I know nothing about women’s or gender studies. Having completed a degree at U of T in history and religion it is surprising to me that I have managed to almost entirely pass over these two areas of study. Even in upper year seminar courses issues relating to women and gender were almost always jammed together in one lecture-- the theme of the class inevitably being “the body.” In post-colonial theory seminars we always returned to the idea of the woman’s body as the stage for the East/West, private/public, spiritual/material debate of the early 20th century Indian nationalist movement. Beyond that I have no knowledge. What is interesting to me about this lack of knowledge is that it highlights a problem mentioned by Judith Bennett in Clark’s article: women’s studies is ghettoized. From my experience, if you don’t take a course specifically dedicated to this area of study, your knowledge of these topics with regard to whatever else you are studying will be cursory at best. This is unfortunate because I think that some of the theoretical constructs proposed by feminist theorists etc. can be especially useful to those of us interested in textual-criticism.
I am currently working on a translation of the Kamasutra for one of my classes and I have found Judith Butler’s definition of “sex” and “gender” to be particularly helpful in understanding Vatsyayana’s concept of gender as a continuum rather than a dichotomy. ‘Sex’ is the biological difference between men and women while ‘gender’ is the culturally inscribed identity upon biological sex. Butler refines this idea, arguing that gender is not only “a cultural inscription of meaning upon a pregiven sex (a juridical conception)” but that “gender must also designate the very apparatus of production whereby the sexes themselves are established.”[1] In essence what Butler means is that ‘sex’ as defined above is a culturally produced notion that is so pervasive that it appears natural. Sex, like the notion of property, masquerades as a natural fact when it is actually a cultural construct.
Understanding sex and gender to be culturally produced phenomena has helped me in analyzing Vatsyayana’s complex concept of gender. Vatsyayana, who views himself to be an objective observer of sexual phenomena, believes that he is simply providing a detailed account of all sexual practices when in truth he has actually constructed his own definition of gender and superimposed it on the various sexual practices that he describes in the text. In addition to heterosexual men and women, Vatsyayana introduces another category, the “third nature.” In the introduction to his chapter on oral sex he states that there are two types of persons of the “third nature,” one in the form of a woman and the other in the form of a man.[2] As the chapter unfolds we realize that this does not refer to the activities of both gays and lesbians. In fact, Vatsyayana has created a sliding scale of male homosexual behaviour, some acts apparently being more feminine than others. In his understanding, sex, gender, and sexual preference are conflated. These people, because of their sexual preferences, are neither man nor woman but exist in some other third category that has its own sub-categories, just as the categories of man and woman have their own sub-categories.
The grammar of this section also indicates this tension between the ‘third nature’ and femininity. He refers to people of the third nature as “she” so it is entirely possible to read this chapter as if it were actual women practicing these sexual acts. Perhaps this is simply linguistics, as the Sanskrit word for nature is feminine and so it makes sense to match it with a feminine pronoun, but perhaps his reasoning is deeper than that. Given the richness of Sanskrit vocabulary I refuse to believe that it was a coincidence that he chose a feminine word for nature. Any behaviour outside what he considers to be heterosexual male activity is pushed down the spectrum towards the feminine end. Unfortunately, he does not devote much attention to lesbian activity and so I am not able to compare his treatment of women who engage in sex with other women to see where they fall on his spectrum.
Through the use of Butler’s concept of sex and gender, I have been able to look at Vatsyayana’s text in a new light. Being attentive to how he conceives of gender, sex, and sexual preference adds a whole new dimension to the text itself. Seen in this light, I have developed a deeper appreciation for his work in that I can now see how some of his ideas were quite radical for the time.
[1] Judith Butler as qtd. in Boyarin, p. 117.
[2] Doniger and Sarkar, p. 65.
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3 comments:
Hi Amy,
I enjoyed reading your blog and I’m actually a bit envious of you –I would love to work on the Kama Sutra. I’m curious about a few things with which I was hoping you might be able to help.
Are there other words for ‘nature’ in Sanskrit? If so, are any of these masculine, or neuter, if there is this gender in Sanskrit? In all the languages I know, as far as I can remember, ‘nature’ is always a feminine noun.
Has this part of the text, where male homosexual behaviour is analyzed, always been read thus, or have there been people who have red it as a discussion of female sexual acts? Is the nature of the sexual acts themselves ambiguous? Are they ambiguous sexual acts, can they be read in multiple ways, or do they not lend themselves to this?
While feminizing the non-heterosexual male sexual acts, does Vātsyāyana also present them as ‘perverse’, are they categorized as ‘abnormal’? I wonder to what extent the choice of the feminine grammatical gender arises out of an attempt to marginalize and abnormalize the effeminate in the masculine, to make it non-masculine, to make it other and to exonerate man of his perversities.
See you in class,
Babak
Hi Amy,
If sex and gender are both culturally produced, how do we account for the obvious biological and anatomical differences between what we label “man” and “woman”? They are not completely identical, as clear differences do exist. I agree that it is very important to critically approach our cultural “norms” and question their basis within the historical development of societies, but I think that this line of thinking that Butler advocates ignores the material/physical domain. Saying that gender and sex are both culturally constructed neglects that our species is differentiated at the most basic anatomical and biological level, in two ways. How and why we label these two groups is indeed an avenue of inquiry that should be approached critically at all times, but we should not abandon the biological and anatomical knowledge that we possess.
Secondly, I do not entirely agree that “Sex, like the notion of property, masquerades as a natural fact when it is actually a cultural construct.” The notion that property is “masquerading” as a natural fact, when taken to its logical conclusion, promotes Hobbes’s “state of nature” paradigm, whereby our whole ethical framework within society is simply an artificial pact created to protect ourselves from the “savageness” of our neighbours. If this is the case and the notion of property truly is artificially constructed, then every individual has the “natural right” to dominate and subjugate all others (regardless of sex or gender) in order to promote “his” or “her” own survival and wellbeing. In such a society, the subjugation of “women” by “men” (or “men by “women”) would be perfectly justified, since all notions of personal property are temporary and conditional constructs, having no persistent basis in reality.
I prefer to think that notions of property are natural features of the human psyche, recognizing that we require a diversity of objects for our survival and prosperity. From this, we also recognize that others require a diversity of objects for their personal wellbeing, which is responsible for our sense of civil cooperation. From this, we can seek to help and empower others (both female and male) and create a supportive society in which all individuals (regardless of gender or sex) can benefit. I think that if we reduce fundamental notions such as sex and property to cultural constructs, we risk ignoring much of human complexity and nature, effectively treating human beings as “genderless, sexless competitors for food.”
- Adam
Amy,
I sympathize with you about having little instruction regarding women’s studies and gender studies. During my time as a student at the University of Western Ontario, we did have some exposure to these fields; however, it was minimal and usually presumed some previous familiarity with the field. I was wondering what Vatsyayana’s purpose for writing about the “third nature” was? What I mean is do you believe that he was attempting to demonstrate that, indeed, those in the third nature really have a gender which falls outside of male and female, or is he rather limiting this scope to sexual preference? I know very little about this text, but I would have to ponder whether Vatsyayana is really trying to reimagine gender roles in three classes; rather, I would wonder if he is indeed limiting his discussion to sexual preferences.
Consider, for example, Kinsley’s discussion about sixteenth century devotion to Krishna. He states that the female Mirabai imagines herself to be married to Krishna, and the male Surdas imagines himself as a female in love with Krishna. It seems to me that there is some sort of “sliding-scale” here between male and female devotion to Krishna in sixteenth century; however, male and female roles are still distinguished even though both take on a female persona. Does Vatsyayana really intend to uphold a third gender or does he intend to demonstrate that the man engaging in homosexual behavior takes on some stereotypical feminine characteristics? You stated that “because of their sexual preferences, are neither man nor woman but exist in some other third category”, is this category something that the person is confined to during everyday life, or is this only during or in terms of their sexual actions? I think this would be an important distinction. Please let me know what you think.
Andrew
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