3 Older kinnars, ageism and sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic
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Anushkaa Arora
Abstract
This chapter explores how kinnars and later life sexuality in India have been neglected, as unspeakable subjects since the colonial encounter. It covers how responses to their ageing, gendered sexuality renders them more vulnerable to mental health difficulties and even, as a consequence, deterioration of physical health. This chapter also focuses on what is it like to live as an older kinnar, and the pressures they face in a society that marginalises them. In particular, and in view of the dearth of studies addressing older kinnars in India (and other global regions), the author seeks to understand how age played a vital role in shaping the sexual outlook of the kinnars of northern India during the COVID-19 outbreak. Using Colaizzi’s phenomenological approach, the author identifies and describes the intersecting forms of aged, gendered and sexual stigmatisation and their impacts on older kinnars’ accounts of sexuality. The findings are based on semi-structured interviews with 20 kinnars who range from 23 to 68-years-old.
Abstract
This chapter explores how kinnars and later life sexuality in India have been neglected, as unspeakable subjects since the colonial encounter. It covers how responses to their ageing, gendered sexuality renders them more vulnerable to mental health difficulties and even, as a consequence, deterioration of physical health. This chapter also focuses on what is it like to live as an older kinnar, and the pressures they face in a society that marginalises them. In particular, and in view of the dearth of studies addressing older kinnars in India (and other global regions), the author seeks to understand how age played a vital role in shaping the sexual outlook of the kinnars of northern India during the COVID-19 outbreak. Using Colaizzi’s phenomenological approach, the author identifies and describes the intersecting forms of aged, gendered and sexual stigmatisation and their impacts on older kinnars’ accounts of sexuality. The findings are based on semi-structured interviews with 20 kinnars who range from 23 to 68-years-old.
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Thanks and acknowledgements v
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xv
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to the volume: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
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In/visibility and ambivalence
- Under the orhni: intimacy and near-invisibility among older Indo-Trinidadian queer menKrystal Nandini Ghisyawan and Marcus Kissoon 21
- Older kinnars, ageism and sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic 38
- Doing complex intimacy in the later life of Chinese gay men in Hong Kong 54
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Women questioning age/ing intergenerationally and intragenerationally
- Deep within the eye of the beheld: exploring hidden accounts of intimacy in the lives of older Indian women in urban Malaysia 75
- From age of despair to window of opportunity? Reframing women’s sexuality in later life in the Middle East and North Africa 93
- Lost voices of Partition: carrying gender, nation and femininity across the life course 115
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Agency through fantasy, erotic tales and pleasure
- Sexual fantasies and older, Indigenous Purépecha women: sociocultural constraints and possibilities 139
- Indigenous elders as sexual agents through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice in ‘Canada’ 157
- Sex, intimacy and older life in Muslim contexts 174
- Reflections: themes and issues emerging from the volume 192
- Index 209
Chapters in this book
- Front Matter i
- Thanks and acknowledgements v
- Contents vii
- Notes on editors and contributors ix
- Series editors’ introduction xv
- Foreword xxv
- Introduction to the volume: themes, issues and chapter synopses 1
-
In/visibility and ambivalence
- Under the orhni: intimacy and near-invisibility among older Indo-Trinidadian queer menKrystal Nandini Ghisyawan and Marcus Kissoon 21
- Older kinnars, ageism and sexuality during the COVID-19 pandemic 38
- Doing complex intimacy in the later life of Chinese gay men in Hong Kong 54
-
Women questioning age/ing intergenerationally and intragenerationally
- Deep within the eye of the beheld: exploring hidden accounts of intimacy in the lives of older Indian women in urban Malaysia 75
- From age of despair to window of opportunity? Reframing women’s sexuality in later life in the Middle East and North Africa 93
- Lost voices of Partition: carrying gender, nation and femininity across the life course 115
-
Agency through fantasy, erotic tales and pleasure
- Sexual fantasies and older, Indigenous Purépecha women: sociocultural constraints and possibilities 139
- Indigenous elders as sexual agents through storytelling as a queer and decolonial practice in ‘Canada’ 157
- Sex, intimacy and older life in Muslim contexts 174
- Reflections: themes and issues emerging from the volume 192
- Index 209
