Gender, Islam and Sexuality in Contemporary Indonesia: An Overview

Abstract

This chapter introduces the aim of this book, which is to explore how gender, Islam, and sexuality are navigated in contemporary Indonesia. Taking the regulatory zeal that has manifested in legal interventions since the era reformasi (era of reforms) as the point of departure, it proceeds to present the book’s three main thematic parts: Sexuality and Violence, Halal lifestyle, and Shame and Self-determination. Moreover, it provides the theoretical framework for the contributions to this book in three domains: Criminalisation and Care, Modesty and Commodification, and the Janda and Shame. It introduces the chapters of this volume that mainly draw on various cultural productions, narratives, films, online apps, commercials, and YouTube videos as research material.

1.1 Regulatory Zeal

Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, where 87 per cent of the population identifyies as Muslim, is a diverse nation with a rich cultural heritage and a complex social fabric. The diversity of sexualities, gender relations, and their expressions across the Indonesian archipelago has been the subject of research in academic studies. For example, the notion of five genders among Buginese people (Davies 2006) and queer sexualities (Blackwood 2010; Boellstorff, 2005; Davies 2010), are among the areas of focus. 

However, this diversity is increasingly under threat due to what is referred to here as regulatory zeal. Policy makers, since the era reformasi (era of reforms), have exhibited a strong regulatory zeal, leading to a rapid pace of legislation and intervention aimed at protecting, controlling, and enforcing sexual morality at all levels, from national to regional. This regulatory zeal has been driven by the growing influence of conservative forces that emphasise Islamic norms and use their power to enforce them.

Following President Soeharto’s stepdown in 1998, voices demanding increased regulation of women’s conduct and physical expression have grown louder. Since the enactment of Law 22/1999 on regional autonomy, the regions gained more power and influence. This law allows provincial and district parliaments to pass their peraturan daerah (perda, regional bylaws). Many of them restrict women’s rights. According to data collected by Komnas Perempuan (Komisi Nasional Anti Kekerasan Terhadap Perempuan, National Commission on Violence against Women), an independent state body, 421 regional policies discriminated against women in 2018. Of these directives, 62 were issued between 2000 and 2015 on clothing regulations (Komnas Perempuan 2021). At the end of 2021 Komnas Perempuan documented 441 discriminatory policies with 305 still being in effect. Moreover, they noted that “20 discriminatory policies were issued that still use the same regulatory patterns, namely criminalisation, control over women's bodies through restrictions on the rights to expression and belief, restrictions on religious rights, and restrictions on rights through the regulation of religious life” (...) (Komnas Perempuan 2022b).

A case of strict control of the female body is Aceh, a province at the northern tip of Sumatra. This is the only region in Indonesia where the Qanun Jinayat (Islamic Criminal Code) was introduced in September 2014, when the Criminal Code that had been in place since 2001 was extended to non-Muslims. As a result, Muslims and non-Muslims fall under Sharia law that criminalises same-sex sexual acts and zina, adultery. North Aceh Regency passed new regulations in 2015 prohibiting unmarried couples from riding together on a motorbike and banning women from dancing in public and straddling motorcycles, as both are considered indecent acts.

The Anti-Pornography Bill (Rancangan Undang-Undang Antipornografi dan Pornoaksi, RUU APP), which was passed in October 2008 after years of debate in parliament, was enacted to curb pornography and indecent acts. The law attracted criticism because, while supporters say it protects youth from pornographic material and the deterioration of morals, especially children, it also includes the term pornoaksi (“pornographic acts”), which includes “acts considered indecent.” Since everything from bikinis and miniskirts to traditional dances and gay clubs can be considered indecent under this bill, the law has created new opportunities for persecuting groups with little political influence, such as LGBTQ + people.¹ Fearing repercussions for those who do not conform to Islamic norms, human rights activists, feminists, artists, and ethnic minority representatives have opposed it (Allen 2007; Arnez 2010).

Years of regulatory zeal recently turned into tangible legislation, with two major legislative interventions: the Sexual Violence Bill (Undang-undang Tindak Pidana Kekerasan Seksual, UU TPKS), adopted on 12 April 2022, and the revision of the Criminal Code (Revisi Kitab Undang-undang Hukum Pidana, RKUHP) on 06 December 2022. Both have in common that they have gone through several versions over the years, and stakeholders, including government authorities, legal experts, human rights activists, women’s rights activists, religious groups, and LGBTQ + rights advocates, are divided about them.

Attempts to introduce a law against sexual violence were made ten years ago by members of Komnas Perempuan, founded after the May riots of 1998, during which many women of the Chinese minority became victims of sexual violence. According to Article 4 of the Sexual Violence Bill, the crime of sexual violence applies to sexual harassment, both physical and non-physical, forced contraception, sterilisation, and marriage, sexual exploitation, torture, and slavery, and electronic-based sexual violence.²

Proponents of the Sexual Violence Bill have argued that there was an urgent need to protect victims of sexual violence better and to have better recourse against perpetrators and that this could best be done in the form of a law. They hope for a greater willingness of victims to report sexual violence and a greater willingness of preventive measures on the part of the government (see Chap. 2). Opponents, members of the Partai Keadilan Sejahtera (Prosperous Justice Party, PKS), and the Aliansi Cinta Keluarga (Family Love Alliance, AILA), for example, lobbied hard to prevent the law from being passed and kept on blocking it in parliament. They argued that it did not cover the problem of adultery, zina, and homosexuality, which are prohibited in Islam.³

Such voices who demanded a regulation of sexuality⁴ by law, prevailed because zina is now covered by the revised Criminal Code RKUHP⁵ which has made international headlines for criminalising sex outside marriage and cohabitation of unmarried couples. Among the key aspects of the discourses around the RKUHP, which will come into effect in three years from the time of writing, are colonial legacy, sexual morality, freedom of the press and assembly, and social and economic class. As regards the first, decision-makers justified the RKUHP as a step to discard the Dutch colonial legacy finally. “Dutch products are no longer relevant to Indonesia. Meanwhile, the Criminal Code Bill is very reformative, progressive, and responsive to the situation in Indonesia,” stated Yasonna Laoly, Minister of Law and Human Rights (Darmawan 2022).

Yet, according to critical voices, the opposite is the case. They argue that the RKUHP or its previous draft still have colonial tendencies (Chaterine and Santosa 2022), recolonise Indonesian law (Kusnan 2022), or even “go backwards from what the colonial government had created.“ (Editorial Tempo.co 2022). They have criticised Articles 218 and 219 of the new Penal Code as colonial provisions, for example, which criminalise insulting the president and the vice-president and provide for prison sentences of up to four years (Chaterine and Santosa 2022, Editorial Tempo.co 2022, Kusnan 2022). Also included is Article 240, which provides that persons who publicly, orally, or in writing insult the government or a state institution are liable to a penalty payment or prison sentence of up to 18 months (Kusnan 2022).

Sexuality has been a controversial topic of the debates about the RKUHP. Article 411 punishes sex outside marriage with imprisonment for up to one year.⁶ This mainly affects young people whose parents or close relatives do not agree with their choice of partner and who have new control possibilities now. Only when they press charges against their child, for example, can they be arrested under the clause. Opponents of the RKUHP have argued that this opens the door to snitching, spying, and defamation practices.

Some observers have noted that the revised Penal Code does not yet adequately protect women from sexual violence. For example, according to Komnas Perempuan, the Draft Criminal Code should be enhanced by classifying criminal acts of sexual violence as an offence against the body, not an offence against morality (Tardi et al, 2022).

Another contested issue is abortion regulation. The revision of the criminal code takes a clear anti-abortion stance here. According to Article 463, “each woman who carries out an abortion will be punished by imprisonment of up to four years.”⁷ Exceptions apply if the woman is a victim of rape or other sexual violence that led to conception, up to the 14th week of pregnancy, or in medical emergencies. This can increase women's vulnerability as they are likely to increase their efforts to obtain an unsafe abortion. Restrictive abortion laws do not lead to lower case numbers but only increase the likelihood of unsafe abortions (Saraswati 2022, p. 2).

As a response to the RKUHP, UN human rights experts sent a letter to the Indonesian government in November 2022, voicing the following criticism and concern:

The current legal framework relating to women’s and girls’ access to essential reproductive health services is not in line with international standards. We regret that the opportunity has not been seized for the reform process to bring the country’s domestic legal framework into compliance with Indonesia’s international human rights obligations in terms of women’s and girls’ sexual and reproductive rights.⁸

In addition to concerns about a lack of reproductive rights for women, restrictions on freedom of expression, assembly, demonstration, and the press in the revised criminal code have raised concerns. In addition to Articles 218 and 2019 which regulate potential insult of the president and vice-president, articles on broadcasting and distributing false news (Articles 263 and 264), the crime of defamation (Article 440), and crimes against public power and state institutions (Articles 351–352) are referred to among those that are deemed to threaten the freedom of the press (Nolan 2022). Article 256 stipulates that any person who, without prior notice to the authorised person, organises a march, rally, or demonstration in a public area that results in a disturbance of the public interest and causes disorder or riot is liable to imprisonment for up to 6 months. This intervention is considered a step backwards for civil rights.⁹

Perhaps a less obvious connection regarding the RKUHP is that it is deemed to increase vulnerabilities by exacerbating existing socioeconomic class differences and social inequalities. According to the environmental organisation Walhi (Wacana Lingkungan Hidup, Indonesian Forum for Environment), cases in point are articles on corporate criminal offences in Articles 46, 47, and 48 that make it difficult to punish corporations that commit crimes. These articles, they argue, give leniency to corruptors, which is tantamount to perpetuating corruption in Indonesia. “The rules in the Criminal Code tend to be sharp downwards, blunt upwards because they make it difficult to catch bad corporations that commit crimes,” Puspa Dewy, Head of Anti-Extractive Industry Campaign Division, National Executive of Walhi, wrote in a statement (Wicaksono 2022).

In an interview with interlocutors on the impact of the RKUHP on their personal lives in Indonesia, concerns were raised that the law has unequal consequences for the rich and the poor:

It will, in practice, all come down to how much money people have: if you’re rich, you can cohabit with your partner in an apartment block and have privacy, whereas in poor neighbourhoods houses are very tightly crammed together, gossip is very big, and people always know what’s going on with their neighbour. It’s hard to hide anything there. (Otte 2022).

The contestations around the RKUHP have also had an impact in the sense that people have protested it in the streets. People in Jakarta took to the streets before it came into force (Fig. 1.1).

Fig. 1.1

Protests against the revised criminal code (RKUHP), Jakarta, 27 November 2022. The protest banner reads: “Criminalisation is eased by the arbitrary rules of those in power.” Photo credit: Muhamad Isnur

This was not the first time that there were demonstrations against the RKUHP; there have been protests about it before. Large demonstrations took place in Jakarta in September 2019, where students and human rights activists took to the streets. However, police cracked down on the protesters, and some of them died. State forces' harsh treatment of protesters certainly contributed to the fact that far fewer people dared to participate in the November 2022 protests. As Jaffrey and Warburton (2022) point out:

Additional provisions in the new code that increase criminal penalties for organising protests without prior notice to authorities are likely to reinforce these trends.

There are several reasons regulatory zeal was selected as an entry point to this book. One apparent reason is its topicality, with both the revision of the Criminal Code and the Sexual Violence Bill passed in 2022, when most of the chapters for this book had already been drafted.  However, as I hope to show, this topicality does not translate into “novelty”; regulatory zeal cannot be seen as an entirely new development in Indonesia. Instead, it has been ongoing for many years so we can speak of continuity rather than an abrupt change in this context. Moreover, regulatory zeal cannot be seen as something isolated; it is linked to discourses, people, capital, and power from which it ultimately feeds. The second and therefore more important reason is that the negotiations around the RKUHP are only the tip of the iceberg of much more complex contestations around discourses and practices of gender, Islam, and sexuality in Indonesia, which we unravel with this book.

Before presenting the three thematic parts of this book, their theoretical contribution, and the authors’ chapters, let us engage with the academic works that have particularly influenced this book.

1.2 Where We Step In

The complexity of sexuality, gender, and Islam in Indonesia has been widely reflected in the scholarly literature. The first collective effort to tackle the issue across Southeast Asia is Susanne Schröter's edited volume Gender and Islam in Southeast Asia: Women’s Rights Movements, Religious Resurgence and Local Traditions (2013). The introduction provides a remarkably detailed insight into the issue’s complexity in Southeast Asia, with particular attention to the historical and geographical characteristics that have shaped gender relations in Southeast Asia, including their good conditions for trade and exchange with people of different religions and the influence of Islam since several centuries (Schröter 2013).

I would also like to highlight two more key works here: Sex and Sexualities in Contemporary Indonesia (2015), edited by Sharyn Graham Davies and Linda Rae Bennett, and Nancy Smith-Hefner's Islamizing Intimacies: Youth, Sexuality and Gender in Contemporary Indonesia (2019). The former contributes to a better understanding of the multiple expressions of sexuality in Indonesia in the four main themes of their volume: sexual politics, health, diversity, and representation. The impetus for writing this book was not to curtail or compress the variety of gender expression in Indonesia but to explore this diversity in depth. Davies and Bennett were treading new ground, including the introduction of new concepts such as Sharyn Graham Davies’ “kinships of shame,” which embraces the idea that shame falls not only on the individuals who have not acted according to shared social norms, but also on the members of the extended family (Davies 2015, p. 32). She insightfully reveals how shame and sexual surveillance interact and how, given the “evidence that morality is increasingly being surveilled,” “respond in a creative way, for instance when same-sex couples behave like heterosexual couples as not to attract unwanted attention” (Davies 2015, pp. 32, 46, 47). Drawing on Scott (2011), she highlights the difference between the meaning of morality in the West and Indonesia. While moral conformity does not play a significant role in the former because the growing number of self-directed inclinations align the subjects, controlling bodies through morality is important (Davies 2015, p. 46). Islamizing Intimacies helps to explore the fluid nature of gender and sexuality among middle-class Muslim youth. The book reveals how young Muslims negotiate their identities, and it addresses the influences Indonesian youth are exposed to, including texts designed as advice books, a popular genre in Indonesia. In doing so, Nancy Smith-Hefner refers to texts such as Gaul tapi Shar'i (Sociable but Shari’a-minded) by Muhapi (2006), which proposes a “principled sociability” for youth that is grounded in Islamic normativity and does not embrace self-expressive individuality. She points out that while such texts promote a Sharia-compliant lifestyle for young people, they also want to continue contact with the West, as it is crucial to keep up to date and keep in touch (Smith-Hefner 2019, p. 139).

We take the ambivalence observed by Smith-Hefner (2019) between the desire to increase the Sharia-compliant influence of conservative forces and the intention not to lose contact with the West as an impetus to explore local-global landscapes of gender and sexuality against an Islamic background. Inspired by Davies (2015), we see conceptual innovations on shame as an opportunity to examine divorce, shame, and desire, focusing primarily on cultural productions.

Since the publication of these two books, the regulation of bodies and the focus on sexuality and gender has continued to grow in Indonesia. As Bennett and Davies’ book was written several years ago, the question is how intersections between gender, Islam, and sexuality have developed since then.

1.3 Gender, Sexuality and Islam in Contemporary Indonesia: An Overview

Navigating the shoals of gender, Islam and sexuality requires a delicate balance between social norms, and the rights, aspirations, and scope of action of individuals. The contributions in this book help to show what these navigations looks like, where they succeed and fail and why. By shedding light on how gender, sexuality, and Islam are navigated outside and inside Indonesian borders, we aim to contribute to a better understanding of their complex interrelationships. The research material we draw on are cultural productions that are rarely addressed in academic publications about Indonesia, primarily literary works, and not only films but also commercials, YouTube videos, and an online dating rating platform. In addition, some of our authors have also carried out qualitative data collection.

The contributions in this volume range from exploring female Muslim fashion designers in New York to examining how vulnerable groups exercise their power. How does the capitalist fashion industry use the former in America, how do the fashion designers themselves do business, and how do they serve as role models for young women in Indonesia who will always be denied a luxurious lifestyle? How do vulnerable people cope when modesty and adherence to prescribed gender roles are emphasised?

The different objects of investigation manifest in the disciplinary diversity of the participating authors, including Indonesian Studies, Indonesian Philology, Socio-Legal Studies, and Social and Cultural Anthropology. In line with our multidisciplinary approach, we look at multiple manifestations of gender, Islam, and sexuality. These are explored in our chapters on advocacy for the Sexual Violence Bill (Chap. 2); the positioning towards LGBTQ + people in Muhammadiyah (Chap. 3); modest fashion by Indonesian designers in New York (see Chap. 4); the app AyoPoligami (Let’s do polygamy) (Chap. 5); halal cosmetics and beauty (see Chap. 6); the figure of the janda (widow, divorcee) in popular literature (Chap. 7); migrant literature in Hong Kong and Taiwan (Chap. 8); the appropriation of Kartini in the pop novel Kembang Kertas Ijinkan aku menjadi lesbian (Paper Flowers; Allow me to be lesbian) (2007) by Eni Martini (Chap. 9); and stories published in Sundanese in the tabloid Galura (Chap. 10). In the afterword, Melani Budianta reflects on how artists have responded to the conservative wave in Indonesia and how vulnerability and tenacity matter for our volume (Chap. 11).

In designing the book, we aimed to involve both junior and senior scholars and an equal number of researchers from Indonesia and international scholars. Of our fourteen authors, including the editors, seven are scholars from Indonesia, and seven are international authors. We started working with some of the authors at the 2019 Inusharts conference in Jakarta and later conducted conceptual workshops in Jakarta via Zoom during COVID-19; others came on board through our international contacts and previous collaborations. During our cooperation, three overarching themes emerged that now form the backbone of this book: Sexuality and Violence, Halal Lifestyle, and Shame and Self-determination.

1.3.1 Part I: Sexuality and Violence

Gender-based violence is assuming frightening proportions around the globe, and COVID-19 has exacerbated this trend, particularly in the realm of domestic violence. According to UN Women data, which excludes sexual harassment, “an estimated 736 million women—almost one in three—have been subjected to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence, non-partner sexual violence, or both at least once in their life (30% of women aged 15 and older)” (UN Women 2022).

According to the Annual Record (CATAHU) of Komnas Perempuan 2022, which records complaints to their organisation, service agencies, and Badilag (Badan Peradilan Agama, Religious Judicature Body), 338,496 cases of Gender-Based Violence (GBV) against women were collected in Indonesia  (Komnas Perempuan 2022). These included complaints to Komnas Perempuan (3,838 cases), service providers (7,029 cases), and BADILAG, 327,629 cases (Perempuan 2022). Thus, GBV cases against women have significantly increased, from 225,062 in 2020 to 338,496 in 2021 (Ibid.).

In this report, Komnas Perempuan identified two key concerns: GBV committed by civil servants, military personnel, and the police and cases of torture and ill-treatment against women in conflict with the law. The organisation denounces that gender-based violence against women is carried out by the very people who are supposed to protect them, a total of 9% of the total number of perpetrators. They criticise that women were tortured or treated inhumanely during the pre-trial process, explicitly mentioning sexual torture such as stripping and rape, and sexual harassment.

The contribution by Monika Arnez and Eva Nisa takes the media headlines that have been repeatedly filled with reports of sexual violence over the past two years as a starting point. In June 2021, news reports surfaced that Herry Wirawan, a teacher and an owner of the Madani religious boarding school in Bandung, West Java, had raped 13 girls aged 12–16 and fathered eight babies from those rapes. This case, thus the authors contend, has sped up the long, arduous journey towards adopting the Sexual Violence Act (Chap. 2). This chapter provides a better understanding of the cultural and institutional factors underlying sexual violence in Indonesia in the context of global debates around this issue. It sets out to build on and further develop the insights from two strands of scholarly literature, a) on how cultural and institutional factors foster sexual violence, both in Indonesia and in Western contexts, and b) on normative values, Islam, gender, and power relations in Indonesia. It sheds light on how activists and progressive religious scholars (ulama), including members of the Kongres Ulama Perempuan Indonesia (Congress of Indonesian Gender-Just Ulama, KUPI):¹⁰ have supported the RUU TPKS,¹¹ the draft law on sexual violence, and have counteracted sexual violence.

According to a survey by the Statista Research Department in 2017 (Statista Research Department 2023), nearly 90% of the respondents in Indonesia believed that the LGBTQ+ population threatens society. 46.2% said in December 2017 that they see them as “quite threatening,” and 41.4% believed they are “very threatening.” One could now argue that this rejection was related to the hatred that swept Indonesia in 2016. Rejection of LGBTQ + people seems to have increased (see also Oetomo’s 2022 statement below), but as scholars noted many years ago, the negative perception of LGBTQ + people in Indonesia is no new trend.

For example, Tom Boellstorff, Dede Oetomo (2005, pp. 182–183) wrote that when asked about same-sex relations, most Indonesians say Islam “disapproves of sex between men or between women.” Oetomo (2001, p. 75), a scholar and LGBTQ + activist who founded the organisation GAYa NUSANTARA, remarked more than two decades ago that many people in Indonesia regard homosexuality as “something unnatural, a deviation, disorder, disease, even a sin.” With his book, he wanted to contribute to showing complex expressions of sex and gender that do not correspond to the behaviour desired by mainstream society (Ibid.). In 2022, just a couple of months before the RKUHP was passed, he expressed concern about the backlash for LGBTQ + rights in Indonesia and that “in international forums Indonesia will become a pariah state, like Iran and Egypt” (Amindoni 2022).

The second contribution to Part I is about LGBTQ + people, who face significant difficulties in everyday life in Indonesia. It uses the 2016 anti-LGBTQ + panic as a starting point. It revolves around the Waria al-Fatah Islamic boarding school (pesantren) in Yogyakarta, which closed due to an attack by the Front Jihad Islam (FJI, Islamic Jihad Front) on 19 February 2016. The author examines how the construction of dualities influences how the Islamic mass organisation Muhammadiyah and its affiliated women’s organisation Aisyiyah position themselves towards LGBTQ + people.

1.4 Criminalisation and Care

Part I provides a new theoretical contribution to the interplay between criminalisation and care. This part of the book shows how criminalisation affecting women, LGBTQ + people, and children is deeply rooted in cultural and institutional factors. We agree with recent research showing that social structural forces, gendered power asymmetries, and access to resources are at the heart of women's criminalisation (Jeffries and Jefferson 2022, p. 6). Zooming in on sexual violence in religious schools, for example, we argue that “the opacity of secluded spaces,” the “tendency of some institutions to facilitate and sustain spatially and ideologically relatively closed systems to which the outside world has no or only minimal access,” is an important institutional factor of sexual violence (Chap. 2).

We further complicate the link between criminalisation and care in several ways. We reveal how perpetrator-victim relationships are reversed, for example by viewing victims of sexual violence as perpetrators of zina, sex outside of marriage, which is prohibited in Islam and criminalised by the RKUHP, and how activists have aimed to change this and better protect victims of sexual violence (Chap. 2). Moreover, Monika Arnez and Eva Nisa show how this attempt at caring collides with realities on the ground by highlighting the difficulties that victims are often facing. Sexual violence often happens in the family or in institutions; it is difficult for minors to report sexual assaults against them because they fear that the police will not believe them or that they will be stigmatised. As a result, shame prevents them from bringing their case to the police, blaming by family members and institutions, and a general lack of care for the emotional needs of parents towards their children.

Another contribution of this part is to elaborate on the ambivalence between caregiving and criminalisation, including by showing how caregiving is conditioned by criminalisation. A case in point is the Muslim mass organisations Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, where LGBTQ + people tend to be viewed as practitioners of deviant sexuality who need to be rehabilitated. By criminalising LGBTQ + , elites in these organisations create the conditions for grassroots members who are closer to the people to feel a moral obligation to care for them, to act on their behalf (Chap. 3). This chapter also shows how care practices towards LGBTQ + people, for example in the healthcare sector, arise from genuine compassion and are maintained, for example by grassroots members of the women’s organisation Aisyiyah, which is associated with Muhammadiyah.

1.4.1 Part II Halal Lifestyle

While most scholarly work on a halal lifestyle has focused on food, this section fleshes out how the desire for a sharia-compliant life takes shape in three areas: online halal dating, cosmetics, and modest fashion, both within and beyond Indonesia’s boundaries. It is innovative in revealing (i) how modest fashion by female designers from Indonesia, shown on the New York catwalks, becomes a political statement; (ii) how the gendered construction of the term halal (permissible) used by Islamic male preachers and beauty cosmetics manufacturers manifests itself in their video clips on the global YouTube stage; (iii) how the online dating app AyoPoligami becomes a platform where women’s desire for self-affirmation and men’s desire to use it more for sex and travel are negotiated.

Asri Saraswati explores how Indonesian modest fashion meets New York City during ex-President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, and how the discourses on freedom and spectacle of travel have shaped the modest fashion industry in Indonesia (Chap. 4). She zooms in on how the presentation of modest fashion on the New York catwalk can be understood against the background of a capitalist-driven desire to make a profit from this fashion, the spectacle of travel, freedom, and women’s empowerment.

In her contribution, Annalisa Manzo discusses cosmetic advertising in the context of the market forces of consumer capitalism that impact contemporary Muslim femininities (Chap. 5). The chapter explores how halal cosmetics advertising creates new benchmarks for a gendered Indonesian halal lifestyle in which women become virtuous consumers, for example, in the case of the Sunsilk and Citra brands belonging to Unilever Indonesia. It identifies the elements used in commercials for halal cosmetics by relevant brands and how the halal label is taken up by Islamic male preachers in their public appearances on YouTube about cosmetics in Islam.

The subsequent contribution by Lilawati Kurnia and Nurbaity places the dating app AyoPoligami in the context of other online dating apps, for example Salams (Chap. 6). AyoPoligami was launched in 2017 to meet the needs of Muslims, mostly men, who want to marry a second, third, or fourth wife in Indonesia. They reveal how AyoPoligami is part of a commodification process during which irregular and regular polygamous marriages are arranged, often at the expense of women.

1.5 Modesty and Commodification

The theoretical contribution in this part is to uncover the links between modesty and commodification in the modest fashion industry, halal cosmetics, and an online app that facilitates polygamous marriages. As Gökariksel and Larney (2010) have pointed out, it is the “images, narratives, and knowledges about Muslim womanhood constructed in the marketplace” that help defining what being a Muslim woman should entail. This applies to all three areas considered in this part of the book, fashion, cosmetics, and digital products. What is valuable is not only in the eye of the beholder, but is influenced by many factors, including market forces, the social environment, and religious norms, of which consumers are not necessarily aware. This also includes modesty. As Mahmood (2005) has shown in her work on the mosque movement in Egypt, the virtue of modesty has been interpreted differently by Muslim women; for some it is closely linked to the wearing of the veil, for others it is simply a human quality; still others see it as a way of avoiding the gaze of men.

The three contributions in Part II explore the different ways in which modesty and commodification interact. The article on modest fashion on the New York catwalks shows how Muslim fashion designers and their consumers are seduced by the New York catwalk. It identifies travel as crucial, especially travel from Indonesia to the US, as it fuels dreams of liberty and success. It also illuminates how modesty has become a political statement against his efforts to keep Muslims out of the country against the backdrop of Donald Trump’s policies (Chap. 4).

As good business can be done with modesty and Islamic beauty ideals, several companies operating in Indonesia have invested in online commercials that show how women can achieve their beauty ideals, such as long-lasting scented hair and cool, fresh skin, while enjoying the benefit of a halal product. It is the laws of the market, determined by consumption, and a canon of beauty that follows a certain Muslim ideal that shape femininity in contemporary Indonesia (Chap. 5).

Not only can tangible commodities such as fashion or cosmetics be commercialised, but also non-tangible services such as online dating apps. While dating is highly contested in Islam—in the past, couples were usually selected and married by their families—online dating has become an option many Muslims around the globe have pursued. The chapter on the AyoPoligami app is innovative by revealing the ambivalences of modesty and commercialization. It shows how men maintain the appearence of living a life according to the Quran while using the app to disguise their desire to gain affordable access to sex services (Chap. 6).

1.5.1 Part III Shame and Self-Determination

The discussion of shame revolves around social norms and expectations, especially concerning women. Our authors contribute to a better understanding of the portrayal of shame in contemporary Indonesian literature. They have drawn on various texts to illuminate this theme, from sastra buruh migran (migrant literature) (Chap. 8) to popular culture and the discussion of the janda therein (Chap. 7). The feeling of shame often arises when a woman does not conform to the social expectations of how a good woman should behave: being pious, living an Islamic lifestyle, and—if married with children—a caring wife and mother. If women do not live up to these ideals of womanhood, they can fall from grace. In contrast to the notion of “kinships of shame” (Davies 2015), our authors reveal individual ways of dealing with shame, for example by showing how female protagonists negotiate their lack of social status and their stigmatisation, and their desire for self-realisation and freedom.

Shame is particularly explored from the perspective of female protagonists, migrant women working abroad in Taiwan, Singapore, and Hongkong, widows, divorcees, and LGBTQ + persons. Despite their differences, the consideration of these groups of people in the selected literature has something essential in common: the fact that society sees them as a threat to national morality. The janda, for example, is stereotyped because of her supposed sexual desire, which could lead to taking away other men, LGBTQ + people are accused of immorality and seduction, and domestic workers in Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan are blamed for sexual availability. Shame is a feeling with which the protagonists react to this stigmatisation. In stories about janda in popular culture, thus Monika Swasti Winarnita, Petra Mahy, and Nicholas Herriman contend, it manifests in concealment around their status, for instance. Awareness of the stigma of being a janda can lead to concealing the fact; when it comes out, rejecting the potential future husband can be even more pronounced (Chap. 7).

The tension around restrictions on sexual morals is strongly pronounced in the chapters on the novel Paper Flowers (Chap. 9) and on migrant domestic workers (Chap. 8). In the case of the former, the protagonist Kartini resumes her intimate relationship with her partner outside the borders of Indonesia, in the USA, where she finds restrictions on sexual morals less pronounced than in Indonesia. In contrast, in the wake of the non-acceptance of lesbian relationships in Indonesia, she is confronted with shame, which leads to a rupture with her family. Carlos Piocos’ text addresses how female protagonists working as migrant workers in Hong Kong and Singapore are encouraged to take the path of moral virtue after deciding to enter a same-sex relationship. He shows how returning to the moral rectitude of heterosexuality is not only restrictive but, worse, can have tragic consequences, revealing that both “reformed” women ended up dying.

Narratives in which shame plays an important role often negotiate the desire for self-determination, manifesting in the expression of sexual orientation, including homosexuality. However, in several texts, openly expressing lesbian love is only described as an experiment from which the protagonist abandons to return to a lifestyle that is in harmony with Islam (Chaps. 8 and 9). Divorce can also be a form of self-determination, as Conrad William Watson reveals in his chapter on Sundanese narratives in the weekly tabloid Galura when he reveals how comparatively easy it is for women to divorce, which contrasts with other parts of Indonesia (Chap. 10). This is a way female protagonists react to the shameful behaviour of their husbands; another is violent, angry, and vengeful practices by wives.

1.6 The Janda and Shame

The contributions in Part II can be seen as conceptual innovations to understanding the figure of the janda and the sense of shame in contemporary Indonesian cultural productions. Unlike in English, where there are two separate terms for a divorced woman and a widow, this is not the case in Indonesian, where it is used for both. Monika Winarnita, Petra Mahy, and Nicholas Herriman explore the figure of the janda in the context of other female symbolic figures such as the ibu (mother), gadis (maiden), and the male counterpart duda (widower/divorcee), based on selected popular literature, film, and music (Chap. 7). One lens through which they reflect these figures is the perceived availability of janda, ibu, and gadis for men. While the maiden should not be available as she is under the aegis of her family, the mother is her husband's “property,” and the female widower/divorcee is there for everyone. Because of the stereotype of the janda being lecherous, acting based on their sexual desires, other women see her as a possible threat. Thus, the stereotype results in pitting women against one another. Society, thus they reveal, imposes a sense of shame on the janda because she is seen as a seductress, single and desired but lonely. For example, selected dangdut music is shown to portray the widow as someone who must be ashamed of her supposed role as a seductress and therefore chooses to conceal her status.

The contributions of Carlos Piocos, Edwin Wieringa, and Conrad William Watson (Chaps. 8, 9 and 10) draw our attention to the figure of the janda in the sense of its second word meaning of the term, the divorcee. The chapters by Carlos Piocos and Edwin Wieringa raise divorce in the context of same-sex relationships. In Piocos's contribution (Chap. 8) about migrant workers' literature, divorce is an intermediate step for the protagonist, who had humiliating experiences with her father and husband on her escape to Taipei, where she becomes a migrant worker. Through disassociation from men due to previous trauma, symbolically illustrated by the divorce, the protagonist turns to lesbian love. The protagonists struggle together to express their sexuality despite constant shaming from the outside, developing a more intimate relationship and a deeper bond with each other.

In Edwin Wieringa’s chapter about the novel Kembang Kertas by Eni Martini, divorce becomes a man's means of drawing a line under his relationship when he convinces himself with his own eyes of his wife's intimate relationship with another woman. This circumstance destroys Kartini's family relationships, as her relatives perceive her lesbian relationship as shameful and expel her from the house. Ultimately, she is left with the flight from the social constraints in her home country and the hope of fulfilling her love with her partner in the USA. This can lead to “shame flight,” a circumstance in which the social pressure to conform and the impression of not being able to live up to it and live out one's dreams become so strong that people decide to flee abroad, such as in Herlinatiens' novel Garis Tepi Seorang Lesbian (A Lesbian on the Margins 2003), where a possible reunification of the lesbian lovers seems to be only possible outside Indonesia's border, in Paris (Arnez 2013). In this book, Edwin Wieringa's analysis of the novel Kembang Kertas also reveals that a lesbian Filipino American and Indonesian couple can only express their love outside the borders of Indonesia because the protagonist is afraid that her family will be ashamed of her and her lover (Chap. 9).

Conrad William Watson's contribution (Chap. 10) draws our attention to the culturally determined differences in divorce practices. In contrast to other regions in Indonesia, it is comparatively easy for Sundanese women to get a divorce. Asking to be sent home (diserahkeun) is a strategy for how female protagonists react to the shameful behaviour of their husbands in Sundanese narratives. It also deals with the issue of polygamous marriages and the reactions of the first wife to the husband's desire for a second wife, which do not necessarily correspond to the ideal of a patient wife but can also culminate in sheer rage.

Gender, Islam, and Sexuality in Contemporary Indonesia offers an in-depth analysis of gender, sexuality, and Islam in the context of Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim population. It delves into the intricacies of gender diversity and the interplay of Islam and sexuality within the Indonesian society, across different social and geographical boundaries navigate the constraints and challenges during a drive for stronger regulation of sexual morality and corresponding normative values in society by becoming creative in exploring spaces for action, including the limits of such creativity. On the other hand, it shows how different pious female actors exert and expand their influence by acting as role models for modest clothing or consumers of halal cosmetics.

I would like to conclude these introductory words with a personal, albeit sad, note. It is not far-fetched to say that the burden of COVID-19 and death weighs on this book. Some authors have lost relatives or acquaintances. One of the authors initially supposed to contribute to the book, Christina Suprihatin, who had been suffering from health problems for a long time, has died. I want to take this opportunity to silently remember her death, the COVID-19 victims, and all the people who must live with their loss.

Notes

• 1. In this chapter, I use LGBTQ+ to refer to the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Questioning and/or Queer community, where the + sign acknowledges the limitless sexual orientations and gender identities used by members of the community, as an inclusive umbrella term. Indonesian media have frequently used the term LGBT to refer to this community as the foreign, anti-Islamic “other.” See, for example, Ewing (2020). However, the term LGBT is used by our authors if the interlocutors have referred to themselves as LGBT (see Chap. 3). Melani Budianta (see Chap. 11) rightfully points out that terms such as LGBTQ+ , LGBTQ, and LGBT are borrowed terms, and it would be preferable to strengthen the use of locally used terms instead.

• 2. https://www.hukumonline.com/pusatdata/detail/lt5d9c15868bb76/rancanganundang-undang-tahun-2022/document/lt63c64ddaeeb7d, p. 6. Accessed 13 January 2024.

• 3. While gender and sexuality may carry variegated meanings and have been defined in various ways, I rely on the definition of gender as “a person’s own sense of being male, female, some combination of male and female, or neither male nor female” and “the ways of thinking, behaving, etc. that are typically or traditionally associated with one sex” and of sexuality as “sexual habits and desires of a person” (The Britannica Dictionary 2023). Our authors may further clarify how they use these terms in their contributions.

• 4. See: https://www.hukumonline.com/pusatdata/detail/17797/rancangan-undang-undang-2022. Accessed 08 January 2024. Access to Hukumonline’s content has changed, and users now need to pay a fee to access documents that were previously available for free. This applies to links 6, 7, and 9 as well. Hukumonline is a comprehensive legal analysis platform that provides legal analysis, a collection of the latest regulations and court decisions, a regulatory compliance and document management system. The platform provides access to an extensive database of Indonesian laws, regulations, and court decisions. However, with the recent change in accessibility, users need to consider alternative sources to access this information.

• 5. See: https://www.hukumonline.com/pusatdata/detail/17797/rancangan-undang-undang-2022. Accessed 08 January 2024.

• 6. See: https://www.hukumonline.com/pusatdata/detail/17797/rancangan-undang-undang-2022. Accessed 08 January 2024.

• 7. See: https://www.hukumonline.com/klinik/a/being-told-to-have-an-abortion-by-your-future-in-laws-this-is-the-regulation-lt6423d636726d5. Accessed 13 January 2024.

• 8. See: https://www.hukumonline.com/pusatdata/detail/17797/rancangan-undang-undang-2022. Accessed 08 January 2024.

• 9. RUU TPKS is the abbreviation of Rancangan Undang-Undang Tindak Pidana (Draft Law on Sexual Violence).

• 10. KUPI has often been referred to as Indonesian Women’s Ulama Congress. However, as both women and men are involved in KUPI and gender justice is one of their aims, the term “Congress of Indonesian Gender-Just Ulama” is used here.