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In the first of a four-part series on sex and desire, we will explore
how in Indian mythology, sexuality is carnal, erotic and spiritual at
once.
In the first of a four-part series on sexuality and desire, we will look at the way in which sexuality is conceptualized as carnal, erotic and spiritual all at once in Indian mythology, specifically in the Gitagovinda.
Bhakti Poets and Passion
The Bhakti movement, which originated in the South of India around the 6th century, is filled with eroticism. Bhakti poets for example, portrayed love in all its delights. The poem Gitagovinda, written by Bhakti poet Jayadeva, is a great example. It is a tale of love and passion between two characters, Radha and Krishna. Interestingly, Radha is portrayed as the mistress, not the wife, of Krishna. We will explore the secret and adulterous aspects of their love in a later article. Here, we will explore the way in which the poet used the force of lovers' bliss to explore the complexities of divine and human love.
Love in the Gitagovinda
The Gitagovinda portrays erotic love not as the possessive or hedonistic pursuit we in the West know only too well, but as carnal, passionate and spiritual all at once. The eroticism and passion between Radha and Krishna is not a metaphor for religion. Rather, their ceaseless erotic desire is religion. Jayadeva, the poet, expresses yearning for God through a lover's language, as the corporeal worship of that which cannot be possessed. This is how he introduces the topic of his poem as spiritual and erotic as once:
If remembering Hara Krishna enriches your heart,
If his art of seduction arouse you,
Listen to Jayaveda's speech
In these sweet soft lyrical songs. (as cited by Miller, 1977, p. 14)
Unending Desire
Unending desire, permanent sexual tension and enduring arousal are central to the poem. The Gitagovinda was meant to be sung, and has been expressed through song and dance for at least five hundred years in what is known as the Orissi dance style. Anthropologist Frederique Marglin talked with these dancers of Orissa, and found that the women talk about the love of Radha quite specifically in terms of this prolonged sexual excitement and longing (see for more on Frederique Marglin's fieldwork in Orissa her book Wives of the Good King, NY: Columbia University Press, 1998). Jayadeva uses the opposites of separation and consumption to heighten this sense of ongoing arousal and in doing so, to intensify the erotic mood. The narratives of ongoing arousal function to heighten the sensation in the consumation.
Radhika suffers in [Krishna's] desertion.
She bristles with pain, sucks in breath
Cries, shudders, gasps,
Broods deep, reels, stammers,
Falls, raises herself, then faints. (as cited in Miller, 1977, p. 89)
Love in Western Myths
Taking the lovers longing for reunion as a metaphor for the soul's longing for union with the divine makes Gitagovinda's theme very similar, if not identical to the principal theme of Platonic and Christian thought. Yet in the Gotagovinda, the natural and the universal go hand in hand. In the Platonic and Christian paradigm, the natural and the universal are sharply divided, like heaven and earth. The division of tasks between heaven and earth - suffering on earth, happiness beyond- is part and parcel of Western culture and its philosophy, religion and mythology.
The Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice for example, is quite similar to the Indian myth of Savitri and Satyavan in The Mahabharata. In both love stories, one partner faces death and in both tales, the partner who is left behind in the world of the living makes an attempt to restore life in the beloved. Yet, the emphasis in the Greek story is on the division between life on earth and life beyond, while the Indian story emphasizes love in this life. In the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, Orheus cannot control his fears and anxiety, and as a result, fails to bring Euriydice back to the world of the living. In the story of Savitri and Satyavan, Savitri's determination leads to success. Yama, the God of death, acknowledges defeat and lets Satyavan go, upon which, the lovers have a long and happy marriage, blessed by many children.
Get Naked!
Love emerges from the Gitagovinda as a way of being rather than as a having, and this way of being is carnal and spiritual presence. Western philosophers have long ago replaced this focus on the value of living each moment of life with a Platonic focus on and fascination with death and transcendence. Since the arrival of Platonic and Christian two-world systems in the West, Westerners tend to see the sensuous world around us as false or illusory and the world 'beyond' as real. The body and its senses are worthy only of disdain in this paradigm. In the Platonic and Christian two-world paradigm, the only way to unite with perfection is in death, since perfection lies beyond our sensuous, physical, reality.
Perhaps we Westerners can learn a lesson from Jayadeva: Forget transcendence, and get naked with your lover! You might discover a practice not of dying but of being and life itself. While you're at it, you might sense complete presence in your sensuous world, a perfect moment which is spiritual, natural and carnal all at once.
For more about sexuality in a historical context, you might also like to read Kerry Kublius'
Sex and Slaves
References
Miller, B. S. (1977). Love song of the dark lord. NY: Columbia University Press
The Write Room
The copyright of the article Sex and Desire I in Anthropology is owned by Gerda Wever-Rabehl. Permission to republish Sex and Desire I in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
Comments
Jun 8, 2006 10:33 AM
Droevig Betreur :
How damned odd, or should I say a sad regret? I hope the disappearance of
this robust and lively thread was caused by a technical glitch and not
censorship or fear of opposing ideas and perspectives.
Jun 8, 2006 11:30 AM
mark dunnagan :
I've been following the conversation- great stuff! Droevig_betreur, you
wrote earlier about the non-consenting other, and later about voyeurism-
what about a non-consenting other in voyeurism? Is subjecting another
against their will to a sexualized gaze, is that a form of violation do you
think?
I also noticed your comments about men being more
sexually driven- I don't think that's universally true. Muslims for
example, often feel that women have more sex drive than men and the
practice of purdah (the seclusion of women) is meant to protect women
against their own desire. Then there's the Dani people in Irian Jaya, who
don't have any sex for 4 to 6 years after a child is born to them. They
might not see sexual urge as natural in either men or women.
I
can't wait to read the rest of the series.
Jun 8, 2006 11:51 AM
Gerda Wever-Rabehl :
Here are the threads of the previous discussions, which were deleted as the
result of a technical error. My apologies for the inconvenience.
Droevig_Betreur wrote:
Getting naked with your lover is
fine as long as long as all lovers consent. What happens if one of the
lover's has a spouse who doesn't consent("...Radha and Krishna.
Interestingly, Radha is portrayed as the mistress, not the wife, of
Krishna.")? Is a spouse a lover to be considered? What part does
betrayal play and is it going to be explored in the series?
Gerda responded:
The adulterous is quite commonly identified
as thrilling and romantic- many plays, movies and novels, classic as well
as modern can attest to the appeal of secrecy. While this goes for both the
East and the West, the tension between the conjugal and the adulterous is
particularly sharp in the East. In Indian communities, mythology and law,
the consequences of adultery are harsh. Furthermore, the gods who look
after marriage and fertility are neatly separated from those who look after
erotic love!
The way I will explore secrecy in desire in this
series is by looking at the Gitagovinda and how transcending the profanity
of everyday life was given a particular meaning, which is quite different
from our contemporary Western understanding- although you might be
interested to learn that the European Court of Love (located in Champagne,
of all places) ruled in 1174 that:
"Love cannot exercise
its powers on married people", because "lovers grant everything,
mutually and gratuitously, without being constrained by any motive of
necessity. Marries people, on the contrary, are compelled as a duty to
submit to one another's wishes" (as cited in Capellanus, A. (1941).
The Art of Courtly Love, translated by J. J. Parry. NY: Columbia University
Press)
My suggestion to get naked with your lover (spouse,
boyfriend, or otherwise) was meant tongue-in-cheek. Our Western frame of
reference is strongly influenced by a Platonic and Christian focus on death
and transcendence. Furthermore, we are all too familiar with sexuality as
predatory and narcissistic. My joke was intended to hint at what we might
learn from the Gitagovinda: that love is a matter of being and not of
having, and that way of being is sensuous, here and now, natural and
spiritual all at the same time.
Droevig_Betreur wrote:
I can’t wait to read the rest of your series. You’ve taken on a
monumental task. Polygamous relationships are wonderful, but what
Jun 8, 2006 1:20 PM
Droevig Betreur :
Ah, the sexualized gaze, some refer to it as the "leer". UBC's
professor Dutton's infamous conviction by the BC Human Rights Tribunal of
creating a "Sexualized Environment" really brought the term into
popular use. Oddly, UBC's Equity Office shies away from the use of their
famous word. They make no comment on sexualized gazes, but prohibit
"leering."
http://www.equity.ubc.ca/discrimination/discrimination.pdf
If
you give a person who must get naked and must choose to be viewed the
choice between having someone leer at their nakedness or having someone
cast a sexualized gaze upon their nakedness, I'll bet you two to one, that
they would choose the gaze over the leer any day.
And now back
to your wonderful question. How would one know the will of the other? Must
we ask, "I would like to cast a sexualized gaze upon your body; do you
mind--will you consent?" Have you ever seen a woman wearing a low-cut,
form-fitting top with the words, "you wish" emblazoned across the
front? Would you call that bait? I’m old grey and wrinkled, was that bait
set for me, or was it set to tease old men, geeks and sexual incompetents?
Would I be charged with leering if I cast an oblique sexualized stare at
the bait? You’ll note that UBC does not allow leering even if the objects
are two very large, eye-popping melons with “you wish” pasted across
them.
Ahh, yikes! I just poured a cold cup of water down my
pants. I’m again able to be serious.
The simple answer in most
Western cultures is “sexual gazing” is verboten if the gaze is unwanted.
Determining whether it is unwanted requires some cranial gazing. If you
can’t see inside the object’s head and see the neural activity and
translations, I’d say don’t gaze—look away—cover your eyes—loudly hum a
rousing Sousa march and whatever you do, don’t think of majorettes though
while doing so.
It’s really pretty complex. I long for someone
to think that I’m sexually attractive. I’ve always liked appreciative looks
from potential sex partners (did I give a sexualized gaze and thus prompt
on in return or was it my formerly taught butt in tight jeans the
culprit?). Am I different than anyone but an asexual? Does any of us not
wish for appreciative sexualized gazes that tell us that we are desirable?
The sad part is that gazes that used to get me laid can now get me
imprisoned. 8-)
If you really think about it, erotic myths are
being driven underground. They may become the new pornography. We cannot
share the art or d
Jun 8, 2006 2:21 PM
Gerda Wever-Rabehl :
Donning a shirt with “You Wish” across the chest might open the door to
both the intrusive, sexualized gaze (in your words "the leer") as
well as the pleasant and welcome, desiring male or female gaze (in your
words "the appreciative sexualized gazes that tell us that we are
desirable").
I am interested in your comments on the gaze
in light of your bio, in which you explicitly use the metaphor of the
camera. Feminists used this metaphor of the camera when they came up with
the notion of the “male gaze.” Feminists would have it that this gaze makes
the other the object of desire and colonizes the other as such. They might
ask you, Droevig: To what extend is the identity of the woman with, as you
put it “large, eye-popping melons with 'you wish' pasted across them”
constituted by the sexualized gaze of men?
Interestingly,
critics of the Hitchcock movie ‘Rear Window’ suggest that the camera is a
sort of substitute phallus and means to establish masculinity (see
http://cinetext.philo.at/magazine/wylie/masculine_gaze.pdf)
Jun 8, 2006 3:37 PM
Droevig Betreur :
What would the "Rear Window" critics say if they knew that I
possess a 400mm Sigma lense? Depending on the job, size does matter.
 (sorry, that was photographers' bait; I couldn't resist).
I use the camera and lens metaphorically and literally. I owned a
considerable array of camera equipment until my office was broken into last
year. I’m now switching to digital SLR and it takes some getting used to.
Now I can avoid traipsing to the darkroom to buy time as I can do a lot
right on my computer. (It’s your fault, you started talking about cameras)
In my opinion, colonization isn't the purview of any gender. A
Colonized place is sometimes called a protectorate. Protectorates or
colonies are objects jealously safeguarded by the protector. Jealousy is
universal in the bond of relationships or desired relationships. Women cast
sexualized gazes at other women and men and men cast sexualized gazes at
women and other men. Psychologists say that the initial sexualized gaze is
the product of lust and that lust is related to our innate drive to
procreate. However, that does not explain two women or two men casting
sexualized gazes at each other. Have you ever secretly gazed at a man
wishing to meet him only to have a women approach him, start to chat him up
and bond with him. Was there a hint of jealousy—“Drat! She grabbed him
before I could move. Damn the timing; damn her!” I think people can be
jealous of another’s relationship because they have a desire to be in the
same relationship.
Why is it that some feminists are almost
reproachful in their view of a man casting a sexualized gaze at a women who
is a complete stranger? They don’t seem to harbour the same disdain when a
woman casts a sexualized gaze at a man who is a complete stranger. Beer
commercials are really pushing the concept of women ogling men. Corn chip
commercials usually have women dismissing men with less than appreciative
gazes. Is the message, “a guy looks a lot better to a woman after she’s had
a beer or two, and a guy with corn chip paste in his teeth isn’t worth
talking to?” (note to self: beer good, corn chips not so good.)
Jun 8, 2006 7:38 PM
Droevig Betreur :
"Orlando"! I'm facinated by the movie (I've not read the book)I'm
fascinated by Tilda Swinton. While I was derisive of those in love with
Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, I hereby open myself to ridicule by publicly
declaring that hangin' with Tilda is one hell of an erotic fantasy for me.
(hand me another glass of cold water....)
I went to see the
Witch and the Wardrobe and there was Tilda playing the witch. What a
surprise, she usually doesn't do mainstream stuff. After the show, I
proudly blurted out in a croweded elevator that "I've seen the witch
naked!" Yes, I got the horrified looks and then a slap on the
shoulder.
That being said, "Orlando" has some great
perspectives and dialogue if you want to see an move interspersed with male
and female gaze.
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Set/1211/enciso.html
Jun 9, 2006 5:37 PM
Droevig Betreur :
Sorry to do the cut and paste thing, but the whole narrative is interesting
and I don't know enough to write without feeling like I'm plagerizing every
thought and word. The following is an excerpt from a paper by kelsey
gaynier (kgaynier@haverford.edu):
Similar to the
onnagata actors of Japan, the Hijras of India are also what Western
academia would define as "transsexual men" who play a crucial
role to Asian culture. To Indians, however, the Hijras represent not a
homosexual or transvestite male, but that of an entirely seperate
"third" gender because they are niether entirely female nor male,
but contain crucial elements of both (Meyer, p. 89). When a young man
wished to join the Hijra community, he must participate in an initaiation
ritual performed by his annointed guru where he is formally castrated and
recieved a female name (Nanda 1986, p.36). However, it is essenatial that
he formally "give up" all sexual activity in respect for the
Hijra's mother god Bahuchara Mata. After this initiation process is
complete, the new Hijra (chela) joins his guru's home where he and his new
"sisters" reside (Nanda 1986, p.36). Seven of these
"houses" form the main Hijra community in Bombay where seperate
gurus are a mother figure (Nanda 1986, p.37).
"Because
Hijras are physically unable to reproduce children, they are not considered
men by Hindu standards because this ability is essential to the religion's
conept of masculinity (Nanda 1986, p.37). However, although the Hijras
adopt feminine mannerisms, dress, and vocabulary, they are not thought of
as female because thier course speech and crass actions contradict the
Hindu ideal of restrained femininity (Nanda, p.37). Thus, it is logical
that Indian culture accepts Hijras as a "third sex" because they
are a combination of both masculine and feminine qualities. These people
are not coined "transsexuals" or "transvestites" as
Western terminology would define them; instead, the term "Hijras"
is translated into a "eunich" or "hermaphrodite" (Nanda
1992, p.135) because sexual activity or preference is absent from thier
traditional culture.
"Similar to Buddhism and Confucianism
in Japan, Hinuism and Islam are what Bulllough calls "sex
positive" religions because both allow for the tolerance of a wider
range of sexual expression than exists within Western culture with its
restrictive Judeo-Christian influence (Bullough, p. 172). Hijras are vital
to Islamic and Hindu ritual because they are believed to cont
Jun 10, 2006 10:07 AM
Droevig Betreur :
A woman named Lucy Kerman wrote the following at:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/forum/viewforum.php?forum_id=198#15885
"I didn’t in the end get my ears pierced. I thought about it
for a few days, and I suspect that, if I had found myself on Telegraph
again, I would have bought those studs and carried them around as a
possible spur to action. As it turned out, I didn’t see them again. But the
possibility – the choice – got me thinking about my assumptions about me.
For me, being human is fundamentally about being an animal – albeit one
with special attributes – and femaleness has always been about living
deeply and unabashedly in that animal-ness, that physicality. As I think
about it, I realize it has also always been about being, at base,
unadorned. That’s, still, my choice. It is when a woman takes off all of
her adornments that she is most female."
Art related to
Indian myth shows women elaborately adorned even during the most acrobatic
of carnal relations. For that matter everyone is adorned--even the animals
are adorned. Western erotica has progressed to the point where any hint of
pubic hair has been removed.
I'm intrigued by Kerman's belief
that removal of adornments is the real way to accentuate femaleness (I
assume she means this related to the gaze and much more). I wonder what she
thinks when one goes a step further and shaves one's genitals? Why would
one shave one’s genitals? Is that to enhance the male gaze, or female gaze
or some other gendered gaze—if there is one?
If one studies
Indian Myth and its erotic art, genitals seem to be always neatly trimmed.
Is trimming a step away from achieving the recognition that feminism seeks?
Gerda, you have stepped onto a slippery slope that will leave
you little option but to pull together a syllabus on “Eastern Myth Sex and
Desire” and pitch it as a contract gig at one of your local universities or
colleges. This topic is much too big for this site, but thank you for
bringing it here.
Jun 13, 2006 7:08 AM
Droevig Betreur :
Western notions about womanhood and self actualization and Eastern notions
seem to collide. After my last post I came across the following web page
that explains Indian adornments:
http://www.exoticindiaart.com/article/jewelry
There is so much
to learn and so much to discuss.
I'm like a dog barking in the
yard when its masters have left the neighbourhood. I'll stop barking, jump
the fence and move on.
Thanks for tolerating my questions for a
while. They were sincere. I assume that the original removal of the thread
was caused by "troll fear". If you think that I am a troll,
you're entitled to your views, but you'd be wrong.
Jun 18, 2006 12:43 PM
Daniel Fernandes :
I believe we must consider some points:
1. Who is involved in that
sexual play?
2. What social place the sexual play is taking place?
3. How the people involved in that sexual play seen one to another by
their social rules?
The values non-conscious, not inconscious, which
is built the specific social place it is responsible if sexual play will be
right or not. Then, the question is
the sexual play which is beeing
playing is attending or not the desire of specific social segment
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