ABSTRACT
The greater degree of legitimacy they enjoy is in keeping with the fact that, broadly speaking, Southeast Asian societies have long evinced less patriarchy and more pluralism with respect to gender and sexuality than neighboring world areas. The modern era, commonly defined as the period stretching roughly from the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries, provides clear evidence of gender pluralism in many parts of Southeast Asia. The general points here are that the globalization of sex styles and consumption are intimately intertwined; that the interrelationships are sometimes unexpected; and that they draw on local historical and cultural traditions and in so doing give particular meanings to these circulations. pluralistic sensibilities and dispositions regarding bodily practices and embodied desires, as well as social roles, sexual relationships, and overall ways of being that bear on or are otherwise linked with local conceptions of femininity, masculinity, androgyny, intersexuality.
