The Dichotomy of Chastity and Sexual Appeal in South Asian Communities in America

The Dichotomy of Chastity and Sexual Appeal in South Asian Communities in America

Many societies expect women to embody two extreme, often-contradictory traits at once. Some men insist that the women they date and marry exude and flaunt sex appeal; at the same time, they specify, at least subconsciously, that their partner not simply be faithful, but completely chaste and virginal. While it would erroneous to associate these attitudes with any specific race, class or ethnic group, it is nonetheless useful to look at one subsection of society to identify factors which can cause this problematic attitude in certain groups of men. The South Asian community in America is one such societal group which holds its women to such standards. Though its attitudes toward female purity and sexuality are by no means unique, the dichotomy of the "virgin/whore" in the South Asian community is also different from the one that exists in American society because it is further complicated by two factors which specifically affect the immigrant community: the desire to adhere to the "model minority" paradigm, and the longing, on the part of first-generation immigrants, to preserve some semblance of the traditions of the "homeland." The impossibility of conforming to such a complicated standard, as well as the two factors which make that standard additionally problematic, unsurprisingly affect the way in which many young women of South Asian descent view the society in which they live, their family, their potential partners, their purpose in life, and themselves. However, it is not only these young women who are affected by this standard: young South Asian men are affected because they feel compelled to find a woman who adheres to these standards, and when they are unable to do so, they are disappointed. Indeed, the South Asian community as a whole is affected by the perpetuation of this double standard; since many individuals with Orientalist mentalities look upon such a dichotomy in scorn, and put it in opposition with supposedly more "enlightened" philosophies, thus completely ignoring the sexism which pervades Western culture. This, in turn, doubly affects South Asian women, because if they are not painted out by the West as hapless victims of an inherently sexist culture, they are fetishized and prized because the double-standard of the "virgin/whore" is likewise the ideal in the West.

The contradictory nature of the "virgin/whore" ideal is understandably confusing to young women of all backgrounds. They are bombarded with messages of how they should act: on one hand, they need to present themselves as attractive to men in order to find a husband. A large part of presenting oneself as attractive involves focusing on one's physical appearance: wearing makeup, dressing in such a manner that would "show off" one's best features, and obtaining (or maintaining) a physique considered sexually appealing. On the other hand, there is an admonition against women who present themselves as too sexual. The priority for women in many societies is to find a husband, and most societies differentiate between women who are fit for marriage, and women who are fit for sex; many times, such categories are even mutually exclusive. Thus, while a woman's ability to find a husband hinges largely on her sexual appeal, in some ways, being too appealing could damage that ability. A young woman lamented this differentiation between the girls a man could date and the girls a man could marry: "They're like, I won't marry her, she's disgusting, yet they're willing to, you know, use her for something." ¹ In other words, certain men may want a women they can use for their own sexual pleasure, but also want a woman who will conform to the ideal of a wife that their parents -- and society -- have ingrained in them; a girl they can "bring home to mother." In addition, the majority of societies instill a mentality in their men which makes them feel pride at the prospect of being the first man to have sexual relations with a woman. As one young man I interviewed, Javier, ^* put it, "Part of it is possession, a feeling that if you take her virginity, she's always 'yours' in the end, and no other man will truly have her as you did... every idiot dreams of finding a virgin who is, deep down, a whore. She'll do everything he asks, right off, except without having done it with anyone else." ² Clearly, these paradoxical ideals exist within many societies, affect women regardless of personal affiliation or experience, and are far from exclusive to the South Asian diaspora.

However, despite the ubiquity of the "virgin/whore" double-standard, it is interesting to note how exactly this dichotomy is intensified within the South Asian community in America because of their unique circumstances within the American social fabric. As an immigrant group known for both their material success once they come to live in the United States, as well as their supposed fierce loyalty to the "home country," there are certain images that the South Asian community tries, as a whole, to uphold, and that desire to uphold such an image becomes projected onto the young people of the community. One of these images which South Asians wish to project, and thus compel them to enforce the standard extreme chastity onto their daughters and wives is the image of the "model minority." The archetype of the poor South Asian immigrant who comes to America penniless and speaking very little English but then attains success and affluence is often times put in direct opposition to the plight of blacks and Hispanics in order to "shock those now complaining about the hardship endured by today's Negroes." ³ This comparison is perhaps incredibly unfair, as the majority of South Asian individuals who are allowed to immigrate into the United States are well-educated professionals, many of whom establish thriving businesses and careers upon entering the country, such as medical practices, law firms, and university professorships. Nevertheless, this view of South Asians as the "model minority" is understandably embraced by many South Asians, who see that, at least outwardly, they are being praised and approved of by those in power. To those South Asians who welcome the model minority stereotype, they see that the majority term them as "inherently smarter, more diligent and thrifty than other racial minorities of our time," ⁴ and as such, have a better chance of assimilating into the society in which they have chosen to settle than other minorities. They know of the negative stereotypes which American society associates with certain minorities, such as the supposed rampancy of illegitimacy and teen pregnancy in minority communities. Not only do many South Asians believe those stereotypes to be true, but as a community, they fear embodying such stereotypes themselves. Thus, they try to be the complete opposite of what such a group stands for, and admonish their children when they exhibit traits associated with that racial group. For example, in the minds of certain South Asians, blacks and Hispanics are associated with poverty, lack of education, and sexual promiscuity, which is consistent with the stereotypes created by those in power. The media portrays the black family as "dysfunctional," because of the supposed epidemic of teen pregnancy and absentee fathers, ⁵ and labels black youths as "violent," pointing to events such as the Watts Riots of the 1960's and the Los Angeles riots of the 1990's. Asians and South Asians, therefore, become the diametric opposite of this characterization, representing "all that the blacks were not and could not hope to be." ⁶ If South Asians, the "model minority," represent what blacks are not, then in the minds of certain South Asians, acting "black" is a regression from the "model minority" paradigm. Such a regression would invite the scorn of the society in which South Asians, particularly the first-generation ones, try to desperately to assimilate for fear of receiving the racist abuse heaped upon blacks and Hispanics. Dressing in a "hip-hop" style, for example, is "seen as not feminine enough for women, and it was also interpreted as indicating identification with African American or Latino youth... a hoody look for a woman could lead to marginalization within the Indian American subculture." ⁷ Clearly, because the "hip-hop" fashion is associated with the opposite of everything a young South Asian woman should be, and is instead associated with non-femininity, shamelessness, and uncontrolled sexuality. South Asian parents thus insist on the chastity of their daughters in order to uphold the "model minority" paradigm, which in their minds, ensures that they never become associated with the bad stereotypes of other minorities. This may seem a rather extreme measure, when one considers that the alternative would be to encounter the blatant racism and condescention faced by black and Hispanic communities, it becomes easier to see that South Asians' conformity to the "model minority" stereotype, as well as the insistence that their children do so as well, is really a method of self-protection.

The desire to conform to the ideal of the "model minority" is not the only thing which drives South Asians to insist on the chastity of their daughters, partners, or prospective daughters-in-law, however. The desire for a semblance of tradition which represents the stability of one's homeland, also inspires South Asian parents (and indeed, immigrants from all countries) to enforce such a rigid, traditionalist view of feminine sexuality upon these young women. Often times, an immigrant community's longing for the homeland is "often linked to displays of the body, often female bodies," ⁸ which explains why the pressure for the younger generation to embody the ideals of the supposed "homeland" is imposed specifically upon young women. It is, as Sunaina Marr Maira puts it, a "cultural nostalgia of a mythic India of 'authentic' tradition." ⁹ This longing for the "homeland" on the part of South Asian immigrants could also symbolize a sort of reaction against the American insistence on assimilation. Many immigrants who come to the United States justifiably feel as if they have lost some control of their lives; they are in an unfamiliar society which from the beginning, expects them to conform, and yet still thinks of them as outsiders. While it is indubitable that many South Asians attempt to get American culture to accept them, as evidenced by the perpetuation of the "model minority" stereotype, many of them also react against this desire to assimilate, and instead celebrate how supposedly different they are from the American community. Institutions such as cohabitation and premarital sex are seen as purely "American" things, often contrasted with the "Indian" ideal of a more traditional, "innocent" homeland. Certain young South Asian men seem to equate American femininity with the rowdy club and party scene, and while they are intrigued by the young women who frequent such venues, they call their moral and maternal character into suspicion. There is, indeed, a contrast between "'promiscuous' American femininity with the nurturance and responsibility for family [which is] conflated with traditional Indian womanhood." ¹⁰ While attractiveness and sexual desirability ranked high on the list of priorities for girls young many South Asian men desire to date, those priorities were not so much of a factor when searching for a spouse. Instead, how well a man's potential spouse embodied the "traditional Indian values" of homemaking and child-rearing were the measure of the worth of an Indian wife. ¹¹ Additionally, like many societies, the South Asian community feels that a child�s comportment is a reflection on the parents' moral fiber. It thus becomes the daughter's responsibility to preserve the "good name" of her family by embodying the ideal of the "perfect Indian woman" -- in other words, a sexually restrained, nurturing, domestic wife. This idea of that in the "homeland," women still cling to such traditions and clearly defined gender roles, belies the fact that in many ways, the insistence on feminine docility and chastity no longer exists in many parts of India, and that Indian women are very modernized and liberated. But because of the pervasiveness of the chaste feminine ideal, anything less than conforming to that ideal could hurt the young woman's marriage prospects within the South Asian community, and additionally, make her family seem as if they raised her improperly. Thus, "parents expressed a heavy responsibility to keep their daughters', and thus the family's, name untarnished." ¹² Chandrika, a young South Asian woman I interviewed, pointed out that even the slightest hint that a girl was unchaste could harm the reputation of both her and her family. She talked about what a struggle it was to obtain birth control pills: "I've never had sex, but I have painful periods, so I needed [the pills], but my mom didn't want her Indian friends coming over and thinking that I was having sex or anything; cause, you know, there'd be talk. They'd criticize my mom and all of that, cause 'nice Indian girls' don't use birth control." ¹³ Undoubtedly, there is an unspoken, but widely known, standard for how a "proper" South Asian girl should act. This standard is based largely on the South Asian community's perception of the homeland as something static and unchanging -- as markedly different from the unstable atmosphere of American society. Thus, in the search for something reminiscent of the stability of the homeland they left behind, they impose the duty of recreating the traditions and ideals of the homeland onto their daughters. This duty manifests itself in the form of the insistence of chastity and domesticity, as well as the conception that feminine virginity is tied directly into the family's and girl's reputation.

The perpetuation of this double-standards negatively affects many parties, most notably young South Asian women and men, and the community as a whole. South Asian adolescent women are quite obviously the most affected by this dichotomy, since it directly applies to them and understandably confuses them a great deal. They are unsure of how to behave or how to present themselves, since on one hand they see that their male peers take interest in girls who are more sexually aggressive, and on the other, those same boys, as well as their parents, condemn those girls for displaying their sexuality. They receive the message that their worth lies primarily in their looks, since that is the primary factor in determining how easily a girl can catch a potential husband's attention, but also that they should "excel in schools and careers and still be demure and delicate, good mothers, wives, and [sic] daughter-in-laws," ¹⁴ while they see that girls who are too sexually appealing are classified as "whores" or somehow as less worthy of marriage or motherhood. Young men are affected by this double-standard as well. A great number of them feel themselves attracted and intrigued by girls who dress or act more provocatively, despite, or perhaps because, they know that their parents would never approve of them. However, they would never think of marrying such girls, and make a clear distinction between women they would date or enter sexual relationships with, and women they would marry, which seems to completely ignore the fact that the relationship between husband and wife is, by nature, a sexual one. Supposedly, men want to marry "the so-called typical Indian woman who stays at home, but will take care of the family, and you know that they'll nurture the kids the right way, be like the loving mom, as opposed to the mom who's always shopping or always out, leaves the kids at home, they're hungry, they make microwave food, this and that." ¹⁵ This speaks to both the desire to project an image of the perfect family, which fits nicely into the stereotype of the model minority, as well as the idea that the "nurturing" mother is a thing of the homeland which was left behind, and not of America, despite the fact that the same idea exists very strongly in the United States as well. At the same time, they want a woman who exudes sexuality, who has "sleek, body-hugging clothes; styled, flowing, and sometimes lightened hair, and a carefully made-up face." ¹⁶ The archetype of the virgin fulfills their parents' wishes for what they want their wife to be; the archetype of the vamp fulfills their own personal desires. The two together become a recipe for disappointment, as very few women conform to either archetype.

Still, no other party is affected by this double-standard more than the South Asian community as a whole. From an outsider's perspective, a dichotomy such as the standard of the "virgin/whore" would be termed as sexist, and rightly so. However, it is used by individuals with Orientalist mentalities as evidence that the South Asian community is composed of outsiders who can never be assimilated into American society; the Asian community, in the words of Edward Said, is the West's "great complementary opposite," ¹⁷ the implication being that since the West is both technologically and philosophically advanced, the East must be its polar opposite -- backward, traditional, unchanging, and sexist. Such individuals take no notice of the fact that such a double-standard exists in American culture as well, and through ignoring this fact, negate the existence of any form of sexism in the United States. America as a nation is progressive and accepting, they claim, and cannot be sexist nor conservative; they then point to the South Asian community (and other immigrant communities) as examples of what sexism and conservatism really is. The poet Anu points out this hypocrisy in her poem "Who Am I?" when she writes, "Stop telling me to give up my sexist culture/How dare you tell me what Sexism really means to me?...../I am not your oh-so oppressed little Indian doll/wound up to sing and dance/and add color to your ranks." ¹⁸ The South Asian community thus, in their attempt to assimilate into American society, paradoxically and inadvertently aids in their classification as outsiders. On the other hand, there are definitely plenty of Americans who do indeed prize the "virgin/whore" ideal, and thus glorify the South Asian community's insistence on it. There seems to be this fantasy among some Western men of finding such a woman who embodies both sexual appeal and chastity, but because they also see American femininity as inherently promiscuous, they exoticize South Asian femininity (as well as the femininity of many other groups of "foreigners") as well. This attitude of the American glorification of the "virgin/whore" double-standard and the subsequent fetishization of South Asian women is exemplified in "Loose Ends," a short story by Bharati Mukherjee. In this story, Jeb, a Caucasian man who fought in the Vietnam War, feels marginalized by the society he lives in, despite being a white man and a war veteran. As a result, he grows increasingly resentful of the Asians who become economically superior, asserting that they are emphasizing their differences as a way to demonstrate their superiority. The story ends with him raping an underage "Bombay honey," trying to reclaim the superiority he feels entitled to as a white man. He is unable to comprehend why the girl resists feels "distaste for the likes of me," ¹⁹ and why she is not immediately submissive to him. In other words, he yearns for a woman who will submit to his lust, but at the same time, feels empowered in the act of making a young, virginal girl "submit" to him. He feels additionally empowered because she is a young Indian virgin, and having his way with her represents his way of subjugating the entire Asian community as a whole. The contradictory model of the exotic "virgin/whore" is also present in popular culture. Take, for example, the lyrics of the Aerosmith song "Taste of India":
When you make love to the sweet tantric priestess
You drink in the bliss of delight...
She a friend of mine
She a concubine
I gotta make her mine... ²⁰
The lyrics of the song, in and of themselves, exemplify the dichotomy of the "virgin/whore." One one hand, the classification of the girl as a "sweet tantric priestess" and a "concubine" imply sexual experience, while on the other hand, the words "I gotta make her mine" imply some level of unattainability and the desire on the part of the speaker to conquer. Whether outright condemnation or glorification and exoticism, both these reactions of the West to the "virgin/whore" dichotomy within the South Asian community do very little, if anything at all, to mitigate it, and in the case of the fetishist reaction, even intensify it. Additionally, they breed resentment among the South Asian community, and further serve to prove that American society still sees South Asians as outsiders -- as a backward, unprogressive people -- even though Americans still hold many of these contradictory, conservative views themselves.

The existence of the "virgin/whore" double-standard, while definitely not unique to the South Asian community, is markedly different from the same standard which exists in the American community for the reason that it manifests the desire of the South Asian community to be a part of American society, yet set themselves apart from it. While they revel in their status as a part of the "model minority," and thus reject any lifestyle that would even remotely associate themselves with the "non-model minorities," at the same time, they feel unsure of themselves in an environment which makes it very clear that while they are a priveleged minority, and are allowed to associate with those in power, they can never join their ranks. As such, they yearn for the traditions and ways of their "homeland," although some of these traditions no longer exist in their "homeland," or even if they never existed. This longing, as well as the aspiration to adhere to the paradigm of the "model minority" is projected onto the members of the younger generation, particularly the daughters, who are granted the burden of preserving the reputation of the family through the preservation of their chastity as well as the emphasis on their sexual appeal. These two contradictory demands confuse both young women and men, which is to be expected, since young women do not know exactly what they should be, while young men do not know what they should want. Additionally, while the South Asian community has created a dichotomy with the attempts of being the "model minority" while simultaneously fulfilling the longing for homeland and tradition, such a dichotomy has only served to further emphasize their differences. While some use this dichotomy to justify the West's sexism and the continuation of the status quo, others idealize it, using it to give voice to their darker fantasies about conquering and possession, thus further proving that such a double-standard is not, in fact, specific to the South Asian community. Still, the "virgin/whore" dichotomy, specifically as it relates to the South Asian diaspora, is particularly insidious since not only does it affect the self-perceptions of young South Asian men and women, and breeds great disappointment among both genders, but because it is used to justify the ostracization of the South Asian community from the fabric of American society, when, ironically, the community was trying to conform to that ideal in order to be included in it.

Works Cited

Aerosmith. "Taste of India." Nine Lives. Sony, 1997.

Anu. "Who Am I?" The Very Inside. Sharon Lim-Hing. Toronto: Sister Vision, 1994.

Deepak, Chandrika. Personal Interview. 10 December 2002.

Maira, Sunaina Marr. Desis In The House: Indian Youth Culture in New York City. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2002.

Mendoza, Javier. Personal Interview. 9 December 2002.

Moynihan, Sen. Daniel Patrick. The Negro Family: The Case For National Action. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1965.

Mukherjee, Bharati. "Loose Ends." The Middleman and Other Stories. New York: Grove Press, 1988.

Pang, Jaeda. "The Minority Predicament: An Analysis of Asian American Success and the Model Minority Paradigm." <"http://www.gwu.edu/~english/ccsc/2001_pages/JaedaPang.htm."> 1 December 2002.

Prashad, Vijay. "Crafting Solidarities." A Part, Yet Apart: South Asians in Asian America. Lavinia Dhingra Shankar & Rajini Srikanth. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998.

Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979.

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