Love in a Different Climate: Men Who Have Sex with Men in India (review)

Love in a Different Climate: Men Who Have Sex with Men in India. By Jeremy Seabrook. London: Verso, l999. Pp. l84. $34.75 (cloth); $19.00 (paper).

It is by now well known that Western understandings of sexuality, sexual identity, and particularly "homosexuality" have been inappropriately imposed on other cultures. As the concept of "homosexual" or "gay" diffuses throughout the world, it takes on different meanings: In the Philippines, for example, a "gay" or "homosexual" identity is only applied to the feminized partner in a male/male relationship, while in Thailand, "gay" is emerging as a masculinized identity. In Asia, the term "men who have sex with men" or MSMs, is increasingly used in an effort to provide more neutral language and particularly to broaden the target population for AIDS education programs beyond those who identify as homosexual or gay. It is this latter goal that is Seabrook's stated purpose in writing his book.

The book's core is based on the author's informal conversations over a one-year period with seventy-five married and unmarried men of diverse social classes, castes, educational levels, geographical regions, and rural and urban backgrounds, who congregate in a centrally located park in New Delhi that is a meeting place for MSMs. Through these conversations Seabrook hopes to understand how Indian MSMs think about their sexuality, their sexual relationships, and their sexual orientation. His mainly descriptive data support his conclusion that a gay or homosexual identity is only newly emergent in India and not part of the consciousness of most MSMs. As one might expect, his data also support the conclusion that a modern gay identity in India occurs mainly among more Westernized and highly educated men, some of whom have lived in Europe or the United States.

Contrary to the book's title, love does not enter into most MSMs' relationships. Indeed, the great majority of Seabrook's respondents vehemently deny that their sexual practices with other men are even sex, let alone love. In their cultural classification system, sex is only with women. Many MSMs refer to same-sex sexual activity as "play" and dismiss it as not serious, a time filler, a temporary adventure in the big city, an aspect of male friendship, or as a way of making money. Rural informants deny that "such things" can happen in rural areas and view New Delhi as a "separate place" where they can find freedom through anonymity.

For Seabrook, the "emotional distancing" of his informants' sexual activities from their identities is troublesome, what he calls the "shelter of the powerless." He is particularly concerned about what this denial means for the transmission of AIDS through MSMs' sexual relations with their wives. While some unmarried MSMs anticipated that their male sexual relationships would cease upon marriage, most did not. In spite of the Vedic injunction, repeated by a groom to his bride in the marriage ceremony, that he will not "conceal anything" from her or "obtain enjoyment only for [himself] in secret," all of the married MSMs did conceal their sexual relationships from their wives while continuing marital intercourse. Given the MSMs' statements that they do not use condoms, either in their male or marriage relationships, Seabrook's concerns about the need to target AIDS education programs toward MSMs are well placed. However, as the book contains almost no information about AIDS in India, nor any specific suggestions for AIDS outreach to MSMs, it is most useful as a wake-up call.

Seabrook obviously established a good rapport with his respondents, whose briefly summarized "stories" are very moving. Particularly poignant is the repeated theme of men searching, in their own words, not for sex but for friendship, affection, and love--emotions they view as outside the norms of Indian filial and conjugal relationships. Many respondents specifically mention that they could never...