HIV/AIDS in India: Voices from the Margins by Sunita Manian (review)

The HIV/AIDS epidemic is a serious issue in India, which ranks third globally in the number of individuals living with HIV/AIDS. For the uneducated and undereducated and poor in India, this disease brings new social, legal, and economic struggles. Sunita Manian, a professor of political economy at Georgia College and the former president of the Association of Global South Studies, tells the stories of HIV-positive individuals from the lower-income sects of the Tamil Nadu population and provides a valuable commentary on the consequences of the heteronormative social structure in India.

Manian conducted her research in Tamil Nadu, where she interviewed male, female, and transgender (aravani) sex workers and married and widowed HIV-positive women who had become infected by their husbands. As the book progresses, it becomes clear that the reality of sexuality, sexual identity, and sexual orientation in India cannot be categorized according to a western formula. For example, the sexuality and sexual identity of male and transgender sex workers in India are not as straightforward as simply being gay, bisexual, or queer. Socioeconomic factors influence even the term that one uses to express their sexual identity/activity. Manian interviewed several male participants who referred to themselves as MSM (men who have sex with men) without identifying themselves as homosexuals. Manian argues that although MSM was a term used to express sexual activity. it has become an identity marker (p. 43).

In the introduction, Manian begins by discussing sexuality in India and the social perceptions of nonheterosexual relations. Manian argues that characterizing HIV/AIDS as a heterosexual disease is disingenuous and has dire implications for decreasing the spread of the disease in India (p. 3). She criticizes the Indian government by arguing that manipulating information is one of the factors behind the distorted characterization of the disease. Chapters 2, 3, and 4 focus on sexual minorities from the low-income and undereducated sects of the population. In chapter 2, Manian argues that the non-Anglophone, low-income sexual minorities in India lack the knowledge and agency to connect to the global virtual communities where they can be themselves without legal consequences (p. 31). In chapter 3, the stories of aravanis and MSMs highlight a stark difference between them and female sex workers. While female sex workers can work in the field exclusively for financial reasons, MSMs and aravanis do sex work both to earn money and for pleasure. This makes them more vulnerable to emotional rejection by sex partners and clients (p. 67). The question of how the MSMs and aravanis discovered their sexuality is a bit underdeveloped. The examples suggest that most MSMs discovered their sexuality after unwanted sexual interaction from a male friend or relative (p. 53). It is not clear whether this is true for only MSMs in the lower-income, non-Anglophone sects of the population.

In chapter 4, the author describes the dangers aravanis and MSMs face. Manian presents an interesting perspective on sexuality and power derived from sexual acts. In traditional India, the mere act of having sex with another man does not make someone an MSM from the perspective of an MSM (p. 81). A man who has the power to penetrate another man without thinking about the partner's pleasure/desire remains masculine (p. 81). From a western standpoint, this understanding of sexuality is more fluid and more difficult to categorize. Manian, however, presents only the MSMs' understanding of their abusers' sexuality. According to MSMs, abusing policemen or rowdies (local thugs) view their own sexuality as absent. Admittedly, that side of the story might be difficult to present. In chapter 5, Manian discusses how the status of nonconjugal heterosexuality changed during and after colonialism. Courtesans or devadasis existed in South Asia before the British rule. They were creators and patrons of arts and had considerable power rivaling that of the queens (p. 92). As the British Raj dismantled old traditions, the status of courtesans changed and they became "common prostitutes" (p. 92...