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LHMP #531 Carton 2006 Desire and Same-Sex Intimacies in Asia

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Full citation: 

Carton, Adrian. 2006. “Desire and Same-Sex Intimacies in Asia” in Gay Life and Culture, A World History, ed. Robert Aldrich. Universe Publishing, New York. ISBN 978-0-7893-1511-3

Contents summary: 

This is a high-level survey of same-sex relations in China, Japan, and India. The article primarily covers male relations, so the following is rather brief.

China: “We know almost nothing about female same-sex relations in historic China, but evidently nobody cared much.” OK, there’s a bit more than that. The article notes the play Pitying the Perfumed Companion (see Stevenson & Cuncun 2013) and reproduces a 17th century woodcut of two women having sexual relations in a bathhouse.

Japan: This section has no mention of women at all.

India: The article notes the silencing effect that British colonial attitudes had on records of same-sex desire in India, that reverberates today in the form of an assumption that homosexuality must be a foreign import. However there is extensive material presented both on homosexuality and gender variance. The author includes religious imagery of paired (same-sex) deities, while noting that these images don’t explicitly speak to sexual relations. There are references in the Ramayana to women embracing “in the manner of lovers.” Medical treatises considered it possible for two women to engender a child, but assumed it would be deformed. There are multiple sculptural representations of sexual activity between women in temples, and the Kama Sutra includes sexual positions for female couples. Oral sex is regularly represented. At the same time, legal literature expresses negative attitudes towards same-sex activity. 19th century Urdu “Rekhti” poetry depicts love between women [note: other sources indicate that it was primariuly written by men]. Southern Indian cultures, especially in Tamil-speaking regions have literary traditions celebrating matrilineal and matrifocal cultures with strong themes of female friendship, marriage resistance, and even all-female societies, though these do not include sexual relations explicitly.

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Contents summary: 

This is a startlingly (I might say unexpectedly) excellent and comprehensive survey of lesbian-relevant history in Early Modern Europe. That actually makes it difficult to summarize (as well as difficult to tag, though I’ll give it my best shot). I think I’ll approach it by noting themes and topics, without necessarily trying to compose complete sentences.

The article starts with some of the theoretical difficulties with defining lesbian history, noting discussions by Judith Bennett et al. Classical motifs (e.g., Diana and Callisto). Early examples of terminology for lesbians. Sex between women in Early Modern pornography. The “rediscovery of the clitoris” and phallocentric ideas about f/f sex. Displacement of f/f relations onto foreign cultures. Defining gender in the context of gender-crossing and intersex theory. Criminal cases involving sex between women, primarily focusing on gender transgression and penetrative sex. Popular literature about gender-crossing along with biographical examples. Joint memorials. Marriage records for female couples. Romantic friendship and its discontents. Popular access to ideas and images of same-sex activity. The prevalence of single-women, female co-habitation, and what they say about lesbian possibilities. Socio-economic forces that discouraged “lesbian community.” Lack of self-reporting of women’s same-sex experiences and understandings. The problem of defining “what is sex?”

I realize this is very unsatisfying from the point of view of informative details. Let’s just say the article would be a great introduction to the topic.

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