Regulation of sexuality in Indonesian discourse: Normative gender, criminal law and shifting strategies of control

Abstract

This paper examines changes in the regulation of sexuality in Indonesia in the period since 1980 as seen through state, religious and lesbian and gay activist discourses on sexuality. Three different eras during that period of Indonesian history are compared. Under the New Order regime of Suharto, the Indonesian state sought to control sexuality through a deployment of gender. During the 1990s, state Islamic discourses of sexuality shifted in response to international pressures to support same‐sex marriage and sexual rights. During the third period following the end of the Suharto regime in 1998, a conservative Islamic minority pushed for more restrictive laws in the State Penal Code, initiating intense public debate on the role of the state in questions of sexuality and morality. Over this time period, the dominant discourse on sexuality moved from strategically linking normative gender with heterosexuality and marriage to direct attempts to legislate heterosexual marriage by criminalizing a wide range of sexual practices.

Résumé

Cet article examine les changements de la réglementation de la sexualité en Indonésie depuis 1980, tels qu'apparaissant dans les discours sur la sexualité, qu'ils proviennent de l'état, des instances religieuses ou des activistes gays et lesbiennes. Trois différentes périodes de l'histoire indonésienne sont comparées. Sous le «Nouvel Ordre» de Suharto, l'état indonésien cherchait à contrôler la sexualité à travers le déploiement du genre. Sous les gouvernements des années 90, les discours islamiques sur la sexualité ont changé en réponse aux pressions internationales en faveur du mariage entre conjoints du même sexe et des droits sexuels. Dans la troisième période qui a suivi la fin du régime de Suharto en 1998, une minorité islamique conservatrice a fait pression pour que des lois plus restrictives soient inscrites au code pénal national, ce qui a initié un débat public intense sur le rôle de l'état en matière de sexualité et de moralité. Après cette période, le discours dominant sur la sexualité est passé d'un lien stratégique entre normes de genre, hétérosexualité et mariage, à des tentatives directes de légiférer sur le mariage hétérosexuel en criminalisant de nombreuses pratiques sexuelles.

Resumen

En este artículo analizamos los cambios en la legislación de la sexualidad en Indonesia durante el periodo desde 1980 examinada según los discursos estatales, religiosos y de los activistas de lesbianas y gays sobre la sexualidad. Comparamos tres épocas diferentes del periodo histórico del Indonesia. Bajo el Nuevo Orden del régimen de Suharto, el estado de Indonesia pretendió controlar la sexualidad a través de una distribución de géneros. Durante los noventa, los discursos islámicos sobre la sexualidad cambiaron en respuesta a las presiones internacionales en apoyo de los matrimonios entre personas del mismo sexo y de sus derechos sexuales. Durante el tercer periodo al finalizar el régimen de Suharto en 1998, una minoría islámica conservadora exigió leyes más estrictas en el Código Penal, iniciándose así un debate público intenso sobre el papel del estado en cuestiones de sexualidad y moralidad. Durante este periodo de tiempo, el discurso dominante sobre sexualidad pasó de vincular de forma estratégica a los sexos normativos con la heterosexualidad y el matrimonio e intentó directamente legislar el matrimonio heterosexual criminalizando toda una serie de prácticas sexuales.

Keywords:

• Sexuality
• Indonesia
• marriage
• criminal law
• lesbians
• Islam

Acknowledgements

I gratefully acknowledge the assistance of a Fulbright Grant for Senior Scholars and the support of the College of Liberal Arts, Purdue University, in my research on lesbi in Jakarta and West Sumatra. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the International Association for the Study of Sexuality, Culture and Society, 21–24 June 2005 in San Francisco, CA, US. I wish to thank the panel participants for their helpful comments. I would also like to thank Saskia E. Wieringa for her support, John MacDougall for being a wonderful resource on Indonesia and Bivitri Susanti for additional help locating resources.

Notes

1. Article 292 of the State Penal Code. All translations are the author's unless otherwise noted.

2. Waria is an Indonesian term for males who typically live as women and take men as lovers. Oetomo 1996 describes waria as transgendered males who are sexually active with men who occupy the normative category for males in Indonesian society.

3. See Peacock (1968), Kellar (2004), Blackwood (2005a) for the period before the 1980s, also Peletz (2006) for Southeast Asia more generally. See Wieringa (1999) for a history of the first lesbi organization in Jakarta.

4. ‘Lesbian’, ‘lesbi’ and ‘gay’ are cognates of the English terms ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay,’ although they do not share the same meanings and resonances as their English counterparts. For this reason, I italicize ‘lesbian’ and ‘gay’ when used in reference to Indonesian lesbian and gay people. The terms ‘lesbian’ and ‘lesbi’ are used in this article because both forms appear in the print media in Indonesian as well as in the literature of lesbian activists in Jakarta.

5. The New Order refers to the postwar regime of General Suharto, who became acting head of state in 1966 and remained President up until 1998.

6. See Bowen (19930, Hefner (2000) re Indonesia's ‘secular’ Islam.

7. See Robinson (2001) for further discussion of the relation between adat and Islam.

8. The two stories appeared in Tempo, 23 April 1981 and 30 April 1981.

9. My research has focused primarily on lesbi in Indonesia, particularly in West Sumatra. Due to dominant gender norms men's and women's sexualities are viewed differently; the experiences of lesbi, gay and waria consequently are also quite different. For that reason, I maintain a focus here on lesbi. See Boellstorff (2005) for more information on gay men in Indonesia.

10. These interviews were part of my larger study on lesbi in Indonesia.

11. Wahid is a highly respected Muslim cleric who was the third president of Indonesia (1999–2001).

12. From the Swara Srikandi mission statement, 2000.

13. The terms ‘minority sexual orientation’ and ‘lesbian’ are used by Sector 15 in their English‐language writings.

14. These draft revisions are referred to as Rancangan Undang‐Undang KUHP (RUU KUHP).

15. Rancangan Undang‐Undang KUHP, Book II, 2005. Available at: http://www.legalitas.org (accessed 3 August 2006).

16. The current law states ‘An adult who commits indecent acts with another person of the same sex who is not yet an adult shall be sentenced to up to five years’ (KUHP, Chapter 14, Article 292). Article 493 in Draft II contains the same provisions as Article 427 in Draft I.

17. Due to space limitations, this paper does not discuss the changes between Draft I and Draft II. Note, however, that Article 421 (Draft I), which punishes a man who promises marriage to a woman and then breaks his promise, or who gets a woman pregnant and then does not marry her, was withdrawn in Draft II.

18. See for instance Diani 2005.

19. See BBC News 2005; Boellstorff 2004.

20. Email from Indonesian Women's Coalition for Justice and Democracy, dated 17 February 2005.

21. See also Peletz (2002, 2006) who makes a similar argument re male transgender behaviour in Malaysia and Southeast Asia, but in most cases that behaviour was the target of increasing stigmatisation and explicit criminalisation.