Brown Bodies: Sex in the South Asian Diaspora

I had the idea for Brown Bodies after I met a Sri Lankan Tamil man from Toronto at a hip hop music festival in Portugal. He had plans of road tripping through the Scottish Highlands. I’d never been and, as he seemed too cute (and not tall enough) to be an axe murderer, so I invited myself along. 

When you’re trapped in a car, side by side, for seven days, there’s only one real thing to do: Talk. And when you think you’re never going to see them again, well, you really talk. 

We chatted about music, food and travel. We touched on work. We discussed our past loves, losts and lusts. And as he gained my trust, and I his, we got into it about sex:

What did it mean to not want sex before marriage?
How does the stereotype of South Asian men not being sexy affect brown men on dating apps?
Does being mixed race make me more desirable or a red flag to other South Asians?
How do you live with family, religion and traditions whilst navigating the Western world’s expectations of how you use your body?

We ping ponged questions back and forth, deciphering ourselves in each other’s answers.

It struck me that I hadn’t really dated a South Asian before (unless you count one horrendous Bumble date where a man promised me his favourite Thai food and took me to Wahaca…true story) and I saw my fear of not being accepted by a brown man reflected back to me in his own fears — had I lost my culture and, as a first generation immigrant, was he too cultured? 

I saw my joy for discussing sex in a culturally and religiously relevant way mirrored back to me in his search for those same conversations. He told me anecdotes about being a teenager searching for answers on Reddit, Quora, Pornhub and, sometimes, from his uncle (who gave him one of my all time favourite top tips: Don’t drink protein shakes. You won’t be able to get hard). I told him bits about the Quran, sex education at school in Spain and India and what I’d learnt from novels. We craved information that reflected our lived experiences, belief systems and traditions.

Growing up, our communities lacked conversation about why religions tell you to wait until marriage, pleasure, self love, trust, body positivity, confidence, vulnerability, intimacy, fun…There was also no talk about pain, sexual health, fertility difficulties, loss, ongoing consent within relationships, lack or loss of desire or fear. It was always ‘no sex before marriage’ or ‘don’t get pregnant’.

So as we wound around yet another glorious Scottish mountain with yet another breathtaking view, all I could think was, ‘Why don’t we talk about this more?’ Sex is the one thing we are all impacted by — not only does it affect our love lives, it plays an important role in our confidence and the way we carry ourselves in the world, our careers, our interactions with our communities, our relationships with ourselves, our parents, family, God, faith, spirituality…

The intertwinement of faith and culture with pleasure can be beautiful but it can also be messy, confusing and filled with ‘fake news’ passed down from generation to generation…or via aunty WhatsApp. So we need to talk about it. But, as a brown person, it often feels like you’re putting your reputation, family name and prospects on the line just by uttering that tiny, singular syllable word, s-e-x. 

But if two strangers that randomly met at a music festival found what they needed in each other’s lived experiences, then maybe more general conversation from lots of different South Asian diaspora perspectives will give us all what I desperately needed growing up: Understanding. 

• Anisah Osman Britton, Author of Brown Bodies