Art: Indian
Sunil Gupta (b. 1953), who has gained international recognition as photographer, curator, and cultural activist, has explored multiple sexual, racial, and cultural identities and challenged restrictive conventions.
Not only is sexuality celebrated in Indian art, but many of India's gods also consider gender to be a fluid affair, sometimes manifesting as androgynes and sometimes switching gender altogether.
Contemporary Indian artist Bhupen Khakhar has earned an international reputation for paintings that are explicitly homosexual in theme, but that also address universal human needs.
A figure of uncertain gender in whom identifying sexual characteristics are stylized or combined, the androgyne is a significant and recurrent subject in art, one that has often held special significance for glbtq people.
Throughout much of history, the nude male figure was virtually the only subject that could be used to articulate homoerotic desire in publicly displayed works of art, as well as those works of art intended for private "consumption."
Although art historians have given very little attention to representations of sex workers, images of same-sex prostitution extend far back into history.