Maid to Queer

The first book about Asian female migrant workers who develop same-sex relationships in a host city. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews with Indonesian domestic workers in Hong Kong, the book explores the meanings of same-sex relationships to these migrant women. Instead of searching for reasons to explain why they engage in a same-sex relationship, the book provides an ethnographic perspective by addressing their Sunday activities and considering how migration policies and the practices of Hong Kong people unintentionally produce alternative sexuality and desires for them. The author contrasts the migrant experiences of same-sex relationships with the Western discourse that individuals carry a strong sense of sexual identification prior to migration; same-sex desires among Indonesian domestic workers are often not realized until they leave home. Addressing the changes from maid to queer, this book documents the intersections of domestic work, labor migration, race, and religion on the sexual subject formation, specifically how Indonesian women negotiate heteronormativity and remake a space for their love, sex, and intimacy. The book aims to create a dialogue between Asian labor migration and LGBT studies. For those interested in lesbian studies, Asian labor migration, sexual citizenship, and queer migration, this ethnography fills an important gap in explaining how the feminization of international migration and the constraints imposed on live-in domestic workers unintentionally become productive possibilities of queerness and normativity.

Karier Subkultur dan Kelompok Marginal: Menelaah Potret Profesi Dominatrix dalam Serial Netflix “Bonding”

The competition for jobs in big cities tends to be tougher for the members of groups that are marginalized and socially stigmatized. As a consequence, alternative cultures and vocations emerge. An example of this is the role of professional dominatrix in the kink or alternative sexuality subculture. Using interpretive analysis method, this article studies youth with other marginal identities—namely ‘woman’, ‘homosexual’, and ‘working-class member’ — in regards to their choice to pursue their career in kink subculture as a professional dominatrix in Netflix’s show Bonding. The findings of this research are as follows: The legitimation of alternative sexuality industry as a metropolitan subculture; young people choose to pursue a career, especially in subcultural industry, as a platform as well as motivation for self-actualization, and; jobs in sex and alternative sexuality industry are taken by marginalized young people as an effort to make a living in a big city.

Preferences in Information Processing, Marginalized Identity, and Non-Monogamy: Understanding Factors in Suicide-Related Behavior among Members of the Alternative Sexuality Community

Suicide-related behavior (SRB) is a mental health disparity experienced by the alternative sexuality community. We assessed mental health, relationship orientation, marginalized identities (i.e., sexual orientation minority, gender minority, racial minority, ethnic minority, and lower education), and preferences in information processing (PIP) as factors differentiating lifetime SRB groups. An online cross-sectional survey study was conducted in 2018. Members of the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom (NCSF; n = 334) took part. Bivariate analyses identified the following SRB risk factors: female and transgender/gender non-binary identity, sexual orientation minority identity, lower education, suicide attempt/death exposure, Need for Affect (NFA) Avoidance, depression, and anxiety. Monogamous relationship orientation was a protective factor. Multi-nomial regression revealed the following: (1) monogamous relationship orientation was a protective factor for suicidal ideation and attempt; (2) lower education was a risk factor for suicide attempt; (3) anxiety was a risk factor for suicide attempt; and (4) depression was a risk factor for suicidal ideation. A two-way interaction showed that elevated NFA Approach buffered the negative impacts of depression. Relationship orientation, several marginalized identities (i.e., based on gender, sexual orientation, and educational level), and PIP all contributed uniquely to SRB. Further study is necessary to understand the role of relationship orientation with suicide. Health education and suicide prevention efforts with NCSF should be tailored to account for marginalized identity, mental health, and NFA factors.

Forbidden sexuality in Kunle Afolayan’s October 1 contentious sexual space

There is a sense in which we can speak of two levels of dominant and peripheral sexual spaces within the Nigerian discourse of sexuality. The dominant space deals with the generally acceptable sexual orientation that essentially draws its legitimacy from the biological configuration of sexuality within the African temper of mind. It lays claim, at one level, to the public/cultural sexual space and, at another level, to the private sexual space which also, presumably, directly follows from the cultural sexual course. On the other hand, the peripheral sexual space is seen, to put it in Guarav Desai phrase, as “any nonnormative sexual practices” (2007, p. 736). This marginal sexual orientation has perhaps largely operated within the level of private sexual space, but now it seeks to renegotiate the Nigerian cultural/public sexual space. It is this attempt to renegotiate the dominant cultural/public sexual space that seems to have raised the tension within the discourse of sexuality in Nigeria in recent times leading to the legislation that out-rightly criminalises alternative sexuality in Nigeria. It is this contentious sexual orientation within the African consciousness; its presumed origin, violence and politics of practice that forms the focus of Kunle Afolayan’s film, October 1. This paper looks at October 1 within the contentious discourse of that which is seen as a forbidden sexuality, its attendant violence and destruction in relation to the fluidity and the shifting bases of African cultural orientation in the face of individualism and fundamental human right.

Re (De) generating Polemics of Gandhian Sense of Sexuality in the LifeNarration of Jad Adams’ Gandhi: Naked Ambitions

This paper proposes to examine the complexities involved explicitly in the Gandhian sense of sexuality and brahmacharya as rendered in Jad Adam’s Gandhi: Naked Ambition. Attempt to revamp or comprehend Gandhi’s notions on sex and celibacy would invite ambivalent thought process for recognizing the purpose of it. Life- writers of Gandhi have placed this issue philosophically sensational and morally controversial subject at several levels of interpretations. Since the sexual morality fluctuates from one cultural pattern to another, it would be an intricate social task to design an acceptable method for generalizing the very essence of sex and celibacy unequivocally. Jad Adams has critically focused on the views of Gandhi’s celibacy and brahmacharya, and he also severely blasted the image of Gandhi in the name of bramacharya and sexuality with his judgment and understanding. Though, he has criticized this conviction of Gandhi, many Gandhian admirers have endeavored to philosophize it by comparing it to the views and practices of well-known mystic personalities. The paper also discusses the possibilities for an alternative sexuality wrapped with moral sensibility of thought and deed in the contemporary cultural praxis. The practice of brahmacharya and celibacy with the medium of truth and non-violence propagated by Gandhi is taken for a serious discussion, and critiqued the position of Jad Adam’s with suitable justification. Gandhian conviction of brahmacharya and sexuality are complex cultural phenomena to be practiced in an ordinary life, but a slice of an idea from his thought could be used today for eradicating few social menaces. The relevance of Gandhian sense of sexuality and celibacy in the contemporary age of cyber culture has also been scrutinized.

Studies on the biology of limpets: III. Hermaphroditism in the three British species of Patella

Sex phenomena in molluscs have been widely investigated, and the relevant literature on the subject has been reviewed by Coe (1943,1944). Coe recognizes ambisexuality (monoecism, hermaphroditism) and unisexuality (dioecism, gonochorism) and further subdivides ambisexuality into functional ambisexuality (functional hermaphroditism), consecutive sexuality, rhythmical consecutive sexuality and alternative sexuality. Of these, functional hermaphroditism is of widespread occurrence: it is encountered in all the main groups, with the exception of scaphopods and cephalopods. Of the more than 20,000 species of living gastropods approximately half are functional hermaphrodites when fully adult (Coe, 1944). Limpets of the genus Patella are unisexual, though there is evidence that sex change may occur in some of the species (Orton, 1920, 1928, in Patella vulgata; Bacci, 1947, in P. coeruled). Little is known with certainty of the mechanism of sex-determination in these animals, but sexuality appears to be labile since it seems that more than 90% of individuals of P. vulgata change sex at some stage in their life history. Aberrant sexual forms might therefore reasonably be expected to occur. In the present paper thirty hermaphrodite gonads encountered in an examination of 64,576 limpets are described and their significance in the wider context of sexual phenomena in molluscs is discussed.