Boellstorff
•
Between Religion and Desire
577
Itisself-evidentto
gay
Indonesians(andotherIndonesians)thattheconcept
gay
isnotlearnedfromone’seldersorfromtraditional beliefs, and to date there have not been individ-uals terming themselves
gay Jawa
or
gay Bugis
or organizingcommunities based on such identifications: Being
gay
is afoundationally national concept linked to globalizing no-tions of homosexual subjectivity.
Gay
Muslims cannot re-treat to “the level of the village” and must find other spatialscales in which to inhabit the incommensurable space of being
gay
and Muslim.Islam is one of several official religions in Indonesia(the others are Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, andHinduism: all globally recognized religions rather than lo-calized or “animist” traditions). Despite this concession tonational unity, because nearly ninety percent of Indone-sians are Muslim, an Islamic ethos predominates in na-tionalpopularcultureandmanyregionsofthearchipelago:Every president has been Muslim and it is widely under-stood that it could not be otherwise. The vast majority of my
gay
interlocutorshavebeenMuslim.Fromtheexistenceof a department of religion to the requirement that all In-donesianshaveanapprovedreligionontheiridentitycardsand marry within their faith, the state links publicly rec-ognized religion to national belonging (Bowen 2003:178–185, 246–252).
5
In postcolonial Indonesia, every citizen isto have a religion just as they are to have a gender: It isan essential attribute of being modern. Having a sexualityis also modern: Worldwide, sexuality typically plays an im-portant role in notions of proper citizenship (Bunzl 2004;Mosse 1985). Leslie Dwyer notes in her study of Indone-sian family planning that “sexuality and gender may bereified as essential, non-negotiable attributes of nationalidentity” (Dwyer 2000:27). Although family planning dis-course focuses on women’s sexuality, it shapes notions of “proper masculinity” as well, so that “‘to make sense as amaninIndonesia’onemustgetmarriedandfunctioneffec-tively as a dutiful husband and provider....the importanceof adequately performing one’s familial duties and obliga-tions is now linked to notions of progressiveness and goodcitizenship” (Howard 1996:13,172). Religion, nation, andgender–sexuality, thus, represent three points in a trianglethat posits the heteronormative nuclear family householdasthefoundationalunitofnation,piety,andpropercitizenselfhood.Because
gay
Muslims almost never find themselves inenvironments where they can be openly
gay
and Muslim atonce, in what ways do they find not the resolution of in-commensurability, but its habitation? I have never encoun-tereda
gay
Muslimwhohadnotthoughtcarefullyabouttherelationship between his faith and his homosexual desires,and
gay
Muslimsoftendiscussquestionsofreligionamongstthemselves, although such conversations do not typicallytake place in official sites like mosques. Most
gay
Indone-sians understand Islam to emphasize heterosexual marriage(and having children in that marriage) as the only accept-able basis for a pious life. Yet although
gay
Muslims findthe domain of religion conflated with what they term the
dunia normal
(normal world), as they move through whatthey term the
dunia gay
(
gay
world) these Indonesians donot leave their faith behind. Inhabiting apparently incom-mensurate spaces of religion and
gay
subjectivity becomeslargelyamatterofindividualexegesis—albeitexegesisoftensharedwith
gay
friends.ItisforthisreasonthatIfocusonin-dividual narrativesinthisarticle;suchnarrativesaccuratelyportray how most
gay
Indonesians link homosexuality andIslam.If the question of religion is not surprising to
gay
Muslims,neitherisitsurprisingtoWesternaudiences:Someof the most common questions I am asked are “how do
gay
Indonesians deal with being Muslim?” and “does Is-laminIndonesiaaccepthomosexuality?”Thesearenotjustthe questions of a layperson. From the earliest sustainedWestern scholarship on Islam in the archipelago by colo-nial officials like Snouck Hurgronje to mid–20th centurywriting (e.g., Siegel 1969) to more recent work (e.g., Beatty1999; Bowen 1993, 2003; Hefner 1985, 2000; Siapno 2002),there has been great interest in how Islam shapes social re-lations, law, and governance—even if, as noted earlier, ho-mosexuality is virtually absent in this scholarship.Another common question I am asked is “how arethere Indonesians calling themselves
gay
at all?” Indeed,it is only in the last 30 years that some Indonesianshave started calling themselves
gay,
and only in particu-lar,limitedcircumstances—asignificantdifferencefromthemuch longer history of gay identification in much of theWest, including the United States (Chauncey 1994). ManyIndonesians still do not know of the term
gay,
or if theydo, they sometimes think it is an English version of thebetter-known terms
banci
and
b´ encong
(male transvestites,for whom the more respectful term is
waria
). Among thoseIndonesianswhodoknowoftheir
gay
fellowcitizens,manyportray them as selfish and exclusive. In reality, most
gay
Indonesians are working class and learn of the concept
gay
through mass media or friends, rather than from travel out-side Indonesia or meeting gay Westerners. Given this situa-tion,itisnotsurprisingthatanthropologicalworkonIslamin Indonesia has paid virtually no attention to homosexu-ality. However, this article offers more than an improvedunderstanding of
gay
lives, worthy as such a goal may be.My hope is that the example of
gay
Muslims can contributeto anthropological conversations concerning cultural re-sponses to incommensurability, a topic of increasing im-portance as globalization becomes experienced less as animpending process and more as a de facto state of affairs.
DOCTRINE
Most
gay
Muslims understand Islamic orthodoxy to be in-commensurate with sex between men, but no orthodoxyprovides a complete roadmap for faith; each represents “astructure of ideas and practices that penetrates but does notencompass the lives of its practitioners” (Barth 1993:177).Although some
gay
Muslims recall hearing from religiousauthorities that homosexuality was sinful, the overarching