MWG-001

Theories of Women’s
Indira Gandhi
and Gender Studies
National Open University
School of Gender & Development Studies

Block

6
QUEER THEORY
UNIT 1
Philosophical and Psychoanalytic
Perspectives 441
UNIT 2
Literary and Cultural Perspectives 466
UNIT 3
Indian Perspectives 484
Queer Theory

440
 Philosophical and
UNIT 1 PHILOSOPHICAL AND Psychoanalytic
Perspectives
PSYCHOANALYTICAL PERSPECTIVES
Sanil M. Neelakandan
Structure

1.1 Introduction
1.2 Objectives
1.3 Theoretical Premise of Queer Theory
1.4 Psychoanalytical and Philosophical Influences
1.4.1 Sigmund Freud
1.4.2 Jacques Lacan
1.4.3 Michel Foucault
1.4.4 Contemporary Scholarship in Queer Theory
1.5 Let Us Sum Up
1.6 Glossary
1.7 Unit End Questions
1.8 References
1.9 Suggested Readings

1.1 INTRODUCTION
In the past, essentialist views on sexuality reduced sexuality to mere
physically determined phenomena. On the other hand, social constructionists’
readings on sexuality have explored the relationships between power and
the construction of sexual identities/ practices within society. In this unit,
we begin by laying out some of the theoretical premises underlying queer
studies. You will then be able to explore the perspectives of social theorists
like Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault, and the relevance
of their perspectives within the field of queer theory. You have already
been introduced to some of the basic concepts of Freudian and Lacanian
theories in the previous block. Here, we will try to understand some of the
ways in which queer theory re-reads or engages with the theoretical milieu
of these thinkers. You will also examine some of the nuances of these
perspectives in order to achieve an overall view of the philosophical and
psychological underpinnings of these theories through the lens of
psychoanalysis. We will also briefly discuss the contributions of Jonathan
Dollimore, Diana Fuss and Steven Seidman, towards the end of the unit.

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Queer Theory
1.2 OBJECTIVES
This unit explores the background of queer theory, in the context of the
psychoanalytical and philosophical theoretical premises of Sigmund Freud,
Jacques Lacan and Michel Foucault. After reading this unit, you should be
able to:

• Understand the background of queer theory;

• Identify the dominant perspectives of Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan and

Michel Foucault; and

• Explain these philosophical and psychoanalytical perspectives in terms of

their impact on queer theory

1.3 THEORETICAL PREMISE OF QUEER THEORY

Background

While ‘queer’ has been a contested category, the discourse of ‘queer theory’
evolved in the late 1980s. Queer theory allowed us to examine issues
related to sexuality and subjectivity from the perspective of gay and lesbian
scholarship. Moving away from previous essentialist and reductionist
approaches, it argues for the social constructionist approach, about which
you have already read in Unit 1 of Block 3. Queer theory challenges older,
conventional, binary ways of thinking which represent ‘gay’ and ‘straight’
as oppositional categories. In earlier scholarship, we often find vague and
skewed readings of same-sex desire in diverse periods and eras, leading to
narrow readings and perspectives on the nature of the taxonomy of same
sex desire, Greek pederasty, medieval sodomy, early modern ‘mollies’,
‘inverts’ and other such categories. Among other things, this led scholars
to construct boundaries between romantic bonding among women, lesbian
love, and over-simplified forms such as gay, lesbian, straight and so on
(Tobin, 2001, pp. 326-27). In other words, the quest for the authenticity
of plural voices resulted in different standpoints. Judith Butler argues that
this endless search for categories has led to an epistemic crisis and has
given way to the category of the ‘queer’ (Cited in Tobin, 2001, p. 327).

As that which is the embodiment of non-heterosexual desires, queer signifies

the non-normative. It has been argued that queer theory emerged as a way
of rejecting the proliferating and improbable categories of ‘gay’ and
‘straight’. Queer theory draws on linguistics, and is influenced by the
readings on language by the philosopher Jacques Derrida. It relates Derrida’s
readings to issues of sexuality to begin questioning the category of ‘gay’
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(Cited in Tobin, 2001, p. 327). Queer theorists and thinkers challenge the Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
accepted differences that circulate in relation to the terms ‘gay’ and Perspectives
‘straight’, ‘non-normative’ and ‘normative’ and so on. Earlier scholarship
did not engage much with issues of homosexuality in relationship to diverse
forms of heterosexuality. On the other hand, queer studies investigated the
attraction of homosexual popular music culture attraction for straight
adolescents. Queer theory dismissed the essentialist understanding of the
constitution of gay identity. Rather, it tries to map out gay and straight
milieus of thought that are inherent in diverse personalities and texts.
Queer readings explore the relations of self and subjectivity in a meaningful
manner, by connecting the sense of the self to the field of political action
(Tobin, 2001, p.327). Queer theory also interrogates discourses influenced
by hegemonic forms of sexuality.

In order to get an overview of queer theory, it is important to have an

understanding of the work of queer intellectuals such as Wayne Kostenbaum,
one of the renowned American scholars in this field. His poems and social
criticism provided excellent reflections on the life worlds of American queer
intellectuals. Kostenbaum engaged with the predilection of gay men for
opera in his work The Queen’s Throat, Opera, Homosexuality and the
Mystery of Desire (2001). In this work, Kostenbaum explores the issue of
masculinity within opera and within the gay world. Another path breaking
work in the field of queer studies is Michael Warner’s Fear of a Queer
Planet: Queer Politics and Social Theory (1993). It provides an excellent
theoretical approach on the questions of nationalism and its link with queer
worlds. In this diverse and rich anthology, Warner explores the subversive
potential of queer theory and the ways in which it challenges socio-political
conditions. It is evident from these works that queer theory and queer
ethics go beyond the critique of heterosexuality and heterosexual society
to identify and examine a variety of issues from queer perspectives.

‘Gay Shame’, ‘Gay Pride’ and Queer Theory

Two main issues that we will be discussing here are those of ‘gay shame’
and ‘gay pride’. In this context, the theoretical challenges posed by
theorists such as Judith Halberstam, David Halperin and Valerie Traub in
the field of queer studies, are very significant. Judith Halberstarm argues
that notions such as ‘gay shame’ and ‘gay pride’ are linked to the
contestations of queer studies. ‘Gay pride’ refers to the social movement
for freedom and dignity. In other words, it argues for the “destigmatization
of homosexuality”. It mitigates the “personal and social shame attached
to same-sex eroticism”. On the other hand, ‘gay shame’ is theorized as the
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Queer Theory emotional anti-thesis and political antagonist of gay pride. Another important
theorist, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, throws light on how queer identity and
queer resistance are ingrained in shame (Sedgwick, cited in Halperin &
Traub, 2009). Thus, ‘gay shame’ is a “site of solidarity and belonging”
(Sedgwick, cited in Halperin & Traub, 2009, pp.3-9).

As a notion, ‘gay pride’ is linked to, and unable to transcend the notion of
‘gay shame’. Therefore, the queer identity is marked by “collective
affirmations of pride” and “residual experiences of shame” (Halperin &
Traub, 2009, p.5)). It is also argued that queer theories are linked to the
corporatization of gay culture. According to Judith Halberstam, gay pride
is related to the mobilizations of consumptions and gentrification and has
produced an assimilationist trend in gay neoliberalism. In other words, the
life styles that are part of the gay culture have been impacted by, and
become inextricably linked to, the culture of neoliberalism. Due to this,
‘gay pride’ does not end up challenging some of the exploitative dimensions
of neoliberalism, and consumerism. In this regard, it is interesting to note
the observations of scholars such as Tim Edwards, who states:

The primary point concerning queer politics is that it is a politics

of lifestyle. The expansion of a visible gay male subculture in
particular, coupled with an increasingly visual and vociferous lesbian
network, is spearheading a gay politics centered upon the power
of the pink pound….the wider issue here is that such developments
are not merely the major gay initiatives that they seem. The
expansion of the gay consumer culture is an example of new lifestyle
markets developed during the 1980s and not a testimony to the
power of the pink politics (Edwards, 2008, p. 202).

However, Edwards also helps us to see that, beyond this, queer politics also
emphasizes on diversity and difference as political strategies. According to
Edwards, these strategies have certain inherent limitations: diversity is
questioned due to its individualistic and divisive interests, while the notion
of difference can be perceived as essentialist in nature (Edwards, 2008, pp.
202-203). Here, it would be useful for you to re-visit the notions of cultural
essentialism that you came across in Block 3 (see especially Unit 1 & Unit
4). Edwards also discusses the role of pleasure which forms a part of queer
sexual autonomy and politics (Edwards, 2008, p. 203).

According to American queer theorist Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, ‘gay shame’

is associated with the early experience of sexual shame. In her well-known
work Epistemology of the Closet (1990), Eve Kosofsky Sedwick provides
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interesting perspectives on what she calls the “homo/heterosexual Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
definition”. She discusses this notion in the context of its genealogy in the Perspectives
nineteenth century. “Homo/heterosexual definition”, according to her, was
a kind of “world mapping by which every given person, just as he or she
was necessarily assignable to male or female, gender was now considered
necessarily assignable as well as to a homo or a hetero-sexuality” (Sedgwick,
1990, pp. 1-2). Sedgwick deploys this universalizing view of homosexuality
to engage with notions of power and knowledge, and to challenge the
reductionist tendencies related to binaries such as ‘homosexual’/
‘heterosexual’.

In her discussion of attempts to liberate from ‘gay shame’, Judith Halberstam

contends that a theoretically inclined queer adult can convert “past
experiences with abjection, isolation and rejection into legibility, community
and love” (Halberstam, 2005, p.63). At the same time, ‘gay shame’ rejects
the normativity of a ‘gay pride’ agenda. In other words, the notion of ‘gay
shame’ is more nuanced in its exploration of the queer predicament as
compared to the more normative nature of the queer pride agenda. Judith
Halberstam asserts that the romanticization of the pre-stonewall protest,
the glorification of youth, and the realm of ‘gay shame’ are problems
related to this moment of theorization, which is focused upon certain
historical moments of queer assertions (Halberstam, 2005, p.63).

In the context of the above return to the past, the focus on ‘shame’ leads
to an emphasis on “a too psychically invested subject”. (Halberstam, 2005,
p.63). Returning to the past negates the contemporary anti-normative
queer politics of race and immigrant communities based transgender
assertions. For instance, the presence of a majority of white gays was
peculiar of that period. Thus, an unquestioned return to the pre-stonewall
protest moment cannot fully deal with the complexities related to sexuality,
race and immigrant communities (Halberstam, 2005, p. 63). It has been
argued that critics of these assertions are white gay men. Thus, there are
tendencies to equate ‘gay pride’ with contemporary politics and alternatives
are often ignored or marginalized. According to Judith Halberstam, ‘gay
shame’ universalizes the self of those who are from the shame formation.
Halberstam argues that ‘gay shame’ is universalized based on the separation
of the white male from privilege. Denial of privilege becomes a key element
in subjectivity formation of the white-male milieu. It also generalizes the
impact of shame on others. Halberstam argues against such reductionist
views of shame and proposes that the notion of shame is multidimensional,
and that it leads to psychic traumas. Shame marks the incompetence to
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Queer Theory achieve power and authenticity. This particular assertion is linked to the
notion of castration in psychoanalysis. You have already read about the
role of castration in psychoanalytical theories in the previous block (Unit 2,
Block 5). Castration also plays a central role in the delineation of shame
since, in Freudian psychoanalytical theory, shame is linked to the discourse
about femininity. Thus, the white male who experiences shame is marked
by his entry into femininity and the loss of masculine privilege. For instance,
the image of the ‘sissy boy’ is theorized as an embodiment of shame and
has been viewed in relation to the contemporary gay reclamation of gay
masculinity.

We should note, however, that lesbianism can be distinguished from the

above in its marked absence of a crisis related to femininity. Judith Butler
introduces the concept of “melancholy” embedded in novels of lesbian
masculinity such as The Well of Loneliness (Hall, 1928/2005) and Stone
Butch Blues (Feinberg, 1993/2003) (Cited in Halberstam, 2005, p. 64).
Shame is conceptualized as a gendered form of sexual abjection that belongs
to the feminine and not to the male. Similarly, Pedro Almodovar’s film Talk
to Her (2002) also explores ‘gay shame’ and its consequences. In a path
breaking reading of this film, Halberstam easily dismantles the conceptual
ambiguity related to ‘gay shame’. Halberstam considers this movie as one
which engages with ‘gay shame’. Through such examples, we can see a
paradigm shift in the theoretical discourse and analysis based on ‘gay
shame’/ ‘gay pride’.

Check Your Progress: How have different scholars of queer theory

explained the notions of ‘gay shame’ and ‘gay pride’? Based on
your reading of these different perspectives, explain, in your own
words, what these terms mean to you.

Queer Studies, Disciplinarity and Critique of Dominant Ideologies

Contemporary queer discourses textualize sexuality as a singular way of

inquiry, using it as a lens to view diverse fields such as Queer Ethnic
Studies, Queer Postcolonial Studies, and Transgender Studies among others.
Queer investigations are interdisciplinary in nature and may be described
as the “promiscuous rogue in the field of focused monogamists” (Halberstam,
2005, p. 66). Thus, queer studies rejects the notion of a “disciplinary
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home” and offers instead a “critique of disciplinarily” (Halberstam, 2005, Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
p.66). This has led to conflictual positions between the theoretical discourses Perspectives
emerging from humanities queer enclosures and empirical social science
queer enclosures.

Halberstam also warns about the loss of queer life due to its forced consensus
with the dominant ideology of the heterosexual family. In other words,
queer life may be weakened when it is co-opted within the ideology of the
dominant, heterosexual ideologies of the family. On the other hand, queer
subcultures pose challenges to the culture of the heterosexual family cultures
through different queer lifestyles. For instance, adoption of children by
middle class gays and lesbians, their deployment of reproductive technologies
to form a family and so on, challenge the mainstream and hegemonic
culture of the heterosexual family.

In this context, it is also important to understand the notion of queer public

intellectuals. Queer public intellectuals are those who help to circulate
queer discourse outside the academic arena, and engage with those who
are outside academic institutions. According to Halberstam, the emergence
of queer public intellectuals provides a transgression of the boundaries
between community and campus, activism and theory, classroom and
club.

The category of queer has been conceptualized as “an umbrella term for
a coalition of culturally marginal sexual identifications” (Jagose, 1996,
p.1). The question of identity plays an important role in queer studies since
identity is abound with mutually dependent and undefined social constructions
(Villaverde, 2008, p.78). In other words, the notion of identity can provide
a sharp understanding of gender and sexual norms.

The following observations by scholars can offer us insightful overviews

about queer theory. For instance, Britzman states:

I think of Queer Theory as provoking terms of engagement that work

to recuperate…to exceed …contain and dismiss…Queer theory offers
methods and critiques to mark the repetitions of normalcy as a
structure and as a pedagogy…insist(ing on) the production of
normalization as a problem of culture and thought (Cited in Villaverde,
2008, p. 79).

Similarly, G.D.Shlasko emphasizes the certain qualifying aspects of queer

studies. According to Shlasko:

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Queer Theory • “Queer as a subject position describes people whose gender and/ or
sexuality fall outside the cultural norms and expectations…describing
one’s location relative to those norms” (Shlasko, 2005, cited in
Villaverde, 2008, p. 80).

• “As a poetic, queer challenges the very idea of the normal…as both
outside of gender and hetero-norms and alsoopposed to the existence
of these norms and the structure that serve to police their boundaries”
(Shlasko, 2005, p.124).

• As an aesthetic, queer “looks for and enjoys potentially subversive

content in cultural texts of any media, from academic research papers
to television advertisements to graffiti (Shlasko, 2005, p.124).

Thus, queer theory unveils the process that determines sexual categorization.
It also shows the limitations of divisions made on the basis of categories
such as heterosexual-homosexual and identity politics. It rejects the notion
of identity politics as a false construction of “unitary entity or person”
(Edwards, 2008, p.196).

On the other hand, queer theory and politics are themselves criticized for
depoliticizing the material conditions that determine sexuality. For instance,
it is contended that queer theory has depoliticized the economic, cultural
and political oppression of lesbians and gay men (Hennessy, 1995, cited in
Edwards, 2008, p. 201).

1.4 PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOANALYTICAL

INFLUENCES
Let us now examine the work of some theoreticians whose contributions on
sexuality, from psychoanalytical and philosophical perspectives, have had
an influence in the shaping of queer theory. These explorations related to
sexuality will help us to understand the nuances of queer theory more fully.

1.4.1 Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

You have already read about some basic concepts of Freud’s theories on
sexuality in the unit on “Feminism and Psychoanalysis” (Unit 2, Block 5) of
this course. You may find it helpful to re-visit those sections before moving
ahead. Some of Freud’s major works as well as secondary literature related
to his works are also provided at the end of this unit.

It has been argued that Freud was influenced by scientific positivism,

vitalism and Victorian culture. He is one of the thinkers who spent much
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of his intellectual life in exploring the perennial questions related to the Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
psyche and sexuality. Freud argued that it is science that deals with the Perspectives
psychic energy of the mind and personality. According to Freud, mind and
body are inseparable in nature. Freud proposed that the id, ego and
superego constitute the structure of personality (Cited in Adams and Sydie,
2001, pp. 330-331). (Please review the explanations of these terms as
provided in Unit 2 of Block 5). Freud foregrounds the notion of ego in
relation to the two other conceptual categories of “id” and “superego.” As
you have already seen, the id is the reservoir of uncontrolled affective
energy. It is related to the gratification and pleasure, and devoid of the
notions of time and control. It is the seat of our basic instincts which
include love, hate and aggression. According to Freud, the id can be
evidenced from infancy itself (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, p. 330). The
super ego, on the other hand, acts as a moral check and is connected to
influences emerging from external reality.

The super ego is the product of socialization and abounds with moral
regulations that govern our conduct. It establishes the do’s and don’ts in
the world of the individual and acts as a censoring agent on our actions,
leading to feelings of guilt (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, p.330). On the
other hand, the ego operates between the id and the super ego. Ego acts
as a conscious site of intellect. It deals with conscious thinking, reasoning
and choosing in time, and mediates between the forces of impulse and
control (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, p. 331).

Freud also talked about how individuals cope with the struggles of id and
super ego by using defense mechanisms (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001,
p. 331). One such mechanism, called sublimation, converts the undesirable
id into a socially accepted outlet. For instance, artistic energy is shown as
the conversion of psychic energy into aesthetic creativity. Rationalization
is another defense mechanism which stands for the justification of actions
of the subjects.

In the previous block, you have read about the role of the Oedipus complex
in Freudian theory. In order to understand the ideas of Freud, one also has
to engage with his ideas on civilization. Freud argues that the mind is the
repository of instincts which represent the demands of the body. They act
as the important aspects of behaviour. According to Freud, there are two
types of instincts. The sexual instinct, which includes feelings of love and
desire for inclusion and connection, is called eros. The other instinct is
related to aggression and the death drive and is called thanatos. Eros deals
with eroticism and self-preservation and Thanatos with aggression and
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Queer Theory destruction. Both of these coexist in a particular fashion and influence
human life. Freud asserts that the forces of Civilization regulate these
sexual as well as aggressive elements and function as a super ego in the
field of culture (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, p. 332).

Let us now look at how some of these ideas have been used by queer
theorists in the discourse on sexuality. One of the Freudian notions used by
queer thinkers is that of ‘polymorphous perversity’. According to Freud,
adult sexuality emerges from polymorphous, infantile sexual norms, and
was therefore made up of plural desires and tendencies, homosexuality
being one of them. Henry Abelove, a cultural historian, who explored
Freud’s approach towards homosexuality, cites one of the letters written by
Freud in April, 1935 (printed in 1951) to a mother who wrote to Freud about
the homosexuality of her son. The following extract from this letter gives
us interesting insights regarding Freud’s views on homosexuality:

Box No. 6.1

“I gather that your son is a homosexual. I am almost impressed by

the fact that you do not mention this term yourself in your information
about him. May I question you, why you avoid it? Homosexuality is
assuredly no advantage, but it is nothing to be ashamed of, no vice,
no degradation, it can not be classified as an illness, we consider
it to be a variation of the sexual function produced by a certain
arrest of sexual development. Many highly respectable individuals of
ancient and modern times have been homosexuals, several of the
greatest among them (Plato, Leonardo da Vinci etc). It is a great
injustice to persecute homosexuality as a crime and cruelty too. If
you do not believe me, read the books of Havelock Ellis. By asking
me if I can help, you mean, I suppose, if I can abolish homosexuality
and make normal heterosexuality take its place. The answer is, in
a general way, we can not promise to achieve it. In a certain
number of cases we succeed in developing the blighted germs of
heterosexual tendencies which are present in every homosexual, in
the majority of cases it is no more possible. It is a question of the
quality and the age of the individual. The result of the treatment
can not be predicted. What analysis can do for your son runs in a
different line. If he is unhappy, torn by conflicts, inhibited in his
social life, analysis may bring him harmony, peace of mind, full
efficiency, whether he remains a homosexual or gets changed…”

(Freud, cited in Abelove, 1993, pp. 381-383).

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As is evident from the above, Freud clearly refused to classify homosexuality Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
as an illness. Abelove uses this letter to explore Freud’s approach towards Perspectives
homosexuality, and to construct an intellectual historical account of Freud’s
engagements with homosexuality. Similarly, Freud responded to the trial of
a prominent Vienna professional who was charged with homosexual practices.
In one of his interviews, Freud stated “I advocate the standpoint that the
homosexual does not belong before the tribunal of a court of a law. I am
even of the firm conviction that homosexuals must not be treated as sick
people, for a perverse orientation is far from being a sickness. Wouldn’t
that oblige us to characterize as sick many great thinkers and scholars who
we admire precisely because of their mental health?” (Freud, cited in
Abelove, 1993, p. 382). Using the above examples, Abelove argues that
Freud repeatedly insisted that homosexuals are not sick and they do not
belong to a court of law. On the other hand, Freud added that if a
homosexual molested a child below the age of consent he should be charged
as any heterosexual who gets charged under analogous circumstances.

Other examples from Freud’s interventions in respect to homosexuality are

equally significant. Freud opined about homosexuality in the Vienna Public
Press in 1930 and was co-signatory to a statement addressed to the joint
Austro-German legal commission which was considering the revision of the
penal code. According to the statement “homosexuality had been present
throughout the history and among all people” (Freud, cited in Abelove,
1993, p. 382). The statement also condemned homophobic society that
drives homosexuals to commit suicide and pushes them towards anti-social
activities. Freud also criticized the Dutch psychoanalytic associations’ decision
to object to the membership of a homosexual doctor. In another letter
addressed to Ernest Jones, and jointly written with Otto Rank, Freud states,
“Your query dear Ernest concerning prospective membership of homosexuals
has been considered by us and we disagree with you. In effect, we cannot
exclude such persons without other sufficient reasons, as we can not agree
with their legal prosecution. We feel that a decision in such cases should
depend upon a thorough examination of the other qualities of the candidate”
(Freud, cited in Abelove, 1993, p.383).

The above mentioned examples clearly show Freud’s approach towards

homosexuality. Since Freud’s theories have remained so influential within
the field of psychoanalysis, the impact of his views on homosexuality has
also been immense. Let us now examine the theories of Jacques Lacan and
Michel Foucault from a similar perspective.

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Queer Theory 1.4.2 Jacques Lacan (1901-81)
We have looked at some aspects of Jacques Lacan’s theories in the unit on
“Feminism and Pyschoanalysis” in the previous block (Block 5, Unit 2).
Jacques Lacan is considered to be one of the pioneering figures in the
history of psychoanalysis. Born in Paris of a bourgeois family in Paris in
1901, he pursued a medical degree at the Sorbonne, before shifting to
psychiatry during the 1920s, for which he trained under Gaetan de
Clerambault. Besides other influences on his works, he was also influenced
by the art of observation of Gaetan de Clerambault and the art of baroque
self presentation of the surrealists. It is argued that the reinterpretation
of Freud by Lacan started in the 1930s. His writings from the 1950’s,
especially Ecrits, also show his attraction towards Hegel and the Hegelian
understanding of the master-slave dialectic.

Previously, you have looked at some basic concepts in Lacan’s theories of

psychoanalysis and his re-interpretation of Freud’s theories. In the following
section, we will examine some aspects of Lacanian theory that are relevant
to queer intellectual investigations. In many of his works, Lacan explores
the role of the ‘Other’ which is basic to the human predicaments related
to nature. The ‘Other’ is constructed based on the loss of objects (especially
the first love object, the mother), and the replacement of those primary
love objects by substitute objects (‘other’ objects). Thus, desire moves the
subject beyond the self, and foregrounds the division within the subject.
The ‘Other’ is the object that determines and supports subjectivity. It also
shows that “we are neither fully defined by our erotic relations nor are
they entirely personal” (Watson, 2009, p.115).

Lacan argues that language is the discourse of the other. In other words,
we use language to represent the “other” (for instance, the parental other,
culture, etc). As you read before in Block 5, Unit 2, Lacan uses Saussure’s
ideas, borrowed from linguistics, to show that language consists of a chain
of signifiers. Desire expresses the loss or lack in being through signifiers.
Since signifiers are linked in metonymically in a chain, Lacan contends that
desire is the “metonomy” (see Glossary) of the lack in being. It is impossible
to conceive desire without language. The articulation of desire by the
subject through language is also accompanied by the subject’s alienation
(since language is perceived as “other.”) (Cited in Watson, 2009, p.116).
Lacan argues that we are neither determined by our erotic relations, nor
by our personal relations in a complete fashion. Sex is the psychoanalytic
framework associated with conscious and unconscious knowledge (Cited in
Watson, 2009, p. 115).
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Queer theorists use the Lacanian understanding of language in specific Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
ways. Lacan argues that language fails at every attempt to circumscribe Perspectives
the sexual, and focuses upon the divided subject. This perspective is close
to the queer rejection of the limited focus on identity. Lacan does not
reduce perversion to sexual behaviour; rather, he inverts perversion by
looking at it as a structure. Homosexuality is, therefore, not theorized
as perverse in Lacanian works. On the other hand, it is associated with
the “infringement of the normative requirements of the Oedipal complex”
(Cited in Watson, 2009, p. 129).

Lacan contends that the subject’s truth is outside of the networks of

certainties by which the human recognizes his or her ego. It is important
to understand the critical stance of Lacan on the category of sex, since it
is epistemically close to certain queer premises. Lacan asserts that when
one loves it has nothing to do with sex. Scholars such as Tim Dean consider
Lacan’s move to think of sexuality outside of the purview of sex as radical.
Lacan deconstructs the possibility of the sexual relationship by proposing
that such a relationship is nonexistent (Cited in Watson, 2009, p. 130). We
have already discussed the role of ‘jouissance’ in Lacanian theory. The
Lacanian notion of ‘jouissance’ is also helpful in understanding the queer
perspective on sexuality (Cited in Watson, 2009, p.134).

The notion of death drive is also linked to sexual satisfaction. According to

Lacan, sexual identity is illogical in every respect. This perspective provides
radical insights to the queer analysis of sexuality. In other words, sexuality,
according to Lacan, is antithetical to identity, although the structure of
identity is related to sexuality. Since identity disappears with the eruption
of sexuality, sexuality destabilizes the self. Lacan theorized sexuality as the
merging point of the subjectivity of the self and the other. It is linked to
the discursive network of the other (Watson, 2009, p. 125-26).

As you have seen above, Lacan constructed a different intellectual trajectory

through his linguistic dexterity. His theories have left an indelible mark on
future theorizations about sexuality. Next, let us look at some of the
contributions of Michel Foucault from the perspective of their impact on
queer theory.

Check Your Progress: What were Freud’s views on homosexuality?

How do Lacan’s theories further build on the notion of the Oedipus
complex and the ‘other’ to develop a theory of sexuality which is
based on the relationships between identity, sexuality and language?

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Queer Theory 1.4.3 Michel Foucault (1926-1984)
Michel Foucault was born in Poitiers, France in 1926, He defended his
doctoral thesis in 1961. It was later published as History of Madness. He
further received his diploma in psychology in the year 1950 and worked in
a psychiatric hospital for some time. Foucault also taught briefly at the
University of Uppsala. Michel Foucault differs from other thinkers due to
his path breaking reading of sexuality at evidenced in some of his most
well-known works (See especially The History of Sexuality, 1976-1984).

Foucault was influenced by the works of George Canguilhem in biology and

medicine. Canguilhem argued that the “abnormal arouses theoretical interest
in the normal” (Miller, 1993, p.60). Foucault’s works on sexuality reflect
the influence of the theoretical perspectives of Canguilhem. Foucault
provided a critical explanation of Victorian morality through his exploration
of the nature of repression. This exploration of Victorian morality is important
for queer knowledge especially since Foucault deconstructed the historical
factors that structured the moral order. He was able to show how this sort
of moral order only resulted in creating the distinction between the normal
and abnormal. Thus, his exploration of Victorian morality helps us to critically
explore and question the categories of the so called ‘moral’ and the
‘immoral’/’deviant’/’abnormal’ and so on.

At the same time, his approach towards subjectivity added a new dimension
to the queer project. Foucault analyzed the links between sexuality,
subjectivity and truth. He positioned sexuality not as a natural category,
but as a constructed category related to experience, which itself is rooted
in historical, social, cultural and biological contexts. In his analysis of
Foucault’s theories, David Halperin argues that Foucault never provided
obvious reasons for same sex relations. When Foucault was asked about
innate levels of homosexuality and social conditioning, he replied: “On this
question I have absolutely nothing to say, no comments” (Spargo, 2000,
p.13).

On the other hand, Foucault argues that a new technology of sex emerged
at the end of the eighteenth century to become a major site of state
centric interventions. These interventions were carried out to control social
bodies and resulted in producing new forms of surveillance. Repression of
sexuality was a part of this process. It is argued that the term ‘sexuality’,
as we now understand it, was absent in the period before the nineteenth
century. In this context, it is important to understand Foucault’s ideas
about knowledge and power since he claims that power can produce
454
knowledge. He proposes four ways in which knowledge and power are Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
associated with the new practices and technologies of sex. These are Perspectives
related to Foucault’s critique of psychoanalysis and the cultural construction
of sexuality. Briefly, the four phenomena can be listed as follows:

i) The “hysterization of women’s bodies”: Women’s bodies are perceived

as being saturated with sexuality. Therefore, women are represented
as unstable bodies that can be prone to hysteria, resulting in images
of “nervous women” (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, p. 584).

ii) The “pedagogization of children’s sex”: Children who indulged in sexual

activities are viewed as functioning contrary to the law of the nature.
Parents, doctors, experts and educationists realized the consequences
of the sexual potential of children. Myths of masturbation are related
to these perceptions (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, p. 584).

iii) The “socialization of procreative behaviour”: The regulation of

population operated as a means of controlling procreative behaviour in
line with the needs of society. Foucault claimed that this process of
control is political in nature. For instance, financial support and
contraception are embedded in this political discourse (Cited in Adams
and Sydie, 2001, p. 584).

iv) The “psychiatrization of perverse pleasure: Sexuality comes to be treated

as a separate psychical and biological instinct which can be subjected
to psychiatry (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, p. 585).

According to Foucault, these four phenomena related to knowledge and

power result in the creation of four subjects - the hysterical woman, the
masturbating child, the Malthussian couple and the perverse adult. (Thomas
Robert Malthus is considered as a British scholar who provided brilliant
interventions in the field of population studies. He argued that if a couple
should “limit the number of children according to their wishes, they would
become too lazy to undertake any activity” (Cited in Bhende and Kanitkar,
1994, p.100). The above mentioned four forms of knowledge showed the
emergence of a calculated approach to life and mechanisms, which
exerted control over people through the establishment of certain
structures, as in the four instances mentioned above. Foucault calls this
control through structures “bio-power” (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, p.
585). This concept is useful in understanding sexual norms and practices,
and how we internalize them.

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Queer Theory Foucault also questions how social forces convert sexuality into moral
experience. This line of questioning led him to investigate how “western
man had been brought to recognize himself as a subject of desire” (Cited
in Britzman, 1998, p. 252). Foucault used the term “western man” in a
broader sense to explore the construction of western man as a subject of
desire. He further asks whether sexual practice has acquired the sense of
ethical practice. In his exploration of the Greek understanding of sexual
practice as ethical practice in his work The Use of Pleasure (History of
Sexuality, Vol. 2, 1984), he argues that the ethical realm demands self
control as in the dominion of self over the self in the case of acts that are
induced by nature such as sex. For instance, the ethical codes amongst the
ancient Greeks ensured control over the body, the institution of marriage
and the love of boys. These ethical codes produced three modes of self
control intended to create the ethical subject, namely, “dietetics, economics
and erotics” (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, pp. 585-586). Dietetics
refers to the “right time for sexual pleasure” and takes into account the
changing dimensions of the body and the seasons. Economics refers to
conduct in family and marriage. Foucault includes in this category, the
“masculine art of governing a household-wife, servants, estate” (Cited in
Adams and Sydie, 2011, p. 585). Erotics is concerned with the moderation
that is significant in the relationship between an old man and young boys.

Foucault examines the relationship between sexuality and morality in the

early Roman Empire (Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, p. 586). While
discussing the changes in the trends related to marriage, Foucault indicates
that the shift in classical Greek ideas which started with the age of Augustus
led to a greater emphasis on marriage and its demands, and a decreasing
emphasis on the love for boys. This shift reflects the socio-economic
changes of that period. A sense of freedom was attached to the institution
of marriage especially in the selection of partners, decisions related to
marriage, and reasons to marry. Foucault argues that this shift gave rise
to the emergence of the “culture of the self”. As a part of this change,
different practices, recipes and procedures related to sexuality came into
existence (Foucault, 1984, p. 59). Thus, sexuality becomes associated with
pleasure as well as danger. Therefore, the measures to regulate sexuality
emerged as a part of different societal orders. Religion too becomes a way
to control the sexual proclivities. Thus, Foucault shows that power is
exercised through the control of sex.

Other works by Foucault can also give us a greater understanding of his

philosophy. Foucault edited two memoirs, one by Herculine Barbin (1978)
456
and the other by Pierre Rivière (1975). Let us look at these briefly to see Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
what they reveal to us about Foucault’s views on sexuality. Perspectives

Herculine Barbin was a nineteenth century hermaphrodite who lived as a

girl for the first twenty years of her life. On realizing that she was a
hermaphrodite, doctors guided her to undergo a sex change operation. As
a result of the misdirected treatment, Herculine Barbin committed suicide.
Foucault points out how this shows society’s insistence on the notion of a
true sexual identity; he argues that the new scientific practice which
attempted to construct narrowly defined sexual identities ended up
victimizing people who did not fit into these narrow categories.

In the second memoir edited by Foucault, Paul Rivière, who is a peasant,

confesses that he has committed the murder of his mother, sister and
brother while dressed in his Sunday clothes. After the murder, he wanders
about in the country side and talks about the murder. While some of the
judges declared him to be sane, others insisted that he was insane. Paul
Rivière wrote his memoir during his incarceration and later committed
suicide. Foucault uses these two examples to explore the construction of
the “normal” and the implications of social control in such constructions
(Cited in Adams and Sydie, 2001, pp. 591-92).

In his famous and widely read work Discipline and Punish (Foucault, 1970,
p. 179, see especially “The Means of Correct Training”), Foucault argues
that discipline “makes” individuals through institutional structures that prune
“moving, confused, useless multitudes of bodies and forces into a multiplicity
of elements”. Foucault contends that “homosexuality threatens people as
a way of life” (Cited in Halberstam, 2005, p.67), and explores the radical
potential of queer milieus. According to Foucault, homosexuality is viewed
as a constructed category of knowledge rather than a discovered entity. He
explores the religious dogmas of the nineteenth century which created a
sense of shame in the minds of people who engaged in so called “aberrant”
(sexual) activities. For instance, scholars such as David Halperin have
recovered the positive potentials of Foucauldian analysis in the case of
S/M. David Halperin argued that S/M as a gay subculture emerged in the
urban areas of United States. He describes it as a “re-mapping of the body’s
erotic sites” (see Halperin, 2001, pp. 294-302). Foucault theorized S/M as
a strategic game which produces pleasure rather than conceptualizing it as
a terrain of domination.

As you have seen above, Foucault provides a broad frame of analysis on the
discourse of sexuality. Such a perspective can be considered as the
457
Queer Theory predecessor of queer thought of the late post-modern period. In other
words, his perspectives helped to expand the diverse aspects that structure
the category of the ‘queer’, and provided a more sophisticated framework
of sexuality. Foucault argues that “the critical ontology of ourselves has
to be considered not, certainly, as a theory, a doctrine, nor even as a
permanent body of knowledge that is accumulating; it has to be conceived
as an attitude, an ethos, a philosophical life in which the critique of what
we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that
are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond
them” (see Foucault, 1984, pp. 32-50). Foucault’s theories radicalized the
understanding of homosexuality and challenged the hegemonic chivalric
stereotypes of homosexuality. Based on his analysis, as discussed above,
Foucault argued that the category of the ‘homosexual’ emerged as a
constructed category of knowledge out of a particular context in the
1870s. In examining the repression of sodomy by the church during the
renaissance, Foucault uses the category ‘species’ to denote the particular
historical context’s construction of perverse sexuality. Men and women
were forced to confess about their sexual choices according to the law of
the church. According to Foucault, “homosexuality appeared as one of the
forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy onto
a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphroditism of the soul. The sodomite
had been a temporal aberration; the homosexual is now a species” (Halperin,
1998, p. 95). This statement embodies the crux of Foucault’s philosophical
understanding.

Check Your Progress: What are the four phenomena used by Michel
Foucault to explain the relationship between knowledge, power and
sexuality? Use other examples from what you have learnt about
Foucault’s work to show how Foucault arrived at the conclusion that
knowledge was used as a way to control and structure sexuality.

1.4.4 Contemporary Scholarship in Queer Theory

Although this unit focused mainly on the influences of the psychoanalytic
and philosophical theoretical perspectives of Freud, Lacan and Foucault on
the evolution of queer theory, it is equally important to note the significant
contributions of some more contemporary queer theorists in this context,
namely Jonathan Dollimore, Diana Fuss, and Steven Seidman. Below are
458
listed just a few of their contributions, which you can explore further with Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
the help of the suggested readings provided at the end of the unit. Perspectives

Jonathan Dollimore in his book Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde,

Freud to Focault (1991), investigates the notion of sexual dissidence.
According to him, dissidence is a form of resistance and sexual dissidence
operates at the plane of gender. It disrupts the opposition between the
dominant and the subordinate (Dollimore, 1991, p. 21). He also introduces
the notion of the “paradoxical perverse or the perverse dynamic” (Cited
in Lucey, 1993, pp. 313-16), which refers to the production of perversion
based on the social structures that indulge in the offence as well as the
enforcement of it. According to Dollimore, “The perverse dynamic denotes
certain instabilities and contradictions within dominant structures which
exist by virtue of exactly what those structures simultaneously contain and
exclude” (Dollimore, 1991, p. 33). Following this line of thought, Dollimore
engages with the social exclusion and symbolic centrality of homosexuality.

An equally important theorist, Diana Fuss focuses on the differences related

to categories such as ‘homo’ and ‘hetero’. According to Diana Fuss, the
category of homo becomes part of the sexual border which helps to assert
identity. She argues that there is a kind of exclusion related to the term
‘homosexuality’. However, she notes that sexual borders are unstable and
insecure. She reflects on the need for a theory of sexual borders which
can structure new social and cultural arrangements of movements and
transmutations of pleasure in the social field (Fuss, 2001, pp. 344-351).

Steven Seidman theorized that the norm of heterosexuality is less sustained

by social repression, than by normalizing controls. In other words, normalizing
controls play a vital role on determining the norms of heterosexuality. He
contended that gay politics can be seen as a response to a repressive social
logic of normative heterosexuality. According to Steven Siedman, gay identity
politics is a historically unique form of sexual politics. It is named as queer
politics and it operates as a response to gay normalization. He opined that
the normative grounds and political claims of queer politics are unclear.
But, he suggests ethical-political elaboration of a queer anti-normalizing
politics (Seidman, 2001, pp. 353-360). One of Seidman’s significant
contributions is that his theories have helped to expose the disinterest of
queer theorists towards the lesbian and gay mainstream and straight
mainstream. Further, he also acted as a social agency in the creation of
the gay scholastic culture and politics of the 1990s (Edwards, 2008, p.195).

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Queer Theory
1.5 LET US SUM UP
In this unit you have observed how thinkers such as Sigmund Freud, Jacques
Lacan and Michel Foucault have enriched the historical and ongoing debates
on sexuality. You have examined the epistemic differences of queer theory
from other forms of thought. Finally, you have seen how queer theory
differs from other dominant ways of thinking that are conditioned by
prevalent heterosexual practices and thinking. In Units 2 and 3 of this
block, you will be able to approach queer theory from literary-cultural
perspectives, and within the Indian context. It would be helpful for you
to make connections between the psychoanalytical and philosophical
perspectives that you have read here, with issues you come across in the
following two units.

1.6 GLOSSARY
Essentialism : It refers to the arguments which limit complexity
of social phenomena to a single aspect or
essence.

Homophobia : George Weinberg coined this term to refer the

psychological fear of homosexuality in his work
Society and the Healthy Homosexual (1972).

Identity : It refers to the sense of personhood, the self.

Identities are not fixed, but rather fluid in
nature.

Metonymy : It is a figure of speech in which a word denotes

another through a particular sort of association.
For instance, the phrase ‘the bench’ denotes a
group of judges and magistrates (For further
information, see Colman, 2009, p. 461; for a
detailed explanation, see Carpini, 2001, p. 247).

Name-of-the-Father : According to Lacan, this refers to the laws and

restrictions that control desire and rules of
communications.

Object : It refers to the object of one’s sexual desire.

For instance, Freud refers to the mother as the
primary object of love.

460
Perversion : It refers to the search for “abnormal” sexual Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
objects in the absence of repression. It denotes Perspectives
the difference of individuals from what society
constitutes as ‘normal’.

Repression : In Freud’s work, it is defined as the mechanism

of ego to suppress and forget its instinctual
impulses. It represents the way in which
unacceptable thoughts or wishes are banished
from consciousness and buried in the
‘unconscious’.

Social Constructionism: It represents the theories that focus on the

socially created part of social life. It asserts
that society is the creative production of human
beings. Human beings are productive in the
creation of society. In other words, this term
emphasizes the invented nature of the social
word, and disregards the given views about the
social world.

Sign : It refers to the unification of signifier and

signified. Signified stands for a concept. Signifier
stands for a sound image. The notion of sign
plays a vital role in postmodern scholarship.
This has been described by the linguist Ferdinand
de Saussure in his collected lectures Course in
General Linguistics (1915).

1.7 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1) Discuss the historical and theoretical background of queer theory with
the help of some of the concepts discussed in the above unit.

2) Explain Freud’s perspectives on sexuality, and how they can be linked

to queer perspectives on sexuality.

3) How does Jacques Lacan theorize sexuality? How far it is relevant to

queer theory?

4) Critically analyse the contributions of Michel Foucault to queer theory.

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Queer Theory
1.8 REFERENCES
Abelove, Henry, Michele Aina Barale & David.M.Halperin (1993). The Lesbian
and Gay Studies Reader. New York, London: Routledge.

Adams, Bert N. & R. A. Sydie (2001). ‘Knowledge, Truth and Power: Foucault
and Feminist Responses’. In Sociological Theory. New Delhi: Vistaar
Publications.

Bhende, Asha. A & Tara Kanitkar (1994). Principles of Population Studies.

Bombay: Himalaya Publishing House.

Britzman, D.P (1995/1998). ‘Is there a queer pedagogy? Or, stop reading
straight’. In W.Pinar (Ed.), Curriculum: Toward New Identities. New York:
Routledge.

Butler, Judith (1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of

Identity. New York: Routledge.

Carpini, Dominic Delli (2001). ‘Metonymy’. In Victor.E. Taylor & Charles.

E. Winquist (Eds.). Encyclopedia of Postmodernism. London and New York:
Routledge.

Colman, Andrew M. (2009). Oxford Dictionary of Psychology. New York:

Oxford University Press.

Dollimore, Jonathan (1991). Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud

to Foucault. New York: Oxford University Press.

Edwards, Tim (2008). ‘Queer Fears: Against the Cultural Turn’. In Sara
Delamont and Paul Atkinson (Eds.). Gender and Research, Volume 4: Men’s
Studies, Queer Theory and Polyvocality. New Delhi: Sage.

Feinberg, Leslie (1993/2003). Stone Butch Blues. Alyson Books.

Foucault, Michel (1961/1965). Madness and Civilization. (Trans.Richard

Howard). New York: Pantheon.

Foucault, Michel (1966/1970). The Order of Things. (Trans. A. Sheridan).

New York: Random House.

Foucault, Michel (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge. (Trans. A. Sheridan).

London: Tavistock Publications.

Foucault, Michel (1973). The Birth of the Clinic. (Trans. A. Sheridan). New
York: Vintage Books.

462
Foucault, Michel (1975). I , Pierre Rivière, Having Slaughtered My Mother, Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
My Sister and My Brother, A Case of Patricide in the Nineteenth Century. Perspectives
(Trans. Robert Hurley). New York: Vintage Books.

Foucault, Michel (1978). Herculine Barbin. (Trans. Richard McDougall). New

York: Random House.

Foucault, Michel (1979). Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison.
New York:Vintage Books.

Foucault, Michel (1984). ‘What is Enlightenment?’ In Paul Rabinow (Ed.)

The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon Books.

Foucault, Michel (1984). The History of Sexuality: Volume 2, The Use of

Pleasure. (Trans. Robert Hurley). New York: Pantheon.

Foucault, Michel (1986). The History of Sexuality: Vol 3, The Care of the
Self. (Trans. Robert Hurley). New York: Pantheon.

Freud, Sigmund, Jose Breuer & Nicola Lickhurst (1895/1956). Studies on

Hysteria. London.

Freud, Sigmund. (1926/1957). The Future of an Illusion. (Trans.

J.W.D.Robson-Scott). James Strachey (Ed.), New York: Doubleday Anchor.

Freud, Sigmund. (1930/1951). Civilization and It’s Discontents. (Trans. Joan

Riviere). London: Hogarth Press.

Freud, Sigmund (1933/1965). New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis.

(Trans.& Ed. James Strachey). New York: W.W.Norton.

Freud, Sigmund (1935). Autobiography (Trans. James Strachey). New York:

Standard Editions.

Freud, Sigmund (1939). Moses and Monotheism. (Trans. Katherine Jones).

New York: Vintage.

Freud, Sigmund (1939/ 1977). Civilization, War and Death. (John Rickman,
Ed.). London: Hogarth Press.

Freud, Sigmund (1947). Leonardo da Vinci: A Study in Psychosexuality.

(Trans. A.A.Brill). New York: Random House.

Freud, Sigmund (1963). General Psychological Theory. (Phillip Rieff, Ed.).

New York: Collier Books.

Freud, Sigmund (1991). On Sexuality. (Ed. Angela Richards, Trans. James

Strachey). Harmondsworth, England: Penguin.
463
Queer Theory Fuss, Diana (2001). ‘Theorizing hetero and homosexuality’. In Steven Seidman
& Jeffrey C. Alexander (Eds.), The New Social Reader: Contemporary Debates.
New York: Routledge.

Halberstam, Judith (2005). ‘Queer Studies’. In Philomena Essed, David

Theo Goldberg, & Audrey Kobayashi (Eds.), A Companion to Gender Studies.
Chicago: Chicago University Press.

Halperin, M. David (1998). ‘Forgetting Foucault: Acts, Identities and the

History of Sexuality’. Representations, No.63, 93-120.

Halperin, M. David & Valeri Traub (2009). Gay Shame. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.

Halperin, M. David & Valeri Traub (2009). ‘Beyond Gay Pride’. In David
Halperin & Valeri Traub (Eds.), Gay Shame. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.

Hall, Radclyffe (1928/2005). The Well of Loneliness. London: Wordsworth.

Jagose, A. (1996). Queer Theory: An Introduction. New York: New York

University Press.

Kostenbaum, Wayne (2001). The Queen’s Throat, Opera, Homosexuality and

the Mystery of Desire. Cambridge: Da Capo Press, Perseus Book Group.

Lacan, Jacques (1977/ 2006). Ecrits. (The First Complete Edition in English,
Trans. Bruce Fink). New York: W.W. Norton & Company.

Lucie, M. (October 1993). ‘Review of Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde,

Freud to Foucault, by Jonathan Dollimore’. Journal of the History of
Sexuality, 4(2), 313-16.

Miller, James (1993). The Passion of Michel Foucault. New York: Simon &
Schuster.

Rabinow, Paul (1984). (Ed.) The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon
Books.

Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky (1990). Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley:

University of California Press.

Seidman, Steven (2001). ‘From Identity to Sexuality, Queer Politics: Shifts

in Normative Heterosexuality’. In Steven Seidman & Jeffrey C.Alexander,
The New Social Reader: Contemporary Debates. New York: Routledge.

Shlasko, G. D. (2005). ‘Queer (v) Pedagogy’, Equity and Excellence in

Education, 38, 123-134.
464
Spargo, Tamsin (2000). Foucault and Queer Theory. UK: Icon Books/ Philosophical and
Psychoanalytic
USA:Totem Books. Perspectives

Tobin, Robert (2001). ‘Queer Theory’. In Victor. E. Taylor & Charles. E.

Winquist (Eds.), Encylopedia of Postmodernism. London and New York:
Routledge

Villaverde, Leila (2008). Feminist Theories and Education. New York: Peter
Lang Publishing.

Watson, Eve (2009). ‘Queering Psychoanalysis/Psychoanalyzing Queer’, Annual

Review of Critical Psychology, No.7.

1.9 SUGGESTED READINGS

Butler, Judith (1990), Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of
Identity. New York: Routledge

Dollimore, Jonathan (1991). Sexual Dissidence: Augustine to Wilde, Freud

to Foucault. New York: Oxford University Press.

Foucault, Michel (1976/ 1998). The History of Sexuality Volume 1: The Will
to Knowledge. London: Penguin.

Fuss, Diana (2001). ‘Theorizing hetero and homosexuality’. In Steven Seidman

& Jeffrey C. Alexander (Eds.), The New Social Reader: Contemporary Debates.
New York: Routledge.

Halperin, M. David & Valeri Traub (2009). ‘Beyond Gay Pride’. In David
Halperin & Valeri Traub (Eds.), Gay Shame. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.

Katyal, Akhil (2009). ‘How the Homosexual Came To Be: A Journey Through
Freud’, in Darkmatter: In the Ruins of Imperial Culture. London.

Seidman,Steven (1995). ‘Deconstructing Queer Theory’. In Linda Nicholson

and Steven

Seidman (Eds.), Social Postmodernism: Beyond Identity Politics. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.

Watson, E. (2009). ‘Queering Psychoanalysis/Psychoanalysing Queer’. Annual

Review of Critical Psychology, 7, 114-139.

465
Queer Theory
UNIT 2 LITERARY AND CULTURAL
PERSPECTIVES
Akshaya Rath
Structure

2.1 Introduction
2.2 Objectives
2.3 Origins of the Term ‘Queer’
2.4 British Colonialism: Laws and Legacies
2.5 Persecution, Literature and Queer Theory
2.5.1 “The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name”: The Case of Oscar Wilde
2.5.2 Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness
2.5.3 The Indian Context: The Trial of Ismat Chugtai
2.6 Writing and Same-Sex Desire
2.6.1 The Closet
2.6.2 Sappho’s Lesbos
2.6.3 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
2.6.4 Queer Writing in the Indian Context
2.7 Let Us Sum Up
2.8 Unit End Questions
2.9 References
2.10 Suggested Readings

2.1 INTRODUCTION
The terms “queer”, “queer theory” and “queer nation” have recently gained
wide importance in academic discourses in the humanities and the social
sciences. A few binary/oppositional terms include, but are not limited to,
closet and open (i.e., coming out of the closet), homosexual and
heterosexual, the normal and the queer, gay and straight, etc. You must
have also come across phrases such as “gay pride march”, “coming out”,
“closet”, “heteronormative world”, “Sapphist behaviour”, LGBTQ (lesbian,
gay, bisexual, transgender, queer), and “sodomy” in local newspapers. These
words gain significance in the context of the study of queer theory against
the background of cultural/societal hegemony. In literature, queer writers
have found expressions in societies that are systematically homophobic.
While fighting legal battles and persecution, writers in different centuries
and cultures have been able to create an alternative canon of queer writing.
466
In this unit, you will learn how law, religion and social discourses are crucial Literary and Cultural
Perspectives
to the understanding of the construction of queer lives and literatures. We
shall look at notions such as ‘closet’ and ‘queer’ and see how literary
writing has moved from within a space of repression to begin to explore
non-normative identities and desires, both in an international framework,
as well as within India.

2.2 OBJECTIVES
After reading through this unit you should be able to:

• Trace the origins of the term “queer” in relation to other terms;

• Examine some legal battles and their implications for writers within the
queer literary canon;

• Describe some important English and Indian queer writers, their

persecution, and their work;

• Examine the notion of the ‘closet’ in relation to the role of queer literature
and culture; and

• Analyse critically the representation of homoerotic and homosocial desire

in literary and cultural contexts in international and Indian frameworks.

2.3 ORIGINS OF THE TERM ‘QUEER’

It may be interesting for you to know that the term “queer” is recent in
origin and the genesis of queer theory is heavily influenced by several
theoretical and identical movements such as feminism, black movement,
poststructuralism and postmodernism. Quoting from Lesbian and Gay Studies
Reader (1993, xv-xvi), Peter Barry writes in Beginning Theory: An Introduction
to Literary and Cultural Theory:

...‘lesbian/gay studies does for sex and sexuality approximately what

women’s studies does for gender’.... In lesbian/gay criticism, the
defining feature is making sexual orientation ‘a fundamental category
of analysis and understanding’. Like feminist criticism...it has social
and political aims, in particular ‘an oppositional design’ upon society,
for it is ‘informed by resistance to homophobia [fear and prejudice
against homosexuality] and heterosexism... (Barry, 1995, p.140).

Lesbian/gay studies thus attempts to foreground social and political issues

concerning queer people, and the marginalization of queer persons who
find themselves in an ‘oppositional’ stance vis-à-vis mainstream society,
467
Queer Theory due to existing prejudices and hostility towards them. While in recent
years, the term ‘queer’ has been chiefly associated with lesbian and gay
subjects, the scope of the term extends to issues such as cross-dressing,
hermaphroditism, gender ambiguity, gender-corrective surgery, intersex
persons, gender queer, and non-conforming and transgender persons as
well. The term ‘queer theory’ was coined by Teresa de Lauretis; several
writers such as Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Judith Butler, Adrienne Rich and
Diana Fuss have positioned the queer and queer theory in the light of
culturally marginal sexual self-identifications. Michel Foucault’s The History
of Sexuality, published in 1980, has been a significant text for the study of
alternative sexualities. This does not mean that these writers and their
work are not contested; they have, however, been responsible for laying
out a theoretical and analytical framework of queer and gender theories.
It was in the year 1869 that the term ‘homosexuality’ appeared in print for
the first time in a German pamphlet written by Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824-
1882). In 1886 with the Criminal Law Amendment Act (1885), sexual relations
between men (not women) were given Royal Assent by Queen Victoria. And
further, it was in 1892 that the word ‘bisexual’, in its current sense, was
used in Charles Gilbert Chaddock’s translation of Kraft-Ebing’s Psychopathia
Sexualis. In the next section, we shall look at the extent to which laws and
legacies regarding homosexuality have impacted our current understanding
and acceptance of these terms.

2.4 BRITISH COLONIALISM: LAWS AND LEGACIES

In the history of western thought, it is a historical fact that homosexuality
has been considered as a disease and is believed to be curable by medical
treatment or by the availability of female prostitutes. During the British
colonial period, for instance, it was intentionally termed as an ‘Oriental
vice’ that corrupted young British soldiers in the colonial world although
the law concerning sodomy came into existence as early as 1290s at the
court of Edward I (Bailey, 1955, p. 145). Derrick Sherwin Bailey quotes from
a treatise entitled Fleta which was concocted by a jurist at the court to
authenticate it: “Those who have dealings with Jews or Jewesses, those
who commit bestiality, and sodomists, are to be buried alive, after legal
proof that they were taken in the act, and public (sic) conviction” (Bailey,
1955, p.145). Whether or not the English court strictly implemented such
laws over the centuries unless it was a public issue, similar laws did govern
the English society even centuries after Edward I (the last known execution
for homosexuality in Britain was in 1836). The law was formally officialised
during the rule of King Henry VIII in 1533 under the category of “buggery”
468
law. The court decreed a penalty of death for “the detestable and abominable Literary and Cultural
Perspectives
vice of buggery committed with mankind or beast” (Bailey, 1955, p. 147).
This included masturbation, anal and oral sex. With the rise of royal
supremacy, sodomy was secluded from the authoritative jurisdiction of the
Church and was shifted to the jurisdiction of the king making it a crime
against the crown rather than against the Church, and gradually the position
of the subject committing buggery was synonymous with that of murderers
and other criminals against the state. Bailey writes: “...such offenders
were now included, with murderers and robbers below the rank of subdeacon,
in the category of those who might not claim Benefit of Clergy. Finally, the
death penalty was imposed, though the manner of execution was not
specified; in most cases it was presumably carried out by hanging” (Bailey,
1955, p.148).

The removal of the death penalty finally came into force in 1861 when the
British court prescribed that persons “...convicted of the abominable crime
of buggery, committed either with mankind or with any animal, shall be
liable, at the discretion of the Court, to be kept in penal servitude for life,
or for any term not less than ten years” (Bailey, 1955, p.151). In Britain,
the trials of influential people against the crime of sodomy are some of the
instances which have been considerably popularised in the modern-day gay
liberation movement. The French philosopher Michel Foucault observes in
The History of Sexuality I that in European history, there was a period of
transition—“a centrifugal movement”—of people’s perception towards the
subject of sexuality (Foucault, 1980, p. 38). The period from the seventeenth
century to the nineteenth century witnessed much transformation in specific
social practices. Concentration on the “rules and recommendations” regarding
the “sex of husband and wife” (Foucault, 1980, p. 37) shifted to surveillance
of the sexual life/fantasy of a different group of people:

...what came under scrutiny was the sexuality of children, mad

men and women and criminals; the sensuality of those who did not
like the opposite sex; reveries, obsessions, petty manias, or great
transports of rage. It was time for all these figures, scarcely noticed
in the past, to step forward and speak, to make the difficult
confession of what they were (Foucault, 1980, pp. 38-39).

During the period following the seventeenth century ‘types of individuals’

and ‘individual behaviour’, which were either ‘silenced’ or ‘neglected’,
came to the forefront to be codified; and authorities—political, religious or
otherwise—started preaching about their dangerousness. The scope of such
a codification extended to multiple colonies as well. Thomas Babington
469
Queer Theory Macaulay inherited penal ideas from the law of England in order to draft
the Indian Penal Code (suggestions were also drawn from the French Penal
Code and from Livingstone’s Code of Louisiana); Section 377 of the Code
criminalized sodomy in India with the spirit of Macaulay’s time. As you have
already read in several units of Block 3, this has recently been challenged
by the Delhi High Court in 2009. Significantly, the Code reduced death
penalty to ‘life imprisonment’ or a term that a court would prescribe along
with a fine. Jurisdictions concerning such sexualities, as explained by
Foucault, became the order of the day for decades in the Indian subcontinent
as well.

This colonial legacy came not just to India but to several other countries
under British rule and continues till date in the laws of several countries.
In India, the Delhi High Court delivered a historic judgement on 2 July 2009
and read down the century-old colonial anti-sodomy law. You have already
read in detail about Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code in Block 3 (Unit
3) of this course. The judgement is widely available online. The case is now
in the Supreme Court and interestingly it is not the Indian State that is
interested in retaining the law as it was, but a bunch of fundamentalists
of different shades and religious interests whose prominent claim is that
queerness/homosexuality is against the ‘great’ Indian culture. Let us now
look at how the law has been used in persecuting and constraining queer
writers, or writers who wished to explore the area of queer sexuality.

Check Your Progress: What is the legacy of British Law against

sodomy? What trials have been important and why?

2.5 PERSECUTION, LITERATURE AND QUEER THEORY

It is important to note that a text on homosexual sexuality and homosocial
or homoerotic desire does not necessarily presuppose that the author is
homosexual. Neither does queer theory claim that a homosexual artist
produces texts depicting only homosexual or homosocial desire. Further, a
text or writer might not have explicit descriptions about homoerotic desire,
yet the context could be under the purview of queer theory. In this section,
you will understand how writers have used gay and lesbian themes in
literary works and how the literary texts produced in different centuries
470 have depicted the socio-cultural realities of queer lives.
Religious scriptures such as in Christianity, Islam as well as Hinduism have Literary and Cultural
Perspectives
only a few passages which condemn homosexuality directly or indirectly.
These have become the genesis of homophobia in many countries. In most
cases, interpretations of these passages have given rise to, and influenced,
homosexual persecution and homosexual hatred along with ridicule, exclusion,
and attempts to change behaviour to imprisonment and even execution.
Earlier we have seen that with the rise of royal supremacy in England with
King Henry VIII’s break with the Catholic Church, sodomy, along with several
other crimes, gradually became a crime against the crown rather than
against the religious institution. Tolerating the queer identity or behaviour,
thus, is subject to change and the condemnation or trial of several influential
people provides a backdrop to literature as well. In this section we shall
see how homoerotic and homosexual themes have been of use in investigating
past and present sexualities. Before we start looking at a few instances
from literary and cultural texts, it is important to note that the
marginalization of queer literature by the mainstream canon has led to the
formation of an alternative canon. Further, gay and lesbian writers have
been unable to express their feelings/sexualities owing to the nature of
societal pressure and cultural norms of the ‘perceived’ heterosexual society
and audience. Both politically and culturally, the gay and lesbian population
has been non-mainstream and has been marginalized throughout the ages.
Socially, the everyday harassment remains central to queer life and literature.
Hence, declaring one’s sexual preferences—in other words “coming out of
the closet”—has accelerated the freedom struggle of the queer population
and has helped the gay and lesbian population to find its voice in a society
that has perceived any form of non-heterosexual sex as a threat.

In the sub-sections which follow, let us look at the specific circumstances

surrounding the lives and works of three authors from the late 19th to the
early 20th centuries, in order to grasp the impact of social pressures and
hostility on literary writers who struggled to express homosexual themes or
ideas in their writings.

2.5.1 “The Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name”: The Case
of Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)—the famous writer of The Importance of Being
Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray—had to undergo a trial for “posing
as a homosexual” almost a century before queer theory found its way to
the academia. During his trial the Marquis of Queensberry—who accused
Wilde of sodomy and of corrupting young people—made use of his literary
texts to prove him homosexual. The issue is important for various reasons:
471
Queer Theory • Wilde, a very successful writer, had been dragged into the court;

• He was condemned for posing as a homosexual; and

• Literary texts were used for public conviction at the court.

Wilde was asked by Queensberry’s lawyer to define what he means by “the

love that dare not speak its name”, which had appeared in a poem entitled
“Two Loves” by Alfred Douglass—Queensberry’s youngest son whom Wilde had
befriended—and was published by Wilde in the magazine The Chameleon
(1894). Although he was sentenced to two years in prison, Wilde’s explanation
serves an aesthetic purpose and is self-explanatory even today. It also alludes
to gay aesthetics in the larger context of queer studies. Wilde replies:

The love that dare not speak its name in this century is such a
great affection of an elder for a younger man as there was between
David and Jonathan, such as Plato made the very basis of his
philosophy, and such as you will find in the sonnets of Michael
Angelo and Shakespeare—that deep, spiritual affection that is as
pure as it is perfect, and dictates great works of art like those of
Shakespeare and Michael Angelo and these two letters of mine,
such as they are, and which is in this century misunderstood—so
misunderstood that on account of it I am placed where I am now.
It is beautiful, it is fine, and it is the noblest form of affection...
(Goodman, 1989, p.114).

It may be evident to you, from the above, that owing to the nature of
societal pressure and strict Victorian law, neither did Wilde defend
homosexuality directly nor did he mention that he was homosexual. Nor did
he state that the poem or his letters mirrored homosexual love. Wilde’s
trial serves as a significant event of homosexual torture, and projects the
attitude of the Victorian period towards any discourse about alternative
forms of sexuality.

Michel Foucault in The History of Sexuality terms this notion or attitude of

repressing and condemning any form of alternative sexual practices other
than monogamous heterosexual sex as a ‘Victorian attitude’. (You have
already been introduced to some of Foucault’s views in the previous unit.
It may be helpful for you to review these again.) It is because of Victorian
bourgeois society that—Foucault argues—sexuality has been repressed,
codified and has entered the domain of the home for the purpose of
‘reproduction’. He also states that in regard to the subject of sex and
sexuality, “silence became the rule” (Foucault, 1980, p. 3). Moreover, though
Wilde succumbed to a term in prison, the trial of 1895 generated a lot of
discussion in the field of letters and politics. With an aim to reform the
472
court’s attitude towards homosexuals and homosexuality, Edward Carpenter— Literary and Cultural
Perspectives
the writer of Love’s Coming of Age (1896) and Ioläus: An Anthology of
Friendship (1917)—suggested to Havelock Ellis—British physician, psychologist,
social reformer and writer who studied human sexuality—that “the
prosecuting counsel, Sir Edward Clarke, be sent some scientific literature
on the subject” (Copley 2006, 75) as it was being done in Germany. It was
because of the literary representation of same-sex desire that Wilde’s writing
caused such havoc in the political circle, to the extent that there were
proposals to withdraw all his plays from the stage of London. Hence, the
trial has been influential in many countries, in many ways, and in the
modern period it has served as an example for homosexual emancipation.
Moreover, the issue suggests that with Victorian rule and law, in several
colonial countries the issue of condemning homosexuality has become a
trend for generations. You should remember that Wilde’s trial has been
influential both in literary and political circles. The phrase “the love that
dare not speak its name” has been evoked constantly to cite the role of
Church, law and society in subjugating the homosexual subject and the
desire to find same-sex love in many countries.

2.5.2 Radclyffe Hall’s The Well of Loneliness

Let us take another example. In 1928 Radclyffe Hall published The Well of
Loneliness, a novel which openly portrayed a lesbian relationship. The
novel projected the story of Stephen Gordon and Mary Llewellyn who fall
in love and face the consequences of lesbian love in the form of social
isolation and utter rejection from family and friends. It was argued that
with the publication of the book, lesbianism moved to the home front. It
is noteworthy to mention that lesbianism has been opposed more strongly
in history than male homosexuality. The book became an easy target for
portraying lesbian issue openly. James Douglas, editor of the Sunday Express,
openly started targeting Radclyffe Hall and the book, and portrayed Hall’s
photograph in a negative way in the newspaper. Though the book was
banned by the British court with a vituperative campaign, the negative
portrayal of her photograph and her way of dressing became an inspiration
for many lesbians who were conscious of their identity.

2.5.3 The Indian Context: The Trial of Ismat Chugtai

With the issue of ‘moral purity’ growing strong, because of ‘Victorian’
morality and because of the Indian nationalist discourse, there is a relative
lack of homoerotic literature in the colonial period. What we have instead
is a faint homophobic voice. The case of Ismat Chugtai is an apt example.
Her short story “Lihaaf” (“The Quilt”), for instance, generated a lot of
473
Queer Theory controversy when it was first published in the year 1941. The story presented
a lesbian relationship between the characters of Begum Jan and Rabbo,
which scandalized most of the readers. With the controversy surrounding
the story gaining strength, she was charged with obscenity by the British
government. She challenged the ban on the story and won the lawsuit. The
trial lasted four years and is documented by her in Kaghazi Hai Pairahan
(1994). Chugtai’s story is important in queer literary discourse because of
several reasons which we shall discuss in Section 2.6.4. It would be
noteworthy to mention, here, that it was not just male (homosexual) writers
who were tried; women writers too have challenged the heteronormative
world and have seen persecutions in the history of the gay liberation
movement.

In the next section, let us examine the relationship between writing and
same-sex desire, particularly in the light of the metaphor of the ‘closet’.
Before we do that, however, it would be useful for you to keep in mind a
certain degree of caution in using terminology such as ‘gay’, ‘lesbian’, and
‘homosexual’ so that the historical contexts within which these terms appear,
and the connotations that they may carry, are not lost sight of (see Box 2.1
below):
Box 2.1: A Note on Terminology and Queer Writing

It is important to point out here that even though we have been using
the terms “gay,” “lesbian” or “homosexual” in the context of literary
writings produced in the last century, these are actually recent
categories, so we need to use caution when using them for texts and
events before their usage became common. At the same time, there
are threads of “same-sex” desire, or what has here been called
homosocial and or homosexual desire present throughout literary
history. Even more complicated are the histories of gender non-
conforming and gender transgressive persons and the reading of their
lives or texts. These writings have been read at the sometimes troubled
and often complex interstices of gender and sexuality, of queer and
transgender theories.

Another equally important aspect in the history of “queer writing”

has been the project of reclaiming literary work that has been of
importance for both the women’s movement and the LGBTQ movement.
This project has entailed the foregrounding of women writers and
artists as well as “queer” (as we might see them or read from their
work) writers or writings. It has been done in the western countries
and has been done in India as well.
474
 Literary and Cultural
2.6 WRITING AND SAME-SEX DESIRE Perspectives

In the above sections, you have seen how laws against homosexuality have
forced writers to write from within a closeted space, whether it was in
Europe, USA or India. The shift in discourse after the 1940’s and 1950’s, in
western countries, has had a wide reaching impact on LGBTQ organising the
world over. In Block 3 of this course, you have already read in some detail
about 20th century LGBT/Queer movements. In this section, we shall look
more closely at the origins of the ‘closet’ and its use in queer literary
theory.

In modern times, whatever the religious and cultural implications of the

texts may be, they evoke a sense of liberation concerning freedom of
speech and writing. One aspect of such an exercise is highly political if not
aesthetic or cultural. All forms of sexual preferences, except that of
heterosexual monogamous marriage, have been condemned in different
periods in different ways. There is, as Foucault points out, less tolerance
towards the subject of sex and sexuality in the period following the
seventeenth century. The Victorian mentality has set upon people on the
subject of sexuality and it has become a subject of reproduction in most
cases. Hence, the cultural and societal aspect of defining the queer space
is highly crucial in understanding the nature of the closet. It is important
to note that it is because of societal pressures that many writers cannot
declare their sexual orientation, and produce literature from the closet. It
indicates, in principle, that queer writers in different centuries have
performed their shame and guilt of being homosexual owing to legal and
social stigma.

In the sub-sections that follow, we shall begin by examining the notion of

the ‘closet’ and its role in literary discourse. We shall then look at specific
instances of representation of same-sex desire in the writings of three
women writers, located in diverse time periods and cultures, in order to get
a broad overview of some of the ways in which the closeted space of
homosexuality has been evoked in literary writing.

2.6.1 The ‘Closet’

John Clum in Acting Gay (1992) defines the closet as “less a place than a
performance—or series of performances, maintained by the heterosexist
wish for, and sometimes enforcement of, homosexual silence and invisibility”
(Clum, 1992, p. 88). The closet, as a space, is quite invisible; as a metaphor,
it chiefly stands for silence, pretension, enforced performance and exile.
Clum adds: “Like any good performer, the closeted individual seeks approval 475
Queer Theory by giving his audience what they want, but in the process he performs his
shame at being homosexual” (Clum, 1992, p. 88). For queer people, the
closet is “a shaping presence,” states Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick in The
Epistemology of the Closet (Sedgwick, 1990, p. 68). The closet acts as a
fence—as protection—from law, religion and society. It is a way to safeguard
the self from persecution and public discrimination. Thus, any understanding
of the position and performance of the queer in different centuries has to
be accompanied by a re-reading of cultural texts and re-defining the public
and private space. An enquiry into the field of alternative sexualities must
be juxtaposed with re-reading of texts throughout the centuries and this
portrays—if not historically proves—how the queer has found a space in
different centuries. Queering a culture has to come with a sense of
understanding that freedom of speech and freedom of writing are crucially
linked with the sense of an identity and self-portrayal. The enquiry of the
closet is linked with the culture, ethos and thought-process of the century,
its law, religion and social discourses. While the self-portrayal of the
homosexual, in the form of a sexual identity category, is recent in origin,
it is also vital to observe that many queer writers are victims of social
stigma and must often adapt to, and perform according to the nature of
mainstream societal norms.

Hence, one aspect of queer literary theory investigates the structure of

power, knowledge and language in literary discourses because the location
of the queer is structured around exposing hidden meanings and distinctions
within the larger stream of literary texts. While linguistic enquiry and
cultural identity remain important aspects of Sedgwick’s enquiry into the
subject of the closet, the construction of an identity remains crucial in a
world that has constantly universalized sexual positioning of men and women.
With the mark of post-Stonewall era (period following the series of violent
demonstrations against anti-homosexual police raid, 1969), gay and lesbian
perspectives have gained wider importance in the field of politics, sociology,
literature, philosophy and archaeology. Finding its genesis in feminist analyses
of patriarchal discourses, the earlier approaches to queer theory focused on
showing that sexuality and sexual identity are socially constructed: they
change accordingly to the positioning of culture and society. The essentialist
aspect of sexual orientation, however, is that one may be born gay or
lesbian and may therefore exert less choice in deciding one’s sexual
preference. These two opposing opinions have dominated the debate
concerning sexual identity (just as one aspect of feminist theory claims that
one is not born a woman, but rather becomes a woman because of one’s
sex). Different aspects of queer theory and queer reading are thus derived
476 from and depend upon these two approaches on the discourse of alternative
forms of sexualities. The notion of essentialism sets sexuality apart from Literary and Cultural
Perspectives
culture and society and foregrounds the life and attitude of the queer
subject. On the other hand, the social constructionist approach emphasizes
the role of historical periods, their law against sexuality, religions and other
forms of social discourses that shape one’s sexuality within the purview of
mainstream society.

We need to recognize that though not explicitly mentioned as “homosexual”

or “gay” in the ancient times—because the terms did not exist then, and
many cultures hardly ever had proper synonyms for the category or the
act—there have been references to alternative forms of sexual practices in
various cultures and in literatures of several countries. Owing to the nature
of positioning a queer past, locating an historical or genealogical enquiry
into the field of sexuality in literary works greatly depends upon exploring
a genealogy of queer writing throughout the centuries. Further, from ancient
Greek to Indian culture, homoerotic sentiments and homosexuality have
been depicted in temple carvings, artworks of Greek and Roman cultures
and vases of multiple countries in different periods. Representations of,
and discussions about homosexuality range from Plato’s Symposium to
Shakespeare’s Sonnets and have been portrayed in multiple ways.

Ancient Greece remains an example of a golden period of tolerance of

homosexuals and same-sex love. There are references to pederasty—physical
bondage among adult men and adolescent boys—in the work of many
historians/philosophers. In fact, the adolescent’s education in ancient Greece
was informed by accepted sexual practices, and flourished for centuries
before censorship on homosexuality became a trend. True love, Plato
remarked, is between two men, and homoerotic love is chiefly about gaining
knowledge and education and for attaining wisdom; and hence Plato remarked
that it is superior to all other forms of earthly love. Let us now turn to the
work of the well-known writer, Sappho, from ancient Greece, whose name
and island became associated with a culture which later came to be known
as lesbianism.

Check Your Progress: What does the term ‘closet’ imply? Can you
think of any examples (stories/ narratives/ novels/ films) from India
which would help to throw light on this concept? Describe in your own
words.

477
Queer Theory 2.6.2 Sappho’s Lesbos
Sappho, a poet from the island of Lesbos, composed love lyrics—approximately
12,000 lines out of which about 600 lines survive—in praise of women and
girls. She is also believed to be the head of thiasoi, a community of women
who lived together and were bonded by same-sex love. It is also believed
that the women in Sappho’s community were priestesses of the goddess
Aphrodite. Although there might have been accusations of prostitution,
Sappho’s popularity as a poet in the island remained unquestionable. Often
sensual and melodic, the love songs of Sappho primarily show her affection
and adoration for female figures. Hence, with a celebratory note to Sappho’s
lyrics, the term “lesbian” is derived from the name of the island, Lesbos,
where Sappho—it is assumed—lived and educated young girls and females
in the sixth century BC. In the cultural context, historians are never sure
whether same-sex love among women was ever a problem in Sappho’s
period and whether the reception of same-sex love was negative. Though
uncertainty is the norm when we discuss Sappho’s poetry from our point of
view, such love may have had positive implications in terms of gaining
education and knowledge. Placing Sappho’s work within the queer literary
canon comes with an understanding that Sappho wrote love lyrics in the
praise of women. It is an act of rediscovering cultural texts and placing
them in the light of theoretical development of the modern-day queer
movement. Sappho’s position as a central poet of the queer literary tradition
has given rise to re-reading of other writers of different ages. Re-reading
of cultural texts comes with a sense of understanding of different cultural
and sociological contexts.

While Sappho’s lyrics belong to ancient times and are set widely apart from
those of contemporary women writers, it is interesting to see the links
between the ancient and modern worlds in the context of a long tradition
of homoerotic writing, and contemporary theorizing about same-sex desire.

2.6.3 Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick

In the literary context, establishing a tradition of homoerotic writing is to
build an alternative canon for writers whose texts have been considerably
neutralized due to a ‘Victorian attitude’ and homophobia. In Between Men:
English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire (1985), Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
shows that there is a tradition of ‘homosocial desire’ (‘desire’ in all senses
of the term) which has been present through several centuries in English
literature. She also shows how a tradition of male-bonding has gained some
importance in English writing. Taking a perspective from social
constructionism, Sedgwick—like Foucault—treats concepts like ‘desire,’
478
‘masculinity,’ ‘femininity,’ ‘lesbian’ and ‘homosexual’ as historically unstable Literary and Cultural
Perspectives
notions and as loaded terms having historical and cultural meanings according
to the cultural milieu of the age. Taking instances from several celebrated
authors such as William Shakespeare, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens
and others, she discovers that there is plenty of material available on
same-sex sexual relationships. The following is one of Shakespeare’s sonnets
that Sedgwick analyses in the light of queer theory:

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,

Which like two spirits do suggest me still;
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And whether that my angel be turn’d fiend
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,
But being both from me both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell
Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
Till my angel fire my good one out. (Shakespeare, Sonnet 144)

The depiction of good versus evil here marks the narrator’s desire to succeed
in love. The triangular love depicted shows the desire for the male-
counterpart and represents both the “male lover” and the “dark lady”—the
two characters who find space in Shakespeare’s sonnets. Exploring the
speaker’s intention to find the male-counterpart’s love, Sedgwick suggests
that “while genital sexuality is a good place to look for a concentration of
language about power relationships, the relation of that language...to other
power relationships is one of meaning, and hence intensively structured,
highly contingent and variable, and often cryptic” (Sedgwick, 1985, p. 48).
There remain, in fact, numerous instances of homoerotic love in other texts
of different centuries that Sedgwick explores.

Just as we can trace the history of queer writing from Sappho to Sedgwick
in the west, scholars have also attempted to locate moments in Indian
history which manifest the representation of homosexual and/or homosocial
desire in literary texts. In the following sub-section, we shall return to our
earlier example, that of Ismat Chughtai, as well as other examples of queer
writing in the Indian context. 479
Queer Theory 2.6.4 Queer Writing in the Indian Context
In the Indian context, there have been numerous references to same-sex
love, homoeroticism and same-sex sexuality. Researchers of Indian sexualities
(especially queer Indian sexualities), while tracing the genesis of the cultural
production of a queer culture in ancient Indian archaeological sites,
architectural constructs and in categorising the act as an ‘Oriental vice’ in
the colonial period, point out that notions such as ‘queer culture’, ‘queer
nation’ and ‘queer people’ hardly ever technically existed in India. With the
publication of Ugra’s Chocolate (1927), a collection of short stories in Hindi,
the first ever notable debate on homosexuality takes place in the 1920s.
Earlier we observed how Ismat Chugtai’s short story “Lihaaf” (“The Quilt”)
generated a lot of controversy because it portrayed a lesbian relationship
between the characters of Begum Jan and Rabbo; the theme in fact
scandalized most of the readers. Let us look more closely at this story in
the light of our earlier observations.

The story “Lihaaf” has a narrator, who is generally identified as a little girl;
however, a careful reading of the story reveals that the girl is of certain
age when she narrates her experience to a gathering. She goes back in time
and remembers the incident that took place when she was left with Begum
Jan. The story employs two techniques: first, it projects a child as the
narrator to show the child-like innocence of telling a story; and second, it
presents an ordinary object such as the quilt to narrate a lesbian experience.
These are two techniques used by Chugtai to show a complex relationship
in an easier way to draw the attention of her readers. Further, the audience
of the story remains skeptical because it is observed that the story breaks
in between and presents other issues (in fact the narrator’s interpretation)
rather than describing the real story of the ‘quilt’. The story of Begum Jan
is re-created and told when the young girl who witnesses the lesbian love
grows up. The narrative takes the reader to a description of the miserable
life of Begum Jan who is in despair and is having a period of loneliness. She
narrates the story when Begum Jan meets the new maid, Rabbo, and there
is a sudden transformation in her personality. In the political scenario, the
story created a sense of havoc because it explored the theme of lesbian
love. Chugtai’s trial is an example of how law and social discourses have
positioned alternative forms of sexualities in different societies.

In the last two decades, the focus of queer Indian research has been on
linguistic or literary-critical analysis to show the representation of gender
transpositions in Indian socio-cultural discourses. The last decade of the
twentieth century has witnessed the publication of two queer anthologies:
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Yaraana: Gay Writing from India (1999), edited by Hoshang Merchant, and Literary and Cultural
Perspectives
Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India (1999), edited by Ashwini
Sukthankar; both the anthologies were published by Penguin. These two
anthologies, arrestingly the pioneering pieces in the field of queer writing
in India, were highly influential in the formation of a canon and in providing
a structure for a queer movement in Indian literature. The development of
a body of queer texts occurred at a time when feminist and dalit literatures
in India were already making the rounds in academic circles. In the early
1990s when Susie Tharu and K. Lalita were anthologising Women Writing in
India and critics in the humanities and the social sciences were discussing
alternative voices, heterosexist perspectives were being challenged by writers
and activists in the queer circle. Taking inspiration from the two pioneering
anthologies, Ruth Vanita and Saleem Kidwai edited Same-Sex Love in India:
Readings from Literature and History in 2000 and included passages that
depict same-sex love from ancient, medieval and modern India. The
anthologies indicate, in principle, that a body of queer literary works has
been present through the ages, though it was not technically categorised
as “queer literature”.

Although this unit has focused almost entirely on issues related to same-sex
desire and their representation in literary works, we should draw our attention
to an equally important dimension that has not been covered here, which
is a discussion of transgender issues and the area of “gender studies”.
However, this has been adequately dealt with in Block 3 in several of the
units of that block. It would be a useful exercise for you to look at those
issues in the light of the discussions of literary texts discussed above, or in
the light of literary works that you have read elsewhere, and analyse these
from gendered perspectives.

2.7 LET US SUM UP

Based on what you have read so far, you may be able to summarize that
there is a qualitative difference in defining the queer as a sexual category.
Though “the love that dare not speak its name” has witnessed a series of
displacements in recent times, there is still a long way to go because a
generation of people have to learn to be tolerant towards differences in
general, and the queer in particular. In politics and administration, the law
concerning sodomy has advanced from the 13th century British court to the
Indian subcontinent and has been challenged recently with the Delhi High
Court’s verdict to read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code. In short,
this single historical event had the power, of course with the help of several
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Queer Theory institutions — religious, cultural and social — to stigmatize and suppress any
queer discourse for generations. Further, literary texts have been crucial in
depicting queer lives. Apart from knowing our past and present sexualities
and the thought process of an age, we also find documentations of how
queer writers have been marginalized in numerous contexts due to
homophobia. A cultural understanding of queer lives through literary
representation is important in seeking the roots of the homophobic structure
of society, as well as the presence and acceptance of queerness. The
homo/hetero dichotomy remains crucial to the understanding of queer culture
because the existence of the one highly depends on the other. The trial of
influential people against the charge of sodomy, targeting books that
represent gay and lesbian themes, and the way law, religions and social
discourses position queer sexualities, are all indicators of the great amount
of work that still remains to be done in order to create modern constructs
of tolerance.

2.8 UNIT END QUESTIONS

1) Explain the origin of the term ‘queer’ in relation to other terms used to
describe same-sex desires, and non-normative behaviours.

2) Give instances from a few literary texts that depict cultural and historical
understanding of sexualities.

3) How is queer theory evoked to re-read literary texts of different centuries?

4) How were homosexuals treated in ancient Greece? Why is Sappho’s work

important for the study of sexualities?

5) How does the study of law, religion and social discourses of a period help
us understand our sexualities better?

6) Give examples from Indian literature to show how Indian writers have
used homosexual or queer discourses despite severe legal or cultural
limitations.

2.9 REFERENCES
Bailey, D.S. (1955). Homosexuality and the Western Christian Tradition.
London: Longmans Green.

Barry, P. (1995). Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural

Theory. Manchester: Manchester UP.

Carpenter, E. (1906). Love’s Coming-of-Age. London: Swan Sonnenschein.

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Carpenter, E. (1917). Ioläus: An Anthology of Friendship. New York: Mitchell Literary and Cultural
Perspectives
Kennerley.

Chugtai, Ismat (1994). Kaghazi Hai Pairahan. New Delhi: Ministry of

Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India.

Clum, J. (1992). Acting Gay: Male Homosexuality in Modern Drama. New

York: Columbia University Press.

Foucault, M. (1980). The History of Sexuality, Volume I: An Introduction.

New York: Vintage Books.

Goodman, J. (1989). The Oscar Wilde File. London: W.H. Allen and Co.

Hall, R. (1990). The Well of Loneliness. New York: Anchor Books.

Sedgwick, E.K. (1985). Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial
Desire. New York: Colombia UP.

2.10 SUGGESTED READINGS

Gupta, A. This Alien Legacy: The Origins of Sodomy laws in British
Colonialism. New Delhi: Human Rights Watch (available on the net at http:/
/www.hrw.org/en/node/77015).

Katz, J. (1976). Gay American History: Lesbians and Gay Men in the USA.
New York: Discus Book.

Merchant, H. (1999). (Ed). Yaraana: Gay Writing from India. New Delhi:
Penguin.

Sedgwick, E.K. (1990). The Epistemology of the Closet. Berkeley: University

of California Press.

Sukthankar, A. (1999). (Ed). Facing the Mirror: Lesbian Writing from India.
New Delhi: Penguin.

Vanita, R, and Saleem K. (2000). (Eds). Same-Sex Love in India: Readings

from Literature and History. London: Palgrave.

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Queer Theory
UNIT 3 INDIAN PERSPECTIVES
Akhil Katyal
Structure

3.1 Introduction
3.2 Objectives
3.3 Queer Concepts in India
3.4 Sexuality rights and the Democratic Contract
3.5 Differences and (In)Tolerance
3.6 Difference and Identity Formation
3.7 Let Us Sum Up
3.8 Unit End Questions
3.9 References
3.10 Suggested Readings

3.1 INTRODUCTION
In the previous units of this block, you have been introduced to certain
theoretical perspectives in the area of queer theory. While these could be
useful lenses in examining queer issues within the Indian context, we would
need to look at the specificity of Indian situations in order to arrive at a
fuller understanding of Indian perspectives. In this unit we will look at
queer politics and perspectives especially in the Indian context. Indian
history, especially of the contemporary period, will bring to the fore many
different contexts of class, language and political orientation, which impinge
upon one another but are not reducible to each other. We will look at some
examples from these different contexts to get an idea about the scope and
work of queer theory in present day India. This will help you to see that
theory and activism are intricately connected and that in order to theorize,
it is important to speak from the location of the different ‘subjects’ that
form queer theory in India.

3.2 OBJECTIVES
In this unit, you are going to learn more about ways of understanding (in
other words, the ‘theory’ of) the contemporary queer politics and identities
in India. After going through this unit now, you should be able to:

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• Explain how the language of ‘sexuality rights’ works in contemporary Indian Perspectives

India;

• Explain how democracy works in terms of ‘sexual minorities’ and identities;

• Analyze critically the issue of difference and intolerance in the context

of identity; and

• Arrive at an understanding of different Indian idioms which would help in

foregrounding the differences between preferences and habits on the
one hand, and sexual identities, on the other.

3.3 QUEER CONCEPTS IN INDIA

While theory and practice are sometimes set up as disparate and opposing
sides, it is important to note, at the very outset, that theory often arises
from ‘brainstorming’ or ‘strategizing’ within activist group meetings or as
the chosen ‘angle’ in media debates. It influences the thinking that goes
into deciding the specific pitch of a protest, the particular text of a slogan,
as well as the range and ambition of the stated goals. Therefore, we need
to enlarge our idea of the place of theory because it is present everywhere
in unmarked yet remarkable ways. Its presence goes beyond places where
it is considered ‘usual,’ that is, in the academia and in lengthy classroom
discussions. Theory is, in fact, fundamental to the very ways in which we
conceptualize our struggle; it resides in the methods we use to mobilize
public opinion and in the fragments through which we dream up our ideal
worlds. Queer theory in India, in this sense, finds itself dispersed outside
the classroom in street actions and ‘pride’, in court-rooms, in activist-
police dialogue, in NGO funding circuits and on endless banners.

Theory is, after all, as its Greek root suggests, fundamentally about ‘theros’
that is ‘spectatorship’ (‘horan,’ is ‘to see’). It determines the ways in which
we see the world around us. A study of ‘theory’ quite simply implies
understanding these ways of seeing and constantly revising them according
to changing needs and situations.

Queer theory in India would find itself in an eclectic set of places. It might
function as the bundle of ideas that become the driving force of an activist
group, of a media campaign or of an academic enterprise. Queer theory
is thus being formed at a variety of different places, which include small
groups of female or male academics, scholars or activists who identify with,
or wish to be associated with, issues related to non-normative sexuality and
gender, as well as larger, more institutionalized gatherings of queer groups.
Such groups may include not only those who identify as ‘queer’ based on
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Queer Theory their sexual preferences or identities, but equally, others like parents,
friends, or associates who may have some kind of personal or intellectual
interest or investment in theorizing about queerness. You have already
read about several such examples and case studies in the block on Queer
Movements. Since it is not feasible to cover all such examples within the
scope of one unit, we will use a select group of examples to illustrate the
relationship of theory and activism in the Indian context. However, it is
important to remember that the examples covered here present only one
slice of the large and complex picture that composes the ongoing dialogues
and debates around queer theory and practice in India. Before we turn to
these examples, however, let us first try to understand the idea of sexuality
rights.

3.4 SEXUALITY RIGHTS AND THE DEMOCRATIC

CONTRACT
In this section, we will examine how the language of sexuality ‘rights’ works
in our present day liberal democracies. The language of rights is intimately
connected to the idea of ‘protest’ since protesting is a way of expressing
dissatisfaction about rights not given, or snatched away from individuals
and communities. In this context, K. Balagopal’s observations about protest
and oppression are noteworthy:

“[Y]ou formulate a protest in terms of principle...you can never

formulate a protest only in terms of an interest. You can never say:
I am being oppressed. You have to say: oppression is wrong. That’s
the only way you can formulate a protest. The moment you do that,
the principle becomes universal. Not universal in the sense of 100%
universal but it finds for itself a class which goes beyond you. Then
what happens is that you will have to speak for many more people.
Which again has its own further consequences. So a perpetual
expansion of the principle concerned is unavoidable in the very fact
that the protest has to be expressed in terms of universal values.”
(K. Balagopal (1952-2009), Indian civil rights activist)

What we can understand from the above is that the language of human
rights is theoretically a universal language. In one stroke, it considers all
its subjects equal. It gives attributes to each of them that are formally
similar. The French National Assembly, when declaring ‘the Rights of Man’
in August, 1789, had considered every individual to be implicitly endowed
with ‘natural, unalienable and sacred’ rights. This endowment is based on
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the simple incidence of their birth. It is ‘natural’ in each one of them and Indian Perspectives

requires no qualifications other than existence.

The declaration of ‘human rights,’ written closer to our times and adopted
by the United Nations in December, 1948 extends this particular vein of its
French counterpart. “Everyone is entitled,” it announced at the Palais de
Chaillot in Paris, “to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration,
without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion,
political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other
status” (‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, www.un.org). At the
heart of all ideas of liberal and legal citizenship is actually a matter of
faith. You have to believe that everyone is inherently equal, their rights are
a sacred given and that no distinction that might attach to them in the
course of living can contradict this bedrock of rights that is implicit in these
creatures. It finds in the moment of birth the commonality of all human
beings and premises all its gifts on this incidence that is necessarily shared
by all. “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights”
(‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’, www.un.org). Each of us, at
the very least, is born free. We should understand that liberal citizenship
has always been a matter of faith which requires a structure of belief.

Ever since the 1960s, the decade associated with the ‘sexual rights’ and
‘civil rights’ movements in the United States and Europe, ‘sexuality’ has
been articulated as one of the universal ‘rights’ of human beings. Every
time a pride march in Delhi or Mumbai, or a legal document in its higher
courts, speaks of ‘sexuality’ as a ‘right’, they inadvertently link themselves
to the more than two hundred year old idea of liberal citizenship, and bring
‘sexual orientation’ to bear upon this always aggregating idea of citizenship.
Whenever statements like ‘My Sexuality, My Right’ or ‘Right to one’s own
Sexuality’ are articulated in the public media, in petitions or on banners,
it makes ‘sexuality’ into one of those inherent attributes of human beings
as citizens.

Framed in this way, as a proper attribute, as an identifiable thing within

legal matters, ‘sexuality’ itself becomes not something that people ‘do’ or
‘experience’ but something that people ‘have.’ It becomes a personal trait.
It is thought of as a distinguishable asset among people. They are all equal
in so far as they all have a ‘sexuality’; this sexuality itself could be of
different kinds (for example, ‘homosexual’ or ‘heterosexual’).

Representative democracy, based as it is on the ideals of liberal and legal

citizenship, depends on the strength of these ideals for the task of democratic
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Queer Theory representation. It needs recognition of effective distinctions among people
under the larger umbrella of equality, so that they can be represented as
separate units as well as coherent groups. We should understand that it is
within such a political and philosophic framework, that is, within the
framework of liberal, legal citizenship, that matters of sexual desire become
numbers in the hands of census-makers; they become computable within a
public game of statistics. As famously declared by the famous Urdu poet
Muhammad Iqbal, “Jamahuriyat ek tarz-e-hukumat hai jisme, bando ko
gina kartein hain, tola naheen karte” (“democracy is a form of government
in which heads are counted, but never weighed”) (Iqbal, 2007, p. 98). It
is precisely because of this kind of tendency that under the aegis of
democracy, ‘homosexuals’ can be conceived as a ‘minority’ and placed
against the ‘heterosexual’ majority. The ‘margin’ as a common expression
used by civil society groups, when used to speak about ‘marginalized
sexualities,’ becomes not only a separating threshold between the those
without rights and those with rights but also effectively a border between
groups thought to be inherently different, that is, homosexuals and
heterosexuals.

Allocation into representative groups is a political convenience. It follows

that, quite necessarily, the homosexual must then be seen as a ‘political’
creature in the deepest sense of the term rather than a ‘natural’ or a
‘scientific’ one. The ‘natural’ factor of one’s sexuality (remember all rights
were framed as ‘natural, unalienable and sacred’) has to be staged as the
‘inherent’ quality in everyone to make sense of the processes that most
civil society groups use for pursuing their dreams of change. They have to
go through the route of legality. ‘Sexuality’ as ‘right’ is finally and
fundamentally a political strategy and should always be understood as such.
The difference that it institutes between ‘homosexuals’ and ‘heterosexuals’
is of a recent historical occurrence and cannot be read easily into the
historical past or the future, or even into situations that are not exhausted
by the language of rights. In the section which follows, let us look at the
notion of difference in the context of (in)tolerance.

Check Your Progress: What are some of the links between ‘human
rights’ and ‘sexual rights’? Explain with the help of examples.

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 Indian Perspectives
3.5 DIFFERENCES AND (IN)TOLERANCE
One of the major slogans at the first Delhi Pride in 2008 was ‘Hindu,
Muslim, Sikh, Isaai, Hetero-Homo Bhai Bhai’. It is a tribute to the song of
equality. It was shouted and heard in joy. As observed by one of the
participants of the march1, slogans need to be direct and simple; they
should hit you hard, not make you ponder. Slogans, she held, do not have
footnotes. While slogans do not have footnotes, it is evident that they have
implications. How do we get to the implications of any slogan?

Let us take an example from the life of the famous writer, Ismat Chughtai,
about whose trial you read in the previous unit. The young Ismat Chughtai,
at her neighbors’ house during a festival, once held an idol of Krishna in
her arms with a love that only children are capable of. She writes of this
experience when she tells the story of her life in Kagazi Hai Pairhan:
“Resham aur Gote ke Takiyon par ek rupehali bachha leta jhool raha
tha…aur surat is gazab ki bholi! Aankhon jaise lahakte hue diye! Zid kar
raha hai, mujhe godi mein le lo. Haule se maine bachhe ka naram-naram
gal chua. Mera roaan roaan muskura diya. Maine beikhtiyaar use utha kar
seene se laga liya” (Chughtai, 1998, p. 12). (Translation: “On silk, adorned
pillows lay a beautiful child, swinging lightly... and his face was of an
incredible innocence! His eyes were like incandescent lamps... adamantly
insisting that I pick him up. Gradually, I touched the soft cheeks of the
child. I sensed a feeling of elation in each part of my body. Without any
hesitation, I picked him up and held him close to my chest”.)

But the narrator is immediately caught by one of the elders. While her
Muslim family is outraged, her Hindu neighbors are in a state of panic. The
result of the author’s blasphemy is that now she ends up being schooled
into Islam with an ever greater degree of intensity. Discernment is the first
step that unfolds with a relentless logic. Differences need ways to aggrandize
themselves. “Isi silsale mein logon ko meri aakbat sambhalne ka khayal aa
gaya. Mere dil mein Islam ki bartari koot-kootkar bhari gayi - Islam jo
duniya ke har mazhab se arfa aur aala hai. Yah bhai-bhai ka naara apni
jagah hai, magar hakikat yah hai ki musalmaan phir musalmaan hai”
(Translation: “Due to this event, people took it upon themselves to improve
my prospects in the world after. All the teachings of Islam were piled upon
me –Islam, that which is above and superior to all other religions of the
world. This slogan of bhai-bhai is one matter, but the reality is that the
Muslim is after all a Muslim”.) (Chughtai, 1998, p. 12). The fraternal bond
between the Hindu and the Muslim, the hetero and the homo, does not
deny the faculty to discriminate but may even serve to intensify differences. 489
Queer Theory The above example might help us to see that just as attempts were made
to turn Ismat Chughtai into more and more of a Muslim, with stacks and
stacks of rules and teachings, insistence upon adhering to differences of
any kind can push people to cling more closely to their differences, whether
they be defined in religious terms, such as Hindu or Muslim, or in terms of
sexual identities such as homosexual or heterosexual. We call this the
stereotype. Stereotyping, which is often used as a precondition for
intelligibility, is also a method of discrimination.

Article 14 of the Indian Constitution guarantees equality to all citizens. In

doing so it separates these citizens according to what it terms as ‘reasonable
classification’. Additionally, it advises a test for judging the reasonability of
any classification. To pass this test, it says, “…the classification must be
founded on an intelligible differentia which distinguishes persons or things
that are grouped together from those that are left out of the group”
(quoted in Shah and Murlidhar, 2009, p. 73). It is foregone that equality
proceeds only on the basis of an intelligible differentia.

The above may lead us to ask: what is this intelligible differentia between
the homosexual and the heterosexual? How does it become reasonable,
make sense to us? And what might be the history of such a discernment,
of such a separation? Of the margins that have been drawn and the people
that have been grouped on either side? In the politics of sexuality, to be
marginalized is also to be relegated to a difference. By this we mean a
particular kind of difference, that which first makes place for, and then
adjudicates your inner truth. For instance, the right to employment might
not say anything particular about your ‘inner self’ or personhood, unlike the
right to one’s own sexuality which is more obviously connected to a definition
of the self. The idiom of human rights makes strange demands on its
objects. It considers them to have certain inalienable attributes: sexuality
or sexual orientation now being one of them.

3.6 DIFFERENCE, IDENTITY FORMATION AND

BEYOND
Based on your reading of Unit 3 (“Legal Issues”), in Block 3, you would
already have an understanding of some of the legal issues surrounding
queer sexuality in India, especially the significance of the judgement
delivered on the reading down of Section 377. Before moving further into
our discussion of difference and its relation to identity formation, it would
be worthwhile to look at an excerpt of the 2009 Naz judgement (see Box
490 3.1 below):
 Box 3.1: Excerpt from 2009 Naz Judgement Indian Perspectives

“The notion of equality in the Indian Constitution flows from the

‘Objective Resolution’ moved by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on December
13, 1946. Nehru, in his speech, moving this Resolution wished that the
House should consider the Resolution not in a spirit of narrow legal
wording, but rather look at the spirit behind that Resolution. He said,
‘Words are magic things often enough, but even the magic of
words…sometimes cannot convey the magic of the human spirit and
of a Nation’s passion…….. (The Resolution) seeks very feebly to tell
the world of what we have thought or dreamt of so long, and what
we now hope to achieve in the near future’…If there is one
constitutional tenet that can be said to be underlying theme of the
Indian Constitution, it is that of inclusiveness. This Court believes that
Indian Constitution reflects this value deeply ingrained in Indian society,
nurtured over several generations…Those perceived by the majority
as ‘deviants’ or different are not on that score excluded or
ostracised…Where society can display inclusiveness and understanding,
such persons can be assured of a life of dignity and nondiscrimination.
This was the spirit behind the Resolution of which Nehru spoke so
passionately. In our view, Indian Constitutional law does not permit
the statutory criminal law to be held captive by the popular
misconceptions of who the LGBTs are. It cannot be forgotten that
discrimination is antithesis of equality and that it is the recognition
of equality which will foster the dignity of every individual…We declare
that Section 377 IPC, insofar it criminalizes consensual sexual acts of
adults in private, is violative of Articles 21, 14 and 15 of the
Constitution. The provisions of Section 377 IPC will continue to govern
non-consensual penile non-vaginal sex and penile non-vaginal sex
involving minors. By adult we mean everyone who is 18 years of age
and above…Chief Justice AP Shah and Justice S Muralidhar / JULY 2,
2009” (Shah and Muralidhar, 2009, pp. 104-5)

In this regard, the 2009 Naz judgment, as quoted above, does something
peculiar. Suddenly every Indian citizen - as rendered intelligible within this
legal document - has a sexual-orientation. A historical idea suddenly becomes
a universalism. What was in 2005, in the words of two young editors of a
volume on queer politics in India, only “beginning to enter the consciousness
of the nation” is now firmly ensconced with its hook into the highest
document of the nation-state: the Constitution (Bhan and Narrain, 2005,
Back Cover). The basis of sexual-orientation becomes an unquestioned basis.
491
Queer Theory ‘What is your sexual-orientation?’ becomes a sensible question. A body of
people becomes quantifiable on the basis of their sexuality, hetero or
homo. All the maneuvers of the margin-as-border find a perfect playground.
We need to ask when did it begin to make sense and how. When did sexual
orientation become the thing everyone has?! When did it become as obvious
as breathing?

The above questions and issues call our attention to one important strand
of what is happening in queer organizing in India today. However, we need
to note that beyond the debates around categories of identities, there are
also other debates which are not dependent on identity politics alone.
These include questioning structures— social, political and cultural – and
destabilizing them. If identity formation and demands as citizens of a
democratic state make for certain strategies, there is also a whole body of
work going on around questioning hetero-normativity, family, kinship, class,
caste, and gender. A lot of this work is being done at the intersections of
queer and feminist politics. You have read about some of these issues in
other units of this course, especially in the unit on ‘Queer Movements’ (Unit
2, Block 3), and in the unit on ‘Feminism and Non-Normative Relationships’
(Unit 4, Block 5). It may be useful to review those debates in the light of
the issues raised here.

Further, talking of identities and difference also serves another important

function - that is, of making visible those persons who have remained
marginal and invisible in the public eye. This is especially true for lesbian
and bisexual women, who have had no access to public space or discourse.
Although, in the above sections, we have been using the general category
of the ‘homosexual,’ we need to remember that our gaze must shift to
include those that are often invisibilised under this generic ‘homosexual’
category. The generic term can often still remain male and gay and cis-
gendered (where the last term implies those people who never experience
any difficulty in matching their gender identity and roles to what is considered
the social ‘norm’). The theorizing of the movements, queer and feminist,
have now moved beyond such a generic representation. While the creation
of “homosexual” as a category is important, what is equally important is
a critique of it as an identity that erases difference. So it becomes even
more significant to take note of the differences that are being expressed,
even if they do not form the ‘mainstream’ of queer discourse.

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 Indian Perspectives
3.7 LET US SUM UP
We have looked at Indian perspectives in relation to queer theory in the
light of the relationships between theory and practice. The discussion
around sexuality rights and the democratic contract would have helped you
to locate the issues of rights of citizens regardless of their sexual preferences
or identities. We have briefly examined the relationship between difference
and intolerance through examples, and seen how identity formation is one
of the strands of discourse that may be used by queer activists in the
struggle for equal rights. Finally, we have also noted that while this is an
important route taken by some groups, there may be others whose
experiences are not included here. For example, we could have talked
about the concept of ‘homosexuality’ through the experience gained through
specifically ‘lesbian’ and ‘bisexual’ women’s activism in India, to see how
it differs from the ‘gay’ male activism; we could have talked about the
relationship between ‘sexuality’ and ‘dis/ability’ – how is the disabled body
often desexualized in popular discourse about it, how can we counter this
– and, we could have talked about how Hijra activism over the last several
years in India has given us other models of doing ‘sexuality activism’, one
that is not driven by ‘homosexual’ identities, one that has a wider class
fabric, is not entirely ‘secular’ and one that brings the concerns of the
trans-gendered individuals squarely to the centre of the sexuality debates.
All of these are current and important examples in contemporary India and
can be used to ‘theorize’ sexuality in different, relevant and exciting ways.
You would be reading about some of these in other units of this course, or
of other courses in this curriculum. Let us conclude with the observation
that there are several different activisms that are currently simultaneous
in India. Each of them is interrelated but not the same. Each of them is
a bundle of ‘political strategies’ and that their political interpretation – the
way they get used politically by activists – gives us the most incisive way
of understanding them.

END NOTES
1
As told to the author by one of the participants at the Delhi Pride March
in 2008.

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3.8 UNIT END QUESTIONS
1) Do you think the concept of the ‘homosexual’/ ‘heterosexual’ is the best
way for activists to conduct their work on ‘sexuality’? What other ways
are possible?

2) What are the different ways in which same-sex desire can be talked about
in the contemporary Indian context?

3) Do you think that differences in identity lead to intolerance? What is the

relationship between the two? Think of examples from your own
experience and use these examples to formulate your argument.

4) How is identity formation used as one way of theorizing about sexuality in

the Indian context? Discuss with the help of examples.

3.9 REFERENCES
Balagopal, K., ‘Face to Face with Dr. K. Balagopal Part 1’. Retrieved August
18, 2010 from http://www.youtube.com/watch.

Bhan, Gautam and Narrain, Arvind (2005). (Eds.). Because I Have a Voice:
Queer Politics in India. Delhi: Yoda Press.

Bose, B. and Bhattacharya, S. (2007). (Eds.). The Phobic and The Erotic:
The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India. New Delhi: Seagull Books.

Chughtai, Ismat (1998) Kagazi Hai Pairhan. Trans. from Urdu to Hindi (2007).
New Delhi: Rajkamal Paperbacks.

Cohen, Lawrence (1995). ‘Holi in Banaras and the Mahaland of Modernity’.

GLQ 2, 399-424.

Cohen, Lawrence (2002). ‘What Mrs. Besahara Saw: Reflections on the Gay
Goonda’. In Ruth Vanita (Ed.), Queering India: Same-Sex Love and Eroticism
in Indian Culture and Society. (pp. 149-160). New York and London: Routledge.

Cohen, Lawrence (2005). ‘The Kothi Wars: AIDS Cosmopolitanism & the
Morality of Classification’. In Adams & Pigg (Eds.), Sex in Development.
(pp. 269-303). Durham: Duke University Press.

Ghosh, Shohini (2002). ‘Queer Pleasure for Queer People: Film, Television,
and Queer Sexuality in India’. In Ruth Vanita (Ed.), Queering India: Same
Sex Love and Eroticism in Indian Culture and Society. New York: Routledge.

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Gilks, Charles (Oct 11, 2009). ‘The Road After Section 377’. Retrieved Indian Perspectives

January 1st, 2010 from http://www.livemint.com.

Gupta, Charu (2002). ‘(Im)possible Love and Sexual Pleasure in Late-Colonial

North India’. Modern Asian Studies 36, 1, 195-221. Cambridge University
Press.

Habib, Shaista (1995). ‘I Cannot be Sublime’. In Anisur Rahman (Ed.), Fire

and the Rose: An Anthology of Modern Urdu Poetry. (pp. 326-9). Trans.
from Urdu to English, New Delhi: Rupa & Co.

Iqbal, Mohammad (2007). ‘Jamhooriyat’. In Celebrating the Best of Urdu

Poetry. Delhi: Penguin Viking.

Katyal, Akhil (24 July, 2009). ‘How the Homosexual Came To Be: A Journey
Through Freud’. Darkmatter: In the Ruins of Imperial Culture (online
journal). London.

Khanna, Akshay (2007). ‘Us “Sexuality Types”: A Critical Engagement with

the Postcoloniality of Sexuality’. In Bose and Bhattacharya (Eds.), The
Phobic and the Erotic: The Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India.
Calcutta: Seagull Books.

Menon, Nivedita (2005). ‘How Natural is Normal?: Feminism and Compulsory

Heterosexuality’. In Gautam Bhan & Arvind Narrain (Eds.), Because I Have
a Voice: Queer politics in India. (pp. 33- 39). New Delhi: Yoda Press.

Menon, Nivedita (2007). (Ed.). Sexualities. New Delhi: Women Unlimited.

Reddy, Gayatri (2005). With Respect to Sex: Negotiating Hijra Identity in

South India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Shah, A.P. & Muralidhar (2 July, 2009). ‘Naz Foundation vs. Govt. of NCT of
Delhi and Others’. Retrieved January 19, 2011 from http://lobis.nic.in/
dhc/APS/judgement/02-07-2009/APS02072009CW74552001.pdf.

Sharma, Pandey Bechan. (1927, 1953). ‘Ugra’. In Chaklet. Calcutta: Tondon

Brothers.

Sharma, Pandey Bechan (1927, 1953). ‘Kaifiyat’. In Chaklet. Calcutta: Tondon

Brothers.

Sharma, Pandey Bechan (1927, 1928). Dilli ka Dalal. Mirzapur City: Beesvee
Sadi Pustakalya.

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Queer Theory United Nations Documents. ‘The Universal Declaration of Human Rights’.
Retrieved November 19, 2010 from http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
index.shtml.

Vanita, Ruth & Kidwai, Saleem (2000). (Eds.). Same-Sex Love in India:
Readings from Literature and History. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Vanita, Ruth (2002). (Ed.). Queering India: Same Sex Love and Eroticism in
Indian Culture and Society. New York: Routledge.

Vanita, Ruth (2005). Love’s Rite: Same-sex Marriage in India and the West.
London: Palgrave Macmillan.

3.10 SUGGESTED READINGS

Bhan, Gautam & Narrain, Arvind (2005). (Eds.). Because I Have a Voice:
Queer Politics in India. New Delhi:Yoda Press.

Bose, B & Bhattacharya, S (2007). (Eds.). The Phobic and The Erotic: The
Politics of Sexualities in Contemporary India. New Delhi: Seagull Books.

Menon, Nivedita (2007). (Ed.). Sexualities. New Delhi: Women Unlimited.

Vanita, Ruth (2002). (Ed.). Queering India: Same Sex Love and Eroticism in
Indian Culture and Society. New York: Routledge.

Vanita, Ruth (2005). Love’s Rite: Same-sex Marriage in India and the West.
London: Palgrave Macmillan.

www.labiacollective.org
www.nigahdelhi.blogspot.com
www.voicesagainst377.org

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