South Asian Pornographies

Although the dictum “I know it when I see it” has often been used to describe pornography, for the range of erotic materials emanating from south Asia this saying does not hold true. In south Asian countries what is considered “pornographic” often overlaps with discussions of obscenity. There is a fine line separating the obscene and the pornographic, and in the south Asian context the blurriness of this line often casts a shadow over what we think we know about pornography. Some of this has to do with colonial encounters and the legal ramifications thereof, which still linger in south Asia. By surveying legal regimes, institutional structures, and mediated sexual expressions ranging from audiovisual, textual, and performative forms, this chapter aims to demonstrate how the geopolitical and cultural nuances of south Asia can sometimes render non-explicit, non-normative sexual expressions “pornographic.”