Can Kartini Be Lesbian? Identity, Gender, and Sexual Orientation in a Post-Suharto Pop Novel

Abstract

The British author Martin Amis once remarked that “the way a writer names his characters provides a good index to the way he sees the world—to his reality-level, his responsiveness to the accidental humour and freakish poetry of life” (Amis Amis, The moronic inferno and other visits to America, Penguin, London, 1987, p. 13). If this is so, what, then, does the choice of the name Kartini for the protagonist in the 2007 pop novel Kembang Kertas (Paper Flowers) by the Indonesian woman writer Eni Martini with the provocative subtitle Ijinkan aku menjadi lesbian (Allow me to be lesbian) tell us about the way she appropriates the iconic feminist figure of Kartini who lived from 1879 to 1904? This essay explores how the Kartini image as a model of the ideal Indonesian woman is creatively refigured in this 21st-century expression of Indonesian popular culture and how the new post-colonial avatar is deployed to address problematics of gender, shame, and sexual orientation. The question arises as to the analogy between the emblematic Kartini, revered in Indonesia as the epitome of perfect heterosexual femininity, and the new-fangled Kartini figure in fictional form.

1 What’s in a Name?

Can Kartini really be lesbian? The short answer in the 2007 novel Kembang Kertas—Ijinkan Aku Menjadi Lesbian (Paper Flowers; Allow me to be Lesbian) by Eni Martini is no, at least not in her own country where she finds herself, in consequence, persona non grata. As several surveys and studies show, Indonesia belongs to the least tolerant countries in the world regarding attitudes towards sexual and gender minorities. The surface message of Martini’s novel is that lesbianism is abnormal, a kind of pitiable defect. The story stresses the difficulties that the lesbian Kartini encounters in an intolerant society. However, while discussing this remarkable transformation of the Kartini role model, I will argue that rather than promoting a queer-positive agenda, lesbianism in Martini’s novel functions as a chiffre for a self-defined life for a woman. The 21st-century embodiment of the Kartini icon recounts a contemporary instalment of the old debate on modernity versus tradition which is dramatically played out in all permutations of the Kartini masterplot by way of the conflict between a modern woman’s wish for self-determination and the prevailing traditional norms and ideals of society from which she is alienated.¹

2 Judging by the Cover

How should we read Martini’s book? Let me start with some preliminaries first: as is quite usual for literary fiction in Indonesia, the novel was released, in April 2007, as a “paperback original” (dimensions 17 × 11 cm). It never seems to have been reprinted. Counting ix + 144 pages, the retail price at the time was IDR 22,500 (about USD 2.50). This price may look like a steal, but it should be remembered that wages in Indonesia rank among the lowest in Asia: in 2006, the minimum wage per month in Jakarta was merely IDR 819,100 (about USD 89) (Gross and Connor 2006).

The first visual encounter that the curious browser likely would have with it would be the front cover. The words on the cover tell us that we are dealing with “a novel” (sebuah novel) and provide basic information on the title, subtitle, author’s name, publisher, and year of publication. The eye-catch, however, is a photograph of two festive young women dancing what looks like a close embrace tango in a romantically lit environment. The woman in front of the viewer’s eyes has a very décolleté dress and nude shoulders and arms, whereas her partner, who is shown from the back, is wearing a dress with spaghetti straps which expose her shoulders and upper back. The subtitle of the novel, “Allow me to be lesbian,” could easily be taken as a caption, thereby turning the intimate dancing scene into a possibly sexually suggestive pose.

The back cover features the same picture at the top, though in a thumbnail format, and the blurb engages the potential buyer by introducing the novel’s protagonist Kartini as an attractive person. The first two opening sentences seem to point to a pop novel set in the romanticised world of campus life:

Kartini is a young woman, beautiful, blue-blooded, attracting attention from anyone of the opposite sex. Kartini is the flower among college girls, possessing everything that both men and women want.²

As Teeuw (1979, p. 164) has pointed out in his by-now classic history of modern Indonesian literature (last updated in the 1970s), ‘lady-authors’ (to borrow Teeuw’s terminology) in the genre of ‘the ladies’ novel’ treat mainly “sentimental themes of love and marriage, often with a tragic and always with a moralistic tinge.” Today, this type of women’s fiction is sold under the name of metropop novels, referring to “stories exclusively set in metropolitan locations and focusing on the life of a girl or a woman in her daily activities” (Arimbi 2017, p. 248). The basic formula remains unchanged, however, revolving around “a female protagonist in her search for everlasting love” with the more modern addition of “her attempts to balance between her private and public affairs (love, life, and career)” (Arimbi 2017, p. 248). Centring on mundane everyday details of women’s lives and obsessed with choosing a partner for life, this kind of lowbrow ‘lady lit’ can be compared to ‘chick lit’ in the Anglophone world.³

Hence, when we read in the next sentence of the blurb that “Kartini leaves all that she loves behind in order to follow her inner voice which she had firmly repressed all the time,”⁴ what else can we expect other than another story about “women’s weal and woe” (Teeuw 1979, p. 164)? Reading on for more details, however, the punch line involves a remarkable turn, one that was already hinted at in the subtitle: “In all boldness she says: allow me to be lesbian.”⁵ After this shocking utterance, at least by mainstream Indonesian standards, the layout separates the next paragraph by a substantial gap and a line of four asterisks. This graphical pause creates a necessary break for the intended readership, which may well be expected to need to get its breath back first.⁶ The next section of the blurb provides a commentary on this in-your-face statement, apparently intended to accommodate a putatively heteronormative audience⁷:

This novel does not wish to legalise lesbianism, but is rather about telling the inner struggle of a human being coming to grips with changes in herself. We may find them [i.e. lesbians, EPW] repellent, disgusting or consider them as trash, but we have to give them a place, too, as they are also humans, just like us. Because there is not a single woman who wishes to be born as a lesbian. What do you think???

The third section of the blurb provides a brief biography and bibliography of Eni Martini (born in 1977 in Jakarta), accompanied by a small black and white photo of the author. However, I am not sure whether this illustration perhaps contains a subliminal message. Looking the viewer in the eye, Martini appears to be grabbing a phallic object, but it would surely be an over-interpretation to suggest sexual innuendo or some symbolic stance against women’s subordination. But at any rate, regardless of what the photo may possibly mean, it does not reflect the way in which the author wishes to show herself nowadays. Newer images on the internet more often than not cast her in the role of a mother with small children, always wearing the by-now ubiquitous Indonesian Muslim women’s uniform of the veil together with a loose-fitting, long-sleeved blouse and ankle-length skirt.⁸ The thumbnail photo of her younger self on the back cover which exposes her ʻaurat (the Islamic term for those parts of the body which should be covered in public) is still from the pre-hijab period. In the years 2007–2009 of this stage in her life, she was contracted to write all kinds of pulpy genres (horror, comedy, teen lit), merely for the sake of money, to be sold in minimarkets belonging to Indonesia’s largest chains, IndoMart and AlfaMart.⁹

Opening the book, the front matter, which is numbered in lower-case Roman numerals (pp. i–ix), provides us with information on how the book is marketed. Pages i–iii are merely technical, comprising the title page (p. i), copyright statement (p. ii), and title page with copyright and publisher information (p. iii), while a table of contents can be found on p. viii; a poorly reproduced black and white photograph of the cover is featured on p. ix. In the foreword by the publisher (pp. iv–v), P. Sri Fajar of 1st Trust Publishing informs us that she had only recently come to know Eni Martini, but had learned from her novels that this young writer was most familiar with the “world of women” (dunia perempuan, p. iv) and that she was “able to terrorise the inner-self of her readers” (mampu meneror batin pembacanya, p. iv). In the novel Paper Flowers, the publisher comments¹⁰:

Paper Flowers (2007)–a novel about the inner struggle of a woman searching for and finding her identity in the midst of cosmopolitan life– is her fifth novel that is very captivating. This novel, which apparently is based upon a real-life story, seems to wish to share this story with us all, about the way a woman must overcome herself. Following the words of her own heart, no matter how bitter the stigma that she has to accept. In the name of inner honesty and her own original self, she must decide to become a lesbian. Truly a beautiful and fascinating work….

The preface by Eni Martini (p. vi–vii) contains acknowledgments of those who contributed to the creation of the book, and we learn that the draft of the novel already existed in 2000, but there is no mention of a real-life story as inspiration. She merely thanks an anonymous fellow student at university for having provided her with the idea for the novel in 1999 (p. vi). Due to technical problems with computers, printers and viruses, the book could only appear in 2007.

As the plot forms the essence of popular romance, what the literary scholar Brooks (1984, p. 37) has called the “organising line and intention of narrative,” let us now take a closer look at this most basic feature of the narrative.

3 Love and Marriage

Heterosexual marriage and resulting motherhood constitute the social nightmare with which the plot of Paper Flowers begins, something that will haunt the leading character Kartini until the last page. The opening sentences about a welcoming party in Yogyakarta set the scene¹¹:

It had been a long time since Kartini had been with her family, relatives, and friends in a festive situation ruled by Javanese customs, its etiquette, and proper social conduct. And so mom had organised a small-scale party, or what is more commonly called a selamatan by Javanese. A party in order to welcome her arrival from Boston and also a thanksgiving for the completion of her study.

In this opening episode, the main oppositions are immediately introduced: Boston (US) versus Yogyakarta (Java/Indonesia) and modern university education vs. traditional customs. In the next scene, this initial boundary drawing extends to eating habits: Kartini’s older siblings, relatives, and friends tease her by saying that such Western foods as hotdogs, pizzas, and hamburgers must have “poisoned her tongue,” but in fact, she still delights in eating serabi, nogosari, cenil, lemper, klepon and all other kinds of Javanese delicacies.¹² On a deeper level, one could argue that because of the fact that ‘food’ is such a well-known conceptual metaphor for “ideas,” Kartini’s Javanese environment wants to find out whether her Javanese identity is still intact: does she still share the same ideas as them or has her experience overseas transformed her into an outsider?

At this initial point of the story, Kartini is 25 years old and has come back home to Yogyakarta, having finished her university study in economics in Boston where she has been for five years.¹³ Her family is aristocratic, related to the Yogyakarta Sultanate, and her parents proudly uphold traditional Javanese culture. The appropriate Javanese norms translate into rules and expectations around gender and sexuality: Kartini’s parents want to marry her off to a man of their choice, but as a closeted lesbian, she carries a disturbing secret. It is highly tormenting for her that her friends at the party keep jokingly asking her about the American fiancé whom she surely must have, saying that they now understand why she formerly constantly rejected local boys: apparently, she always fancied Western men.

Some of her female friends are already married and have babies. When one of Kartini’s female friends reminds her that Kartini used to be the beautiful ‘flower’ of her school, Kartini remembers a comment which her American female lover called Juliet Johnson once made in Washington DC. Enjoying the beauty of cherry blossoms in a park, a man passing by had remarked, “Beautiful, like you both!” Thereupon Juliet had giggled and said to Kartini, “Look, that damned man looked more intently at us than at a Washington cherry blossom. Suppose people knew that we are in fact more like paper flowers, his gazing would not be so wild…”¹⁴When Kartini asked what Juliet meant by the term “paper flower,” her girlfriend explained: “Well, paper, something which is dead but looks attractive because it’s made into flowers,” pointing to all kinds of paper flowers—lilies, tulips, cherry blossoms–which were being sold by sidewalk vendors.¹⁵

There is no further explanation in the story of this imagery, but the reader may get the point. Like in so many languages, the Indonesian word for flower can be a symbol of female beauty.¹⁶ Moreover, “flowers have always been emblematic of women, and particularly of their genital region, as is indicated by the use of the word defloration” (Jones 1951, in Vinken 2014, p. 15).¹⁷ Paper flowers, however, are artificial artefacts and not a part of the natural world of living and reproducing things, so the implicit message of Paper Flowers seems to be that lesbianism is an unnatural phenomenon and a biological dead end.

At the party, Kartini is informed that Imam, who is a doctor with his own practice, is still waiting for her to become his wife and Hendro, an engineer, has also been asking about her. Kartini can hardly stand these one-topic conversations about male–female relations. She hates not being a ‘normal’ woman. But what is a woman, anyway? “Beauty and a vagina caused her to be called a woman.”¹⁸ One month later, Kartini is still in Yogya and keeps thinking about Juliet. For twenty years, Kartini had been bridling her same-sex feelings until she met Juliet in Boston. Juliet is an attractive Filipino-American and although Kartini and Juliet were lovers in America, Kartini did not want Juliet to accompany her to Indonesia, because, as she expresses it, “I’m still unable to get away from the traditions and religious bans which are still strongly rooted in my family. I don’t want to make my family ashamed of me….”¹⁹Kartini explains that in Indonesia, people like Juliet and herself are considered to be disgusting because “we are people who are abnormal.”²⁰

At first, Kartini had studied three semesters at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, but because of her amorous feelings for Sinta, a girlfriend she had known since junior highschool, she had fled to Boston. Now back in Yogya, Kartini is puzzled by the amatory emotions which Sinta still stirs in her, while she still cannot forget Juliet, but all this should remain secret, because she wants to emulate the heterosexual example of her two older siblings. Her father had selected the spouses for them and now he introduces Kartini to the successful and attractive businessman Romi, whereas Doctor Imam is still waiting in the wings.

In America, Kartini and Juliet had planned to get married in the Netherlands, because same-sex marriage was legal there. They had wanted to adopt a child and live together forever. This love-dream once more underlines the narration’s thrust that lesbians are “just like heterosexuals except in their sexual object choice” (Jagose 1996, p. 31). Kartini, however, had taken leave of Juliet and had chosen to return to her family, who did not accept an “abnormal sexual orientation.”²¹ Nevertheless, “Juliet was the candle in her life, the medicine for all her wounds from Sinta.”²² Back in Java, Kartini behaves like an iceberg towards men and is constantly daydreaming (melamun), i.e. trying to avoid the unpleasant realities of life at home.

Together with Romi, her father’s favourite, Kartini goes to the wedding of her friend Sinta, but, overwhelmed by her own feelings, she has to leave early, literally sick from seeing the woman she still fancies entering into a heterosexual marriage. Kartini hates herself for not having been able to constrain her “sentimental and childish feelings.”²³ Her parents pressure her into marriage and after a propitious day has been chosen for her marriage with Romi, Kartini is “put in seclusion” (dipingit) for two weeks. This is said to be part of Javanese aristocratic tradition: her mother was secluded for forty days, while her grandmother had to stay at home for hundreds of days.

The tradition of “stabling” or “caging” (pingitan) could perhaps be seen here as a palimpsestic allusion to the plight of the real-life Kartini who had to spend her adolescent years in seclusion until the time of her arranged marriage. In fact, however, as any informed reader knows, ‘seclusion’ is nowadays a faint echo of former times and hardly can be called a tragic and sad affair: generally, future brides gladly stay at home to avoid the sun in order to have the much-coveted lighter skin colour.²⁴

During this period of seclusion, Kartini makes a secret phone call to Juliet, telling her about the marriage, and arguing that she had to obey her parents. Juliet is dumbstruck and cannot understand why a highly educated grown-up woman of 26 years should be so afraid of her parents, but as the omniscient narrator comments²⁵:

The problems facing Kartini made her lost for words, because these problems had to do with the feudal culture in Kartini’s country, to which her family still strongly stuck. A culture which she herself did not understand very well, never yet having been to Indonesia.

Disappointed and sad, Juliet articulates Kartini’s own heartfelt wish that Kartini may become a “normal woman.”²⁶ Nevertheless, Juliet tells her that she will accept her again, whenever that may be.

Kartini undergoes all kinds of traditional preparations for the wedding, such as fasting by eating only white rice and drinking only water (puasa putih) for seven days. The night before the wedding, the bride needs to stay awake in order to receive a blessing for her future married life. A virgin will look like a widodari or heavenly nymph on her wedding day, hence the name of this ritual, midodareni.²⁷ The wedding ceremony itself is executed, of course, in accordance with Javanese customs.

4 Conversion to Heterosexuality?

Kartini is the stereotypical femme of popular fiction, i.e. “weak, ditzy and whining” (Mitchell 2012, p. 129) and her ‘conversion’ to heterosexuality is no happy ending (cf. Mitchell 2012, p. 129 for such a stereotypical closure of 1950s US lesbian pulp fiction, particularly for femmes). The consummation of the marriage proves to be a most difficult affair, because Kartini retains her icy demeanour and Romi grows increasingly weary of her constant daydreaming. He suspects that her odd behaviour may have been caused by some trauma and suggests seeking psychiatric help. Kartini adamantly refuses and even allows Romi to find sexual gratification out of wedlock. However, Romi is a “good husband” (suami yang baik) and a “normal man” (laki-laki normal), but in his opinion Kartini is a “frigid wife” (istri yang vrigit [sic], p. 75). One day, after several months of non-consummation of the marriage, the couple argues once again about the issue. However, after Kartini has brought up the idea of divorce, because she cannot make her husband happy and Romi’s idea of psychiatric help is once again turned down, the situation suddenly turns intimate²⁸:

‘Ok, if you don’t want to go to a psychiatrist, it’s alright. It’s alright, Kartini. We’ll try to make things right in private. Just the two of us.’ Romi gave in, tightly embracing Kartini and kissing her lips.

‘I don’t want to lose you, Kartini….’ he said, kissing his wife again. ‘I love you.’

Kartini was grinning inside. She returned her husband’s kiss out of feelings of guilt. Perhaps I shouldn’t separate from him, it’s uncertain whether all my problems will be over after a divorce. I better learn to develop lust for men, that should be it for now...

Immediately following this scene, there is a pause in the narration marked by asterisks and white lines, after which, on the next page, a new chapter begins.²⁹ The narrative gap should be filled in by the reader, but the very first sentence informs us about the profound consequences of what must have occurred in the untold continuation of the episode with its rare moment of conjugal felicity³⁰:

After this event, Romi did not bring the problem up for discussion again and on top of that, much to Kartini’s surprise, she was pregnant.

After much waiting, finally, the marriage has been properly ‘completed’ and, from then on, things seem to go ‘normally’ in Kartini’s life³¹:

Only this one time in her life, Kartini felt that God had been so good as to make her feel like a real woman. The feelings of a true woman. She was a woman, but would she [also] have the feelings of a normal woman after this?

She gives birth to a beautiful daughter called Diva. She is most happy and is devoted to her daughter. Romi’s career involves a lot of overtime work, but Kartini does not complain, because this means that she does not have to “serve” (melayani) her husband –sexually, that is–, which is “a wonderful coincidence.”³²

When Diva is two years old, Kartini accepts a job offer from a renowned bank. However, she can only work there for four months due to an affair at the office involving a lesbian colleague called Nadia. Against Fifi, another colleague who was “disgusted” (muak) by Nadia’s attentions, Kartini defended Nadia by saying³³:

‘Nobody wants to be born with a defect. Was it Nadia’s wish to be born as a lesbian? If possible, she would have given instructions beforehand, wanting to be born as a normal woman like you who would have an honourable position and who could love men…’

When they are alone, Nadia thanks Kartini for defending her, telling her that “in fact, people seldom want to understand this condition, apart from those sharing the same fate.”³⁴ Nadia understands her own “mistake:”³⁵

However, I was indeed wrong. I could not withhold myself and accept the fact that Fifi is a normal woman who likes men; of course, she would be angry or disgusted because of me. I really love her too much….

Things threaten to get out of hand when Nadia begins touching Kartini, thereby awakening the slumbering lesbian feelings that Kartini had also had for Sinta and Juliet. Although Kartini coarsely rejects Nadia, both women instinctively feel attracted to each other. Henceforth, Kartini quits her job at the bank with the excuse that she misses her daughter Diva.

One day, Ramly, a friend of Romi, visits Kartini when she is alone at home, telling her that her husband has a secret lover. Ramly subsequently offers to be Kartini’s lover, but she refuses. After four years of marriage, Kartini knows that her husband would not have committed adultery if she had been able to satisfy him. Coincidentally, shortly thereafter, Kartini meets with Nadia on the street. They have not seen each other for two years and Kartini invites Nadia to visit her sometime or other. Although Kartini knows that “Nadia has an abnormal sexual orientation,”³⁶ she also knows that Nadia will “guard her feelings,”³⁷ because Nadia still will be under the impression that Kartini is a “normal woman”³⁸ and thus off-limits for her. The two women become friends, and one day Nadia asks Kartini why she is so sad. Looking at Nadia, Kartini thinks³⁹:

Oh, God. In fact, they were not just friends, but also two creatures of God, having the same fate of loving the same sex. She and Nadia were patients who really needed each other.

When the two lovingly embrace, Romi suddenly enters the room, reacting hysterically, being both angry and sad, shocked to discover that his wife is a lesbian. He wants an immediate divorce and claims custody of their daughter Diva, because Kartini “has an abnormal sexual orientation.”⁴⁰ As he puts it, “I want my daughter to grow up like a normal human being.”⁴¹Kartini feels unable to say anything about her husband’s adultery, as she had been unable to satisfy him sexually, being a frigid woman (the text on p. 126 reads “frigip,” one of many misprints in this book).

5 The Socially Dead Lesbian

A week after this fateful incident, Romi has started the divorce procedure. He informs the mutual families, but merely blames constant conflicts for the marital break-up. In return for concealing the real ground for divorce, he demands from Kartini the custody of their daughter. As Kartini is well aware, a divorce will not be the end of her problems⁴²:

However, she would surely find new problems. Yes, yes, both her parents would not allow her to be alone. They would find other husbands for her again. She was still young and very pretty. As soon as Ramly had heard that Romi wanted a divorce, he had already phoned Kartini several times.

Juliet enters Kartini’s mind again and Kartini wants to phone her, saying “I have failed to become a normal woman. I don’t have anyone anymore.”⁴³ After five years of silence, she phones Juliet to pour out her heart. Juliet advises her to come out of the closet, but Kartini is too afraid that she will lose everything as a result. Juliet repeats that she is willing to accept Kartini again, at any time.

Kartini’s love for her daughter Diva, who has become the subject of a bitter child custody dispute, makes Kartini visit her parents in order to explain why her marriage did not work out. As her parents do not understand her vague and woolly talk, nor the metaphor of the paper flowers, she finally confesses (still heavily camouflaged in the high Javanese speech level): “I really don’t love men.”⁴⁴ Her parents are shocked and find this abnormality crazy and shameful, throwing her out of their house.

After having reached the bleak nadir of her existence, the story of Kartini’s life only has two more pages to go. How will it end? Will Kartini perhaps commit suicide? The solution of killing queer female characters is so popular in the reigning entertainment media of film and television that there is even a name for it: the “all-devouring pop-culture wiki” TV Tropes (tvtropes.org) calls it “Dead Lesbian Syndrome.” Other closures popular in pulp fiction are that the lesbian characters finally end up “miserable, alcoholic, suicidal or insane” (Mitchell 2012, 129; cf. Smith 2012, 155).

However, a twist at the end happily provides a future for the ostracised protagonist. After all, the quest for the right partner constitutes a controlling feature of the category of romances to which Paper Flowers belongs. The wrap-up is a variation upon the genre formula of the Happy Ending, namely that the true lovers find each other at the end (cf. Altman 2008, p. 87, for a discussion of love stories ending with the “right” matches). This is how it goes: after the divorce, Kartini wins custody of her daughter despite fierce resistance from Romi and her own family. The novel ends with a teary-eyed Kartini and her daughter at Jakarta airport, ready for departure to America. The attentive reader knows that Kartini shall finally be reunited with Juliet.

Kaye Mitchell (2012, p. 137) writes that:

Popular fiction has always sought to accomplish apparently contradictory tasks in its treatment of gender and sexuality: to explore and yet contain – even suppress – anxieties about changing gender roles and taboo or ‘deviant’ sexual proclivities; to titillate readers who are simultaneously conservative and prurient, without offending or alienating them; to entertain and divert a ‘mass’ audience, ensuring accessibility, whilst speaking to quite personal, private and idiosyncratic desires and fears; to emphasise its grounding in reality, whilst offering fantasy, escapism.

Martini’s novel is neither straightforwardly “pro” nor “anti” lesbian. It is women-centred and dominated by a love story between two lesbian women with an optimistic conclusion of sorts, suggesting the possibility of happiness in a lesbian relationship in a non-Indonesian context, whilst still stressing the impossibility of this option for lesbians in intolerant Indonesia.

Perhaps unexpected and certainly melodramatic, the bittersweet finale about building a new life in a new country brings the plot to a narratively logical conclusion, answering the story’s central question of whether Kartini can be lesbian. Not so in Indonesia. However, she can take her life in her own hands and progress forwards. While the lesbian character gets her happily-ever-after, the novel does not really resist the dominant culture. The positive ending is only possible by an escape from Indonesia to the West where the “lesbian possibility” (Rich 1994) exists, reserved for a woman who belongs to the affluent upper class. However, what about the ‘deviant’ passions of the lower orders? Apparently, not only hamburgers and hotdogs are alien to Indonesian culture, but so is lesbianism.

6 Readers’ Responses

One might have expected that a novel about lesbianism, which is still very much a taboo topic in Indonesia, would have caused something of a stir. For example, in 2003, Herlinatiens (the pseudonym of Herlina Tien Suhesti, born in Ngawi, East Java, in 1982) published her debut novel Garis tepi seorang lesbian (The margins of a lesbian) describing the desires of a woman for other women, which became an instant bestseller and the subject of analysis in academic articles. Another novel, entitled Suara perih seorang perempuan: Lesbian dan kawin bule (A pained woman’s voice: Lesbian and marrying a white man), published in 2003 and reprinted in 2006, which “portrays a woman’s struggle for subjectivity as a woman” (Arnez 2013, p. 84), has also been subjected to scholarly analysis (see Arnez 2013, p. 84ff.).

Hardly anything is known about the author of the latter novel, but her use of the pen name Putri Kartini is worthy of note here. The pseudonym can be translated as Daughter of Kartini or Miss Kartini. It is usual to select a Miss Kartini in beauty pageants on or around Kartini Day (21 April), but in this case, the author obviously views herself in a more feminist way as a true Daughter of Kartini, considering that her book was published with the explicit goal of participating in “women’s liberation and empowerment as well as in a process of raising awareness” (Arnez 2013, p. 85).

By contrast, Martini’s novel has hitherto only been footnoted once in academic literature, where it is mentioned in a brief list together with a few other post-Suharto examples that address “the topic of relationships among women” (Arnez 2013, p. 76 n. 4). Googling the name of Eni Martini and the title of her pop novel will only produce a few results and not bring up much information. When the Indonesian author Ratih Kumala (born in Jakarta in 1980) in 2010 drew up a survey of Indonesian literary works that deal with lesbianism or have lesbians as main characters, Eni Martini’s work was not included. This omission is even more glaring considering the compiler’s conclusion that the number of lesbian-related books is “not even enough to fill a single bookshelf—if Indonesian libraries had such a section.”⁴⁵

Did Ratih Kumala perhaps not deem Paper Flowers worthy of admission due to a lack of literary merit? If so, it would be a judgment for which something may be said. The Goodreads website gives the novel an unimpressive rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars. Although this unenthusiastic assessment may be based upon merely 29 estimations, it is noteworthy that the good people of Goodreads are not random readers but belong to a “self-selected, inclined-to-like-it group” (Yagoda 2018). Intriguingly, Eni Martini is among the 29 respondents, but she rated her own novel (on 14 May 2013) with only two stars, which can hardly count as a glowing recommendation because this at best implies that “it was ok” but still below average.⁴⁶

Although two reviews are listed on Goodreads, in fact, there is only one, written by the novelist, poet, columnist, and blogger A. J. Susmana (born in Klaten in 1971), which first appeared on the website Bekasinews in 2008.⁴⁷ It is an extensive one-star assault which is both aesthetic and moral. The only positive thing Susmana can muster is that the story is not difficult to understand, because the language and vocabulary are quite simple. This is a backhanded compliment of sorts and he mentions in the same breath that the reading pleasure is severely hampered due to a lack of editing, as the text is marred with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and typos. Although I agree with this, the same complaint could easily be made against any other Indonesian pop novel. More important for our purposes is Susmana’s main gripe with the novel, which concerns the figure of Kartini. Put simply, she does not live up to Susmana’s expectations. His damning critique has directly to do with the way Kartini is imprinted on the collective cultural psyche from umpteen former adaptations.

As the reader-response theory posits, every interpreter brings a horizon of expectations to a text. In the words of the literary critic (Abrams 1999, pp. 262–263): “The response of a particular reader, which constitutes for that reader the meaning and aesthetic qualities of a text, is the joint product of the reader’s own ‘horizon of expectations’ and the confirmation, disappointments, refutations, and reformulations of these expectations when they are “challenged” by the features of the text itself.” Measuring Martini’s re-creation of the Kartini figure against the imposing stature of Kartini in Indonesian cultural memory, a huge disappointment is pre-programmed.

Hence, in comparing the fictional Kartini to the historical example set by Indonesia’s long-familiar and treasured heroine Kartini, Susmana predictably finds the discrepancy most pronounced. In contrast to the courageous icon who fought for the liberation of outdated traditions, Susmana views Martini’s Kartini as merely fatalistic, naïve, and childish. Instead of taking the struggle for democratic rights of the LGBT community in her own hands (which is something a “real” Kartini worthy of her name would do), this Kartini cowardly acquiesced in subordination, too afraid to oppose her parents and their old-fashioned ways of thinking. With the protagonist’s background as someone who had studied at an American university and had lived as a lesbian there, Susmana would have expected and liked a self-conscious and militant character, but in his opinion, the subtitle of the novel already underscores her weak stance. This submissive woman can only humbly ask for permission to be a lesbian. However, as Susmana rhetorically asks: “Why does she have to ask for permission? And who is entitled to grant the permission?”⁴⁸ Rather than demanding full recognition of same-sex relationships, the narrative makes a humble plea for greater tolerance of this “abnormal” form of sexuality, merely out of pity.

What are the literary expectations of Indonesia’s middle- and high-brow circles? In the 2010 introduction of a literary anthology of twelve Indonesian lesbian-themed short stories, each written by a different author, Oka Rusmini (born in Jakarta in 1967) remarks that the contents are more than just “whiny, sentimental love stories”  Kumala (2010). I cite Ratih Kumala’s English translation to convey Rusmini’s message: “Indonesian writers dealing with lesbianism should attempt to make bold ideas and language jump from the pages if they want to truly represent the lesbian community’s long and brutal struggle to gain acceptance in the country” (Kumala 2010).

Rusmini voices here a deeply rooted idea in Indonesian literature about the didactic role of the writer as a moralist who takes part in the struggle to tell right from wrong and good conduct from bad (cf. Wieringa 2017). Contrary to the anthologised stories of Rusmini and her ilk on lesbian themes, which were all written by prominent members of Indonesia’s literary premier league, Martini’s rather trashy novelistic labour strikes as nothing more than a “whiny, sentimental love story.” However, I wish to argue that this admittedly lachrymose second-rate or popular work of literature shares the moralistic-didactic impulse. But in what way? At least so much is clear that Martini is not personally involved in the LGBT movement. She self-identifies as heterosexual and has no special agenda as a gay rights activist. In fact, the constant emphasis in her novel on the idea of lesbianism as abnormal and a repugnant pathological affliction is not exactly gay-friendly. Kartini’s lascivious colleague Nadia is even depicted as a hypersexualised character who is on the prowl for other lesbians. This characterisation perpetuates the negative stereotype that lesbians tend to be hypersexual and are hardly able to control their carnal desires (cf. Mitchell 2012, pp. 129, 131); even Kartini is not free of this.

Conversely, the self-portrait of Martini could not be further removed from the lesbian predator, as is evidenced in her succinct biography on Goodreads in which Martini stresses her role as wife and mother. She writes that she “ended her period as a spinster on 7 February 2005 after meeting and falling in love with a man called Budi Suharjiyanto.”⁴⁹ She also devotes a large portion of the short bio to the birth of her four children (the third of which died prematurely). The final sentence once more sums up how she likes to present herself: “Now filling the days with being a wife and mother, writing, and also from time to time interconnecting with nature and life itself.”⁵⁰ The photos that she posts of herself nowadays on several social media platforms also emphasise traditional female gender roles, whereas, on the front page of her Instagram, Twitter and Facebook accounts, she introduces herself first and foremost as “Mom 4 kids” (in English in the original).

Martini’s novel Paper Flowers is listed on Goodreads among “Indonesian LGBT Books,” of which 31 in total are quoted (dated 2012).⁵¹ However, I doubt whether that moniker is particularly apt. Although the protagonist is undeniably lesbian, the narrative remains deeply imbued with homophobia, viewing lesbianism as a deviation from the heterosexual paradigm, which is described as a pitiful phenomenon that has no place in Indonesia. Rather than an Indonesian LGBT book, I would like to argue that Paper Flowers is part of another list, i.e. a slew of Indonesian novels about the struggle for liberation from oppressive tradition. The vision of “proper womanhood” is terrifying for Kartini because it violates her freedom. Martini’s novel points to something beyond a tale about a woman in search of love and a struggle with her sexual identity: the issue of lesbianism and the contested concept of “proper womanhood” functions as a prism through which the broader question of the quest for self-definition is refracted. As Mabry (2006, p. 200) has observed in the comparable case of contemporary Anglophone “chick” novels, “sex becomes a way for the woman to explore her own identity and express her own desires, rather than merely part of a single romance narrative that emphasises traditional gender roles.” Although lesbianism is depicted in Paper Flowers as unnatural and abnormal, it is not condemned as a sin or fault but viewed as an unfortunate condition. The common point between the canonical Kartini storyline and Martini’s lesbian variation upon it lies in the identity struggle and the fight for the right to digress from entrenched and essentialist role models prescribed by society. As such, despite its rather uncommon protagonist, Paper Flowers is fully in accordance with the broader “new narrative of personal and self-development” (Smith-Hefner 2007, p. 412) that so many middle-class women in Indonesia have come to embrace in the post-Suharto era.

7 No Country for Lesbians

The novel Paper Flowers seems to tell a pretty straightforward interpretation of the trope that East is East and West is West. It is a tale of two cities, symbolising two clearly demarcated separate worlds, as the following chart (Table 9.1) shows:

Table 9.1 Dichotomy between East (Yogyakarta) and West (Boston)

Java is no country for lesbians, which also is clear when we look at a graphical representation of Kartini’s life story (Table 9.2).

Table 9.2 Kartini’s life story as lesbian

Kartini’s fictional life story shares key similarities with the real-life Kartini as the latter is known in Indonesia from her famous potted biography. Both Kartinis are born into the priyayi (noble) world of the Javanese aristocracy, which is specifically identified with age-old traditional Javanese court culture. Both find the fetters of custom frustrating and have a strong wish for individual liberty. However, both finally succumb to traditional gender roles, accepting the forced marriage and resulting motherhood. Their lives in Java end tragically, reaching the end with biological death in childbirth for the historical Kartini, whereas the fictional Kartini has to face social death, such that she is unable to continue her life in Java, completely ostracised from her own family and society.

As the historian Heather (Sutherland 1979, p. 48) notes, “[o]ne of the most interesting aspects of Kartini’s brief career” is “the conflict between her own aspirations and the expectations of society.” I would even go further and say that this conflict constitutes a defining element of the Kartini template. There is a long genealogy in modern Indonesian literature of novels in which the main protagonists are “not just individuals with personal desires who have all sorts of adventures; they are also representations of some more abstract phenomena which are usually referred to in sociological or culturological terms, like ‘tradition’, ‘feudalism’, ‘capitalism’, ‘modernity’, ‘static’, ‘dynamic’” (Maier 1996, p. 135). As the literary scholar (Maier 1996, pp. 135–136) further points out, many Indonesian novels can be read as national allegories, in which the clash of personalities represents a symbolic battle between tradition and modernity. It could well be argued that Paper Flowers is a “continuation of these explorations into the conflict between modernity and tradition” (Maier 1996, p. 136). Kartini is shorthand for female ‘modernity personified,’ and Martini’s 21st-century mutation of the Kartini icon may come as a surprise and even as a disappointment to Indonesians who hitherto were only used to applauding heterosexual Kartini who conform to social consensus and mainstream taste. However, essential traits of the Kartini figure as known since its inception are still reproduced in Martini’s alternative post-colonial incarnation, still grappling with questions about identity, gender, and sexual orientation.

Notes

• 1. I follow Abbot’s use (2008, p. 46–49) of the term masterplot, i.e. a recurrent skeletal story “belonging to cultures and individuals that play a powerful role in questions of identity, values, and the understanding of life” (Abbot 2008, p. 236). The Kartini masterplot featuring a young heroine fighting for women’s rights is strongly connected with the ideas of progress and modernity.

• 2. Kartini perempuan muda, cantik, berdarah biru, dikagumi setiap lawan jenisnya. Kartini kembang kampus, semua yang diinginkan setiap lelaki maupun perempuan ada pada dirinya.

• 3. For comparative purposes, Martini’s novel may also be likened to American 1950s lesbian pulp fiction with its condemnation of lesbianism, sexual stereotyping, and lowbrow aesthetic (see Mitchell 2012, p. 128–134).

• 4. Kartini meninggalkan semua yang ia cintai, untuk mengikuti kata hati yang selama ini ia pendam rapi.

• 5. Dengan segala keberanian ia katakan: ijinkan aku menjadi lesbi.

• 6. This graphic device is quite similar to the ‘gutter’ in comics (see Abbott 2008, p. 122–3; 234). See also below (note 30) for its use as a narrative gap in the story.

• 7. Bukan ingin melegalkan Lesbianisme, Novel ini lebih menceritakan tentang pergolakan batin seorang anak manusia dalam memahami perubahan dalam dirinya. Kita boleh menolak, jijik, atau menganggap mereka sampah tapi kita juga harus memberi tempat, bahwa mereka juga manusia, sama seperti kita. Karena tak seorang perempuan pun ingin dilahirkan sebagai Lesbian. Bagaimana dengan Anda???

• 8. Eni Martini is active on several social media platforms where she also posts images of herself and her family: Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/duniaeni), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/duniaeni/), Twitter (https://twitter.com/duniaeni) and a website (http://www.duniaeni.com/). The older weblog (http://cahyakayangan.blogspot.com/), which she started in January 2010, does not exist anymore.

• 9. Be a Writer Indonesia. 2013. Author of the month: Eni Martini. https://bawindonesia.blogspot.com/2013/11/author-of-month-eni-martini.html. Accessed 13 December 2023.

• 10. Kembang Kertas (2007)–sebuah novel yang berisi tentang pergulatan batin seorang wanita dalam mencari dan menemukan jati dirinya di tengah kehidupan kosmopolit- merupakan novel kelimanya yang sangat menawan. Novel yang tampaknya berangkat dari kisah nyata ini, sepertinya ingin berbagi cerita dengan kita semua tentang bagaimana seorang wanita harus memenangkan dirinya. Meingikuti kata hatinya, bagaimanapun pahit stigma yang harus diterimanya. Atas nama kejujuran hati dan orisinalitas diri, dia harus memutuskan menjadi seorang lesbi. Sungguh sebuah karya yang indah dan mempesona….

• 11. Sudah lama Kartini tidak berbaur dengan keluarga, famili dan teman-temannya dalam suasana pesta adapt Jawa yang penuh ung[g]ah-ungguh, tata krama. Maka saat Si’Bu mengadakan pesta kecil-kecilan, atau lebih sering disebut selamatan oleh masyarakat Jawa. Pesta dalam rangka menyambut kedatangannya dari Boston, serta syukuran atas selesainya studi dia. (p. 1).

• 12. Sering kakak, famili dan teman-temannya di Yogya meledek, hotdog, pizza, hamburger, dan sejenis makanan khas Barat itu telah meracuni indera persasa-nya [sic] (p. 1).

• 13. Only on p. 24 is it revealed that she has studied economics at Boston College.

• 14. ‘Lihat, laki-laki sialan itu menatap kita lebih dalam dari sekuntum sakura Washington. Seandainya mereka tahu kita lebih tepat seperti bunga kertas, pasti tatapannya tidak seliar itu…’ (p. 7).

• 15. ‘Iya, Kertas, benda mati yang tampak menarik hanya karena dibuat bunga atau kembang’ (p. 7).

• 16. Stevens and Schmidgall-Tellings (2004, p. 475) explain kembang as (1) flower and (2) flower as a symbol of female beauty.

• 17. In traditional Malay love-poetry, the flower (bunga) is “the maiden” that is “sought by the ‘bee’ (kumbang) or lover” (see Wilkinson 1959, p. 166). For a discussion of specimens of this kind of literature, see Wieringa (1998). Several sayings also use the metaphor of bees (men) that buzz around flowers (girls), e.g. “a flower assaulted by a bee” (bunga diserang kumbang) is used for a deflowered girl (Stevens and Schmidgall-Tellings 2004, p. 534). In “the flower is plucked, the plant is trampled under foot (bunga dipetik, perdu ditendang) and “the flower is worn, the plant is kicked aside” (bunga disunting, perdu disepak buang), which both refer to a bad son-in-law, the wife is typified by the flower and her mother by the plant (see Brown 1951, p. 13). In old-fashioned language, the expression “flower of the body” (bunga tubuh) denotes virginity (see Wilkinson 1959, p. 166), but it is not listed anymore in modern Indonesian and Malaysian dictionaries.

• 18. Kecantikan dan vagina yang menyebabkan dia disebut perempuan (p. 10).

• 19. ‘Aku belum bisa mengelak adat dan larangan agama yang masih mengakar kuat dalam keluargaku. Aku tidak dapat mempermalukan keluarga…’ (p. 18).

• 20. kita orang-orang yang tidak wajar (p. 16).

• 21. orientasi seksual yang tak lazim (p. 32).

• 22. Juliet adalah lilin dalam kehidupannya, pengobat segala lukanya terhadap Sinta. (p. 44).

• 23. perasaannya yang sentimental dan kekanak-kanakkan (p. 52).

• 24. Bratawidjaja (1988, p. 17) discusses this ritual, stating that the bride-to-be may not leave the house for about seven days prior to the wedding, nor meet her future husband during this period. During these days of seclusion, her body should be covered with a yellow rice-powder cosmetic (lulur).

• 25. Permasalahan yang dihadapi Kartini membuatnya kehilangan kata, sebab permasalahan itu menyangkut budaya feodal di negara Kartini yang masih bertahan kuat dalam keluarganya. Budaya yang dia sendiri tidak begitu paham, ke Indonesiasaja dia belum pernah (p. 61–62).

• 26. wanita biasa (p. 62).

• 27. See p. 34–35, 66. On this particular ritual, see Bratawidjaja (1988, p. 39–43).

• 28. ’Oke, jika kamu tidak mau ke psikiater, tidak apa-apa. Tidak apa-apa, Kartini. Kita coba memperbaiki berdua. Hanya kita berdua.’ Romi menyerah, didekapnya Kartini erat dan diciumi bibirnya. ‘Aku tidak mau kehilanganmu, Kartini….’, katanya lalu menciumi istrinya lagi. ‘Aku mencintaimu.’ Kartini meringis dalam hati. Membalas ciuman suaminya karena perasaan bersalah. Barangkali aku tidak harus bercerai darinya, belum tentu setelah penceraian semua masalahku selesai. Sebaiknya aku belajar untuk membangun birahi pada laki-laki, itu saja dulu (p. 78).

• 29. On this narrative device, see also note 7.

• 30. Setelah peristiwa itu, Romi tidak mengungkit-ungkit lagi, apa lagi di luar dugaan Kartini sendiri, dia hamil (p. 79).

• 31. Dalam hidupnya baru kali ini Kartini merasa Tuhan demikian baik memberinya rasa sebagai perempuan yang sesungguhnya. Perasaan seorang perempuan hakiki. Dia seorang perempuan, lalu akankah setelah ini ia akan memiliki perasaan seorang perempuan yang normal? (p. 79).

• 32. As the excellent dictionary of Stevens and Schmidgall-Tellings (2004:565) explains, the verb melayani, among other things, can mean “to serve someone sexually, to satisfy/meet someone’s needs/desires,” which clearly fits this context. The official monolingual Indonesian dictionary is much too prudish to mention this meaning; see Sugono (2008, p. 797) under melayani and also Sugono (2008, p. 770) under the (Javanese) synonymmeladeni.

• 33. ‘Siapapun orangnya tidak mau dilahirkan cacat. Apakah ini keinginan Nadia untuk terlahir sebagai lesbi? Kalau bias dia memesan lebih dahulu, dia pun ingin dilahirkan menjadi wanita biasa seperti kamu, yang memiliki kedudukan mulia, dan bisa mencintai laki-laki…’ (p. 83).

• 34. ‘Padahal jarang orang yang mau mengerti keadaan ini, kecuali sama-sama senasib’ (p. 84).

• 35. Tapi, memang aku yang salah. Tidak bias menahan diri dan menerima kenyataan bahwa Fifi itu wanita biasa yang menyukai pria, pantas jika dia marah atau muak padaku. Aku memang terlalu mencintai dia…’ (p. 84).

• 36. Nadia memilik orientasi seksual yang tak lazim itu (p. 118).

• 37. menjaga perasaannya (p. 118).

• 38. wanita biasa (p. 119).

• 39. Oh, Tuhan. Sebenarnya mereka bukan saja sekedar sahabat tapi juga dua makhluk Tuhan yang memiliki nasib sama-sama mencintai sesame jenis. Dia dan Nadia adalah pesakit yang sesungguhnya (p. 120).

• 40. memiliki orientasi seksual yang tak lazim (p. 123).

• 41. aku menginginkan anakku tumbuh menjadi manusia normal (p. 125).

• 42. Tetapi dia pasti akan mendapatkan persoalan baru. Ya, ya, kedua orangtuanya tak akan membiarkan kesendiriannya. Mereka akan menjodoh-jodohkan dia lagi. Dia masih muda dan sangat cantik. Ramly saja yang mendengar Romi akan cerai, berkali-kali menelepon Kartini (p. 131).

• 43. Aku telah gagal menjadi wanita biasa. Aku tidak memiliki siapa-siapa lagi (p. 132).

• 44. Kulo estunipun mboten remen kaliyan tiang jaler (p. 141).

• 45. See Kumala (2010), which first appeared on 27 September 2010 in the English-language online daily Jakarta Globe.

• 46. Goodreads.com, s.v. Kembang kertas (ijinkan aku menjadi lesbian), https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7301351-kembang-kertas. Accessed 14 December 2023.

• 47. Goodreads.com, s.v. Kembang kertas (ijinkan aku menjadi lesbian): Community reviews. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7301351-kembang-kertas#other_reviews. Accessed 12 December 2023.

• 48. Mengapa harus minta ijin? dan siapa yang berhak dan harus mengijinkan?

• 49. Melepas masa lajang 7 Februari 2005 setelah bertemu dan jatuh cinta dengan seorang lelaki bernama Budi Suharjiyanto.

• 50. Kini terus mengisi hari-harinya dengan menjadi istri dan ibu, menulis dan juga sesekali mengakrabi alam dan hidup itu sendiri.

• 51. Goodreads.com, s.v. Indonesian lgbt books. https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/20560.Indonesian_LGBT_Books. Accessed 16 December 2023.