narratives of three generations of urban middle-class - eTheses ...

Narratives and ‘extra narratives’ which were analyzed as instances where women
paradoxically critiqued and desired to be the woman who held her husband captive by
her charm and domination, can be read as instances that simultaneously illustrate
homoeroticism and hetero-normativity. Despite critique or precisely because of critique
of a woman by another woman, two possible forms of desires are simultaneously
expressed. One is an intra-gender desire for a control over the man/heterosexuality
imagined to be between two sexually competing female bodies and the other is a desire
for the ‘charming’ homosocial female body that tames and controls the
man/heterosexuality through feminine charm. Aloka’s appreciation for Sangeeta’s
husband that is often ‘jokingly’ constructed by other female friends as sexually charged,
similarly establishes both a heterosexual and a homoerotic desire. The more subtle
homoerotic desire is underlined in Aloka’s appreciation of Sangeeta,
“Whatever you wear like the simple cotton saree that you have worn, looks so
glamorous on you; why won’t your husband listen to what you say and be in your
control? After all he’s got such a charming wife (teases and laughs)!”
These intra-gender and intra-generational admiration of physical beauty of otherwise
sexually competitive bodies, read in a new light, can open up older texts of homosocial
admiration for newer readings of homoerotic desires (Gopinath, 1998).
Homoerotic desires and pleasures are also narrated in homosocial gifting that express a
heightened sense of sensuousness and sensuality. Homosocial intimacy that is
strengthened by gifting worn clothes or jewelleries as parting gifts to one another
possibly hints at a romantic desire within homosociality through a visceral experience
and its erotic sensuousness. Gouri’s remembrance of her friend, Natasha through the
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