GLOBALIZATION AND SEXUALITY

Ashutosh Bhupatkar

INTRODUCTION

Cultural differences across the world can be seen in the meanings and attitudes to
phenomena associated with sexuality. With globalization there is greater exposure to
different cultural influences and it appears that this exposure coupled with interaction of
cultures is posing a challenge to traditional societies. Economic exchange involves also
exchange of images, meanings and frames of reference. These meanings and frames are
cultural in nature, acquired in a given society over long stretches of history. The
computer, for instance in a country like India, symbolizes modernity, the laptop progress
and the idea that you must progress from the current (desktop) to the contemporary
(laptop). The new experience calls for dealing with frames of experience. Accommodate
the new within the existing frame of reference. Take in the new after modifying the
existing frame. Or, jettison the disused parts of the existing frame and repair. In the last
resort, reconstruct and renovate the frames of reference.

Sexuality means, to me, behaviour with respect to certain dimensions of sex. At the
individual level, there is physicality, sensuality and sensitivity. Sex is physical, sensual
and intimate. The actors may however choose to act out one or more levels of sexuality.
In common usage, we refer to these as eroticism, beauty and love respectively. These
phenomena essentially are expressions of the dynamics that happens between own needs
and concern for the other. Again the needs are physical and psychological and bounded
by social mores. The erotic concerns the physical attraction. The sensual moves from
the physical to the intimacy of relation. The sensitive sexuality is the union of hearts. At
the collective level, there are dimensions of power and economics that lead to
exploitation and inequity. I will not touch upon the collective dimensions for the time
being. I quite understand that the collective interacts with the individual level in complex
ways.

The process of globalization has led to greater exposure of female physicality – the skin
show across the ‘new geographies’ of emerging markets. This has become ‘necessary’
for the advertising industry, which uses competition as a justification to make products
and messages attractive by use of female models. The modern ‘science’ of marketing
indirectly promotes the use of Western modes of communication, which bring along the
Western way of viewing sexuality from the physical angle. The ‘skin show’ principle of
advertising spawns a huge business activity: cosmetics, fashion, photography, modeling,
entertainment and publishing. All these are the ‘gifts’ of the Industrial Society to the
world. The pure entertainment of skin show also perfected itself in Europe, notably in
the cabaret shows. Asian countries such as India that hopped on the bandwagon of
globalization have witnessed a tremendous spurt in cosmetics, fashion, modeling,
photography and publishing.

More complex than this use of female anatomy for promotion of products and services is
the attribution of genders to products. Products are seen as masculine or feminine. Cars
are seen as feminine, while old time watches have become ‘chronographs’ and very male
in appearance. Sanitary fittings are promoted with and for their sex appeal.

IN THE WEST

It seems there are differences in emphasis by cultures and within a culture the emphasis
differs with gender. For instance, pornography and sex shows are purely a Western
phenomenon. That is an indication of sole emphasis on the physical dimension of
sexuality in sections of those societies. At the same time it is an overt acceptance of
physicality.

Two issues merit attention in this churning of cultures around sexuality. First, it is
necessary to understand the prominence the West seems to have given to the physical
dimension of sex. It has been argued along the Marxian line of thought that the process
of alienation and the resultant dehumanization brought about by large military-industrial
systems result in physicalization of sex, since it affords an opportunity to experience the
illusion of power and domination. The system denies the opportunity of empowerment to
vast sections of society, who must turn to substitution through sex, drugs, alcohol and the
like. This leads to commercialization of titillation through various forms and modes and
objectification of female body. The feminist movement made an attempt to oppose this
kind of commerce of sexuality. Even their failure to arrest this trend has been historically
productive.

The second issue concerns women’s liberation from the prejudices of the past. The
growth of business, industry and services in varied branches brought greater participation
of women in the modern work systems. It gave them economic independence and social
standing in growing degrees. At individual level, women could resist, repel, wreck or
reconcile with the attacks on their sexuality as they chose. Those who gathered
competence within the economic system could also stand a chance of asserting their
rights, including the right to sexual preferences. Feminism certainly has enabled women
in the Western world to own up their sexuality and exercise the right to deal with it.

Culturally speaking, the West shows pluralism in its attitudes toward sexuality. While
porn flourishes and adult entertainment thrives, others are free to practice the Art of
Loving as they choose. The physical dimension of sex seems predominant and the
sensuous and the sensitive dimensions are not emphasized in the cultural products that
the West exports.

IN THE EAST

I doubt if there is a word for sexuality in most of the Asian languages, certainly not in the
Indian languages. It suggests the absence of the concept in the respective cultures. There
are hundreds of terms for Beauty and Love in contrast. The whole idea of sexuality is
subsumed in the institution of marriage and certain historical forms of entertainment for
the rich and the powerful, such as dances in India. In some of the Asian cultures,
sexuality must be treated sensually if it has to appeal to the finer senses as beauty. Hence
there is a high level of investment in elaborate decor of the female body and development
of rituals to initiate girls into the fine art of stylicism. Significantly, the Arab cultures
have suppressed the physical and the sensual dimensions of sexuality and have
sanctioned only the collective dimensions of sexuality. It is a mystery to me as to how
Arab women hold sexuality in their living processes.

In Persian culture, the dimensions of sensuality and sensitivity receive emphasis as seen
from the themes of Beauty and Love in their arts and literature. In some cases, the
sensitivity transcends sexuality and is transformed into spirituality of the being with the
Supreme. Poets like Rumi have played upon this phenomenon. Again, the way women
hold sexuality in such cultures is not understood.

In the Far Eastern cultures of China-Japan-Korea, the physical and the sensual
dimensions seem to overshadow the sensitive dimension of sexuality, perhaps as a result
of the power dynamics of the male gender. As a result, these cultures seem to be
congruent with the Western acceptance of the physicality of the sex. It is no wonder
many sites of sex tourism have come up in the Far East.

Between genders a new dynamics seems to be taking shape in the Asian countries. With
globalization of consumer goods and the media, there is greater exposure of female body;
the Asian male seems to have shifted his view of the woman-as-slave to woman-as-flesh.
Traditional culture still does not sanction owning up of physicality in such countries in
both men and women. Winds of modernity are blowing into the citadels of tradition.
The skin show is on view in the market place and everywhere. Economics of the lure will
finally tilt in favour of acceptance of physicality. The media covertly bestows legitimacy
to skin show and physicality. But to actualize the physical act of sex, the youth needs
support in the form of private spaces, which then becomes a matter of providing
infrastructure. The Agrarian Societies are fast being transformed into Industrial
Societies, though still lagging behind the Information age and post-modernism.

Hence the male feels justified in demanding his ‘pound of flesh’ from the female. The
girls are still steeped in the ‘dutiful beauty’ concept of womanhood, but with education
they expect sensitivity from the male. The clash of male demand of physicality with the
female expectation of sensitivity seems to lead to a large number of discords. These
culminate in divorces on a rising scale if the woman is economically independent.

The Interaction between Cultures

This is a curious scenario. The West seems occupied with physicality of sex and its
myriad expressions. The Asian – excluding the Far Eastern - seems to struggle with the
suppression of physicality and its consequences in the emerging globalization of
sensibilities. The bridges between the West and the East are now in place thanks to the
revolution in Information Communication Technologies and to the process of
globalization. It is not only the tangible products and services that flow across
boundaries, but also the soft or communication products in the form of art, literature,
music, dance and films from the West continue to pour into the ‘emerging’ markets. The
culture of physicality of sex now engages with the culture of suppression of physicality.
Expectedly, the custodians of tradition and traditional power bases rise in indignation
against the cultural ‘invasion’ by the West. Sections that have vested interests in the
internationalization of capital and markets such as the consumer goods industry, the
media, the entertainment industry and the newly rich educated elite working in the IT and
outsourcing industries support the ‘intermingling’ of cultures with the slogan, ‘change
with the times’.

It is difficult to make a prognosis of this interaction of cultures. I would eagerly look

towards the vision of a new planetary consciousness that enables men and women to raise
sexuality to true love and beyond. I also understand that this calls for restructuring of
work, family and power systems. Till this happens, it would be my concern and
responsibility to become aware of the dehumanizing influences and to deal with them.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE

As an Asian male, I have played true to type by disowning my physicality, while

becoming a sort of Peeping Tom. The adolescent attraction for the female anatomy was
always dealt with surreptitiously. In marital relations, I managed to transit from the
purely physical to the sensuous and only much later to the sensitivity that love brings to
intimacy. Even now it is difficult for me to own up my sexuality. It is still a closet
operation.

When I look at my collaboration with Colin on the Tribute to Rumi, I see it as an

interaction of cultural meanings. Rumi to me represents the Turk-Persian culture of
Transcendental Love. I have tried to keep to that ethos in my verses. Colin, coming as
he does from the Western cultures, accepts physical dimensions of sexuality, as reflected
in his choice of nudes. He tries to portray the sensuousness through artistic nudes. Does
it go with the sensitivity demanded by transcendental love of Rumi? My opinion is: No.
But I am speaking from my cultural sensibilities. The Artistic Nude is alien to it. I grant
in my mind that Colin could have a different sensibility. So I hold my opinion without
disrespecting his. I am not breaking my frame of reference within which my sensibility is
located. But I am trying to modify it. It is fraught with turbulence, because I have not
learnt to own my physicality or sexuality. The danger is that in owning physicality I
don’t have to necessarily buy into the conception of sexuality as physicality.

Gurgaon 3 Oct 2009.