Indo Ngewe Skolah

Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia

Winner of the 2015 Ruth Benedict Prize for Outstanding Edited Volume Sex, sexuality and sexual relationships are hotly debated in Indonesia, triggering complex and often passionate responses. This innovative volume explores these issues in a variety of ways. It highlights historical and newer forms of sexual diversity, as well as the social responses they provoke. It critiques differing representations of sexuality, pointing to the multiplicity of discourses within which sexuality and ‘the sexual’ are understood in modern-day Indonesia. Placing sexuality centre-stage and locating it within the specific historical context of the Reformasi era, this landmark volume explores understandings and practices across a wide variety of sites, focusing in on a diverse group of Indonesian actors, and the contested meanings that sexuality carries. Beginning with a substantive introduction and concluding with a scholarly reflection on key issues, the volume is framed around the four themes of sexual politics, health, diversity and representations. It seeks both to present new empirical findings as well as to add to existing theoretical analysis. This work fills an important gap in our understanding of the evolution and contemporary dynamics of Indonesian sexualities. It will be of interest to scholars and academics from disciplines including gender and sexuality studies, global health, sexual and reproductive health, anthropology, sociology and Asian studies.

Sex in China

China today is sexually (and in many other ways) a very repressive so ciety, yet ancient China was very different. Some of the earliest surviving literature of China is devoted to discussions of sexual topics, and the sexual implications of the Ym and Yang theories common in ancient China continue to influence Tantric and esoteric sexual practices today far dis tant from their Chinese origins. In recent years, a number of books have been written exploring the history of sexual practices and ideas in China, but most have ended the discussion with ancient China and have not continued up to the present time. Fang Fu Ruan first surveys the ancient assumptions and beliefs, then carries the story to present-day China with brief descriptions of homosexuality, lesbianism, transvestism, transsexualism, and prostitution, and ends with a chapter on changing attitudes toward sex in China today. Dr. Ruan is well qualified to give such an overview. Until he left China in the 1980s, he was a leader in attempting to change the repressive attitudes of the government toward human sexuality. He wrote a best selling book on sex in China, and had written to and corresponded with a number of people in China who considered him as confidant and ad visor about their sex problems. A physician and medical historian, Dr. Ruan's doctoral dissertation was a study of the history of sex in China.

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