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Cultural differences between East and West make for some comic scenarios. Take the observed case of Indian men holding hands on the streets. No one thinks of this as odd because the men, after all, belong to the same gender (male) and hold hands in a spirit of camaraderie. In the West, people do not see it this way. There, if men held hands on the street, they would be making a statement about their gayness. Thus, Westerners who come to India for the first time often think of it as gay-friendly.

An American homosexual once said to me, “In my country, I can walk hand in hand with my boyfriend only in the village [Greenwich Village in New York City] or on Castro Street [San Francisco]. Here, in India, you can do it anywhere, anytime.” The American was right in his observations. However, he was wrong in his assumptions. Men do not hold hands in India for sexual or romantic reasons. They hold hands because they are homosocial. Confusions happen on account of heterosexism, which does not regard sexual attraction as gender-neutral. A man can only be sexually attracted to a woman, and a woman can only be sexually attracted to...