Zephyrus Schroedderr,
Vysok Tatry
Stary Smokovec, 06201
Slovakia
Last updated: October 12, 2010
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There may have been a difference drawn between the man who shed his semen and the man who received that semen, however. Today, men who take a passive role in sex with other men may lose caste and become hijras. They are not untouchables, however. Hijras occupy an in-between space in rigidly patriarchal, sex-differentiated Hindu society. They proclaim themselves to be "neither man nor woman" and band together in communal groups as a unique sub-caste.
While today some hijras label themselves as gay, others are intersexed persons and barren women. Those who are biologically male generally join the hijras because of a lack of procreative sexual desire and eventually undergo ritual castration.
As devotees of a Hindu mother goddess, hijras are thought in traditional Hinduism to hold the power to make others impotent with their curses, or to make them sexually potent through their blessings.
They sing and dance at Hindu birth ceremonies, and demand payment in return for their conferral of potency upon the newborn child. Many also work as prostitutes.
Index of articles, click here.
Zephyrus Schroedderr,
Vysok Tatry
Stary Smokovec, 06201
Slovakia
Last updated: October 12, 2010