ABSTRACT
The title of this chapter plays on the words of a successful rap song, excerpted above, which sprang unbidden to mind as I reflected on some recent experiences supervising a pair of rapid studies of sexual relations and sexual health in two Indian cities;1 the second quotation is from a paper on the epidemiology of HIV in southern India, found long after the chapter was first drafted. My starting point for the following reflections is an observed tension between the drive to develop culturally appropriate and locally effective strategies for the control of HIV in South Asia, and the employment of discourses about sexuality and sexual behaviour that are new to the contexts within which these strategies are being implemented. In this chapter a gendered analysis of the place of ‘talk’ in sexual relations will attempt to elucidate the ways in which our dependence as anthropologists on language may not only obscure, but actually transform local conceptions of sexuality and sexual relationships.
