Unnatural sexuality versus natural justice

At most, the wider body of ubiquitous 8216;8216;human rights activists8217;8217; who believe that as long as consenting adults are involved, sexual preferences are private matters from which the law should keep out. Should anyone else care?

Well, here8217;s bad news for normal society 8212; your sexuality is no private matter. The assumption is 8216;8216;normal8217;8217; sexual behaviour springs from nature, and it has nothing to do with culture or history. But if we recognise that sexuality is located in culture, we have to deal with the uncomfortable idea that sexuality is a human construct, and not something that happens 8216;8216;naturally8217;8217;.

Consider the possibility that rules of sexual conduct are as arbitrary as traffic rules, created by human societies to maintain a certain sort of order, and which could differ from place to place 8212; you drive on the left in India and on the right in the US.

Further, let8217;s say you question the sort of social order that traffic rules keep in place. For example, you believe that traffic rules in Delhi are the product of a model of urban planning that privileges the rich and penalises the poor, that this order encourages petrol-consuming private vehicles and discourages forms of transport that are energy-saving 8212; cycles, public transport.

You would then question that model of the city that forces large numbers of inhabitants to travel long distances everyday simply to get to school and work. You could debate the merits of traffic rules and urban planning on the grounds of convenience and sustainability of natural resources 8212; at least, nobody could seriously argue that any set of traffic rules is natural.

Let us apply this argument to sexuality. First of all, if 8216;8216;normal8217;8217; behaviour were so natural, it would not require such a vast network of controls to keep in place. Take some random examples.

8226; Item one 8212; gendered dress codes. Imagine a bearded man in a skirt in a public place. This would shake the very foundations of 8216;8216;normal8217;8217; society, unless 8216;8216;he8217;8217; is recognisably a hijra trans-sexual, and that puts him on the margins of normal society in a different way.

Just the wrong kind of cloth on the wrong body, and the very foundations of natural, normal sexual identity start to quake!

8226; Item two 8212; the disciplining of thought through schools, families, the media, education, religion. All telling you that desire for someone of the same sex is a sin or criminal.

8226; Item three 8212; if all else fails, violent coercive measures to keep people heterosexual, from electric shock therapy to physical abuse.

8226; Item four 8212; laws. Why would we need laws to maintain something that is natural? Are there laws forcing people to eat or sleep? But there is a law forcing people to have sex in a particular way!

The point of real interest is that human beings do not, in fact, live particularly 8216;8216;natural8217;8217; lives. The whole purpose of civilisation seems to be to move as far away from nature as possible. We clothe our naked bodies indeed, the same people who condemn homosexuality as unnatural would insist that natural nudity be covered up. We cook raw food derived from nature; we build elaborate shelters from the natural elements.

We use contraception again, most of those who condemn homosexuality on the grounds that sex is only for procreation would not question need for contraception.

Clearly, equating 8216;8216;unnatural8217;8217; with 8216;8216;immoral/wrong8217;8217; is simply a way of suffocating debate. The more important question is: what is the social order that the rules of 8216;8216;normal8217;8217; sexual behaviour keep in place?

A Delhi High Court judgement in 1984 ruled that the fundamental rights to equality and freedom have no place in the family. To bring constitutional law into the home, the learned judge ruled, is like 8216;8216;taking a bull into a china shop8217;8217;. And of course, he was absolutely right.

The family in India is indeed premised on extreme inequality 8212; beginning with the wife changing her surname on marriage, to the property to which no sister has equal rights with her brother, to the sexual division of labour, which legitimises the unpaid domestic labour of women.

The rights to equality and freedom would certainly destroy the family as we know it!

If families were only about material and emotional support structures, then any such group of people would be recognised as a family.

But the point precisely is that only the heterosexual, patriarchal family is permitted to exist. And this family is about the passing on of property and lineage through men. The 8216;8216;normality8217;8217; this requires is produced, maintained and policed by the state, laws and social institutions.

It is far from being natural or private. In short, section 377 does not refer to some 8216;8216;queer8217;8217; people out there, whom normal people can gaze upon like anthropologists at a bizarre tribe. Section 377 is about the painful creation of Mr and Mrs Normal 8212; it is one of the nails holding in place the elaborate fiction that 8216;8216;normality8217;8217; springs from nature.

The author teaches at Delhi University