When lawyer-turned-fashion designer Lokesh Kashyap came out to his parents as bisexual, he was met with two types of confusion.
His mother asked if Lokesh had "a problem having sex", while his father thought it meant something else entirely.
"He confused it with me being trans[gender]," Lokesh recalls.
In the family's homeland of India, there is a community known as hijras — people whose sex was assigned male at birth, but who identify as female or non-binary.
"That was the only concept of 'queer' I had in my life growing up," says Lokesh.
India officially recognises transgender people, including hijras, as a "third gender", and there are nearly half a million individuals across the country.
For Hindu families like Lokesh's, hijras carry spiritual significance.
"They are meant to have these magical powers, and some people seek their blessings on their wedding day," he explains.
Despite this, Lokesh says hijras are often treated as "other" or a lower caste.
"They don't have the same privileges. They have to basically beg to survive," he says.
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The influence of the British
According to Devleena Ghosh, a professor in social and political sciences at the University of Technology, India's colonisation by Britain was a significant contributor.
"[British officials] couldn't go around the whole place, stamping out the hijras and forcing them to stop doing what they were doing, but what they did was create a kind of social construct," she explains.
"Anything that deviated from the norm on ideas about the family, sexuality [or] male and female behaviour was seen as deviant."
Anti-sodomy laws were imposed by British officials in India from 1861. Homosexual acts were rendered a criminal offence until 2018, when the law was overturned.
Despite the legal judgment, seen as a victory for India's LGBTQIA+ community, Lokesh believes the legacy of the laws live on.
"It's interesting that the law brought over by the colonisers said that [homosexuality] was an 'unnatural act', and those are the same words that my dad used," says Lokesh.
"When you grow up with that kind of mindset — that homosexuality is going against nature — how much of that is based on faith or religion? Or how much of that is just law-based?"
Sex and the sacred Kama Sutra
India is a majority Hindu country, home to 94 per cent of the religion's global population.
Unlike other faiths, Hinduism does not have a single religious text. Because of this, Dr Ghosh says beliefs around sex and gender roles can vary drastically between followers.
What Hinduism does have is a tradition of "sutras", literary guides on how to live a good life — and this includes the Kama Sutra, an ancient text on eroticism and desire.
"Traditionally, Hinduism has had a more practical approach, I think, to sexuality," Dr Ghosh explains.
"[The Kama Sutra] is actually telling you how to increase your pleasure during sex."
But Dr Ghosh says the erotic text isn't as exciting as the West makes it out to be.
"Kama" — which means "desire" or "longing" — also appears in other spiritual contexts across the subcontinent.
For example, eroticism is depicted sculpturally on sacred Hindu sites, Dr Ghosh says, like the temples in the Khajuraho Group of Monuments, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which are covered with statues performing sex acts.
The pressure to 'wait'
According to Dr Ghosh, sex is more complicated in Hindu communities today than it was 2,000-odd years ago, when the Kama Sutra was written.
She says conservative beliefs around men's honour and women's virtue, and a focus on procreation rather than pleasure, are increasingly prevalent.
Sydney-based radio producer Dinita Rishal says this resonates with her own experience — growing up Hindu in Nepal.
"This doesn't go for everybody, but there are people who want to marry a girl who's a virgin.
"And some families are really strict in this as well. Like on the first night of marriage, there's a white bedsheet on the bed to check whether the girl bleeds or not."
Removing the secrecy around sex
Due to these expectations, Dinita says young people's first sexual encounters are often veiled in secrecy, and that can be detrimental.
"Many people don't even know what consent is because all they learn about sex is from movies or from porn," she says.
"I've seen and heard of many women who don't know what orgasm is, even if they've had sexual relationships multiple times."
For Dinita, the ancient text of the Kama Sutra might provide some valuable lessons for young people growing up in conservative Hindu families.
"I think a book like this would teach couples to enjoy the art of sex," she says.
Lokesh has qualms with the Western glorification of the Kama Sutra, but he agrees it can hold power for its original intended audience: Hindus.
"People think it's all about sex and positions and how we can achieve pleasure ... but it's more than that," he says.
"It's the union of two bodies. It's the chemical reaction you get just by being in the vicinity of each other. It's about exploring each other's energies."
Faith & Fornication is a three-part video series exploring how young, devout Australians navigate dating and sex, presented by Siobhan Marin.
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2020-12-26 20:00:00Z
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