Living Sexualities: Negotiating Heteronormativity in Middle Class Bangladesh

‘Living Sexualities’ is a study of erotic desires, practices and identities, lived within the heteronormative and marriage-normative socio-sexual structures of the urban middle class in contemporary Bangladesh. The study is based on two years fieldwork during which data was generated through 35 life histories and narratives, in-depth interviews, case studies, academic and popular literature and participant observation. Taking sexuality, gender, class and space as central concepts the lived experiences of sexualities of three non-normative groups are analysed: gay men, women in/interested in same sex relations, and single heterosexual women. Space – as a physical, social and symbolic category – weaves through the understanding of sexuality, showing that within hetero- patriarchal social structures of family and household, and the public and virtual worlds, there still exist spaces for ambiguity, plural identities and non-heteronormative performances of gender and sexualities.