Kamathipura - a name which
denoted the dwelling place of a community
of construction labourers, the Kamtis of
Andhra Pradesh, later came to signal the sex
trade or ‘red light’ district of the old Bombay
city. Within the red light district there were
also places for performance of traditional
and classical dance and music, and the mujra
houses. [Sometime in the seventies, when
the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi visited
the area and saw the dilapidated status of the
dwellings of the performers she sanctioned
a grant to construct modern buildings under
the banner of ‘Lalit Kala Academy’. This did
A98 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
not bring much change in the social status
of the performers or their dwelling places
which continue to be dilapidated except for
a change of nomenclature. The area is now
ironically, the area is now referred to as
‘Congress House’.]
The city of migrants - predominantly male
migrants - also needed cheap eating-places.
To cater to their needs initially there were
Irani restaurants, Chilia (Muslim) restaurants
and later South Indian (Udupi) joints and
Punjabi dhabas.
The prevalence of dance bars is linked not
only to the restaurant industry and the
entertainment business but also to the state
policy on sale of liquor. After independence,
during the fifties, when Morarji Desai was
the Chief Minister, the State of Bombay was
under prohibition and restaurants could not
serve liquor. But after Maharashtra severed
its links with the Gujarat side of the erstwhile
Bombay Presidency, the newly formed state
reviewed its liquor policy and the prohibition
era was transformed into the ‘permit’ era.
A place where beer was served was called
a ‘permit room’. Only a person who had
obtained a ‘permit’ could sit in a permit room
and drink beer.
But gradually, the term ‘permit room’ lost its
meaning and the government went all out to
promote liquor sale in hotels and restaurants.
It is during this period, the beer bars started
introducing innovative devices to beat their
competitors - live orchestra, mimicry and
‘ladies service bars’ where women from
the red light district were employed as
waitresses. In early sixties, the State started
issuing entertainment licences5 , and some
bars introduced live dance performances to
boost up their liquor sales. Hindi films also
started introducing sexy ‘item numbers’ and
the dancers in the bars imitated these popular
dances. The government also issued licenses
for performance of ‘cabaret shows’. A place
that was notorious for its lewd and obscene
cabaret performances is ‘Blue Nile’ which
was constantly raided and was entangled
in lengthy litigation. It is this litigation that
forced the High Court to examine the notion
of obscenity under S.294 of the Indian Penal
Code (IPe), an issue I will deal with more
elaborately later in this essay.
Soon the sale of liquor and consequently the
profit margins of the owners recorded an
upward trend. This encouraged the owners of
other Irani ‘permit room’ restaurants, South
Indian eateries and Punjabi dhabas to convert
their places into dance bars. Coincidentally,
during the same period, the Mujra cuIture
in Mumbai was on the decline due to loss of
patronage. The dance bars opened up a new
and modern avenue of earning a livelihood
to these traditional Mujra dancers. Even for
daughters of sex workers, this was a step
forward - from brothel prostitution to dance
bars.
Soon the ‘dance bar’ phenomenon spread
from South Bombay to Central Bombay,
to the Western and Central suburbs, to the
satellite cities of New Bombay and Panvel,
and from there, along the arterial roads, to
other smaller cities and towns of Maharashtra.
From a mere 24 in 1985-6, the number
increased ten folds within a decade to around
210. The next decade 1995-2005 witnessed
yet another phenomenal increase and as per
one estimate, just before the ban there were
around 2500 dance bars in Maharashtra.
As the demand grew, women from tradi-
tional dancing / performance communities
of different parts of India, who were facing
5� Rules for Licensing and Controiling Places of Public Amusement (other than Cinemas) and performances for
Public Amusement including Melas and Thamashas. 1960.
a decline in patronage of their age-old
profession, flocked to Mumbai (and later
to the smaller cities) to work in dance bars.
These women from traditional communities
have been victims of the conflicting forces
of modernization. Women are the primary
breadwinners in these communities. But
after the Zamindari system introduced by the
British was abolished, they lost their zamindar
patrons and were reduced to penury. Even
the few developmental schemes and welfare
policies of the government bypassed many
of these communities. From their villages,
many moved to cities, towns and along
national highways in search of a livelihood.
The dance bars provided women from these
communities an opportunity to adapt their
strategies to suit the demands of the new
economy.
Apart from these traditional dancing
communities, women from other poor
communities also began to seek work in
these bars as dancers. These women are
mainly daughters of mill workers. With
the sole earner having lost his job after the
closure of the textile mills, young girls with
more supple bodies and the sex appeal of
their youth entered the job market to support
their families. Similarly endowed women
Session 7
who had worked as domestic maids, or in
other exploitative conditions as piece-rate
workers, or as door to door sales girls, as well
as women workers who had been retrenched
from factories and the industrial units, also
found work in dance bars. For children of
sex workers, dancing in bars provided an
opportunity to escape from the exploitative
conditions of brothel prostitution in which
their mothers had been trapped.
The majority of bar dancers were single
women, sole breadwinners of their families.
A99
 While most of these were illiterate, there were
a few who came from an affluent background.
These were young, vivacious women who
enjoyed the thrill of dressing, dancing and
entertaining men. This is not to say that
women from the lower classes did not enjoy
the thrill of dressing, dancing and entertaining
men. On the whole, they were a group of
confident women who could negotiate their
sexuality and sex appeal to their advantage in
the globalised economy of the megha city.
iii. Tax Revenue and Police
Raids
Paucity of jobs in other sectors, and the boost
given by the Maharashtra government to the
active promotion of liquor sales led to the
proliferation of dance bars. Each ruling power
provided additional boost to this industry.
The maximum gain to the State Government
was the 20 per cent sale tax on liquor. As
the liquor sales increased, so did the coffers
of the bar owners and the revenue for the
state. But while the business of dance bars
flourished in the State, until 200 I, the State
administration did not frame any rules to
regulate the performances. 6
The official charge for police protection was
a mere Rs 25 per night and the stipulated
period for closing the bars was 12.30 am. But
in this Hafta Raj most bars remained open
till the wee hours of morning. Only when the
haftas (bribes) did not reach the officials in
time would the bars be raided. The grounds
for raiding the bars were:
(a) the owner had violated the license terms
by keeping the place open beyond 12.30 am;
6 The bar owners functioned under regular licenses issued to restaurants and bars. They paid Rs.55, 000 per
month for the various permits and licenses to the Muncipal Corporation. They also paid an annual excise fee
ofRs.80 000. In addition the bar owners also pay Rs.30,OOO per month to the Collector by way of “entertainment fee”.
7 This is a slang word for corrupt state administration.
A100 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
(b) the dance bar caused “annoyance”
through obscene and vulgar display under
S.294 of the IPC; and
(c) causing a public nuisance under Section
110 of the Bombay Police Act.
After a raid licenses were sometimes either
suspended or revoked. But the bar owners
say that the government always came to
their rescue. They could approach the Home
Department for cancellation of the suspension
orders issued by the police or for getting the
revoked licenses re-issued. All this for a fee!
But something went wrong in late 1998.
A large number of bars were raised. The
State Government also declared a hike of
300 percent in the annual excise fee, raising
it from Rs.80,000 to Rs.240,000. It was at
this point that the bar owners decided to
organize themselves. Around 400 bar owners
responded to a call given by one Mr. Manjeet
Singh Sethi; later they formed an association
called, ‘Fight for the Rights of Bar Owners
Association’ which organised an impressive
rally on 19th February 1999.
In order to work out a compromise,
the Association approached the then
Commissioner of Police (CP), assured him of
their cooperation, and sought his intervention
to end the Hafta Raj 7 They claim that they had
evolved an internal monitoring mechanism
to ensure that all bars abide by the stipulated
time for closing down. But the local police
stations were most unhappy at their potential
loss of bribes. They tried to break the unity
among the members of the Association. The
police benefit when bar owners violate the
rules and consequently pay regular haftas.8
Over a. period the regular haftas paid by
each bar owner to the police increased and
just before the recent ban, each bar owner
allegedly pays Rs.75,000 per month to the
Deputy Police Commissioner (DCP) of their
zone. The money then trickles down the police
ladder from the DCP to the lowest ranking
constable in pre-determined proportions.
The right-wing BJP-Sena alliance lost the
1999 Assembly elections and there was a
change of regime. The Association started
fresh negotiations with the ruling Congress-
­National Congress Party (NCP). They greased
the palms of high ranking politicians to
extend the timings from 12.30 am to 3.30
am. so that there would be no need to pay
regular haftas for this particular violation ..
After much negotiation, on 3rd January 2001,
the first ever regulation regarding dance bars
came through a .government notification.
The bars were granted permission to keep
their places open till 1.30 am. But somewhere
the negotiations backfired, or perhaps the
right palms were not sufficiently greased. The
government decided to increase the police
protection charges from Rs.25 to Rs.1500 per
day per dance floor. The angry bar owners
held rallies and approached the courts. Due
to court intervention, the hiked fees were
brought down to Rs.500 per night.
Bar owners claim that the police raids
increased after a Nationalist Congress Party
(NCP) worker was beaten up by a security
guard, outside a bar, late at night in February,
2004. Following this, 52 bars were raided
in February, and 62 in March 2004. The bar
owners alleged that the raids are politically
motivated and were connected to the
forthcoming State Assembly elections. The
CP denied these charges and accused the bar
owners of indulging in trafficking of minors.
8 � Bribes
The bar owners approached the High Courts
and several FIRs filed by the police were
quashed. Again in July 30 bars were raided.
This time, the bar owners filed a Writ Petition in
the Bombay High Court and sought protection
against constant police harassment. They
also organized a huge rally at Azad Maidan
on 20th August 2004. An important feature of
this rally was the emergence of the bar girls’
union on this public platform.
iv. Women Activists and
Differing Perceptions
The mushrooming of an entire industry called
the ‘dance bars’ had escaped the notice of
the women’s movement in the city despite
the fact that several groups and NGOs had
been working on issues such as domestic
violence, dowry harassment, rape and sexual
harassment. Everyone in Mumbai was
aware that there are some exclusive ‘ladies
bars’. But usually women, especially those
unaccompanied by men, are stopped at the
entrance. Occasionally, when a bar dancer
was raped and/or murdered, women’s groups
had participated in protest rallies organized
by local groups, more as an issue of violence
against women than as a specific engagement
with the day to day problems of bar dancers.
Session 7
The 20th August rally in which thousands of
bar dancers had participated received wide
media publicity. The newspapers reported
that there are about 75,000 bar girls. Soon
thereafter, Ms. Varsha Kale, the President of
the Bar Girls Union approached us the legal
center of Majlis) to represent them through
an ‘Intervener Application’ in the Writ Petition
filed by the bar owners. Varsha is not a bar
dancer, she was part of a women’s group in
Dombvili (in the Central suburbs of Mumbai),
which had left leanings.
A101
 During the discussion with the bar dancers, it
emerged that while for the bar owners it was
a question of business losses, for the bar girls
it was an issue of human dignity and right to
livelihood. When the bars are raided, it is the
girls who are arrested, but the owners are let
off. During the raids the police molest them,
tear their clothes, and abuse them in filthy
language. At times, the girls are retained in
the police station for the whole night and
subjected to further indignities. But in the
litigation, their concerns were not reflected.
It is essential that they be heard and they
become part of the negotiations with the State
regarding the code of conduct to be followed
during the raids.
As far as the abuse of power by the police was
concerned, we were clear. But what about the
vulgar and obscene display of the female body
for the pleasure of drunken male customers,
which was promoted by the bar owners with
the sole intention of jacking up their profits?
It is here that I lacked clarity. I had been part
of the women’s movement that has protested
against fashion parades and beauty contests
and semi-nude depiction of women in Hindi
films. But the younger lawyers within Majlis
had a different perspective. They belonged to
a later generation which had come to terms
with fashion parades, female sexuality and
erotica.
Finally after much discussion, we decided to
take on the challenge and represent the bar
girls’ union in the litigation. We invited some
of the girls who had been molested to meet
with us. Around 35 to 40 girls turned up. We
talked to them at length. We also decided to
visit some bars. ,This was my first ‘visit to a
dance bar. Though I was uncomfortable in
an environment of palpable erotica, I realized
that there is a substantial difference between
a bar and a brothel. An NGO, Prerana, which
works on anti-trafficking issues, had filed an
A102 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
intervenor application, alleging the contrary
- that bars are in fact brothels and that they
are dens of prostitution where minors are
trafficked. While the police had raided the
bars on the ground of obscenity, the Prerana
intervention added a new twist to the litigation
because they submitted that regular police
raids are essential for controlling trafficking
and for rescuing minors. The fact that the
police had not abided by the strict guidelines
in anti-trafficking laws and had molested the
women did not seem to matter to them.
Opposing a fellow organisation with which I
had a long association was not easy. Prerana
had been working with sex workers and had
started an innovative project of night creches
for children of sex workers in Kamathipura
way back in 1986-7. I had conducted several
legal workshops with sex workers to explain
to them their basic legal rights. During these
workshops the main concerns for the sex
workers was police harassment and arbitrary
arrests. I viewed my intervention on behalf
of bar girls as an extension of the work I had
done with Prerana. But members of Prerana
felt otherwise. At times, after the court
proceedings, we ended up being extremely
confrontational and emotionally charged,
with Prerana representatives accusing us of
legitimizing trafficking by bar owners and us
retaliating by accusing them of acting at the
behest of the police.
V. Under Garb of Morality
From September 2004 to March 2005, the case
went through the usual delays. In March, when
the case came up for arguments, the lawyer
[or the Bar Owners produced an affidavit by
the complainant, upon whose complaint the
police had conducted the raids. The same
person had filed the complaint against nine
bars in one night. The police themselves
admitted that he was a ‘professional’ pancha
(police witness). The second person who had
filed the complaint was a petty criminal. In
the affidavit produced by the bar owners, the
professional pancha stated that he was not
present at any of the bars against whom he
had filed the complaints and the complaints
were filed at the behest of the police.
This rocked the boat for the police and invited
the wrath of the judges against them. They
were asked to file an affidavit explaining
this new development. This turned out to be
the last day of the court hearing. Before the
next date, the Deputy Chief Minister (DCM)
who also happens to be the Home Minister,
Shri R.R. Patil had already announced the
ban. So in view of this, according to the
police prosecutor, the case had become
infructuous.
Rather ironically, just around the time when
the DCM’s announcement regarding the
dance bar ban was making headlines, the
Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court gave
a ruling on the issue of obscenity in dance
bars. While according to the Home Minister
the dances in bars are obscene and have a
morally corrupting influence on society, the
High Court held that dances in bars do not
come within the ambit of S.294 of the IPC.
The police had conducted raids on a dance bar
in Nagpur and initiated criminal proceedings
against the owners as well as the dancers on
grounds of obscenity and irru110rality. The
bar owners had approached the High Court
for quashing the proceedings on the ground
that the raids were conducted with a malafide
intention by two IPS officers who had a grudge
against them .. In his affidavit filed before the
High Court, the Joint Commissioner of Police,
Nagpur stated as follows: “It is found that
certain girls were dancing on the floor and
were making indecent gestures. The girls
were mingling with the customers, touching
their bodies, and the customers were paying
money to them.”
On 4th April, 2005, Justice A. H. Joshi presiding
over the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High
Court quashed the criminal proceedings
initiated by the Police on the ground that the
case made out by the police does not attract
the ingredients of S.294 of the IPC. S. 294 is
attracted only when annoyance is caused
to another, due to obscene acts in a public
place. The court held that the affidavit filed
by the Joint Commissioner of Police did not
reveal that annoyance was caused to him
personally or to any other viewer due to the
alleged obscene dancing.
This ruling followed several earlier decisions
by the Bombay High Court, which had
addressed the issue of obscenity in dance
bars. One of the earliest rulings on this
issue is by Justice Vaidhya in the State of
Maharashtra v Joyce Zee alias Temiko in 1978
where the court examined whether cabaret
shows constitute obscenity. The police had
conducted raids in Blue Nile and had filed a
case against a Chinese cabaret artist, Temiko,
on grounds of obscenity.
While dismissing the appeal filed by the state,
Session 7
the Bombay High Court held as follows:
“An adult person, who pays and attends a
cabaret show in a hotel runs the risk of being
annoyed by the obscenity ... “ Interestingly,
prior to the raid, the policemen had sat
through the performance and enjoyed the
same. Only when the show was complete did
they venture to arrest the dancer. The court
posed a relevant question - when and how
was annoyance caused to the police, who had
gone in to witness a cabaret performance?
Regarding notions of morality and obscenity,
the judge commented: “A cabaret performance
mayor may not be obscene according to the
A103
 time, place, circumstances and the age, tastes
and attitude of the people before whom such
a dance is performed.”
vi. Out of the Closet - Into the
Public Domain
The DCM’s statement announcing the ban
was followed by unprecedented media glare
and we found ourselves in the centre of the
controversy as lawyers representing the bar
girls’ union. The controversy had all the right
ingredients - titillating sexuality, a hint of
the underworld, a faintly visible crack in the
ruling Congress-NCP alliance, and polarized
positions among social activists. Ironically,
the entire controversy and the media
glare helped to bring the bar girl out of her
closeted existence. It made the dance bars
more transparent and accessible to women
activists.
The controversy was not of our own making
but we could not retract now. We threw in
our lot with that of the bar girls’ union. The
bar girls petitioned to the Chief Minister, the
National and State Women’s Commissions,
Commissions for Backward Castes, Scheduled
Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the Human
Rights Commissions, and the Governor, Shri
S. M Krishna. We even met Sonia Gandhi,
the Congress President and sought her
intervention. Other women’s groups joined in
and issued a statement opposing the ban.
An equal or even greater number of NGOs and
social activists issued statements supporting
the ban. The child-right’s and anti-trafficking
groups led by Prerana issued a congratulatory
message to the DCM and claimed that they
had won. Then women members of the NCP
came on the street brandishing the banner
of depraved morality. The Socialists and
Gandhians joined them with endorsements
from stalwarts of the women’s movement like
A104 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
Mrinal Gore and Ahilya Rangnekar to aid them.
These statements had the blessings of a retired
High Court judge - Justice Dharmadhikari.
Paid advertisements appeared in newspapers
and signature campaigns were held at railway
stations. ‘Sweety and Savithri - who will you
choose?’ goaded the leaflets distributed door
to door, along with the morning newspaper.
The term Savithri, denoted the traditional
pativrata ,an ideal for Indian womanhood,
while Sweety denoted the woman of easy
virtue, the wrecker of middle class homes.
Suddenly the dancer from the city’s sleazy
bars and shadowy existence had spilled over
into the public domain. Her photographs
were splashed across the tabloids and
television screens. She had become the topic
of conversation at street corners and market
places; in ladies compartments of local trains
and at dinner tables in middle class homes.
Every one had an opinion and a strong one
at that. In her favour, or, more likely, against
her. Saint or sinner ... worker or whore ...
spinner of easy money and wrecker of homes
or victim of patriarchal structures and market
economy? The debate on sexual morality and
debasement of metropolitan Mumbai seemed
to be revolving around her existence (or non-
existence ).
Interestingly, the Gandhians seemed to be
only against the dancers and not against
the bars that have proliferated. Nor have
they done much to oppose the liquor policy
of the State, which had encouraged bar
dancing. The anti-trafficking groups who
had been working in the red light districts
had not succeeded in making a dent in child
trafficking in brothels that continue to thrive.
But in this controversy, brothel prostitution
and trafficking of minors had been relegated
to the sidelines. The sex worker was viewed
with more compassion than the bar dancer,
who mayor may not resort to sex work.
The bar dancer was made out to be the cause
of all social evils and depravity. Even the
blame for the Telgi scam was laid at her door;
the news story that Telgi spent Rs.9,300,000
on a bar dancer in one night was cited as
an example of their pernicious influence.
The criminal means through which Telgi
amassed wealth faded into oblivion in the
fury of the controversy. Was it her earning
capacity, the legitimacy awarded to her
profession, and the higher status she enjoyed
in comparison to a sex worker that invited
the fury from the middle class Maharashtrian
moralists?
vii. Hypocritical Morality
While the proposed ban adversely impacted
the bar owners and bar dancers from the
lower economic rungs, the state proposed
an exemption to hotels which hold three
or more “stars”, or clubs and gymkhanas.
Those of us who opposed the ban raised
some uncomfortable questions: “Could the
State impose arbitrary and varying standards
of vulgarity, indecency and obscenity for
different sections of society or classes of
people? If an ‘item number’ of a Hindi film
can be screened in public theatres, then
how can an imitation of the same be tenned
as ‘vulgar’? The bar dancers imitate what
they see in Indian films, television serials.
fashion shows and advertisements. All these
industries use women’s bodies for commercial
gain. There is sexual exploitation of women
in these and many other industries. But no
one has ever suggested that you close down
an entire industry because there is sexual
exploitation of women! Bars employ women
as waitresses and the proposed ban would
not affect this category. Waitresses mingle
with the customers more than the dancers
who are confined to the dance floor. If the
anti­trafficking laws had not succeeded in
preventing trafficking, how could the ban on
bar dancing prevent trafficking? And if certain
bars were functioning as brothels, why were
the licenses issued to them not revoked?”
These were several contradictions and
hypocracies in the stand adopted by the ruling
party and the pro-ban lobby but no one was
willing to listen.
While the hue and cry about the morality
of dance bars was raging, in Sangli district,
the home constituency of the DCM, a
dance performance titled, ‘Temptation’ by
Isha Kopikar, the hot selling ‘item girl’ of
Bollywood, was being organized to raise
money for the Police Welfare Fund. The bar
girls flocked to Sangli to hold a protest march.
This received even more publicity than the
performance by Isha Kopikar who, due to the
adverse publicity, was compelled to dress
modestly and could not perform in her usual
flamboyant style. The disappointed public felt
it was more value for their money to see the
protest of the bar girls than to witness a lack
luster performance by the ‘item girl’. And the
bar girls raised a pertinent question, whether
different rules of morality apply to the police
and the Home Minister.
All this was heady news for the television
Session 7
channels and the tabloids. From April to July,
2005, the city was abuzz with the dance bar
ban controversy. In June the State tried to
bring in the ban through an Ordinance. But to
everyone’s surprise, the Governor Shri S.M.
Krishna returned the Ordinance and insisted
that the ruling party should introduce a Bill
in the State Legislature. The pro-ban lobby
raised a stink and accused him of taking
bribe from the bar owners, majority of whom
come from the Southern State of Karnataka
and from the beer baron Vijay Malya, who
also hails from Karnataka. Interestingly,
before being appointed as the Governor of
Maharashtra, Shri S.M. Krishna was the Chief
A105
 Minister of Kamataka and he was accused of
safeguarding the Kannadiga interests.
viii. Legislative Conspiracy
Finally a Bill was drafted and presented to
the Assembly. It was an amendment to the
Bombay Police Act, 1951 by inserting certain
additional sections. On July 21, 2005, the
Bill was passed at the end of a, ‘marathon
debate’. Since the demand for the ban was
shrouded with the mantle of sexual morality,
it was passed unanimously. The debate was
marathon not because there was opposition,
but every legislature wanted to prove his moral
credentials. No legislator would risk sticking
his neck out to defend a lowly bar dancer
and tarnish his own image. In the visitors
gallery, we were far outnumbered by the pro-
ban lobby, the ‘Dance Bar Virodhi Manch’,
who had submitted 150,000 signatures to the
Maharashtra state assembly insisting on the
closure of dance bars.
It was a sad day for some of us, a paltry group
of women activists, who had supported the
bar dancers and opposed the ban. We were
sad, not because we were outnumbered,
not even because the Bill was passed
unanimously, But because of the manner in
which an important issue relating to women’s
livelihood, which would render thousands of
women destitute, was discussed. We were
shocked at the derogatory comments that
were passed on the floor of the House, by our
elected representatives, who are under the
constitutional mandate to protect the dignity
of women! Not just the bar dancers but even
those who spoke out in their defense became
the butt of ridicule during the Assembly
discussions.
One of the comments was aimed at us. ‘these
women who are opposing the ban, we will
make their mothers dance .... ‘(The comments
A106 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
have to be translated into Marathi to gauge
its impact.) During the campaign we had been
asked, ‘will you send your daughter to dance
in a bar?’ But on the floor of the House, the
situation had regressed, from our daughters
to our mothers! Isha Koppikar ... she is an
atom bomb, attttom bomb ... laughter and
cheer ... the dancers wear only 20% clothes ...
more laughter and cheering these women
who dance naked (nanga nach), they don’t
deserve any sympathy A round of applause.
An esteemed member narrated an incident
of his friend’s daughter who had committed
suicide because she did not get a job. He said
it was more dignified to commit suicide than
dance in bars. And the house applauded!
Yet another congratulated the Deputy Chief
Minister, Shri R. R. Patil, for taking this bold
and revolutionary (krantikari) step but this
was not enough. Hotels with three stars ... five
stars ... disco dancing belly dancing ... all that
is vulgar ... every thing should be banned, he
urged.
Another esteemed member was anecdotal.
He had gone to dinner with a friend to a
posh restaurant in South Mumbai which
has a live orchestra. Not a dance bar - he
clarified. But women there were dressed in
an even more obscene manner than the bar
dancers. [Comments .. why had you gone
there? (laughter) ... was it part of a study
tour? (more laughter»). When licenses were
given to bars, the understanding was that it
would promote art - performing art. But what
actually happens is vulgar dancing. A total
destruction of our culture. Belly dancing in
five star hotels is also vulgar. That should be
stopped too. This Bill deals with the dignity of
women. So all dancing except bharat natyam
and kathak should be banned. Schools and
colleges are full of vulgarity. We need a dress
code for schools and colleges. The bill needs
to be made more effective so that it can deal
with issues like MMS and pornography.
Then there were comments about films -
western ... English ... Tamil - all are obscene,
they argued. But not a word about Hindi and
Marathi films. That is ‘amchi Mumbai, amchi
Marathi’, I guess!
Then another esteemed member commented,
‘we are not Taliban but somewhere we have
to put a stop. The moral policing we do, it is
a good thing, but it is not enough ... we need
to do even more of this moral policing . .’
Suddenly the term ‘moral policing’ had been
turned into a hallowed phrase!
These comments were not from the ruling
party members who had tabled the bill. They
were from the opposition. Their traditional role
is to criticize the bill, to puncture holes in it, to
counter the argument, to present a counter
viewpoint. But on that day, the House was
united, across party lines and all were playing
to the gallery with their moral one-upmanship.
No one wanted to be left out. Not even the
Shiv Sena whose party high commandis
linked to a couple of dance brs in the city,
supported the ban on ‘moral’ grounds. And
the Marxists were one with the Shiv Sainiks.
The speech by the CPI(M) member, Narsayya
Adam, was more scathing, than the rest. He
went to the extent of casting aspersions on
the Governor for returning the bill. To return
a bill passed by the cabinet is an insult to the
Maharashtra State, he declared. The women
members, though a small minority, happily
cheered the barrage against bar dancers.
It was a moral victory to the Deputy Chief
Minister (DCM), Shri R. R.Patil. In his first
announcement in the last week of March,
2005, he had said that only bars outside
Mumbai will be banned. A week later, came
the next announcement. The state shall not
discriminate! All bars, including the ones
in Mumbai, would be banned. What had
transpired in the intervening period one does
not know. But what was deemed as moral,
legal and legitimate, suddenly a week later,
came to be regarded as immoral, vulgar and
obscene.
At this time, the idea of a ban did not go
down well even with NCP MLAs, let alone
others. It took more than two months to
get the Ordinance drafted and approved by
the cabinet. Finally when it was sent to the
Governor, he had returned it on technical
grounds. By then it was mid-June. But
even thereafter, the Congress Party Chief in
Maharashtra stated that the Congress Party
had not discussed the ban. In fact the media
hinted that this indicated a rift within the
ruling alliance over the dance bar issue.
But gradually everything got ironed out. Not
only the ruling alliance was cemented but
even the opposition had been won over.
Rarely does a bill gets passed without even a
whimper of protest. But this bill was showered
with accolades. Even the Shiv Sena whose
party high command is linked to a couple
of dance bars in the city, supported the ban.
All had done their bit in this endeavoour of
‘protecting the dignity of women’.
Session 7
The ‘morality’ issue had won. The ‘livelihood’
issue had lost. It was indeed shocking that
in this era of liberalization and globalization
dominated by market forces, morality had
superceded all other concerns, even of
revenue for the cash-strapped state.
The demand for the ban was grounded on
two premises which were contradictory to
each other. The first - that the bar dancers are
evil and immoral, they corrupt the youth and
wreck middle class homes; they hanker after
easy money and amass a fortune each night
by goading innocent and gullible young men
A107
 into sex and sleaze. The second - that bars in
fact are brothels and bar owners are traffickers
who sexually exploit the girls for commercial
gains. This premise refused to grant an agency
to the women dancers. Rather unfortunately,.
both these populist premises appealed to
the parochial, middle class Maharashtrian
sense of morality. What was even worse,
the demand for a ban was framed within the
language of ‘women’s liberation’ and the
economic disempowerment of this vulnerable
class of women came to be projected as a
plank which would liberate them from sexual
bondage.
On August 14 , 2005, at the midnight hour, as
th
the music blared in bars packed to capacity
in and around the city of Mumbai, the disco
lights were turned off and the dancers took
their final bow and faded into oblivion.
Some left the city in search of options, others
fell by the wayside. Some became homeless.
Some let their ailing parents die. Some pulled
their children out of school. Some were
battered and bruised by drunken husbands
as they could not bring in the money to make.
ends meet. Some put their pre-teen daughters
out for sale in the flesh market. And some
committed suicides ... just names in police
diaries ... Meena Raju... Bilquis Shahu ... Kajol
... In the intervening months there were more
to follow. A few stuck on and begged for work
as waitresses in the same bars.
The exit of the dancer brought the dance bar
industry to a grinding halt. Devoid of glamour
and fanfare, the profit margins plummeted
and many bars closed down. Few others
braved the storm and worked around the ban
by transforming themselves into ‘silent bars’
or ‘pick up points’ - slang used for the sex
trade industry. Left with few options, women
9� Para 49 at page 130
A108 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
accepted the paltry sums thrown at them
by customers, to make ends meet. Groups
working for prevention of HIV / AIDS rang a
warning bell at the increasing number of girls
turning up for STD check ups.
ix. Malafide Motives
Why was the dance bar ban struck down?
To understand this, first we must examine
the Statement of Objects and Reasons (SOR)
of the amendment. The SOR claimed the
following:
• The dancer performances in eating houses,
permit rooms and beer bars are indecent,
obscene or vulgar
• The performances are giving rise to
exploitation of women.
• Several complaints regarding the manner
of holding such dance performances.
• The Government considers that the perform-
ance of dances in an indecent manner is
derogatory to the dignity of women and is
likely to deprave, corrupt or injure the public
morality or morals.
The court overruled each of these reasons
stated by the government on the ground
that there is no rational nexus between the
amendment and its aims and objectives.
Some relevant comments from the judgement
are summarized below:
“Entry into bars is restricted to an adult
audience and is voluntary. The test, therefore
would be whether the dances can be said to
have a tendency to deprave and corrupt this
audience. The test of obscenity and vulgarity
has to be judged from the standards of adult
persons who voluntarily visit these bars.” 9
“If the dances which are permitted in
the exempted establishments are also
permitted in the banned establishments
then, considering the stand of the State, they
should not be derogatory to women and on
account of exploitation of women and are
unlikely to deprave or corrupt public morals.
The expression western classical or Indian
classical which are used by the State in the
affidavit is of no consequence, as the Act and
the rules recognize no such distinction. All
applicants for a performance licence have to
meet the same requirements and are subject
to the same restrictions .... If the test is now
applied as to whether the classification has a
nexus with the object, we are clearly of the
opinion that there is no nexus whatsoever
with the object.” 10
“Dancing is one of the earliest form of
human expression and recognised by the
Apex Court as a fundamental right. If it is
sought to be contended that a particular
form of dance performed by a particular
class of dancers is immoral or obscene
that by itself cannot be a test to hold that
the activity is res extra commercium It can
never be inherently pernicious or invariably
or inevitably pernicious. If the notions of the
State as to the dancing are to be accepted
we would have reached a stage where
skimpy dressing and belly gyrations which
today is the Bollywood norm for dance,
will have to be banned as inherently or
invariably pernicious. We think as a nation
we have outgrown that, considering our past
approach to dancing, whether displayed as
sculpture on monuments or in its real form.
Dancing of any type, if it becomes obscene
or immoral, can he prohibited or restricted.
Dancing however would continue to be a
part of the funda-mental right of expression,
occupation or profession protected by our
Constitution.”11
10� Para 52 at page 135
11� Para 58 at page.155
“The right to dance has been recognized by
the Apex Court as part of the fundamental
right of speech and expression. If that be so,
it will be open to a citizen to commercially
benefit from the exercise of the fundamental
right. This could be by a bar owner having
dance performance or by bar dancers
themselves using their creative talent to
carryon an occupation or profession. In other
words, using their skills to make a living ....
“Does the material relied upon by the state
make out a case, that the manner of conducting
places having bar dances, constitute a threat
to public order. The case of the State ... can be
summarized as: “Complaints were received
by wives relating to illicit relationship with bar
dancers.” This by itself cannot amount to a
threat to public order considering the number
of complaints which the State has produced
on record .....
“The bar girls had to suffer commercial
exploitation and were forced into a situation
that used to leave them with no other option
than to continue in the indecent sector. It is
true that there is material on record to show
that many of those who perform dance in
these bars are young girls, a large section
being less than 21 years of age and with only
a primary education. Can that by itself be a
Session 7
ground to hold that they constitute a threat
to public order? Can a girl who may be semi-
literate or even illiterate who may be beautiful,
knows to dance or tries to dance prohibited
from earning a better livelihood or should
such a girl, because of poverty and want of
literacy, be condemned to a life of only doing
menial jobs? “
“It is normal in the hospitality and tourist
related industries to engage young girls.
Inability of the State to provide employment
A109
 or to take care of those women who had to
take to the profession of dancing on account
of being widowed, or failed marriages or
poverty at home and / or the like cannot result
in holding that their working for a livelihood
by itself constitutes a threat to public order.
There is no sufficient data to show that the
women were forced into that profession and
had no choice to leave it.”
“It is then set out that in or around places
where there are dance bars there are more
instances of murder, firing, thefts, chain
snatches and that public in general and
women in the locality feel unsafe. In what
manner dancing by women in dance bars
results in increase in crime which would
constitute a threat to public order. Inebriated
men, whether in dance bars or other bars are
a know source of nuisance. The State has not
cancelled the liquor permits to remove the
basic cause of the problem. Maintenance of
law and order is the duty of the State. If drunk
men fight or involve themselves in criminal
activity, it cannot result in denying livelihood
to those who make a living out of dance. It is
not the case of the State that apart from these
places, in the rest of the State the same kind
of offences do not take place.”
“The state has produced record that 17403
cases have been registered under section 110
of the Bombay Police Act. These are cases of
incidents within the establishments and at the
highest have been committed in front of an
audience who have taken no objection to the
dresses worn by the dancers or the kind of
dancing. The public at large are not directly
involved. A learned Judge of this Court,
Justice Srikrishna, (as he then was) in Girija
Timappa Shetty vs. Assiatant Commissioner
of Police, 1977 (1) All M.R. 256, has taken note
of the fact that in order to inflate the figures,
12� Para 83 pages 222-225
A110 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
the police would register separate case against
every customer and employee present. Even
otherwise we are unable to understand
as to how, if there is a breach of rule by an
establishment, that would constitute a threat
to public order. An illustration has been given
of one Tarannum as having links with the
underworld. At the time of hearing of this
petition the police had not even filed a charge
sheet. Even otherwise a solitary case cannot
constitute a threat to public order.”
“It has also been pointed out that the
Legislature has noted that the dance bars
are used as meeting places for criminals.
This defies logic, as to why criminals should
meet at the dance bars where they could
easily be noted by the police. Criminals, we
presume, meet secretly or stealthily to avoid
the police unless they are confident that they
can meet openly as the law enforcement itself
has collapsed or they have friends amongst
the enforcement officers. Even otherwise,
how does a mere meeting of persons who
are charged or accused for criminal offence
constitute a threat to public order? Do not
they meet in other places? It is then pointed
out that the nature of business of dance bar is
such that it is safe for criminals and immoral
activities and this constitutes a serious threat
to public order.”
“It was on the State to show that the dance
bars were being conducted in the manner
which was a threat to public order. The bars
continue to operate with all activities except
dancing. The State has been unable to
establish a nexus between dancing and threat
to public order.” 12
“It was pointed out that though the State has
initiated action under Section 294 of I.P.C. it
was not possible to secure a conviction as the
State had to prove obscenity and annoyance
to customers. This by itself would indicate that
the dance performance inside the premises
are not obscene or immoral as to cause
annoyance amongst those who gathered to
watch the performance. How that could cause
annoyance to those who do not watch it or
affect public order is not understood. It is like
saying that watching a Hindi movie which has
dance sequence and the dancers are skimpily
dressed, would result in affecting public
order……
“It is then submitted that though the Police
were prompt in taking action under the
prevailing enactments, the accused being
successful in getting around the law and
continued to indulge in the same activities
again. Failure of the police to secure a
conviction cannot be a valid ground to impose
a restriction on fundamental rights. The
pronouncement of this Court under Section
294 would be the law. How then can the State
still insist that the performance of dance was
obscene or vulgar and caused annoyance to
the public?” 13
x. Constructing the Sexual
Subject
A glaring discrepancy in the arguments
advanced by the State was in the realm of the
agency of this sexual woman. At one level
the State and the pro-ban lobby advanced an
argument that the dancers are evil women,
who come to the bars to earn ‘easy money’
and corrupt the morals of the society by
luring and enticing young and gullible men.
This argument granted an agency to women
dancers. But after the ban, the government
tried to justify the ban on the ground of
trafficking and argued that these women lack
13� Para 84 at page 232
14 Para 86 at page 235
an agency and need State intervention to free
them from this world of sexual depravity in
which they are trapped.
Refuting the argument of trafficking, the
Court commented: “no material has been
brought on record from those cases that the
women working in the bars were forced or
lured into working in the bars. The statement
of Objects and Reasons does not so indicate
this .... To support the charge of trafficking
in order to prohibit or restrict the exercise
of a fundamental right, the State had to
place reliable material which was available
when the amending Act was enacted or even
thereafter to justify it. A Constitutional Court
in considering an act directly affecting the
fundamental rights of citizens, has to look
beyond narrow confines to ensure protection
of those rights. In answer to the call attention
Motion, an admission was made by the Home
Minister and it is also stated in the Statement
of Objects and Reasons that young girls were
going to the dance bars because of the easy
money they earned and that resulted also in
immoral activities. There was no mention of
trafficking.” 14
Rather ironically the anti-ban lobby also
framed its arguments within this accepted
Session 7
‘victim’ mould. Single mothers, traditional
dancers with no other options Further, it was
important for the anti-ban lobby to make
a clear distinction between the dancer /
entertainer and the street walker and base the
arguments squarely upon the fundamental
right to dancing. The sexual erotic inherent
in dancing had to be carefully crafted and
squarely located within ‘Indian traditions’ and
the accepted norm of ‘Bollywood gyrations’
and not slip beyond into sexual advances. The
emphasis had to be for a right to livelihood
A111
 only through dancing and not beyond.
During the entire campaign, the world of the
bar dancer beyond these confines lay hidden
from the feminist activists who campaigning
their cause and was carefully guarded by the
bar dancer. Only now and then would it spill
over more as a defiant statement. So while
we were exposed to one aspect of their fives
which had all the problems - of parenting,
poverty, pain and police harassment, we must
admit that this was only a partial projection,
an incomplete picture. We could not enter
the other world in which they are constantly
negotiating their sexuality, the dizzy heights
A112 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
they scale while they dance draped in
gorgeous chiffons studded with sequences,
oozing out female erotica and enticing their
patrons to part with a generous tip.
Did the problem lie with us and the picture that
we wanted to paint for them? Well, perhaps
yes. But for now as the State prepares to file
its appeal in the Supreme Court aided with
the best legal minds in the country to defend
its stand on sexual morality, we would be
content, if we are able to safeguard the
advantages we have gained in the Bombay
High Court.
 Session 8

8.1
LEE, A MUSLIM FEMALE HUSBAND1
Researcher: Bernadet Sinta Situmorang Editor: Saskia Wieringa

In October 2006 I (editor) met Lee and Annisa
last before editing this interview. Lee wore
a Muslim skull cap, Annisa her customary
veil. They were nursing their newly-adopted
baby. As proud parents they showed off their
beautiful daughter to the other members of
the lesbian support group who attended the
party. I gave Lee the present I had bought for
her in Amsterdam, a strap on dildo. The neatly
wrapped box was carefully placed in the seat
bag of Lee’s motorbike when they left. A
happy nuclear family to all appearances.2 As
Lee says, “Annisa is my first and last love.”
Yet the story of Lee and Annisa is exceptional
in many ways. Their happiness has come at a
heavy price and is under constant pressure.
feminine Muslim dress, including a veil. They
are both born (1976) and raised in Sumatera
and have known each other since their high
school days.
Lee feels her mother had hoped for a boy
when she was born. As a kid she always
played boys’ games, like flying kites and
climbing trees. Her parents were loving but
severe, stimulating their children to become
successful entrepreneurs. Lee already earned
her own school fees when she just started
high school. That was around the time her
father died, to whom she had felt very close.
When she was still in elementary school she
was raped by an uncle who used to pick her

Lee has a masculine, neat, slender body. She is
always carefully dressed in men’s clothes, her
close cropped silky black hair often covered
in a skull cap. She is almost inseparable
from her spouse Annisa, who always wears
Session 8
up from school. Since then:
“I hate men, because they are destructive,
you know.”
The trauma is deep and she has long
struggled with her feelings of revenge. Only

1 ���������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
This profile is based on the interviews the researcher held with Lee in 2005. The full interview is included in the
book of interviews edited by Enday Sulistiowati (2006). This version is heavily abridged. Since then the present
editor has met with Lee as well. The additional information is also included here. Wherever the editor has added
information this is indicated in footnotes.
2������������������������������������
Additional information from editor.

A113
 the realisation that she would be heavily
sentenced if she would attack her uncle
restrained her.
When Lee was in senior high school in 1997
she realised she was attracted to Annisa, her
class mate. Initially she had not been drawn
to her, as Annisa wore a veil and acted very
coquettishly. But when she got to know
Annisa better, Lee felt the kind of peace and
affection that her father used to give her.
“How can I be like this? I kept saying to
myself: I like girls, but oh, please, I am a girl
myself. That feeling remained in my heart. I
kept fighting it, every day. Time kept going
on, but those feelings were stronger. …We
were classmates, so when I went home we
would be separated. The morning I would see
her again would then be such a long time off.
I really desired to see her.”
They both tried out boyfriends, but they
realised they only liked each other, though
they didn’t speak about it. Lee even introduced
Annisa to her younger brother:
“During those days, honestly, I didn’t
understand my feelings. I liked her but I
introduced her to my younger brother in order
to be able to meet her often…”
Only when they had already finished their
school did Lee speak about her love to Annisa.
They struck up a long distance relationship as
Lee went out of town to study. It was hard, and
between 1998 and 2000 they separated again.
Lee again tried to have a relationship with
men but she was not in the least attracted to
them. She could feel no more than friendship
for them.
“I just couldn’t feel the chemistry.”
So Lee and Annisa started hanging out together
again and began dating secretly. When their
families found out Lee was severely harassed.
She was beaten up, at times belts were used
A114 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
on her, both by her own mother and other
members of her family as well as by Annisa’s
uncles. They were verbally abused. Lee kept
silent as long as she could. There was nobody
to help them. In the end she rebelled and left
her family. She hasn’t been back since.
They went to Jakarta and Lee set about
changing her status. She managed to get a
new identity card which stated that she is a
man. In their citizenship identity card it says
that Annisa and she are husband and wife,
and that is also how they are regarded by their
surroundings. Lee works at a bank during the
day and always dresses carefully in masculine
clothes, complete with a tie. Everybody calls
her Bapak (sir), or the more familiar mas. As
a good Moslim man Lee joins her colleagues
to the mosque to participate in the Friday’s
prayers. She always goes to the men’s
toilets.
In 2004 Lee decided to go to hospital and try
to get a sex change. Her primary motivation
was for Annisa to have a truly male husband:
“I care so much about my partner…I would
do anything for her.”
She passed the psychological tests. However
later that year she came into contact with
members of the Indonesian Women’s
Coalition which has a support group for
members of sexual minorities. They advised
her not to do it, as a sex change carries with
it many risks. She hesitated:
“The purpose of my life is to make my partner
happy. She wants me to be a man so I must
change my sex…For me it is no problem. As
long as she is happy you know.”
So far Lee has not been operated upon, but
she does take testosterone, and she always
wears a dildo.
When the researcher held her interviews with
the couple, they wanted very much to have
a child. They were worried that Lee couldn’t
make Annisa pregnant. For religious reasons
Annisa only wanted to have a child via regular
intercourse, so finding a sperm donor was out
of the question. Lee was desperate but again
decided to let Annisa’s happiness prevail:
“Unless if I allow my partner to marry another
man…How can an ovum and another ovum
meet to produce a baby? It will break my
heart though. Maybe sooner or later my
sadness will disappear. If possible I can let
her go slowly…”.
But as stated above in the introduction, the
couple overcame this crisis by adopting a
child. Lee is now figuring out a way to produce
a birth certificate that will say that they are the
parents. Both of them feel the child is really
theirs. Annisa was very much involved in the
birth and she has even been lactating and
feeding their baby with her own milk.3
Lee and Annisa are not very active sexually.
Lee feels sexual intercourse is more an
expression of affection, rather than lust.
Tenderness and foreplay are more important.
Lee always uses her dildo and keeps her own
underwear on. Lee stimulates Annisa’s clitoris
but doesn’t want to be touched herself.
“We kiss, but we rarely have intercourse. At
the most once a month. It is not sex so much
that we are looking for. Rather we give each
other attention, affection. It is not that I am
afraid or something. We decided this from the
beginning.”
Their Muslim faith is very important to the
couple. There are strict dress codes for praying
which are different for men and women. Lee
is aware of the story in the Qur’an (and in the
torah and bible as well) in which Luth’s people
are destroyed by God. As most Muslims she
3 ������������������������������������
Additional information from editor.
4 ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
�����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������
Other interpretations stress that it is rather their lack of hospitality and their continued belief in many idols that
is the cause of the destruction.
believes it is their same sex conduct that
attracted God’s wrath.4 Lee is not too worried
about it and lets Allah decide how good a
Muslim she actually is. But she is concerned
about her way of dressing for prayer. Instead
of the male way, with a sarong, she now dons
the feminine mukenah, a long dress which
covers a woman from head to toe:
“Sometimes I think it is not right, lying to
myself, pretending to be someone else. We
cannot lie to God, right? Definitely God will
know... After listening to the preachers in
mosques I started worrying about how to
condone for my sins and to conduct religious
duties in ways that bring me merit.”
Before they came into contact with the lesbian
support group neither Annisa nor Lee were
comfortable with using the word lesbian for
themselves. Lee wanted to be seen as a man
who likes women. Annisa finds that she likes
men, not women and therefore is not a lesbian.
To her Lee is just her man. Initially when they
has just come into contact with members of
the lesbian support group, Lee was amazed
that these women were so comfortable with
the term ‘lesbian’. Since then Annisa started
teasing her and would call her a ‘lesbian’ when
she was angry with her female husband. Lee
would protest: “I am gay!” Recently they have
decided that ‘lesbian’ is a word that probably
describes their relationship best:
“To be honest…we are a lesbian couple, you
know, …impossible to hide..”
Session 8
They are very happy to have found others
like themselves. They realize now they are
not the only ones in Jakarta who live lives
like that. They were alerted to the group
through a newspaper article. After some
detective work Lee found the phone number
A115
 and took up contact with the Indonesian
Women’s Coalition. She is happy to share
her experiences with their new friends and
both have become active members of the
group. Lee realizes there is still a long way
to go before they will all be able to express
their experiences openly in Indonesia. What
causes her most pain at the moment is that
since she left home she has lost contact with
her mother. She doesn’t even know whether
her mother is well. Since she fled the house in
5������������������������������������
�����������������������������������
Additional information from editor.
A116 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT
great distress, she also didn’t have the time to
take her diplomas with her. She is an engineer,
but works now in a bank as she cannot show
her diploma. To supplement their family
income she works at night in a café.
After the party in November 2006 I watch
Annisa and Lee going home on their
bike. Lee carefully manoeuvres it onto the
narrow street, Annisa and their baby perched
behind her.5

10.1
Guide to sexual health and safe sex
Women and girls are particularly at risk
to contract sexually transmitted infections
(STI) or diseases (STD) for both biological
and socio-cultural reasons. In 2006 already
about half of all people who are HIV positive
are women (that means 17.5 million women
worldwide). In Africa 60% of all HIV-infected
persons are women, in Asia that is about
30% and this figure is on the rise. Apart
from HIV/AIDS, there are other STI’s that
can have devastating effects on the lives of
women and girls, such as syphilis, gonorrhoe
and Chlamydia. The following socio-cultural
factors contribute to women’s vulnerability:
Women’s seldom have the power in their
heterosexual relationships to demand that
their partners use safe sex methods or that
they are tested;
As speaking about sexuality is taboo
in many societies, particularly among
women, women and girls receive little
information;
Women are expected to remain passive and
not to be active partners in heterosexual
relationships, their male partners may
suspect them of infidelity if they demand
Annexure for session 10
negotiations on safe sex, or the spacing of
children;
Girls and women who are victims of forced
prostitution, genital mutilation, sexual
abuse, rape, incest of forced marriage, are
particularly at risk;
Women’s generally lower economic status
vis `a vis their male partners puts them in
an unfavorable position in relation to the
sexual demands of their partners;
Cultural taboos may prevent women and
girls from seeking advice or treatment
even when they themselves are aware
they have contracted an STI..
Transmission of STI’s generally occurs
through unsafe sexual practices. Needle
sharing and transmission of untested blood
are other sources of infection of HIV. The virus
can also be contracted from mother to child.
a) The following sexual practices are unsafe:
unprotected vaginal intercourse with hiv
Session 10
infected person;
unprotected anal intercourse with hiv
infected person;
A117
 unprotected oral sex with hiv infected
person ;
any sexual practice that may involve
bleeding with hiv infected person;
b) Factors that increase risk:
contact with menstrual blood
reproductive tract infections
dry sex
female genital mutilation
forced sex, assault, rape, abuse;
c) Other dangerous practices:
needle sharing
transfusion of infected blood
perinatal transmission;
d) The following practices carry some risks:
oral sex on a woman – lips, mouth and
tongue on genitals (riskier if menstrual
blood is taken into the mouth and in the
presence of STD)
oral sex on men – lips, mouth and tongue
on penis (riskier if semen is taken into the
mouth and in the presence of an STD)
oral-anal sex on either partner
urinating into the partner’s mouth or eyes
sharing sexual toys without carefully
cleaning them.
There are various cultural practices that are
unsafe. An example is the practice of sifon, in
Indonesia (see box). All over Asia there are
many more examples of historically rooted
and sanctioned sexual practices which may
carry particular risks of infection with an STD
or with the HIV virus. It is not the purpose
of this manual to encourage people to
suddenly abandon such practices. Rather the
discussion should focus on the conditions
under which these practices are carried out.
The basic principles this manual advocates
are the recognition of gender equality and
of women’s human and sexual rights, and
of sexuality that is based on responsibility,
safety and satisfaction for both partners.
Another issues is to reduce women’s
economic disadvantages.

Sifon: A Dangerous Cultural Practice.

In Flores, East Nusa Tenggara, men undergo genital mutilation just after marriage.
This practice is called ‘sifon’. After a man has had this mutilation, he is supposed to
have sexual intercourse with at least three women, before he is considered to be fully
healed. This is supposed to increase his sexual potency. Men often go to prostitutes,
or they pay poor widows to have the required number of intercourse. This practice
is associated with various magical practices that traditional healers are involved in.
Sometimes women fall under the spell of such a healer and feel themselves to be
compelled to have sex with a man who has just been mutilated. It is believed that
the healer provides a magic spell so no infection with an STD or with the HIV virus
may occur. Men who impregnate a woman after having undergone mutilation are not
responsible for the children that may be the product of their intercourse. The knife
used for sifon is usually not sterilized.

A118 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

The following is a list of safe sex methods: acting out fantasies
using vibrator, sex toy or aid (if shared,
massage clean in between)
masturbating yourself contact with semen, anal or vaginal mucus
masturbating each other, at the same time on unbroken skin.
or separately
licking, kissing, nibbling each other The basis of these skills is mutual respect for
(provided no blood) one another’s feelings. This is not only a basic
hugging and cuddling human right, it is also in line with religious
body-to-body rubbing teachings.

Session 10

A119
 A joint project of the following organizations:

Jagori, a women’s training, documentation, resource and communication centre, was

established in 1984. The main objectives and achievements of Jagori have been consciousness
raising on issues such as violence against women, women’s health rights, right to education
and information, action research, campaigns and feminist training for building leadership at
multiple levels. Jagori has a well established library and a production and distribution centre
with multimedia material including films, feminist music, posters, booklets etc. Jagori works
directly with rural and urban communities to strengthen the capacities of marginalized people
to intervene in development processes. Jagori is part of women’s movement as they derive
strength from each other and for accessing their rights.

APIK ( Asosiasi Perempuan Indonesia untuk Keadilan = Indonesian women Association for
Justice). Founded in 1994 by 7 women lawyers in Jakarta. APIK is working on issue of gender,
sexuality and legal reform. The aim is to create a fair and just legal system in the light of CEDAW
and other Human Rights Conventions. The main programs are to provide legal services to
poor women, public awareness raising, policy studies, training for legal enforcer to strengthen
networks and to work for legal reform & advocacy. APIK has 12 branches throughout Indonesia
and has its own legal entity.

Kartini, the Asian European Network was formally established in Manila in 2003. Kartini
aims to create synergy between women’s/gender studies and feminist activism in the region.
The main objectives of the Network is to strengthen feminist analysis and perspective, work
towards social transformation, justice and equality, forge collaboration between academics
and activists from the region, promote Asian women’s studies and conduct action research and
gender training. Kartini has selected 5 themes as focus area of the network: Women’s/Gender
Studies, Fundamentalism and Globalization, Resistance Against War, Conflict and Violence,
Sexual Rights and Women’s Empowerment, Livelihoods and Securities. Kartini secretariat is
located at APIK, Jakarta, Indonesia

A120 ANNEXURES MANUAL ON SEXUAL RIGHTS & SEXUAL EMPOWERMENT

Abha Bhaiya is one of the founder members of Jagori, a feminist organization set up in
1984 in Delhi. She has been active in women’s movements in India for more than 30 years. She
has been working on a range of issues including women’s social, political and economic rights;
the status of single women; women’s right to health, bodily integrity and well being; sex and
sexualities; against militarization, fundamentalisms; on food securities and livelihoods, and the
increasing erosion of civil rights of the poorest.
Her major contribution has been in the field of feminist training methodologies, with extensive
experience in conducting feminist trainings for multiple constituencies and in many different
countries. Presently, she is coordinating a community-based project in one of the mountainous
areas of North India.

Saskia Eleonora Wieringa is the Director of the International Information

Centre and Archives for the Women’s Movement, Amsterdam, and a Professor at the University of
Amsterdam, holding the chair of Gender and Women’s Same- Sex Relations Crossculturally.
She carries the rich experience of activism as part of the women’s, lesbian and third-world
solidarity movements. Since the mid-1970s, she has co-founded several women’s groups, mainly
in the area of women’s studies and has co-founded a journal. She has been teaching at various
universities, both in The Netherlands and abroad, mainly on issues of women’s/gender studies and
sexuality studies. She has published widely on the above topics.