Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Sexuality...published in Seminar magazine..1992

                                                      Sexuality

                       ABOUT four years ago, an official for the Indian Council of Medical Research, New Delhi, spoke at the International AIDS conference in Montreal.   He maintained that ‘AIDS cannot, will not be a problem in Indian because we are a traditional society,’ because we unlike the decadent West, where the pill brought about a sexual revolution, with promiscuity and homosexuality.
                        Hardly five years later, and world authorities believe that India will probably be the epicenter for AIDS in Asia.   Estimates about the number of HIV infected persons in India are many: ranging from 40,000 (in a WHO publication) to 0.5 million (accepted by the international Development Agency and many aid  organizations) to 2.5 million (attributed to T. Jacob John of the Christian Medical College, Vellore, the first doctor to report of the presence of HIV in India).   The estimate of the number of full blown AIDS case was about 115 in March 1992,   but it is commonly agreed that the official numbers of HIV infected are grossly under-reported because of our inadequate medical infrastructure.
                       These figures have caused serious concern, and a massive amount of money is pouring in for AIDS-related work.   Estimates keep changing, with the official government amount just for the state of Maharashtra, where the most AIDS cases have been detected, often being quoted as over Rs. 300 crores.   This does not include the aid given by private agencies to NGOs. 
                        In this article I shall argue that much of the AIDS-related educational work currently being undertaken in India is irrelevant because there has been no attempt to understand and put sexuality into the Indian context.   Prostitution, generally considered to be the hot-bed of infection, had been targeted for a massive onslaught.   But since prostitution are the wrong audience, the messages fail to make the desired impact.   Moreover, the messages themselves are culturally irrelevant since Indian understanding of the causes of disease and health differ.   I shall therefore attempt to put sexuality in a socio-historical context by examining the conditions under which the homosexual community developed in the US.   The socio-economic scenario in India and the implications for sexuality will then be discussed.      
                        It is widely believed that AIDS is caused by the HIV virus.   Recently, however, a controversy has developed about this, with several top medical researchers, including Lus Montagnier who discovered HIV in 1983, and Peter Duesberg who first mapped the genetic structure of such viruses, believing that AIDS is not caused exclusively by HIV.   They argue that the virus does not kill the cells of the immune system, but that the disease occurs when the immune system gets mis-programmed and begins to commit suicide in the presence of certain co-factors.   Duesberg also maintains that AIDS is not infections and is the result of other factors that damage the immune system including ‘recreational drugs such as cocaine.’
                      The reason for mentioning this detail is that all current educational intervention programmes are based on the fact that my causes AIDS.   And HIV is transmitted through body fluids, one avenue being the exchange of sexual fluids.   It is therefore important to keep in mind the ongoing controversy about the HIV_AIDS connection.   There is, after all, a large, world-wide AIDS bureaucracy and a multi-million dollar industry which exists on the belief that HIV and AIDS are connected.   Any research that could topple this belief might therefore be prevented from reaching the public.  
                       From the Indian point of view, this new development is extremely interesting.    Western medical understanding of the causes of disease has been based on the germ theory.   Eastern and more holistic methods of understanding health have stressed that it is the basic balance and health of the body which determines whether a person succumbs to a disease.   The new developments fit a holistic system far better.   However, since this article concentrates on AIDS and sexuality, we will assume for now, that HIV causes AIDS, and that HIV is passed through an exchange of body fluids.   Blood is one.    But another, which is more relevant here, is sexual fluids.   Chances of infection increase with multiple sex contacts, which occurs through affairs (unpaid sex), paid sex and homosexuality.   
                          It has finally been accepted that there are no ‘natural’ sexualities; and that sexual behavior is socially constructed; that the rates and forms of sexual expression vary across time and space, and that they differ for different classes and social groups.   In each society and sub-culture, the social meanings of sex differ, as does its place in the life of men and women.   In order to concretize this social construction of sexuality, we will examine the conditions under which the ‘homosexual community’ developed in the US.
                          AIDS literature often talks about two different patterns of transmission-that of the West, where it starts in the homosexual community, and then filters into the heterosexual.   The other is the African (also applicable to India), which is primarily heterosexual.    However, rather than viewing them as two differing modes of transmission, it is possible to see them as being related to the differing historical and social conditions.    In the West, societal changes were such that there emerged a sub-group and culture which could clearly be perceived to identify Aids with a particular social group and thus be seen as the Gay Plague.   Such conditions did not occur elsewhere.  This is not to say that homosexual activity in Asia and Africa did not exist, but that the social context and expression of such behavior are different in these societies.
                         
                           
                              It was in the middle decades of the 20th century that a gay subculture took root in American cities.  The war year pulled millions of American men and women from their families and small towns and deposited them in a variety of sex segregated, non-familial institu-                tion.   For men, it was the armed forces; for women it meant migrating to the cities and often lodging and working in virtually all-female environments.  For a generation of young Americans, the war created a setting in which to experience same-sex love, affection and sexuality.  At the same time, the pill and birth control movement was breaking the connection of sex with reproduction.   A new philosophy was emerging: sex was for pleasure.
                           The standard of living was also rising, together with the number and reach of consumer products.   This allowed individuals to actually live a life dedicated to only pleasure.    With growing consumerism, the advertising industry increasingly started to indulge in a not very subtle use of the erotic and sensual to sell their products.   The entire society became sensualized, as it were, with lips, breasts, cleavages, and skin spilling out of every paper, magazine and TV programme.
                           The changes set in motio0n by the war continued after demobilization.   As male homosexuals and lesbians came to associate more freely, they created institutions to bolster their sense of identity.   The sub-culture that evolved took a different shape for men and women.   With a long historical tradition of greater access to public space as well as gender socialization that encouraged sexual expression, gay men could meet more openly in bars, parks, bath houses.   Boston, for example, had about 24 bars for gay men, as against one which served only women.
                          The expanding possibilities for gay men and lesbians to meet did not pass without a response.   The post-war years bred fear about the ability of American institutions to withstand subversion from real and imagined enemies.   Politician first latched on to the issue of homosexuality in February 1950, the same month that Senator Joseph McCarthy initially charged that the Department of State was riddled with communists.  A Congressional hearing was told that thousands of sexual deviants worked for government.   In June 1950, a formal enquiry was commissioned.  The ensuing reports charged that homosexuals lacked emotional stability, and that they have a corrosive influence on other employees.   The cold war against communism made the problem of homosexuality even more threatening, with the charged that homosexuals could easily become spics because their deviance made them prime targets for blackmail.
                          There was a remarkable increase in the annual number of dismissals from government service, the number of discharges doubling with each passing year.   One study in the mid-1950s estimated that over 12.6 million workers, i.e. more than 20% of the workforce, faced loyalty/security investigations as a condition of employment.   This labeling encouraged local police force to harass homosexuals by openly attacking them in parks, clubs and bath houses.   New York, New Orleans.   Miami, San Francisco, Baltimore and Dallas---all experienced police-raids on bars and a large number of arrests.
                         On 27 June 1969, a group of police officers raided Stonewall Inn, a bar in the heart of Greenwich Village.   The act became cause for a riot.   Thus began the ‘Gay Power’ movement, a social movement giving political visibility to the gay community.   In time they were able to slip away some of the institutional structures, public policies and cultural attitudes that sustained a system of oppression.   In the 1970s, half the states eliminated the sodomy statute from the penal code.   In 1974, homosexuality was removed from the list of mental disorders.   Several cities incorporated sexual preference in their municipal civil rights law.  In Congress, the movement found sponsors for a federal civil rights law.   Thus, through homosexuals have always existed in the US. For the first time they acquired political and social visibility as a rather powerful group.
                        Since AIDS is also a sexually transmitted disease, the chances of it being communicated in the homosexual community are as high as anywhere else.   Easier in fact, since in the West it has been established that while male to female transmission occurs easily, female to male is rare, except if the male has genital lesions so that absorption of female sexual fluids is possible.   Given the higher access of males to the medical system, and given the fact that it was possible to identify the sub-group; AIDS was initially associated with gay men’s sex.
                       This history was quite unique to America and perhaps to other countries of Western Europe.   It did not occur in India.   However, a look at the trends in India indicates that there are changes taking place which point to growing sexual promiscuity, and hence a growing susceptibility to all STDs, including AIDS.   Nevertheless, it is difficult to talk about sex in India, given the vat varieties of groups that the country encompasses.   We still have groups practicing polygamy and polyandry.   There are still areas where matrilineal systems exist, and areas where adolescent girls and boys live together in hostels as part of their growing up process.   There has been so little work done on sexuality that to draw a real picture of Indian sexuality, taking into account the many regional and sub-group differences, is difficult.   However, we can discuss how the changing socio-economic conditions are related to sexuality and hence make some predictions regarding possible trends.
                           The past few decades have seen a phenomenal growth in urbanization, the total urban population according to the 1991 Census reportedly being 217 million residing in 291 cities and towns all over India,   23 of which are million-plus cities.   Urbanization has always been accompanied with a break-up of close extended family ties and with the growth of individualism in society.   The nature of industrialization was also such that to a large extent, cities have had an excess of males.  In 1931, for example, Bombay had 554 females for 1,000 men.   This was because in the early stages of industrialization, it was common for men to migrate alone to the cities to work in factories, leaving the women and children behind in the rural areas to tend the small plot of land.   This meant that the cities had a large number of single men without their families.  
                           The most common living arrangement for those employed in the textile industry were all-male boarding houses.   These provided a new opportunity for the expression of male-
male sex, and for the growth in the number of prostitutes.   Earlier, paid sex was usually associated with the other exclusively male setting, the armed forces.   Now, millions of workers were potential customers.   Prostitution in industrializing cities expanded.   In Bombay, tens of thousands of prostitutes could be found in the infamous cages of Kamatipura.
                          Besides this internal Indian migration, there has been a phenomenal growth in the export of labour from India.   Lakhs have migrated to the Gulf and returned with different experiences and rising aspirations, matched with a surplus income which they could not have imagined, let alone seen before.   The number of women in the working force has also been showing an upswing, with a declining proportion of women working in household industry.   In urban areas, the share of non-house-hold industry increased from 12.9% to 14.3%.   more and more women were leaving their homes for work, thus acquiring greater independence in their lives.
                         In addition, the tradition of the extended joint family has broken down, giving rise to a mushrooming of nuclear families.   The pressures of industrialization and the erosion of traditional modes of living have also led to an increase in single women and it is estimated that at least 20% of Indian households are headed by women.   This again means that there are a large number of women who live independent lives, with little male supervision.
                       Indian women have never had to fight for birth control.   It has been literally thrust upon us from every nook and corner.   The government advertizes condoms, abortions, sterilizations, pills.   Even though there is resistance to the forced nature of the family planning programmes, the overall effect is the awareness that it is now possible to separate sex from reproduction.   One reason why women prefer to get sterilized themselves is that if the men do so, and the women become pregnant, it could lead to problems.   This gives us some idea of what is actually happening.
                        All this has been taking place at a time when there has been a rise in the living standards of a large section of the people.   With the help of unions, industrial workers, once part of the oppressed poor, now earn comparatively more, so that they have risen to join the ranks of the middle class.   The level of income earned by the middle class has also been rising, as have the numbers of the nouveau riche.   With this have come a growing number of consumer durables being manufactured by a large number of competing industrial groups:  fridges.   TVs, music systems, mixers, air conditioners, ovens, microwaves, convenience foods, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, motor cycles, mopeds, cars.   Once the exclusive preserve of the rich, these are now middle class household gadgets.
                         And all these durables are accompanied by advertising.   Erotic images, as in the West, have become an everyday affair.   Be it the Kamasurtra as for condoms or MRF tyres, showing the male body almost to perfection, or be it the sensuousness of Garden Vareili or the soft lips of Lakme,  pretty girls are used to sell just about anything, from tractors to computers.  
All these factors point to a situation where freer social relationships outside of immediate family, village or caste control.   With the increasing independence of women, one would expect a larger number of affairs contracted, not on the basis if force or money, but for mutual satisfaction.   Prostitution would possibly grow in new areas, and specially in large towns where the first generation of villagers are leaving the confines of tradition.   We could also expect a more open form of homosexuality.
                        There are some indications affirming the growth of a more open from of sexuality.    The number of cases coming to the government STD clinics, which only records the tip of the iceberg, is increasing: from 479,000 in 1978-79 to 919,000 0n 1984-85.   The number of abortions done in government clinics has also risen from 317, in 1978-79 to 573.000 in 1984-85.    Last year, Bombay Dost, the first magazine devoted exclusively to those practicing an alternative sexuality, was launched.
                               Studies on sexual behavior patterns would give us an idea of these changing trends.    Unfortunately, in India, there has been no study of actual behavior patterns, o what people actually do, as opposed to what people think people should be doing.   It has long been assumed that virginity and monogamy were the general rule.   Deviant forms, like hijras, existed, but they were on the fringes---little noticed, of little concern.          
                            Recently, however, a magazine conducted a small survey on the actual behavior patterns of urban, educated men.   The sample consisted of 1500 men, and the results    broke several myths about the nature of Indian sexual behavior.  Over four-fifths of the men had had sexual intercourse, 41% of them before they had reached the age of 20.   Only 22% had their first sexual experience with their wives; 29% had it with a friend, 21% with a paid person.   13% had their first experience with a relative, while for 10%, it was with a person of the same sex.    
                           Among married men, 55% claimed to have had extra-marital affairs with a non-paid person of the opposite sex.   255 of these affairs took place with relatives, 18% occurred in the work place and 53% with friends.   Thirty-seven per cent (414 men) claimed to have had homosexual experience.    It was usually at a young age, 80% having had it before they were 20.   220 of these men were married, and a third of them said their wives knew about their homosexual activities.   A fifth of the men said they had had over 10 persons.   The main reasons given by respondents (30%) who claimed to have gone in for paid sex were because they felt like it, and because they were on tour.   Of them, 43% had been to 1 to 5 women,  23% to over 10.    Only 19% of this highly educated group used a condom on such occasions.   Anal intercourse, considered by many to be the act of homosexuals, it not so.    Among the married men, 20% said that they had had anal intercourse with their wives. 
                         This is a small sample, based on a self-administered questionnaire published in an English magazine.   It points to the urgent necessity of carrying out more extended research on sexual behavior patterns.   However, this small survey indicates that there is much sexual activity going on outside marriage, which is not confined to prostitutes or paid sex.       
                           The current emphasis of AIDS education work has been on the prostititutes, with free and subsidized condoms being distributed and their being ‘motivated’ to educate their customers to use them.  Here, it is crucial to understand the basis on which the exchange between prostitute and client occurs, and to what extent she is capable of negotiating the terms of that exchange.  This determines whether she has any bargaining power over the usage of the condom.   In India, supply far outstrips demand, and in, any cases women are totally dependent on only sexual exchange to make their livelihood.   In such a situation, it is unlikely that she would insist on condom usage.                          
                         Increased bargaining power is a precondition for the prostitute to be able to negotiate the terms of her contract.   In the absence of this, all propaganda, like free condoms, get thrown in the garbage.  Not eating today is far more real than the possibility of getting a disease from an act which she has been performing for years, without too serious a problem.   For an AIDS intervention to make sense, it needs to be linked with empowerment, which can only occur if other means of making an income exist.   AIDS education for prostitutes has to be linked with income generation.
                         But prostitutes, as a distinct group, are not the only ones concerned with sex.   As the survey indicates, a relatively high number of affairs are with relatives and with co-workers.   In the absence of data, it is difficult to conclude that these are totally voluntary.    Since there is an unequal social relation, it is possible that women in such a situation have little control over the conditions of sexual exchange.   The focus on usage of condoms with prostitutes denies the need for clients to use condoms in their other sexual encounters.
     

                       As the above statistics show, the extent and nature of sexual contacts is far wider and the range encompassed similar to the other social contacts a person is likely to have.   Hence, the emphasis on educating prostitutes about AIDS creates the illusion that it is a disease which is primarily transmitted by this group. 
                       Little o9f the educational work addresses itself to homosexuals.  This is because at some level there is denial that homosexuality exists here, particularly since its social expression differs from that in the West.   In India, homosexuality is not perceived as providing an exclusive social identity.   However, the survey, mentioned earlier does indicate the prevalence of such behavior, although most men do not engage exclusively in male-male sex.   Hence the social matrix of the possibilities of AIDS transmission in India differs substantially from the West.   And it is evident that if the current focus on prostitutes continues, it will fail to contain the infection.       
                         There have been some attempts to educate the public through ads and TV.   The lesson most often given is that AIDS is a killer disease.   The picture of a skull with AIDS written over it has become commonplace.   It carries the message that sex could equal death, a message which would probably jibe well with the West, given it Christian sub-culture that sex equals sun.   However, the usual understanding is that the Indian conception of sex is quite different.   Our myths talk creation as a joyous act of intercourse: our gods are always male and female together; control of sexual energy can be a means of spiritual enlightenment in Tantra:  the erotic sculptures, or what remains of them after all the invasions and breaking of temples, are one indication.     
                           In the West, there has been a growing separation of sex from other kinds of relationships.   The advice contained in sex manuals seems to be directed towards machines, to be touched here, tickled there.  Compare it to the Kamasutra, which laid down complicated ethics of behavior and gave hints on how to approach others’ wives and courtesans.   Romancing, and the art of seduction, of pleasing the other, is what is important.   Sensuousness.   Not this obsessional preoccupation with the orgasm.   It is a more total experience, entwined into the texture of life, with smell, taste and feeling.
                           The current educational campaigns on AIDS treat sex in the abstract manner of the West.  ‘If you go with another woman…..you could get AIDS.’   The ads for Kamasutra condoms show a much better understanding of the Indian feeling for sexuality, including it as part of the skill in making love.   The view of sex as dehumanized and impersonal, as something which could cause death is currently being supported by a multi-dollar campaign funded primarily by the West.   Local NGOs working on AIDS have been drawing attention to the West’s ideological control of the way we approach our problems.   For example, already the World Bank has stipulated that the AIDS project must be run by a independent body, outside government control and with free access to WHO, which will monitor and evaluate  the project.
                            Local NGOs also allege that the national AIDS project is being hijacked by foreigners and India could soon become a playground for foreign AIDS researchers, just as Africa was in the 1980s.   This is a real possibility, given the fact that the international AIDS programme has reached the stage where they want to test possible cures.
                            The current AIDS campaign is based on an understanding of sex, individuals and society which has essentially come from the West.   Sex is referred to entirely in the abstract, as an act which exists apart from the individuals concerned: a medico-technological impersonal act, to which we have to apply our scientific, men as object, gaze.   The purpose of this article has been to indicate that sexuality is a social construct, and that its construction in India differs from that of the West.   Our current educational campaigns are based on a lack of information, or information that we are incorrectly transposing from the West.   And this has serious implications.   Finally, it is only with an open recognition of the need to understand sexuality and disease within our own culture that any adequate and effective educational campaign can be developed.
August 1992

 

                                                                                      

No comments:

Post a Comment