‘Beta, ab kya faida lipstick laganay ka. Zindagi tou khatam hogayi hai aur sach boloun tou siraf shohar kay liyey hi pehani chahiyey’ (Child, what is the point of putting on lipstick now? Life has ended and truth be told, lipstick was only really meant to be worn for one’s husband).

My dadi, quoted above, always maintained that a woman’s life was relevant only so far as she could present her usefulness to her male relatives through labor of some sorts. The idea of the woman, as a sexual and desiring person, outside of the confines of kinship appeared to be an absurd provocation. A woman’s life was strictly outlined into distinct phases where the appropriate time for the expression of desire and intimacy would be within the confines of a heterosexual marriage up until child-rearing capacities ceased to exist. Sexuality may not be expressed or articulated outside of the confines of these strictly regulated channels.

If being desired and to desire is to feel alive, I became interested in understanding the spaces which older women¹ have, to articulate and experience desire despite the restrictions placed by a hetero-patriarchal structure². My interest in this subject stems from the way in which it is projected that once women reach a certain age they no longer have the space and will to articulate desire. Linked to a “sexual eunuch”³ and relegated to a subject who does not want and cannot want, this project is interested in locating women who are able to resist such a casting.

A critical part of the quest of understanding the way desire is articulated amongst women is the way it is embedded in the process of marriage. Marriage is seen as the only appropriate vessel where desire may be expressed and actualised for women. This is where women become sexual persons and are able to access different forms of desire and also non-sexual intimacy. A critical way in which this manifested is how I was not allowed access to some conversation amongst women around sex, due to my status as an unmarried person.

Ensuring that marriage is the only vessel which women have, to express desire is sustained through the regulation of bodies, sexuality, and the control of the public/ private divide which ensures women have limited access to space which may allow them to express desires outside of the ambit of marriage. In my research, an example which illustrated the limitations of marriage, was how desire expressed outside of it was frowned upon.

Rani, 51, became a fan of the K-pop band BTS, a few years ago. She joined the ARMY, which is their dedicated fan community. In her own words, she found friendship and contentment in the ARMY as she was able to spend time for herself, away from the burdens of household responsibility. This was not received positively by her family. Aside from embarrassment and admonishment from her sons and husband, there have been occasions where she describes feeling ostracized for her connection with BTS. In particular, she remembers an incident where her cousin’s husband exchanged concerned glances with her own husband upon seeing a BTS sticker on her phone. All of this points to the way in which she is being chastised for expressing desire which is outside of the restraints of marriage and what her role as a mother and wife dictates for her.

Another factor which the research aimed to explore was understanding the way in which desire is articulated amongst women in spaces which are receptive to it.

The first form of examination for this occurred through literary analysis where the language which was used in texts for the description of desire was analysed. Potent examples of this were tappay⁴, which represent how women are able to express desire in veiled forms using innuendo and metaphors. Similarly, in texts such as Lihaaf, there is evidence of a language used among women for communication of desire and intimacy in the domestic sphere which is different from the formalized language used outside. In my research, this use of language which was particular to the insular spaces occupied by women was a recurrent theme.

One of the participants, who I extensively worked with, invited me to lunch with her women friends. A widow with two sons, she had limited space in her own house to express or articulate desire in any of the forms outlined before. These meetings with her friends represented an outlet where she could imagine possibilities of an alternate life and deliberate on what made her feel alive. The way these women discussed sexual desire was interesting. It involved the use of language loaded with innuendo which appeared to be cultivated through years of conversation and inter-textual knowledge of said innuendo. For instance, analogies made about shifting beds and sharing teacups were references to sex which a trained ear could discern. These seemingly simple acts appeared to signal a level of intimacy which implied sexual activity. Only a fully indoctrinated member of the group could appreciate and contribute to these conversations.

In her book, Impossible Desires,⁵ Gopinath centers diasporic queer female subjectivity to counteract its constitutive absence in dominant South Asian nationalist and diasporic discourses. For this, Gopinath focuses on the film, Beautiful Laundrette (dir. Stephen Frears, 1985), about queer interracial desire in Thatcherite Britain. The film is a story revolving around a Pakistani immigrant and his white love interest. Gopinath writes that ‘queer female diasporic subjectivity remains unthinkable not only within dominant nationalist and diasporic discourses but also within some gay male, as well as liberal feminist, rearticulations of diaspora’. While Gopinath locates Tania (the older woman in the film) as the desiring female subject that cannot be accommodated by the film, the desire of the older female subjects is itself foreclosed.

When depicting the older women, creative reserves seem to dry up, which is evident by the way Tania is depicted as an antagonist for the main leads in the film. By homing in on the queer female subject through Tania, Gopinath begins to capture how sexuality is constructed in South Asia and obscures other narratives of circumscribed desire. This offers a fitting conclusion to this research by highlighting the exciting possibility of further research into the field of feminine desire, particularly through an older subject and how it can offer a more expansive understanding of sexuality in South Asia.

After graduating with a degree in History, Aiza Nadeem now works as part of the Mahbub ul Haq Research Centre while continuing to work on projects which critically examine gender and sexuality.

1. I deliberated on the definition of who exactly qualifies as an older woman for the purposes of this project. Eventually I settled 
on women who are aged 50+. This made sense to me because women who are younger may still have access to public space 
or community through a work-based community, or through their children, family, etc. Most of the women who I was able to 
interview were generally women who had been widowed or were unmarried and were seen as having an excess of desire. The 
sample was admittedly diverse and their willingness to speak with me depended on how they connected to me 
2. By desire, I mean sexual desire, interest in hobbies which feel enriching, or the desire for an alternate life. The reason for 
choosing such an expansive definition is that just a lot of forms of expression from women at that age are seen as an affront 
to the larger heteropatriarchal matrix or mocked and focusing just on sex seemed limiting and possibly reinforcing a lot of the 
same notions which I set out to dismantle since it assumes desire has only one expression. 
3. George, Annie. (2002). Embodying identity through heterosexual sexuality - Newly married adolescent women in India. 
Culture. Health & Sexuality. 207-222. 10.1080/13691050110095856.
4. Tappay refer to semi-classical folk music, primarily sung by women in group gatherings. 
5. Gopinath, Gayatri, Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and South Asian Public Cultures. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005.