With Respect to Sex

With Respect to Sex is an intimate ethnography that offers a provocative account of sexual and social difference in India. The subjects of this study are hijras or the third sex of India-individuals who occupy a unique, liminal space between male and female, sacred and profane. Hijras are men who sacrifice their genitalia to a goddess in return for the power to confer fertility on newlyweds and newborn children, a ritual role they are respected for, at the same time as they are stigmatized for their ambiguous sexuality. By focusing on the hijra community, Gayatri Reddy sheds new light on Indian society and the intricate negotiations of identity across various domains of everyday life. Further, by reframing hijra identity through the local economy of respect, this ethnography highlights the complex relationships among local and global, sexual and moral, economies. This book will be regarded as the definitive work on hijras, one that will be of enormous interest to anthropologists, students of South Asian culture, and specialists in the study of gender and sexuality

Aesthetics · Cognitive reframing · Ethnography · Human sexuality · Identity (music · Identity negotiation · Kinship · Liminality · Negotiation · Power (physics · Social science · Social space · Sociology · Space (punctuation) · African Sexualities and LGBTQ+ Issues · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology · South Asian Cinema and Culture · Aspect culturel · Coutume sociale · Cross-dressing · Différence selon le sexe · Gay Studies · Gender identity · Gender nonconformity · Identité sexuelle · India · Islam · Islam and culture · Men's Studies - Masculinity · Prostitution · Religion and culture · Religious aspects · Rôle selon le sexe · Sex differences · Sex role · Sex role, religious aspects · Social life and customs · South · Transgender people · Transgenderism · Transsexualism · Transsexualisme · Transsexualismus · Transsexuals · Transsexuel · Transvestism · Vie sociale