Female sexualities in Indonesia
Evelyn Blackwood
From a western viewpoint, sexuality constitutes an essential or core attribute of identity; individuals are said to have fixed sexual identities or orientations. Sexuality as it is understood in the USA and western Europe, however, often bears little resemblance to sexual relationships and practices across cultures. Theorists such as Michel Foucault (1978) and Judith Butler (1990) argue that sexuality itself is a social product. According to this view, sexual acts, or what appear to be sexual acts, take their meaning from particular cultures, norms and beliefs about the self and the world. Social processes do not act as constraints on a ‘natural’ sexuality, but actually produce sexualities through discourses of desire, religion, gender and so on. In this chapter, I draw on feminist and queer theories, particularly those that constellate around social construction theory, in order to understand the meanings of sexualities among females in Indonesia.
Many academics now attend to the ways in which sexual acts are culturally produced, but since the early 1990s growing attention has been focused on the intersection of global and local processes. Plummer (1992) pointed out that same-sex experiences are increasingly fashioned through the interconnectedness of the world. He argued that lesbian and gay studies should pay close attention to the ‘international connectedness yet local uniqueness’ of diverse practices (1992: 18), thereby giving both global and local processes and practices a distinct role. In contrast, Altman (2001) initially spoke confidently about the ‘apparent globalisation of postmodern, gay identities’, arguing that new ‘globalised’ queer identities would replace older indigenous identities, resulting in a homogeneous global gay identity. Feminist theorists Grewal and Kaplan (2001) move beyond the limited and simplistic dichotomy of local–global by using the term ‘transnational sexualities’, which refers to the way in which genders and sexualities are produced through and intersect with a large number of processes implicated in globalisation. The term ‘transnational’ points to the lines that crosscut binaries of local/global; it suggests that the global and local thoroughly infiltrate one another (Grewal and Kaplan 2001).
At the same time that global interconnections among emerging gay and lesbian communities and networks create new visions of and spaces for women’s and men’s same-sex relations, some significant oversights persist. Global gay discourse tends toward an effacement of sexualities that do not have the appearance of same-sex identities emblematic of the lesbian and gay liberation movements of western Europe and North America (Bacchetta 2002). Activist lesbian discourse, in particular, holds the expectation that modern lesbian subjects will express a consciousness or self-awareness of sexual identity as ‘lesbians’ and as ‘women’. The traditional/ modern dichotomy of western thought is perpetuated in this discourse; those individuals who do not reflect modern identities are marginalised because they appear to lack the grammar of fully liberated modern queers (Grewal and Kaplan 2001). Queer discourses rely on this dichotomy to create a developmental teleology that situates other sexualities as premodern, that is, not yet lesbian or gay, while placing western sexualities at the pinnacle of modern, autonomous sexuality (see also CruzMalavé and Manalansan 2002; Gopinath 2002). In this universalising turn, transnational queer discourses bypass the historicity and specificity of queer subjects outside the west, relegating their stories to the margins of queer movements. The effacement of postcolonial, non-western queer subjects is particularly disabling for lesbians, who are less visible in global gay (male) movements and narrowly defined in global lesbian feminist organising (Bacchetta 2002; King 2002).
The fixity of identities promoted by such terms as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender needs to be reconsidered in light of the tombois, lesbian men and other masculine females whose lives blur the boundaries of lesbian and transgender (see also Blackwood and Wieringa 1999; Morgan and Wieringa 2005). Evident throughout Asia in both cities and rural areas are masculine females whose own identities are firmly located in localised gender regimes as well as in global signifiers apparent in the proliferating forms of the English term ‘tomboy’ that they use to identify themselves (see Wieringa et al. 2007). These individuals, like their activist peers in major urban centres in southeast Asia, are influenced by global feminist and queer organising as well as by localised processes, which they negotiate to construct the particular forms of sexuality and gender evident in Asia today. Although seemingly divergent, these gendered and sexual subjectivities are part of and responsive to global queer discourse.
In Padang, West Sumatra, tombois and their girlfriends, who identify themselves as masculine and feminine respectively, access global circuits of queer knowledge and see themselves as part of a global community, but maintain subject positions that are distinct from the identities promoted and encouraged by activist lesbian organisations in Indonesia. In this chapter, I offer insights into the asymmetries of queer knowledge and the consequent multiplicity of desires and subjectivities as a way to challenge fixed identity categories and incorporate the diversity of queer subjectivities within a global gay ecumene.
In the particular case discussed here, I use the terms that individuals in Padang use to make sense of their lives, mainly lesbi and tomboi. Despite being cognates of English terms (lesbi/lesbian, tomboi/tomboy), these two Indonesian terms do not share the same meanings and resonances as their English counterparts. Also, by using terms such as ‘queer knowledge’ and ‘queer discourses’ in relation to Indonesia, I mean to suggest that these discourses are inflected by and participate in the globalised discourses of sexualities.
The subject positions that tombois and their girlfriends take up are informed by a wide array of global discourses at the same time that these subject positions respond to localised discourses.1 The city of Padang, which sits on the coast of West Sumatra in Indonesia, is a sprawling metropolis of over 700,000 people. It has been a major trading port in southeast Asia for hundreds of years. Located near the equator, this sultry city is currently the provincial capital of West Sumatra and a province of the state of Indonesia. A regional metropolis, Padang is cosmopolitan and globally connected.
Being lesbi in Padang is generally understood as an expression of gender rather than a form of sexuality engaged in by two women (see also Blackwood 2005, 2010). By this I mean that a lesbi couple comprises two individuals who express distinctly different genders. Tombois do not see themselves as women; they consider themselves masculine or like men. I asked Tommy, a tomboi in h/er mid-twenties, how men treat h/er.2 S/he said: ‘They consider me a guy and treat me like one, not like a female. That’s also because I consider myself a guy’. In regard to h/er family, Tommy said: ‘My family understands that I’m more like a guy, even to the extent of sleeping [overnight] anywhere I want. It’s not a problem. They know I can protect myself’. When asked how s/he sees h/erself, Robi, another tomboi, answered: ‘I feel like a guy because my behaviour is more like a guy’s. Really, there is no difference between me and men. We’re the same’. Tombois are marked by their short hair, their rowdy, boisterous behaviour and their habit of smoking in public.
Tombois’ performances of masculinity include the ability to move in spaces dominated by men, to work in men’s jobs and to participate in behaviours that are allowed only for men, such as smoking, drinking and staying over at friends’ houses. The ability to access some of men’s privileges and to move in men’s world assures tombois of their status as men. The men’s world in Padang is found in the public spaces predominantly occupied by men, such as cafés, pool halls, bars, street corners, and for the more religious, the prayer house where religious studies and devotions are held. For young unmarried men in Padang this pattern means that they are generally free from familial supervision and control. Tommi’s statement earlier that s/he can sleep overnight anywhere s/he wants substantiates h/er ability to move in the men’s world. The everyday activities that tombois emphasise as part of their masculine life include: sleeping anywhere (especially not at home), doing anything they want, associating with whomever they want, going out, travelling alone, staying out late, doing men’s work, smoking and drinking and hanging out with men. Being able to participate in the men’s world substantiates their sense of self as masculine.
In contrast to tombois, girlfriends, who dress in the same style as other young women in West Sumatra, are generally polite, restrained and considerate in public. In fact, girlfriends see themselves as indistinguishable from other women. Jeni, who was in her early twenties at the time, explained to me: ‘I am the same as other women. I wear feminine clothes, sometimes even skirts, and put on makeup’. She defines women as ‘neat, polite, and warm hearted’. Being ‘the same as other women’ refers not only to the attributes they possess but the occupations they take up. Nila and Jeni manage a food stall, for which they do all the cooking themselves. Another is a maid, a fourth a seamstress. In addition to their occupations, they prioritise domestic interests. Epi said: ‘I like to cook a lot – things like cake and cookies (kué)’. Jeni said she likes to take walks, cook and read popular magazines when she is not busy. Girlfriends define themselves as normative women who are attracted to men; they happen to be lesbi at this point because their boyfriends are female bodied.
Tombois’ and girlfriends’ views of each other join together in supporting their differences. Jeni said: ‘Girlfriends like a lot of attention just like other women. They like to be loved and spoiled’. In contrast, ‘Tombois are just like guys’, she said. ‘They can be very crude and egotistical’. Noni stated that tombois are not afraid of anything, but for her: ‘I’m very afraid to go out at night alone. I’m a woman. Someone might try to rape me!’ Girlfriends speak of their relationships in hetero-normative terms, finding the masculine traits of their partners desirable. Jeni said: ‘With Andri [her tomboi partner], I feel safe and protected’. Their traits and desires accord well with the gendered expectations for men and women. By demonstrating that they are not what women are, tombois feel confident in their knowledge of themselves as men. At the same time, girlfriends do not need to question their own desires because their self-presentation of femininity properly contrasts with that of the tombois.
All these comments underscore the reality of binary gender for these individuals and the importance of maintaining gender difference. Lesbi in Padang envision themselves as either masculine or feminine, men or women. In conversations among themselves, they use slang terms such as ‘cowok’ and ‘cewek’, meaning guy and girl, for masculine and feminine partners, respectively. These terms describe tombois and their partners in specifically gendered ways, bringing into being and reinforcing for each a gendered sense of self that contrasts with one’s partner.
Although tombois and their girlfriends place themselves at opposite ends of a gender spectrum, they see themselves at the same time as part of a lesbi world (dunia lesbi) that intersects in varying ways and to varying degrees with national and transnational queer discourses and movements. The means by which these discourses circulate globally are quite varied, including newspapers, magazines and films. Although in mainstream media such information is typically couched in negative terms, it still offers the possibility of imagining difference. Since the early 1980s, Indonesian media attention to an increasingly international gay and lesbian movement brought into common use the terms lesbi and gay, derived from the English terms lesbian and gay (Boellstorff 2005; Gayatri 1996). Stories about abusive or suicidal lesbian couples, the love interests of internationally famous lesbian and gay figures and reports of same-sex marriage and sex-reassignment surgeries offered an understanding of non-normative sexualities not available in everyday discourse. These stories provide a major source of information about lesbian, gay and transgender identities and lifestyles to Indonesian youth.
Other sites of knowledge transmission are the small urban communities of lesbi, gay and waria, each with their own particular knowledges and their different connections to global queer discourses. Waria is one of the Indonesian terms for male-bodied individuals who act like women and take men as lovers. Urban activist groups model themselves after and gain resources from international lesbian and gay organisations. While waria have been acknowledged and visible in Indonesia for many decades, the early 1980s saw the appearance (and disappearance) of several small organisations, primarily on the island of Java, formed by individuals who identified as gay or lesbi (see Boellstorff 2005; Howard 1996; Oetomo 2001; Wieringa 1999). One of the longest lasting groups, GAYa Nusantara, which is primarily a gay group but has included a few lesbi and waria, was organised in the mid-1980s. The first lesbian group was organised and disbanded in the early 1980s (Wieringa 1999). Since 1998 two activist lesbian organisations, Swara Srikandi, the internet-based lesbian group in Jakarta, and Sector 15 of the Indonesian Women’s Coalition (Koalisi Perempuan Indonesia, KPI), have developed a significant presence in Indonesia. These organisations, usually headed by well-educated, well-travelled, Englishspeaking activists from the upper echelons of Indonesian society, have looked to the lesbian and gay movements and literatures of western Europe and the USA for models and resources but have also created their own Indonesian understanding of gender and sexual identities.
Queer knowledge circulates unevenly in Indonesia, less dependent on institutional spaces or publications than on the everyday interactions and travels of lesbi, gay and waria individuals. For those in Padang not linked directly to international lesbian and gay organisations, and not actively participating in or seeking information from national activist groups, queer discourses travel primarily by word of mouth as tombois visit or live for brief periods of time in Jakarta and elsewhere in Indonesia. One of the best ways to illustrate the uneven circulation and reception of queer knowledge is to track the movement of particular linguistic terms and phrases. The terms lesbi, lesbian and gay were taken up by lesbi and gay groups in Jakarta as their identifiers in the early 1980s despite media-influenced associations with deviance, crime and illness (see Gayatri 1993). These terms circulated not only in the media but on the streets and among the social networks of those in same-sex relationships (Murray 1999; Wieringa 1999). In appropriating western labels, these groups lay claim to certain meanings attached to those labels but they were not simply imitating western identities. Rather, activists tended to rely on those terms and definitions as a way to validate their own existence and connect with a global movement.
Tombois who travelled to Jakarta, like Tommi, heard the word lesbi used by others like themselves in places where lesbi and gay congregated. But the activist definition of lesbi as ‘women who are attracted to women’ was not the meaning s/he attached to the word. The prevalence of ‘butch’ lesbians in working class contexts helped bolster tombois’ view of themselves as lesbi who are like men (see Murray 1999). When asked why s/he sees h/erself as lesbi, Tommi replied: ‘[B] ecause I fell in love with a woman’, creating a connection between lesbi and tombois’ desires for women. Girlfriends are also included under the label lesbi because they are with someone who is a tomboi. Tommi’s girlfriend Lina said: ‘A woman with a tomboi is definitely a lesbi’. For girlfriends this attraction is consonant with their attraction to men in general, and yet their desire for tombois brings them under the label lesbi.
At the same time that they stand under the label lesbi, tombois and girlfriends shift its meaning. Because partners are differently gendered, a lesbi in their understanding of the term is not a woman attracted to other women, but a female who is attracted to the other gender. Lesbi, in this sense, serves as an umbrella term that incorporates their different subjectivities. For tombois and girlfriends, the label lesbi includes individuals with different histories and different routes into the lesbi world. Lesbi then serves as an identifier, signifying a group that occupies a space distinct from the rest of the world. Consequently, lesbi as a circulating category is not a stable term throughout Indonesia but is appropriated and reconstituted to fit particular meanings.
Other idioms circulate in lesbi, gay and waria circles in Jakarta and travel to West Sumatra to become part of tombois’ and girlfriends’ speech. Gay men in Jakarta use the phrase ‘falling into the gay world’ (terjun ke dunia gay) to describe becoming involved with another man (Howard 1996). The phrase ‘the lesbian world’, which appeared in various newsletters in the 1990s and 2000s, employs the same concept of a separate world, in this case for lesbi. This phrase travelled to Padang via tombois such as Tommi, who had spent nearly two years in Jakarta. When talking about a young woman who had become involved with her first tomboi, one tomboi said: ‘[She] fell into the lesbian world’ (terjun ke dunia lesbi). This phrasing signifies movement from the everyday world of family and kin into a new world populated by others like themselves. Girlfriends are seen as ‘falling into’ the lesbi world while their tomboi partners seem always to have been there. Dunia lesbi is not the world of tombois, however, but the world of lesbi couples, both tombois and their girlfriends. While Jakarta activists imagine this world to be composed of women attracted to other women, in Padang the same terminology is used for a world comprising individuals with two very different subjectivities: that of normative females/women (the girlfriends) and physical females/men (the tombois).
Thus dunia lesbi is not localised but inclusive of a lesbian world populated by global others. In the selective reception of queer knowledge these others are read as sharing the same understanding of lesbi as those in Padang. Famous lesbians such as Martina Navratilova and Melissa Etheridge, whose stories of betrayal by ‘femme’ lovers are well known in Indonesia, secure a strong connection between lesbi in Padang and a global dunia lesbi. Both women are read as tombois and their girlfriends as femmes who, unsurprisingly to tombois in Padang, left their partners for men. Thus, while images of famous lesbians connect tombois and their girlfriends to a global lesbian world, these images are read in a way that supports a gendered construction of sexuality. In the circulation of queer knowledge, lesbi in Padang use their own culturally available models to interpret global queer discourses and arrive at meanings that make sense to them, creating their own particular version of the lesbi world.
Queer discourses are accessed by lesbi in Padang in ways circumscribed by their class location. Because their location limits access to certain circuits of knowledge, their lesbi subjectivities reflect the particularities of place. Despite their lack of access to new technologies and print media published by national lesbian and gay activist organisations, lesbi are not isolated from global networks; these networks are accessed through different, often indirect, means. This queer knowledge is used to construct a sense of community of like-minded individuals that includes lesbi, waria and gay in Indonesia and beyond. Tombois and their girlfriends should not be seen as existing on the backward edge of a social movement whose full weight has yet to be felt. They are already part of and interconnected with the larger global queer community. While their subjectivities reflect their particular location within larger national and transnational queer discourses and movements, their particular differences are part of the global shifts in sexual and gender subjectivities.
Part of the problem of global translation lies in the misrecognition of gender-based sexualities, which happens when females who ‘act like men’ are said by scholars and activists to lack an awareness of their sexual identity. Lesbi in Padang are not lacking in awareness: they are a product of modern national and transnational processes in the same way as their counterparts in the west. The diversity of gendered and sexual subjectivities in Indonesia demonstrates that there is neither a homogeneous global nor national queer identity, suggesting that strategies to address sexual rights must be sensitive to the differences within and across groups, nations and regions of the world.
1 During 2001 and 2004, I conducted extensive research on lesbi subjectivities in Padang. I met 28 individuals who were either tombois or girlfriends of tombois. Of those 28, I formally interviewed 16 individuals whose families range from somewhat poor to average income.
2 When referring to tombois, I use the pronominal constructions ‘s/he’ and ‘h/er’ as a way to disrupt the binary genders of the English language. No English pronouns adequately convey the Indonesian usage, in which the third person pronoun is gender neutral.
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