Kerala's Heterosexual Hegemony

The terrain of south Asian male sexuality and attitudes towards women has been over-determined, since the 1950s, by Freudian psychoanalytic approaches and by one conclusion—that heterosexual relations are approached, from the male side at least, with little short of dread. This we find rather odd, given that it is already clear from what we have said earlier about men's life histories and goals that marriage, fatherhood and householder status are valorized. Heterosexuality across south Asia is presumed, carefully cultivated, strictly policed and utterly naturalized, in a reproductive-based nexus of compulsory (arranged) marriage and parenthood, which is a great example of Rubin's ‘traffic in women’—the means by which gender and sexuality have been yoked together and then, as a system, serve the perpetuation of inequality and power relations (Rubin 1975). We have written elsewhere about the process of arranging and celebrating a marriage, paying a dowry and so on (Osella and Osella 2000a: 81ff). Here, we are more interested in exploring some moments of interaction in which heterosexuality is produced and explored. We follow local usage, which refers to unmarried young men and women as ‘boys’ and ‘girls’, though they may be up to 30-years-old. Such terminology is an infantilising move common right across south Asia, which serves to reinforce age hierarchies in general and parental control in particular.