Abstract
This chapter illustrates how premarital sexual intimacies are managed in couple relationships. While they endorsed the cultural codes of propriety governing sexual intimacies, my interlocutors acknowledged that it is a need, which is innate. The chapter describes the ways in which my interlocutors attempted to circumvent these codes of conduct while managing their consequences through trying to carve out least transgressive forms through which they could become intimate. My interlocutors’ accounts presented in this chapter highlight that power intertwines and intersects with sexuality in a multiplicity of ways and layers, which reflects its multi-directional and complex and constitutive operations.
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Notes
- 1.
My emphasis.
- 2.
As was mentioned before, my interlocutors believed that the inability to pay for things compromised their ability to play the role of a provider, which held them back from starting couple relationships at times.
- 3.
I will return to the topic of trust in the next chapter.
- 4.
‘Reputation’, in this kind of usage, indicates being known for, and it is not in a good way. More often than not, it is used to refer to being morally lax or loose.
- 5.
Emphasis not mine.
- 6.
Ātal is a word loaded with meaning I struggle to translate. On the one hand, I felt I could not capture the meaning of this colloquial term in Sinhala itself. In previous contexts when I have heard this word used, it implied something good. For instance, ǽka ātal implied that it was good or great. Employed differently, in the context of Amintha’s interview, it carries connotations of pleasure , yet, with a certain vindictiveness attached to it, as it implies a certain bond that the act of love making should not imply.
- 7.
Wijayathilka, K. 2001. “Role of NGOs in addressing violence against women”, in Centre for Women’s Research (CENWOR)/UNFPA (ed.), Gender -based violence in Sri Lanka. CENWOR for an account of NGO work assessment.
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Sirisena, M. (2018). Sex Games: Pleasures and Penance. In: The Making and Meaning of Relationships in Sri Lanka. Culture, Mind, and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76336-1_7
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