This year, Thailand legalised same-sex marriage—the third Asian country after Taiwan and Nepal to allow it. Had the law been in favour of such a marriage in India, Divine, (name changed), a 32 year-old lesbian who stays in Noida, and who is now in her third relationship, would have been married by now. “I am awaiting the approval of same-sex marriage in India. It will make it easier for queer couples to live together, adopt a child, have child custody and other legal rights given to the spouse,” she tells TMS.
Similar concerns are raised by 36-year-old Shirshendu Pandey who has been in a live-in relationship with his partner, Punit Jain, for the last four years. The Gurugram couple got engaged last year but doesn’t want to go to countries like Thailand to tie the knot. “Marriage means social approval. It matters the most if it’s at home, in India,” he says. Kanav Narayan Sahgal of Kalkaji is similarly placed. His family does not want to acknowledge that he is gay. “My mother is very supportive of me being in love with another man but my father is in denial. He thinks I am joking and completely ignores a conversation about my marriage and dating life. He does not want to acknowledge that my dream is to settle with somebody of the same sex,” he says. As other Asian countries make strides in accepting queer love, Indian daters from the LGBTQAI+ community, share the ins and outs of queer dating in India — the challenges, dating trends and how it differs from cisgender-heterosexual dating.
Gay and hooking up
According to a 2023 report, India, which was perceived as a land of arranged marriages until a decade ago, has over 82 million people on dating apps. While most daters look for meaningful relationships, a massive chunk of them hook-up. Amongst queers, gay men are more into casual sex for instant gratification. Sahgal, for instance, has had 50 sexual partners over the past eight years. He has met gays, straight men, and even married men in his dating journey—most have demanded instant sex. “Especially in Delhi and among gays, people want to immediately meet and hang out. If you don’t go out immediately, they take it as a ‘no’. On dating apps, some have said ‘come now or don’t come at all.’ In one case, I met a married man at his home and saw his wife’s picture near the bed in a photo frame. It was disrespectful but I was too intimidated to say anything as I was in his place,” he says.
Pandey feels the casual dating culture amongst gays can be attributed to the bullying faced by boys in their childhood and insensitive parental response to a child’s coming out. “Sexual abuse (often in childhood) and the fact that many first sexual experiences are traumatic in the community, can create mal-adjustment. Further, social stigma pulls gay couples apart while straight couples are socially rewarded when they form relationships,” he adds.
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What queer women face
Queer women face a double stigma, first for being queer and also for being queer women. Twenty-five-year-old Soumi’s (name changed) family does not know about her pansexual identity and that she had an orgasmic experience with a woman in her college days. “We had non-penetrative sex and it was wow,” says the PhD scholar based in Sonipat. Palak (name changed), 37, a corporate, can’t reveal her identity at the workplace as it may “hamper her professional growth”. She adds that she gets unsolicited requests on dating apps for one-night-stands, just because she’s a lesbian. “On dating apps, it’s difficult to find people who are genuinely lesbians. I have received requests from married cisgender women and for threesomes too,” she adds.
The patriarchy problem
Divine had to let go of her two lesbian relationships due to the ingrained patriarchy in society that assigns roles to women as daughter, wife, child-bearer and daughter-in-law. She had a moment of epiphany during her marriage with a heterosexual man.“While it was great in the beginning, during our honeymoon, I realised that all the things I hated about patriarchy, he epitomises that. During our trip, we went to a tattoo parlour. I wished to get inked with a design blending two names and he expected I’d be inked with his name. When I told him that it was my mother's name that I had in mind, it blew his mind. He abandoned me at the parlour late at night without money, a passport or a mobile and walked away to the hotel,” she says.
Divine went on to start a discreet relationship with her sister-in-law whom she met at a family function for the first time. “One night, when our husbands were away, we explored each other and I realised I was a lesbian, in love with her. Eventually, things started to go ugly with my husband and I decided to end my marriage. I got the courage to ask my sister-in-law if she wants us to stay together. She was ready and we came out in front of our families only to receive a huge backlash, as expected. Had the Indian law been in our favour, we’d have married.”
Pandey agrees that the gay community is not free of patriarchy. “You are not treated well and respected if you do not appear masculine enough. The more feminine you are, the riskier things get for gay men,” he says.
Ipsa A. James, a certified queer affirmative trauma-informed psychotherapist and a non-binary lesbian, explains that Indian society may have problems with queer couples due to the deeply-rooted idea of ‘compulsory heterosexuality’. “It theorises that heterosexuality is assumed and enforced upon people by a patriarchal and heteronormative society. It presumes that everybody is born straight, and if you are a queer person, you have to come out. That poses a challenge for homosexual relationships. However, the younger generation has been able to counter it to some extent with their self-awareness,” she says.
Despite the challenges, people like Divine, now in her third lesbian relationship, is all for queer love. “We’re going to marry in a year or two even if Indian law doesn’t allow it,” she says gleefully.