THE LAW OF DESIRE RULINGS ON SEX AND SEXUALITY IN INDIA

<p>Description</p><p>Can a woman choose whom to marry if her father disapproves of the match? Does sex</p><p>remain sex when it becomes work? Can a man become a woman because he feels like one?</p><p>Is it the law's task to ensure heterosexuality? Does reproduction need to be regulated?</p><p>The State attempts with law as its instrument to answer these questions for</p><p>us through legislation and when contested through court judgments. This</p><p>brilliantly insightful and superbly argued book calls into serious question the</p><p>wisdom-indeed the intent-of our lawmakers and the judiciary. Though</p><p>India's laws and courts claim to know what they mean when they declare an</p><p>expression of desire immoral or criminal obscene or unnatural upon inquiry</p><p>they turn out to be building on very weak and often casteist and patriarchal</p><p>assumptions. Thus we have the law struggling to 'rescue' 'fallen women' for</p><p>sex work cannot be work but a sign of immorality; a Supreme Court judge</p><p>can exonerate the artist M.F. Husain on charges of obscenity but also claim</p><p>that 'obscenity lies in the eyes of the beholder' leaving us wondering how</p><p>then the law can ever define what's obscene; and while a court may declare</p><p>that the 'third gender' has fundamental rights no one really knows what</p><p>fundamental rights have to do with gender in the first place.</p><p>Teacher and queer theorist Madhavi Menon-author of Infinite Variety a</p><p>celebrated study of desire in India-shows us the 'conundrums and paradoxes'</p><p>that result when the law is entangled with sex and sexuality-and why we</p><p>'need to play with rather than stay with the Law of Desire'.</p><p><br></p>