The Law of Desire: Rulings on Sex and Sexuality in India

by Madhavi Menon

Description Can a woman choose whom to marry if her father disapproves of the match? Does sex remain sex when it becomes work? Can a man become a woman because he feels like one? Is it the law's task to ensure heterosexuality? Does reproduction need to be regulated? The State attempts, with law as its instrument, to answer these questions for us, through legislation and, when contested, through court judgments. This brilliantly insightful and superbly argued book calls into serious question the wisdom-indeed, the intent-of our lawmakers and the judiciary. Though India's laws and courts claim to know what they mean when they declare an expression of desire immoral or criminal, obscene or unnatural, upon inquiry, they turn out to be building on very weak and often casteist and patriarchal assumptions. Thus we have the law struggling to 'rescue' 'fallen women', for sex work cannot be work, but a sign of immorality; a Supreme Court judge can exonerate the artist M.F. Husain on charges of obscenity, but also claim that 'obscenity lies in the eyes of the beholder', leaving us wondering how, then, the law can ever define what's obscene; and while a court may declare that the 'third gender' has fundamental rights, no one really knows what fundamental rights have to do with gender in the first place. Teacher and queer theorist Madhavi Menon-author of Infinite Variety, a celebrated study of desire in India-shows us the 'conundrums and paradoxes' that result when the law is entangled with sex and sexuality-and why we 'need to play with, rather than stay with, the Law of Desire'.

Genres: Nonfiction, India

152 pages, Hardcover

Published December 20, 2021

About the author

Madhavi Menon is Associate Professor of Literature at American University. She is the author of Unhistorical Shakespeare: Queer Theory in Shakespearean Literature and Film and Wanton Words: Rhetoric and Sexuality in English Renaissance Drama and editor of Shakesqueer: A Queer Companion to the Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Reviews

[Vivek Tejuja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Madhavi Menon breaks down sex and sexuality in relation to the law most succinctly in this pocket-sized book. This book also feels like an extension of her previous work, “Infinite Variety: A History of Desire in India”, which is a work that should be widely read.

The Law of Desire is a slim book of five sections – Preamble, Criminal, Immoral, Obscene, and Unnatural – each dealing with rulings about sex and sexuality and more so thoughts on way forward. The Preamble and Amendment act as Prologue and Epilogue in a traditional sense of a book.

I like how Menon presents facts and doesn’t let her opinions come in the way, though of course there are times that she does debate with the reader, which I found quite fruitful and invigorating. Menon makes connections of religion and fundamental rights to desire and how they have nothing to do with gender to begin with.

Madhavi’s writing is simple, to the point, and peppered with examples from various other rulings, though at times it does get a little overbearing to try and recall them.

One element that I loved a lot in the book is the way Menon uses pop-culture to the benefit of the book’s topic – from movie posters, to literature, to music – all of it ties in neatly with the rulings and the cases she brings up through the course of the book.

She also tries to take the conversation away from just the binary when it comes to sex and sexuality to include the non-binary, which of course is inclusive but are far and few and in-between.

The Law of Desire is a short and insightful read on desire and how sometimes the law doesn’t even know what to do with it. It is biting, precise, and on-point. For readers who want to know more about desire and the Indian courts’ rulings, this is a good book to start with.

[reid]

it was fine. ive been thinking abt all this for over a year so it mostly felt like a recap. i still think she's too quick to call rulings irrational &/or colonial without really exploring their sociopolitical underpinnings in the modern day but i guess thats beyond the scope of this book -- but i would have liked it better were it longer & actually delved into all of this in great & extensive detail w more cases

[Boka]

Kurz und knackig, sometimes funny sometimes brilliant

[Sheetal Bahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mixed bag. The author is incisive, interprets and infers well, but the narration is a little tedious and repetitive. It feels like all books written by sociologists to (though the author isn't one) - at least 2x the length it should be, and this despite this being a fairly short book. I think it would work very well in the form of 4 long-form articles rather than a small book.

The book explores desire and sexuality in India through a legal lens, bringing to light the many paradoxes that exist because of conflicting laws and rulings. These are clubbed into 4 groups: Criminal, Immoral, Obscene, and Unnatural, and each section refers to multitudes of cases across decades to demonstrate how inconsistently these adjectives have been used in court rulings leading to conflicting decisions. While all sections make good points, Unnatural was the only which was engaging enough with sharp commentary like this: "There will always have to be some sex act that is labelled unnatural. Yesterday it was homosexuality, today it is bestiality, tomorrow it will be threesomes."

Overall, I'd say read this only if the subject interests you enough - otherwise it can be given a miss.

[Avantika Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a budding lawyer and as a student of law, I've spent a lot of time reading the law as it is. But The Law of Desire by Madhavi Menon made me look at the law for what it reflects, and not what we have been made to interpret all these years. Menon goes through celebrated judgments and dissects the patriarchal notions and discriminatory mindsets that shaped them. It's a fascinating, if sobering, look at how the subjective bias of lawmakers and judges acts as a mirror to our society. What makes this book so impactful is how it helps you navigate and point out the obvious discriminatory mindsets that have been normalized in our ordinary lives. It's sad, very impactful, and deeply thought-provoking. If you want to understand how the law can be used to codify and normalise prejudice, this is an essential read for your shelf.

A definite 4/5 read for me

[Arunaa (IG: rebelbooksta) · Rating 5 out of 5]

#MadhaviMenon brings to the fore courtroom scenes in #thelawofdesire #rulingsonsexandsexualityinindia

Matters of danseuse, prostitutes, menstruation, moral policing of women's clothing, activities, the hush-hush rendezvous of adulterous men, whimsical 'love jihad', homosexuality being unnatural or obscene, oh and the ever famous slut shaming.

My first of her books. I love her fiesty voice, her fierceness. In awe with her brilliance to put down on paper the dumb fuckery of the learned justices in exercising their discretion. She methodically argued out. Contested the legal statements. Hers is a powerful voice.

5 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟




#igreads #bookstagram
#speakingtiger #bookreview #bookrecommendations
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[alita · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will require a re-read soon; dense with pertinent questions and reframes. I found myself wondering, "why didn't I know this before?" or "why didn't I think of this concept way?" Oppression through law and legislation has taken on a total new meaning. This text does a wonderful job of demystifying legal jargon, of breaking down warped logic presented as fact; teaching you how to question these systems. Menon points to an urgent need: better understanding of the laws that govern us, that bind us to norms and societal structures that don't even serve us. She honours the important work of defendants and legal practitioners alike.

[Aarav · Rating 4 out of 5]

after spending years in london, where queer legal discourse often presents itself as linear progress, the book forced me to relearn how desire operates within indian law; unevenly, obliquely, and often through silence rather than prohibition. prof. menon’s writing clarified something i had felt but never articulated; that indian legal frameworks do not simply repress sexuality, but constantly negotiate it through ambiguity, moral language, and selective visibility.

[aadi ☀️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Finding myself in the minority on this one but I think it lacked in some major respects as an academic text -- which is a disappointing outcome because I really wanted to like this in the first half! I suppose this is why, while you are advised to let emotions guide you to opening up an academic inquiry, you are simultaneously cautioned against letting it become the driver all the way through. It is 6 am & i refuse to elaborate further until I am supplied with more coffee.

[Archana Kumari · Rating 2 out of 5]

The idea behind the book was definitely good. But the writing was purely Leftist . Some of the facts and reasoning was unnecessarily shown with respect to sex, which could have been just the statistical purpose.

So I think it could have been much better if it would have been written with a neutral POV.