Akansha Tyagi Sexuality Assignment II M.A.

. Gender Studies, Semester II April 18, 2014 Question: Through the 1990s and into the first years of the new century, sexuality began to appear in feminist politics and scholarship in a variety of forms, still concerned with sexual violence certainly, but increasingly recast as desire going beyond the norms of heteronormativity. Critically examine this statement by Nivedita Menon by analyzing two readings in support of your argument. _____________________________________________________________________________ In my assignment, using work of Ashley Tellis and Gayle Rubin, I want to discuss the forces behind the emergence of sexuality in relation with desire during the 1990s, what makes feminist scholarship engage with the issues of sexuality, something that Menon and John take as given and beyond theorization, and lastly question the idea of shift from violence to desire and the implicit assumption that the violence has been sufficiently theorized and need of the hour is to theorize sexuality in relation with desire, thereby questioning this linear shift from violence to desire and the repercussions of the same. I would, with constrain of time and words will discuss two specific fields sex work and homosexuality- to discuss the aforementioned objective. The 1990s witnessed the opening up of Indian market and economy through the policies of liberalization and Globalization. This period not only radically changed the economy of the country but also slowly restructured the private and public spaces. As Mary John in her essay Globalization, Sexuality and the Visual Field: Issues and non-issues for cultural critique. cites

various examples from Miss. India contest to contraceptive advertisement, making an argument how sexuality emerged on the surface of the society. Ashley Tellis too discusses the intervention of capitalism through the NGO politics that shaped the discourse of queer politics in the country. Is it this social and economic current that becomes the ground of what Nivedita Menon marks as shift in feminist discourse from violence to desire? It has to be more closely examined to understand the politics of this shift if there was perhaps a shift.

To understand why it is through feminism that we need to address thisshift from violence to desire, one must question how feminist discourse becomes the ground and medium of the shift. The question posed then becomes who is the subject of feminist politics. Women? Certainly. Transgender? Indeed, because they are associated with this category of women? Gay men?, because they question masculinities. However, do these abovementioned simplistic associations make feminist politics a ground for addressing complex issues that deal with diverse subjectivities? The discourses of feminism and queer politics question heternormativity, former because of its patriarchal structure and latter because of its dominating normalcy. But does that unite them in a sense that feminism can address the complex location, politics and experiences. This must be conceptually theorized if we are to address sexuality and desire in queer discourse. In my opinion, this must be conceptually theorized. Failure to evolve proper theoretical frameworks will make the feminist discourse on sexuality and desire separate from the experiences of different subjectivities that do not form a part of Feminist Politics. Next we need to ask what agents are animating this discourse around sexuality making it oscillate between two points- Desire and Violence. Feminist discourse attempts to theorize sex work through limited instruments of law and agency.

Various feminist groups, as mentioned in Nivedita Menons Introduction have different positions ranging from criminalization, decriminalization and legalization of sex work, each having its own arguments and limitation but still centering on discourse of law. Theoretical standpoints of feminist scholarship around sex work oscillate between abolitionist position (that sees sex work as an patriarchal oppression) to that of agency (which see it as any other type of work in capitalist economy). These positions not conceptualized in the cultural fabric of the third world but imported from sex wars in the United States that were partly responsible for provoking this new intellectual focus on sexuality through conceptual debates. Discourses of sexuality thus have to be rethought and reworked in the socio-cultural context of the third world as argued by Ashley Tellis. Both feminist discourse and sex work activist never argue, theorize or claim sex work as a sight of pleasure. Instead it is in the frame of labour rights that sex worker claim their space in society. How then feminist scholarships engage with sex work beyond these debates of agency and victimization? Thereby, before celebrating the shift we need to locate it within the power structures in which it is emerging. Failing to this, the discourse for sexuality viz-a-viz desire will emerge only in specific locations that the larger power structures will allow and will not be a result of any self-reflexivity on part of Feminist Theorists in India. Ashley Tellis, in his article Post-colonial Same-Sex Relations in India: A Theoretical Framework discuss how discourse around homosexuality is constructed by the forces of capitalism and state. He grounds how NGO politics and funding create new identities and discourse for their capital gains, example that of kothi, both the term and the community is marked and produced by this capitalist interventions and means. He also, by sighting example, shows how the institution such as law and state shape the discourse. The article 377 criminalizes unnatural penetration and when this law was maintained by the Supreme Court, it became an

issue of anti-homosexual agitation. I do not by any means aim to advocate this judgment but like Tellis draw attention that this judgment gave rise to a certain kind of identity politics obliviating the fact that this judgment was merely controlling the act that falls outside the natural heteronormativity and does not construct and identity per say. Interestingly, the resistance against the article 377 judgment, which many feminist movement too were a part of, was coined deeply in the frames of rights and did not address the politics of sexuality behind it. This recent past of this strong anti-article 377 movement marks in a very prominent way the lack of theorization about sexuality because still the language of rights was central to the discourse and so was the movement, which was strictly Urban. Just because feminist and queer politics resist same institution, patriarchy and state, they do not have the same issues that can be address in conjugality. What is then important is to rework on the discourse of sexuality beyond these frames of identity politics, legal rights etc. to stimulate some radical changes in the field of sexuality. There is another structure that we need to reflect upon to understand how this shift came into place. The given line evokes the era of Globalization and Liberalization within which the discourse around desire came into being. Ashley Tellis, in his article Postcolonial Same Sex relations in India: A Theoretical Framework raises important arguments regarding how Globalization and Liberalization have given a shape to queer politics. He criticizes the effects of Globalization and accuses it of manufacturing more and different forms of Homo-phobia. While, on the other hand, the given line celebrates this era as bringing in desire in the field of sexuality. There is a disjunction here. The disjunction is largely arising because both Ashely Tellis and Nivedita Menon are working on different levels. Ashely Tellis is questioning the concepts that this line is taking as given. For Tellis, the need is to theorize the idea of transgression itself in

relation to our Post-colonial location. It is only when this happens will be able to theorize sexuality in an inclusive sense. Third issue at hand is the whole idea of this linear shift from Violence to Desire. First, Menon in her introduction claims that Violence has been theorized and now we need to explore the field of desire. However, according to me this claim runs the danger of obliviating the field of violence. I argue that both violence and desire should go hand in hand with each changing the dimensions and boundaries of the other. Celebration of this shift is acceptable but Feminists have also to creatively redefine the discourse of violence- rape, trafficking etc for these are issues that the country is dealing with even at the present time. For this we will have to take Sexuality outside the conventional field of feminism. There is a need to theorize desire and sexuality inside the socio-cultural condition and outside the strict frames of feminism for conventional feminism will not be able to address sexuality when both violence and desire interlock in the picture such as sexual spaces consisting of sadomasochism and pornography. To conclude I wish to end with a quote by Gayle Rubin In the long run, feminisms critique of gender hierarchy must be incorporated into a radical theory of sex, and the critique of sexual oppression should enrich feminism. But an autonomous theory and politics specific to sexuality must be developed.(Rubin,1984).

Bibliography: John, Mary E. Globalisation, Sexuality and the Visual Field: Issues and non-issues for cultural critique. A question of silence (1998): 368-96 Menon, Nivedita. Introduction. Sexualities. Zed books, 2007. Rubin, Gayle. Thinking Sex. 1984 Tellis, Ashley. Post-colonial Same-Sex Relations in India: A Theoretical Framework. NA Menon, Nivedita. Seeing Like a Feminist. Penguin UK, 2012.