Sexual Cultures of Youth in Contemporary India

Drawing on testimony and narratives from diverse geographic, linguistic, and socio-economic contexts, the book offers an intersectional exploration of Indian youth's sexual cultures, examining attitudes towards sexuality in the absence of comprehensive formal sex education in institutional or domestic settings.Focusing on Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, and Gujarat—states with contrasting socio-economic and political histories shaped by varying degrees of neoliberalism—the explores how hegemonic norms are imparted and sustained. Chapters highlight the role played by educational and other institutions in imposing post-colonial codes of silence regarding sex and sexuality outside the conjugal context. The book examines how technology, including easy access to pornography, disrupts traditional knowledge production and control around gender, sex and sexuality. It also explores the lives of sexual and gender minorities in India within the intersecting discourses of cis/heteronormativity, Hindu nationalism, and neoliberalism. The book contends that for gender and queer politics in India to succeed amidst rising Hindu nationalism, they must address the intersecting fractures of class, caste, and religion within Indian society.Critiquing the liberalizing cosmopolitanism ushered in by India’s embrace of neoliberal economics, the book will appeal to scholars, researchers, and postgraduate students in the fields of South Asian culture and society, sexuality and gender studies, and the sociology of culture.