Sneha Krishnan sneha.krishnan@qeh.ox.ac.

uk

A Lesbian By Any Other Name: Play and the Semantics of Sexuality This paper examines how sexual banter occurring in young womens peer groups simultaneously creates a place of possibilities where social boundaries can be pushed through the medium of ribald humour, and reinforces hierarchical heterosexual femininity. Focusing especially on articulations of same-sex desire, this paper investigates how the sexual comes to be circulated, and what role it plays in producing these social spaces of friendship. Drawing from ethnographic fieldwork conducted over ten months in urban South India, this paper is drawn from a larger doctoral dissertation on sexuality and place in urban India.