Silenced Voices and the Desire for Acceptance: A Study of Selected Essays on Queer Relationships

Background

India has had several descriptions of same-sex desire within its history and mythology. In Infinite History: A History of Desire in India, Madhavi Menon posits that the open expression of intimacy is a known fact within the history of desire in India. There exists the paradox of India being advanced enough to accept men holding hands and women sleeping together and yet, remaining hugely fearful of imagining individuals of the same sex performing coitus with one another (M. Menon, 2018, p. 53). However, non-heteronormative desire seeps through the cracks of history. In Seeing Like a Feminist, Nivedita Menon argues that intolerance and criminalisation of same-sex activity arose after the legal enforcement of heteronormativity by the British in the nineteenth century (p. 95). The state and society persecuted individuals who did not conform to heterosexual standards. However, depictions of same-sex love have existed in various forms within the Indian context. In love’s rite: Same Sex Marriage in India and the West, Ruth Vanita posits that there are historical precedents for same-sex marriages, both in India and the West (p. 1). Vanita argues that a union cannot be classified as legitimate or illegitimate by state recognition alone. It is possible to validate a marriage through mutual recognition from family and community, albeit in an extra-legal manner (Vanita, 2005, p. 1).

The opponents to same-sex unions assert that only heterosexual love can attain spiritual perfection due to ‘man’ and ‘woman’ traditionally being two halves of a whole. This idea of love leading to spiritual perfection is found in varied forms in conventional Christianity, Christian neo-Platonism, Islamic Sufism, and devotional Hinduism (Vanita, 2005, p. 74). One of the examples of this perfect union within Hindu mythology is that of the ardhanarishwara form of Shiva and his wife, Parvati. The same-sex variation of this ideal union is of Harihara, an icon who is half Shiva and half Vishnu. “These icons signal the ultimate unity of the divine, and the irrelevance of gender (male and female are one; male and male are one; preservation and destruction are one). But the icons also signal love.” (Vanita, 2005, p. 74). The British found these alternate practices and depictions abhorrent. This attitude seeped into the reform movements of the Indian social reformers and nationalists. The British abhorrence of buggery only extended to men having sex with men. They could not even imagine a scenario wherein women would have sex with other women (M. Menon, 2018, p. 54). Female desire and lesbian or bisexual sexuality are refused acknowledgement.