Seks dan Politik dalam Sastra Indonesia[1]

Faruk

Jurusan Sastra Indonesia

Fakultas Ilmu Budaya Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta

&

Associate Profesor Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, South Korea

faruk_psk@yahoo.com

Abstract

In Indonesia controversy about sexual representation in literary works has become seminal debate until today. According to socio-cultural context in Indonesian society, sex has socio-cultural function to control some possible dangerous potency that is appeared from celebration of natural and enjoyable sexual function among individuals. Such condition becomes ideological discourse which influences sexual representation in Indonesian literatures. Using semiotics (Eco) and post-structural (Derrida) analysis, this article will discuss sexual representation and its political tendency in Indonesian literatures with two critical questions: (1) how far are Indonesian literary works represent characteristic in describing and meaning toward erotic events and (2) what factors do influence, or at least, make them possible? The result of this study shows that in some novel written in colonial era, such as Mata Gelap (Mas Marco, 1914), and in reformation era, such as Supernova (Dewi Lestari, 2003), and Mahadewa Mahadewi (Nova R. Yusuf, 2003), resistance toward sexual taboos in socio-cultural practices is represented but still much considering social norms. Such representation will make political discourses in the novel as part of authoritarianism and militarism discourses and practices. In the future, the most important thing to do in Indonesian literatures is to represent as many as possible naturalness of sexuality, as represented in Saman (Ayu Utami, 1998), that will make broader possibility to social appreciation toward sexual right and also whole individual rights.