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Criminal Love?: Queer Theory, Culture, and Politics in India
Criminal Love? takes up the challenge of studying the wide gamut of lived reality of the Indian queer, against the backdrop of a set of theories. Written by a man who has been openly gay for the last 40 years, this book picks up issues, concepts, and theories within the realm of queer studies and dissects them against the day-to-day experiences of Indian queers. Digging deep into his own experiences and those of the people with whom he has come into contact, Rao highlights the sites of transgression within a seemingly monosexual society and analyzes all the aspects of the struggle of being queer in a repressive atmosphere.
- GenresLGBTNonfiction
200 pages, Paperback
First published September 15, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 29, 2020
The LGBT people are forced to live in a closet, and those who come out of it face prejudice, harassment, and also physical assault. R. Raj Rao depicts the dynamics of society and its norms, the way they can't picture two same-sex people showing affection or live life on their terms. The fear was always there, but slowly things are changing. There are a lot of people behind that change, who constantly fight and faced all the hypocrisy.
The author's approach is to criticize past and present norms concerning the subject. The use of words shows his grip on the language. I absolutely loved this novel; the author is living as openly gay for the last 40 years and the face of many gay-rights movements. As he said and I quote, this book is an attempt to delink alternative sexuality from gender and establish it as an autonomous category. In doing so, one risks getting into conflict with the law. This book will open your eyes and make you understand the community's struggles and dirty politics that snatch their rights. I highly recommend it.
Read the full review here - https://www.bookscharming.com/2020/08...
The author's approach is to criticize past and present norms concerning the subject. The use of words shows his grip on the language. I absolutely loved this novel; the author is living as openly gay for the last 40 years and the face of many gay-rights movements. As he said and I quote, this book is an attempt to delink alternative sexuality from gender and establish it as an autonomous category. In doing so, one risks getting into conflict with the law. This book will open your eyes and make you understand the community's struggles and dirty politics that snatch their rights. I highly recommend it.
Read the full review here - https://www.bookscharming.com/2020/08...
June 18, 2018
This is a worthy book, and there's a lot to admire here. The author, an out gay man in India, is to be lauded for his vivid descriptions of lgbt life in India. He is insightful on how non-sexual same sex friendship and intimacy both create cover for sexual minorities and reinforce the overt straightness of public spaces. And there's a grimly amusing chapter on how surveys of Indian literature, even today, even by seemingly progressive figures, carefully stay mum on same sex themes.
There are flaws too; there is a tiresome insistence on the rhetoric and cant of American "theory" departments, with the performativity and such. The author comes from a radical chic crowd where nonconformity is its own end and everything that tends toward assimilation is bad. Well, assimilation toward anything besides the views of the sainted Judith Butler anyway.
And implicit throughout is a strong social constructivism. Sometimes that leads to some very bizarre claims - like that because Kinsey rated sexuality on a a 1-6 scale, only about 15% of people are fully straight or gay, and everyone else is bisexual. A basic grounding in biology, not to mention attentiveness to actual surveys, would help guard against this sort of truthiness.
The book often works despite itself. The chic crowd mentioned before is deeply suspicious of gay marriage for instance, not because it's wrong, but because it is, shudder, square. Rao flirts with this; at one point he claims to celebrate the Indian Supreme court ruling re-banning homosexuality. Better be an outlaw than have in-laws, he says. But it's a put on. He knows better, and his chapter analyzing the decision and its context reveals the hypocrisy of the legal system and political class, speaks eloquently to the dispiriting impact of the decision together with the fight back.
If you're lgbt this is a tonic work, at least once you get past the Derrida bullshit. Two cheers, and here's hoping Rao keeps fighting and writing.
There are flaws too; there is a tiresome insistence on the rhetoric and cant of American "theory" departments, with the performativity and such. The author comes from a radical chic crowd where nonconformity is its own end and everything that tends toward assimilation is bad. Well, assimilation toward anything besides the views of the sainted Judith Butler anyway.
And implicit throughout is a strong social constructivism. Sometimes that leads to some very bizarre claims - like that because Kinsey rated sexuality on a a 1-6 scale, only about 15% of people are fully straight or gay, and everyone else is bisexual. A basic grounding in biology, not to mention attentiveness to actual surveys, would help guard against this sort of truthiness.
The book often works despite itself. The chic crowd mentioned before is deeply suspicious of gay marriage for instance, not because it's wrong, but because it is, shudder, square. Rao flirts with this; at one point he claims to celebrate the Indian Supreme court ruling re-banning homosexuality. Better be an outlaw than have in-laws, he says. But it's a put on. He knows better, and his chapter analyzing the decision and its context reveals the hypocrisy of the legal system and political class, speaks eloquently to the dispiriting impact of the decision together with the fight back.
If you're lgbt this is a tonic work, at least once you get past the Derrida bullshit. Two cheers, and here's hoping Rao keeps fighting and writing.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews