Sita Balani, "Deadly and Slick: Sexual Modernity and the Making of Race" (Verso, 2023)
New Books in Critical Theory
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The Role of Race in the Control of Sexual Practices
Race played an important role in how the British tried to control sexual practices between different races through narratives of respectability and quite hygiene. This is something you explain through the example of British ruling in the colonial India starting in the 18th century. So it was understood that men needed someone to have sex with, to cook their food, to do their laundry, to look after them when they got sick,. That was understood to be a wife - but Indian women already had those skills. And so men were encouraged to take concubines or sometimes even just assigned one.
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